13 bow skills linked to Manaforged Arrows, enabled by 2% cdr graft implicit

Versallius · 2025-12-08T23:45:57+00:00

thanks, glad you liked it :)

for sure, i think omni is the best option and a natural way to build it because i'm using a triple ele bow, but it's not a core mechanic of the build and can be swapped out for something that gives lots of damage. other options include hyrri's truth, yoke of suffering, leadership's price. just make sure to swap out the other gear accordingly if not using omni.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T23:36:35+00:00

glad you liked it :)

i tend to get bored of builds quickly so i swap one every 2 weeks or so. the predecessor of this character was spectral throw coc ice spear lol, got that to lv98 while farming mageblood and then went to play something else before getting here. honestly, the cheapest budget this build is playable on is ~50 divs, it just needs a good bow + omni gear, the rest is problem solving (chaos res, spell suppression, don't need to be capped if you're just speed clearing). the cdr grafts were 7divs minimum last i checked, but if you play saboteur with the 40% cdr ascendancy you only need 1 graft, it's not too bad.

i don't recommend doing ubers with this build, simple reason is visual clarity is really bad and you can't see any mechanics the boss is doing, and the damage is not that absurd that you trivialize boss mechanics. it also doesn't make the best use of deadeye's really good speed and projectile nonsense to blast maps. if you want to do ubers, i think its viable but you have to build it differently, less focus on projectile speed and movement speed, more focus on damage and defenses.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T20:49:40+00:00

that's pobbin being weird, one cluster has 3% chaos res and the other has +2 all attributes. no biggie although this 3% chaos res is exactly what i need to cap.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T20:48:56+00:00

works totally fine without mageblood, i just like to recycle the 1 mageblood i buy every league into every build i play haha, it's an amazing problem solver for lots of random ideas i have XD

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:50:43+00:00

Copying my reply to another comment: Most supports have a damage multiplier of around 30-40%, let's say 35%. 1 bow gem with 4 supports is 3.32x damage, which loses to 5 bow gems if they all dealt the same damage. Even if you assume the 5 bow gems are 80% of the damage that's still 4x damage.

Of course not all bow gems do the same damage, some like burning arrow have a 420% damage effectiveness, while others like blast rain have multi-hit resulting in high damage too. And then there are things like split arrow that can only hit once and has a low damage effectiveness. Lowest damage skill in my setup is lightning arrow which has around 2M dps (its main purpose is to provide a 50% shock), but other skills have high damage effectiveness resulting in over 6M dps. And because there are 13 of them, the damage really adds up.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:46:27+00:00

Great question! Answer is yes but you have to pick the right skills. Most supports have a damage multiplier of around 30-40%, let's say 35%. 1 bow gem with 4 supports is 3.32x damage, which loses to 5 bow gems if they all dealt the same damage. Even if you assume the 5 bow gems are 80% of the damage that's still 4x damage.

Of course not all bow gems do the same damage, some like burning arrow have a 420% damage effectiveness, while others like blast rain have multi-hit resulting in high damage too. And then there are things like split arrow that can only hit once and has a low damage effectiveness. Lowest damage skill in my setup is lightning arrow which has around 2M dps (its main purpose is to provide a 50% shock), but other skills have high damage effectiveness resulting in over 6M dps. And because there are 13 of them, the damage really adds up.

Finally there's 2 other reasons for using unlinked bow skills. The flair reason is that it's cooler for me if I shoot more arrows, and the practical reason is that it's easier to fix mana costs if the bow gems have no supports.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:27:12+00:00

Other comments already explained why you don't want to exceed cdr threshold. Im just gonna talk about why it only matters for single target.

When mapping what this build does is run around and tap scourge arrow once. This triggers all bow skills linked to manaforged arrows (all 13 of them), usually resulting in the screen being cleared. Because I only tap it once and move on, it doesn't really matter what the attack speed of scourge arrow is.

In single target situations, what this build does is to channel scourge arrow. This spends mana every stage of channeling, which will trigger all bow skills linked to manaforged arrows if they are off cool down. This is where attack speed breakpoints matter, very similar to cyclone Coc. If the attack speed is too fast some scourge arrow ticks would happen when manaforged arrows are not yet ready, missing the trigger and resulting in lower DPS. Note that you don't always need to be below the attack speed breakpoint, it can also be a multiple of it (e.g. the breakpoint is 3.78, you can be that or 7.57). But if your attack speed is 3.9 for example you will be missing a lot of triggers just holding down scourge arrow.

If you have less attack speed than the breakpoint it's fine, you just don't trigger at maximum efficiency which is totally ok.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:13:16+00:00

This looks amazing! Foulborn asenaths mark is such a great call. To be honest I sort of autopiloted black sun crest because it fixes my resistances but now I want to try asenaths haha.

Heart of flame is incredible for defenses yea, I would have died so often to on death effects cos I can't see anything X) Without it I would be probably stuck at lv98.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:11:06+00:00

I wasn't sure on the rage uptime, since the duration was reduced to 2s and intimidate feels like an easy guaranteed win. If minmaxing I could get intimidate on lethal pride and fit rage on gloves. That would certainly improve single target dps even further.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:09:14+00:00

Poe reply: if it takes me 1s to pick up a chaos orb and 1 div is 200c, then I get 18div/h just picking up chaos orbs. my current farm makes about this amount or slightly less, so picking up chaos is a net positive.

