[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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Necromael wrote:

I'm planning to play this build in prophecy, but does it work well if i dont plan to MF? I just want to casually run t1-13 maps.

And if i dont go for mf items, what would further increase damage (which item stats)?

• Rings: Drop the dual Andy -> Rings with life and resists
• Bow: Can drop resistance suffices -> Mana Gain on Kill, Life gain on Kill, or attack speed
• Boots: Drop Goldwyrm -> Boots with 30 Movespeed, life, high evasion, resistances
• Jewels: Resistance is not a requirement -> 4 damage mod, or 3 damage + life jewels
• Chest: Carcass Jack is easier to use because resistances are easier to gear
• Everything else: Life, high evasion, resistances

• Bow (Rare): +3 and resistances if not capped
• Quiver: Drillneck
• Boots (Rare): Move Speed, Life Resistances, Evasion
• Rings (Magic): Resist Base + Life and Resist, x2 (+50% damage)
• Ammy (Magic): Str Base(for life) + Life and Resist (+25% damage)
• Belt (Magic): Life Base + Life and Resist (+25% damage)
• Helm & Gloves (Magic): High Evasion Base + Life and Resist (+50% damage)
• Chest (Magic): Assassins Garb(move speed) + Life and Resist (+25% damage)
• Jewels (Rare): A mixture of Life, Resist, Damage (likely expensive if going for 4 prop jewels

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ChronoExile wrote:

(1)Identified the last two items I needed to complete the full 40 challenges. And a Thanks again to Hank for the offer to help out in getting the last one I needed.

(2)In preparation for the Perandus league merge I am down to just three remove only tabs in Standard. Also cleaned out all the remove only tabs in Perandus from the Flashback event.

(3)Learned when correcting vocabulary usage on reddit wit and sarcasm should not be the go to method when compared to tact or simple definitions

(4)-Shower Thought- In the most recent Podcast Chris' said something to the effect of the passive tree not being reworked too much, and most of the focus would be on the Ascendancy trees. If this holds true, after allocating Path of the Ranger, three passive points can be saved from traveling.

The three dexterity nodes on the inner scion highway to the right of 'Sentinel' can be removed. While I don't know the best place to use these three points, the first thought that came to me was to use them to travel to the jewel socket along the left side of the inner scion highway, just below the scion life area.

The tree and any planning done now will be in flux due to not having anything final, but that was a thought I wanted to share.

(5) @Serleth - I was thinking about ways I could potentially give back to the thread as thanks, and one way that came to mind was a restructure/redesign of the guide post. All that would be required of you would be copy edits (making sure I didn't mess anything up) and copy/paste. I've done some of it already (in the spoiler). Let me know if this is something you would want to do or if you would rather pass.

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ChronoExile wrote:

"

Necromael wrote:

I'm planning to play this build in prophecy, but does it work well if i dont plan to MF? I just want to casually run t1-13 maps.

And if i dont go for mf items, what would further increase damage (which item stats)?

Yes Caustic Arrow (skill tree, and primary attack set up) works great if you are not planning on running MF. In a 6Link +3 bow you will do more damage because you can drop the IR gem. (Caustic Arrow - Rapid Decay - Void Manipulation - Concentrated Effect - Empower - Pierce/Slower Projectiles)

Gearing non-MF Caustic Arrow:

• Rings: Drop the dual Andy -> Rings with life and resists
• Bow: Can drop resistance suffices -> Mana Gain on Kill, Life gain on Kill, or attack speed
• Boots: Drop Goldwyrm -> Boots with 30 Movespeed, life, high evasion, resistances
• Jewels: Resistance is not a requirement -> 4 damage mod, or 3 damage + life jewels
• Chest: Carcass Jack is easier to use because resistances are easier to gear
• Everything else: Life, high evasion, resistances

Gearing Hidden Potential Caustic Arrow:

