Path of Exile Keepers of the Flame is now live, and some players may still be exploring it, looking for the best build for this season. I’d like to recommend a very easy-to-use build to help you quickly clear enemies and level up.
This build is called Explosive Arrow Champion, and it gives you a very high - damage tank. It has a low upgrade cost and doesn’t require high skill, making it easy for both new and returning players to pick up.
After completing the build, you’ll find your tankiness is very high, greatly enhancing the comfort of clearing enemies daily.
While this build does have some minor drawbacks, such as a lack of flexibility and damage not being immediately effective, these can be mitigated by pairing it with suitable jewelry and choosing gear with appropriate affixes. Below, I’ll introduce the specific pairings for this build.
Core Build Considerations
First, we need to understand the output mechanism of Explosive Arrow Champion build in POE 3.27. In combat, you need to place totems on enemies and then fire enough fire arrows to ignite more fuses, causing them to explode and creating the burn effect.
Therefore, our build should focus on increasing attack speed and health. Additionally, since totem damage is attribute - dependent, we also need to improve our Fire, Burning, and Elemental damage attributes.
Key Passive Skills And Ascendancy
In POE Keepers of the Flame, if you want to steadily improve the damage and survivability of your Explosive Arrow Champion build, you need to pay attention to certain Passive Skills and Ascendancy.
Among Passive Skills, Ancestral Bond, Watchtowers, and Surveillance - activating these will help you apply additional totems to enemies and increase totem damage. However, it’s important to ensure that accuracy doesn’t fall below your health, as this will increase the accuracy of totems hitting enemies.
In Ascendancy Passive Skill tree, Fortitude, Worthy Foe, and First to Strike, Last to Fall are essential to unlock, as they provide damage boosts for you and your allies. Their Intimidate effect, unique to Full Life enemies, also enhances your survivability.
Gem Recommendations: High Health & High Damage
Since players have different build priorities, I will recommend two approaches to allow you to freely choose between a build focused on higher health or higher damage.
Higher Health
Because Explosive Arrow Champion cannot instantly kill enemies, you must first ensure sufficient health to withstand enemy attacks. I recommend equipping Lifetap Support in all slots except Helmet, Vaal Molten Shell and Cast When Damage Taken Support in Feet slot, and Second Wind Support in other slots to prevent sudden death.
Higher Damage
After ensuring sufficient survivability, you can focus on increasing the damage of Explosive Arrow. You should choose gems related to Burning as much as possible.
For example, equip Ballista Totem Support, Explosive Arrow, and Combustion on Bow slot; Flammability and Flame Surge on Gloves slot; and Flame Dash on Feet slot. Corrupting Fever can also be equipped if available.
Ballista Totem Support is particularly important, as it allows you to fire many arrows quickly, igniting fuse. Additionally, you can increase Attack Speed with Jewels such as Viridian.
You can also equip Ignite Proliferation Support, which expands Burning area. This allows you to move freely through enemy lines, distributing totems, firing arrows to ignite fuses, and triggering explosions, creating widespread Burning. This will greatly facilitate clearing enemies and gaining POE Currency.
New players should note that prioritizing survival is recommended. If you lack the aforementioned Jewels, you can obtain Lifetap Support by completing quests or by exchanging them at Nessa.
Elemental Damage with Attacks Support and Frenzy, which increase damage, can also be obtained through quests and exchanged at Yeena.
Gear Setup Recommendations
Besides the health bonus from Skill Gems, you should prioritize Helmet, Body Armor, Rings, and Boots with affixes like Maximum Life, Armor, and Evasion Rating.
Combined with Belt pieces that convert damage dealt to Chilled enemies into health, and Body Armor, Gloves, and Boots pieces with affixes that increase the chance of spell damage suppression, you can maintain a relatively healthy health level during combat.
Then, choose Amulets and Weapons with affixes that increase Gems Level to maximize the damage boost from Gems.
Finally, you can choose affixes to further enhance the damage of Explosive Arrow Champion build. For example, choose Quiver pieces with affixes that increase Damage Over Time multiplier for attack skills, and Belt pieces with affixes that increase attack speed when inflicting Ignites.
Of course, adding affixes that increase movement speed is also a good choice, allowing you to mark enemies with totems more efficiently.
Please note that you should maximize your chance to Ignite, ideally reaching 100%, to ensure maximum damage output.
In the early stages of POE 3.27, you can build according to the above suggestions. Later, if you wish to continue using this build, I recommend pairing it with Dyadian Dawn Heavy Belt and a bow that increases attack speed to further enhance damage; Short Grove or Grove Bow are both good options.
This build offers high health and damage, and its combat health regeneration is also quite good. For added stability, you can carry powerful potions like Granite Flask, Quicksilver Flask, allowing you to face even more challenging tasks.
Explosive Arrow Champion build may not be the most powerful in POE Keepers of the Flame, but I guarantee it’s a great choice for both new players leveling up early and experienced players clearing enemies.