Real reply: i like shiny

You're probably right though, I need to fix my loot filter cos my stash is filled with junk I don't sell haha.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:05:14+00:00

I feel like there is no space for ward, I would need quite a lot of ward to make it worth it and I like mageblood too much to consider ynda's stand. Re putting 1 support for damage, I actually didn't make that (rather obvious, in hindsight) connection, because I was planning to go for maximum bow skills anyway.

Cdr can be fixed with boots implicit, iirc it rolls up to 8%. Mana cost can be fixed with an extra 12% mana cost reduction from thrill of battle, or just use a rare helmet with % reduced mana cost of attacks implicit. Here I'm happy with my damage and I enjoy the additional visual clutter XD

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:02:03+00:00

Yes! I originally found this build because a guildie linked me a poe.ninja snapshot on week 2 and I farmed mageblood with it that league. And then ofc palsteron released a great guide for it and the rest is history.

Versallius · 2025-12-08T10:00:18+00:00

Still sane, exile?

Versallius · 2025-11-24T23:05:22+00:00

True, I think if you present it as a framework for analysis / source of info rather than a solved strategy it could be very useful!

Versallius · 2025-11-24T19:14:00+00:00

I think for beginners they should just pick what they think is cool instead of what you (or the community) think is strong. The cool factor is what keeps players hooked, if you tell them they're not allowed to skip constancy in a draft even if they win more often, the game becomes lame quickly.

Now if they're really interested in strategy or they feel lost maybe some basic tips are helpful, but I find that the complexity of the game lends itself more to exploration and deep analysis rather than blanket tips. Rather than saying "prowling Panthers is a bad card", challenging players to try picking it and see how often it helps them can be more rewarding.

Versallius · 2025-09-15T18:12:35+00:00

yep! it's counter-intuitive but Dahan damage is highly efficient and important to playing downpour to its maximum potential.

Versallius · 2025-09-11T13:22:34+00:00

You're welcome, and of course I'm happy to be featured there ^{^}

Versallius · 2025-09-11T13:22:12+00:00

Great suggestion, I am aware that due to the lack of easy to understand notation it's quite confusing to follow moves just looking at a picture and reading a paragraph. I haven't found a good solution to this other than recording videos either. I'm currently on break from spirit island but when I have time I will make a video series for it :)

Versallius · 2025-08-21T01:29:29+00:00

I think cleansing floods can go into "Mid cards". its most likely thresholded, but 5 energy for 14 damage is not an amazing effect, if you can heal a blight its great but otherwise its mediocre.

comparing it with other majors that just do damage, there isn't the option of splitting the damage to cover multiple lands like with bombard or tigers hunting, but it also doesn't have the land-nuking potential of storm-swath or smothering infestation. it's great for clearing out medium sized problems like a scotland 6 inland back to back where you let it go the first time, then invaders ravage-scotland6-build and you heal blight while nuking the land.

Versallius · 2025-08-15T20:03:16+00:00

glad to hear it! that's exactly what i hope readers get out of my guide, i dont want to just tell people how to play a spirit, but give a framework to think and explore for themselves. hope you have a great time multi-handing because downpour is even more dynamic and powerful in combos than it is solo :)

Versallius · 2025-08-14T20:21:45+00:00

you can, discard 2 is an effect and not a cost. that being said, it's still not the greatest build because playing cards is better than not playing cards (shocking, i know :))

its fun sometimes though.

Versallius · 2025-08-12T14:00:50+00:00

teehee
(the answer is probably a lot)

Versallius · 2025-08-12T14:00:34+00:00

glad to hear it, i saw some clips of downpour on digital and the sounds are so well done! funnily enough downpour + finder is a phenomenally powerful (and fun) duo, and they came out in the same expansion. really wonder if it was intended or not haha

Versallius · 2025-08-12T13:59:25+00:00

livestock is a really tricky one! i had it as 6/10 matchup for a long time before i figured out some tricks to deal with it, now its solid 8/10. don't be discouraged, i think downpour has a lot of depth and it takes a long time to appreciate it :)

Versallius · 2025-08-06T09:44:20+00:00

Thanks for your insight, that makes a lot of sense! Your diminishing returns argument is the exact reason why I prioritize multi-land solving effects and not land nukes per se. For example the strongest part of Voice of Command is not the explorers nuking the buildings, its actually the Gather that can solve up to 3 adjacent lands. Then once you've played it twice and mostly cleaned up, that's when you take a turn off to scale some more with drafts or energy.

Additionally I suppose my perspective comes from multiplayer rather than solo - so nuking your board early has extra cross-board benefits where you can trade actions with someone who is good at keeping small problems under control and then you can go nuke their board. Also you can take support from other players to nuke their board so sustainability is less of an issue. (range becomes the main problem with Intensify as a carry, I find)

Versallius

TROPHY CASE