• Bow (Rare): +3 and resistances if not capped
• Quiver: Drillneck
• Boots (Rare): Move Speed, Life Resistances, Evasion
• Rings (Magic): Resist Base + Life and Resist, x2 (+50% damage)
• Ammy (Magic): Str Base(for life) + Life and Resist (+25% damage)
• Belt (Magic): Life Base + Life and Resist (+25% damage)
• Helm & Gloves (Magic): High Evasion Base + Life and Resist (+50% damage)
• Chest (Magic): Assassins Garb(move speed) + Life and Resist (+25% damage)
• Jewels (Rare): A mixture of Life, Resist, Damage (likely expensive if going for 4 prop jewels

"

Serleth wrote:

...

I think I'd make some adjustments to it for my own organizational preference (maybe), but I made some changes this weekend and it looks as though you're working from the previous iteration of the guide. Don't sweat that though, you can feel free to continue it and I'll make the edits again myself. It was just some minor clean-up stuff.

Much appreciated, sir! <3 =)

Spoiler

Before We Get To The Guide…
The Item Rarity Gem and Degeneration Skills:

• As of patch 1.0.6, the IIR/IIQ gems have full functionality with degen skills. The patch notes say "Righteous Fire," but it applies to all sources of degeneration: Searing Bond, RF, CA Cloud, Viper Strike DoT, etc… So yes, the IIR gem works for this build.

Area Damage Modifiers and Tooltip Damage:

• For those new to CA, they will not show up on the tooltip chaos damage/s calculation. But they do factor in. So don't be afraid when you slot in conc effect and see no change: it's happening, but it's a known "bug" that it doesn't show up on tooltip.

A Scion/Shadow Build in the Ranger Section:

• This has been a ranger build since the release of 2.0, which covers over 300 pages of questions and replies. But now Scion's Deadeye/Occultist hybrid is best for SC, while Shadow is best for HC. I don’t want to kill anyone’s bookmarks, so it is staying here.

Passive Tree for the Ranger Start:

• I will not be posting a Ranger tree. You can follow the Scion tree, as it's identical in every way except the starting two Scion Projectile Damage nodes. You then take Deadeye, and go grab Endless Munitions, which will use all six of your Ascendency points. This allows you to drop the AoE gem for Empower/Rapid Decay.

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- Table of Contents -

[01.00] - Overview
[02.00] - Media
[03.00] - Bandit Rewards
[04.00] - Skill Tree & Ascendancies
[04.01] - Scion Ascendant Occultist/Deadeye
[04.02] - Shadow Trickster [HC Option]
[05.00] - Gearing
[06.00] - Enchantments
[07.00] - Gems & Links
[08.00] - Finished Stats
[09.00] - Tools
[10.00] - Leveling (Post 2)
[11.00] - FAQ (Post 3)



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- Overview -

The purpose of this build is to effectively balance survivability, clear speed, and magic find while enabling you to solo up to mid tier maps (including Atziri). This guide is written to provide information to effectively balance these three elements. While the build can work in parties/rotations, and be an effective boss farmer, these are not the targets the build aims to hit.

Pros:

• Earn 0.5ex/hr** without selling a DAMN THING. (See the FAQ)
• Fast pack clear speed, solid boss kill speed.
• Runs any map mod except blood magic (it is possible with some gear tweaks)
• Extremely mobile
• Cheap starting cost (buy any item level 64 5L bow for 5c, alt-spam for +2 bow gems)
• Atziri capable (just remove Andvarius'. Or don't, if you're badass!)
• HC viable with some adjustments.

Cons:

• Semi-Late Acrobatics - mid 50s.
• It's evasion, so it's prone to physical burst damage if entropy hates you.

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- Media -

Video version of this guide -- (June 14, 2015)

Deathless Atziri Run with almost full MF spec - didn't *quite* have full res balance =( --- June 15, 2015.

Inventory and Stash Management - Exactly what it sounds like! A video talking about stash and inventory management while mapping.

