Dragonsong vs Reign of Winter
The big advantage for Dragonsong is that Soulfire Shield procs on Crits and not on Bow Hit like with Reign of Winter. Therefore you have way more build freedom and can use a big arsenal of skills from Marksman to proc Soulfire Shield. The disadvantage is that you have to play close combat for high damage because of the small cone. With Reign of Winter you could play at range which is a safer playstyle, but this Dragonsong Build has way better survivability due to some mechanics with Cinder Strike, Arrowguard and Throne of Ambition we can abuse.
3-4LP Uniques? Do I really need this?
NO! I just added those 4LP Uniques to my endgame gear planner to give you an overview of the best possible mods to craft on.
Can this be done with only Fire Damage or are the boots the only way to scale it efficiently?
Soulfire Shield has 180 base Fire Damage, which is quite a lot. But don't forget that only Added Spell Damage will get the 900% effectiveness. So you can get up to 17 added Spell Fire Damage from the bow itself = 153 Fire Damage + 180 base Fire Damage = 333 Fire Damage. Let's pretend we have 80 Dexterity, that means we have 720 added Cold Damage, making it 1053 flat Damage. The majority will come from the boots (Cold Damage). I have to test endgame without the boots, but I think you would miss a lot of potential not playing with Mourningfrost. Thats why I really recommend to play with increased Elemental Damage for this bow.
Is Kelthan Blasting Agent good for this build?
I would rather use a high LP Kelthan Blasting Agent for Amarathy’s Decoy Bomber Build, since his build relies more on this item.
My build is more around Cold Damage and doing as many crits as possible. So only the Fire Penetration will do a bit more damage on my CoC version.
Why A-Tier?
For a Marksman Build, Dragonsong could be S-Tier aswell. I still think that Shadow HoA is more powerful due to the gameplay mechanic. It allows a dodge based class like Marksman to stay at range and not get hit by enemies. Dragonsong allows you to deal damage quicker and makes Monolith farming way more comfortable. But Shadow HoA is imo the real Marksman playstyle.
How to Survive
Offense is your best defense. Go all in with the playstyle and facetank enemies. You have crazy amounts of attacks and procs per second. Use all the passives and relic for Life on Hit and Crit. Your health bar is always up, we don’t use bow leech or any other leech sources. Together with high dodge from Cinder Strike, additional Armour from Shurikens, Throne of Ambition and Arrowguard and almost 100% Glancing Blow we have a really tanky Marksman Build.