Gorge Run - with a 3:40 clear speed. As you can see, it doesn't lag that far behind full-tilt dps builds. Only about 40 seconds, ish.


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- Bandit Rewards -

• Normal - Help Oak(+40 Life)
• Cruel - Help Eramir(Passive Point)
• Merciless - Help Kraityn(+1 Max Frenzy Charge)

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- Skill Trees & Ascendancies -
As of the Ascendancy launch the best class for this build is the Scion Ascendant, using the Deadeye(Ranger) and Occultist(Witch) nodes. The bonuses provided by the Ascendant are tremendous. Deadeye grants the build an additional arrow, a modified version of Far Shot, and 50% pierce chance. These three perks allow the build to drop the Increased Area of Effect support, gain some incremental damage, and drop the Poacher’s Aim unique jewel and still maintain 100% pierce chance. Occultist grants the build -15% chaos resistance on enemies you curse, and increased chaos if you have killed a cursed enemy recently(last four seconds). These two perks grank the build an effective 15% MORE damage when needed, and a conditional boost to damage and clear speed.

The reason that you roll Shadow for Hardcore is simple: Trickster's Ghost Dance provides you with an additional 5% dodge and spell dodge, which is flat out massive. Advance further along that branch and you also get Shade Form, which provides you with flat evasion, flat ES and a multiplicative 20% MORE chance to evade attacks while not on full ES. Even with taking Acrobatics, this gives you a slight ES buffer of damage to absorb an initial hit and then an immediate subsequent boost to your defense.

However, also keep in mind that you'll need to decide whether or not you are fine without the AoE gem for this variant, as there's no way to gain Increased Area of Effect for Shadow that's similar to the Scion or Ranger's Deadeye +1 Arrow mechanic. So while this variant is undoubtedly safer, you will also retain similar dps as you saw in 2.1.

You can alternately still roll the Scion version and just drop damage for life & Phase Acro as well.

I don't recommend running as Shadow for SC. There's no point compared to the benefits Scion offers.

- Scion Ascendant Occultist/Deadeye -

[2.2]Scion Passive Tree

This is the base passive skill tree for the build. The posted tree takes Acrobatics, but feel free to adjust for your own play (Taking Phase Acrobatics, or go the Iron Reflexes route).

- Shadow Trickster -

[2.2]Shadow Passive Tree

This tree will be the basis of what you want to do for Hardcore. Again feel free to adjust to fit your style of play.

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- Gearing -

The goal of this build is to maximize magic find and survivability, so for gearing you are looking to get life, rarity, and resistances on the majority of your gear. The spoilers show examples of gear, some suggestions on gear progression, and crafting help where applicable. Do not use this section for Gems or Links, there is a section specifically for those after the gear section.

Weapon

Caustic Arrow scales with gem levels, so the best mods for the bow will be the Paragon’s (+1 level of socketed gems), Sharpshooter’s (+2 levels of socketed bow gems), and the master crafted (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Requires a Level 3 Leo, Master of the Arena) prefixes. There are no suffixes we could have on the bow to increase damage, so Ideally your last three mods would be the elemental resistances. Having more elemental resistance on your bow opens up the possibility for more damage mods on your jewels.

When shopping for a bow here are the suffixes the build benefits from having:

• Elemental Resistance
• Attack Speed
• Mana Gain on Kill
• Life Gain on Kill

Crafting a +3 Bow with room for Damage over Time:
There are three different methods for guaranteeing a +3 bow, and it all comes down to personal preference. All three methods start off with an item level 64 or higher white 6-link bow of your choice. Maraketh is the recommended base for the additional 6% move speed, and decent attack speed.

Method One

Original method from reddit:

• Use Alterations until it is a single stat Sharpshooter’s (+2 level of Socketed Bow Gems)
• Mastercraft “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Caterina, level 8)
• Regal the bow, the only prefix available is Paragon’s (+1 level of Socketed Gems)
• Did you hit Paragon’s? If not Exalt the bow
• After hitting Paragon’s remove the “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Leo, level 3)
• Exalt out the last suffixes or call it done

Method Two

Second method from reddit:

• Use Alterations/Augmentations until Sharpshooter’s (+2 level of Socketed Bow Gems) with a Suffix
• Regal the bow. If a suffix was hit continue, if a prefix was hit Scour and start over
• Mastercraft “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Caterina, level 8)
• Exalt the bow, you will hit Paragon’s (+1 level of Socketed Gems)
• Remove the “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Leo, level 3)
• Exalt out the last suffix or call it done

Method Three

Method Three, Serleth’s Method

• Mastercraft Dexterity (Vagan, level 2)
• Regal the bow, did you hit Sharpshooter’s (+2 level of Socketed Bow Gems)? If not Scour and start over
• Remove the mastercrafted Dexterity (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft “Can have multiple Crafted Mods” (Elreon, level 8)
• Mastercraft “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Caterina, level 8)
• Mastercraft a random suffix / random prefix so you only have one prefix slot left
• Exalt the bow, you will hit Paragon’s (+1 level of Socketed Gems)
• Remove the mastercrafted mods, (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft “Can have multiple Crafted Mods” (Elreon, level 8)
• Mastercraft two resistance rolls (Tora, level 5)
• Mastercraft (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Leo, level 3)

Quiver

With the Ascendant’s Deadeye and passives on the tree the build reaches 100% chance to pierce. This pierce chance is a big damage increase with the Drillneck mechanics, and also a quality of life bonus. The mechanics of Caustic Arrow cause additional clouds each time they pierce an enemy along its flight towards the terminus point. This means you can aim behind packs of monsters and still have multiple chaos clouds created during the arrow’s flight.

While saving for a Drillneck any rare quiver with life and resistances is a good choice.

Helmet

Ideally you are looking for a rare evasion base helmet with the following prefixes, Life, Item Rarity, and either high values of Flat Evasion or Percent Evasion. For suffixes you will want Item Rarity and Elemental Resistance.

Gloves

In the completed build your rare gloves should be evasion base with Life, Item Rarity and either Flat Evasion or Percent Evasion as prefixes. The desirable suffixes are Item Rarity, and Elemental Resistance.

Sadima’s Touch is a solid pair of gloves to use while leveling, but these will need to be replaced with a pair of rare gloves to help with resistances, and survivability.

Aurseize are a solid option providing a good amount of rarity, and decent elemental resistance, the movement speed drawback can be mitigated with well rolled quicksilver flasks, and proper flask management. However, due to the changes in rarity tier of Aurseize it might be easier or more cost effective to just save for a good pair of rare magic find gloves.

Boots

Goldwyrm are the endgame boots for this build. They are the primary source of Increased item quantity, help with mana regeneration, and have a solid single elemental resistance stat. Goldwyrm recently had their rarity tier increased, so there has been a price increase for the boots. The 10% movement speed is not noticeable with good use of the quicksilver flasks.

While saving up for Goldwyrm a good pair of rare magic find boots can be used.

Body Armor

Carcass Jack is the damage option for the build. If you can sort out your resistances, this is a great option to further increase your damage and clear speed. All of the stats on the chest are beneficial, except maybe extra gore, so if you can find a way to accomplish resistance balance with Carcass Jack go for it.

Queen is a decent defensive option assuming you have both your resistances sorted, and enough evasion in your other pieces of gear to provide a bonus to movement speed. The build already runs Grace and has a lot of dexterity from the tree, so it should not be too hard if you wanted to run Queen. Less damage from Devourers and Drop Bears is a nice touch.

Alternatively a rare chest with defensive rolls, life and resistances is a solid choice.

Jewelry

Andvarius is the core of the item rarity in this build, start with any ring you can afford and work your way up from there. Max implicit rolls on gold rings are 15%, and the max explicit roll is 70%

Ventor’s Gamble looks good in theory, but the practical application of the IIQ/IIR map coefficient means you need to have a Ventor’s rolled with +7%IIQ and +40%IIR explicit mods. The math for these calculations can be found here.

Any rare gold amulet with Life, and Item Rarity as prefixes. The desirable suffixes are Item Rarity, and Elemental Resistance.

A rare leather belt with Life, and Armor or Energy Shield as prefixes. For Suffixes you want all three of the elemental resistances. Keeping an open prefix on the belt would enable the addition of Mastercrafted movement speed (Tora, Level 6)

Flasks

We use two Seething Hallowed Flasks, one Catalysed Divine or Eternal Flask, and two Chemist's Quicksilver Flasks of Adrenaline (superior to Ample as we can recover a use ~7.5 charges instead of per 10)

Jewels

The desirable mods on jewels for the build are:

• Chaotic (Chaos Damage 9% to 13%)
• Vivid (Max Life 5% to 7%)
• of Archery (Projectile Damage 10% to 12%)
• of Wounding (Damage 8% to 10%)
• of Entropy (Damage over Time 10% to 12%)
• of Blasting (Area Damage 10% to 12%)
• of Resistance (Additional All Elemental Resistance 8% top 10%)

Jewelcrafting

Full details provided by Nasty Toxic
Surprisingly, the Crimson Jewels have the best chance to roll our desired affixes. Here is the source of the Crimson Jewel values. From the given page you can easily find the poedb pages for Int and Dex jewels to check my numbers for yourself if you want.

source: http://poedb.tw/us/mod.php?type=42&attr=136

Jewel Affixes and Chance to be Rolled, by Jewel Color:

%increased life:
R 2.84%
G 1.81%
B 2.00%

% increased Chaos Damage:
R 1.14%
G 1.04%
B 1.14%

% increased Area Damage:
R 3.79%
G 3.66%
B 3.60%

% increased Projectile Damage:
R 3.03%
G 3.66%
B 2.88%

% to all Elemental Resistances:
R 2.27%
G 2.20%
B 2.16%

% Damage over Time:
R 3.79%
G 3.66%
B 3.60%

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- Enchants -

Gloves

Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Light

• Deals a portion of your main hand damage in an area around you and creates Consecrated Ground, Causing You and your Allies to Regenerate Life.

Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Reflection

• Creates a clone of you that attacks with your weapon.

Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Spite

• Releases a nova of projectiles based on your weapon, leaving chilling ground in their wake.

Boots

• Chance to Dodge if you've taken a Critical Strike Recently.

• Increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently.

• Chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently.

Helmet

• Increased Caustic Arrow Damage

• Increased Caustic Arrow Radius

• Increased Caustic Arrow Duration

• Reduced Grace Mana Reservation

• Increased Vulnerability Curse Effect

• Increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Flame Golems

• Blood Rage grants additional XX% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill

• Increased Blink Arrow Cooldown Recovery Speed

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- Gems & Links -


Primary Skill:

• In a completed build the primary set up in a +3 Bow is - Caustic Arrow - Void Manipulation - Conc Effect - Rapid Decay - Empower (5L) - IIR (6L).

What about before Ascending?

Before gaining Deadeye it is up to you if you want to run Increased Area of Effect or not. If you do decide to run AoE your gem links would be Caustic Arrow - Void Manipulation - Conc Effect - Increased AoE - Rapid Decay(5L) - Empower (6L). There are some situations where Empower should be used over Rapid Decay, and the explination can be found in the FAQ.

Single Target added damage:
This is strictly for leveling, if leveling as Caustic Arrow. Once you gain Deadeye, you can drop this setup.
In a 4-Link we run Essence Drain - Controlled Destruction - Void Manipulation - Rapid Decay.

Curse Setup & Terrain Breaker:

• In a 4-Link we run Frenzy - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Curse on Hit - Vulnerability. Faster Attacks or Lesser Multiple Projectiles are potential fifth link options, but neither is needed for the setup.

Damage Boost & Utility

• To help kill bosses, and the occasional rare with high Choas resistance we use a Wither Totem set up. In a 3-Link we run Wither - Spell Totem - Faster Casting. Increased AoE could be added as the fourth link, but the setup is mainly used for bosses, and the extra area is not really needed.

• For additional utility in a 3-Link we have Blood Rage - Vaal Lightning Trap - Increased Duration. Vaal Lightning Trap is the only reliable source to create shocking ground which provides 50% more damage, useful for bosses. Blood Rage allows us to automate our frenzy charge generation, as most monsters do not need to be cursed to melt. As long as your clear speed is good, this will only improve the pace of maps.

Auras

• The build runs Grace as its primary defensive aura. While trying to work out proper resistance balance with Andvarius use Purity of Elements/Fire/Ice/Lightning to keep your resistances at maximum. A low level Clarity can be run to help with mana issues, but with the change to mana increases per character level it is possible to drop this aura in the final build. While the build does not gain all of the defensive bonuses from Arctic Armour the chilled ground to keep monsters in the chaos cloud a little longer, or to slow pursuing monsters is helpful.

Minion & Mobility

• If you can spare a 3-Link Flame Golem - Blink Arrow - Faster Attacks, is nice quality of life, but the Faster attacks is not necessary.

Further Options

• Depending on playstyle a Warcry can be added, the two recommended would be either Rallying Cry, or Enduring Cry. If you go with the later option a defensive trigger setup can be used as well in a 2-Link Cast when Damage Taken - Immortal Call. With a 3-Link a curse could be added; Temporal Chains, or Enfeeble as defensive options or for offensive/auto cursing use Vulnerability.

• Portal it allows us to save portal scrolls. We can ignore them, or up convert towards Alterations, or sell to vendors at a one-to-one for wisdom scrolls, and this build can never have enough wisdom scrolls.

Example Gem Links, 2.2

This is just here for illustrative purposes. There are many ways you can take the utility and support setups, and this is just one example.
Bow:
Caustic Arrow - Void Manipulation - Conc Effect - Rapid Decay - Empower - IIR
Chest
Frenzy - GMP - Faster Attacks - Curse on Hit - Vulnerability (unlinked) Grace
Helmet
Blink Arrow - Mirror Arrow - Faster Attacks - Flame Golem
Gloves
Vaal Lightning Trap - Blood Rage - Increased Duration - Artic Armor
Boots
Wither - Spell Totem - Faster Casting
weapon swap
In a Heathen Wand, or Haku Weapon, Portal - Faster Casting

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- Finished Stats -

[2.2]Stats

2.2 final DPS values. Both of these screenshots are with:

* CA 21
* Empower 4
* 20/20 Concentrated Effect, Void Manipulation and Rapid Decay
* 7 frenzy charges
* Flame golem
* Occultist's increased damage if you've killed a cursed enemy recently.

Level 92 Tree with 4.85k life and only two Shadow start damage nodes

Level 92 Tree with 4.6k life and Shadow all start damage nodes

The rest of these stats are "outdated" but basically haven't changed since 2.0. I lost 100 life. Whoop.





In a finished build:

2.0 damage: 48k
2.1 damage: 36k
2.2 damage: 62k

At effectively no radius penalty.

Keep in mind if you're running this build from Shadow, you will likely want to keep the AoE gem. The only way to effectively see the same damage as a Shadow CA player is to get your hands on a corrupted +1 Arrow Drillneck, or be willing to sacrifice the AoE gem.

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- Tools -


Vmoddin's PA Damage Calculator

Effective IIQ/IIR map coefficient (C Value) calculator by Caliark.

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Scaal wrote:

...Questions!...