[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

CA needs a buff. It's lagging behind other builds pretty bad right now, especially when it comes to high tier maps / bosses.
Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
anyone got a shadow trickster POB or skill tree link that is working? The one on page 1 has no points selected so it is practically useless. I never played poison/chaos builds so it is pretty much impossible for me to make a tree myself and wanted to try mf build with chaos dmg :(
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Hollycz wrote:
anyone got a shadow trickster POB or skill tree link that is working? The one on page 1 has no points selected so it is practically useless. I never played poison/chaos builds so it is pretty much impossible for me to make a tree myself and wanted to try mf build with chaos dmg :(


Fixed. Not sure what went wrong.

For sake of ease, here ya go
Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
3.2 Shadow Ascendency order?
Can I level with Caustic Arrow from level 4?
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kapin77 wrote:
3.2 Shadow Ascendency order?


Swift Killer
Patient Reaper
Prolonged Pain
Ghost Dance


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Can I level with Caustic Arrow from level 4?


Yes, but I don't recommend it unless you have a 5L Silverbough twinked and ready to go.

Otherwise, level with Firestorm or Bladefall or ED/Contagion, etc.
Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
How much do you think the discovery of the 2-4 exalted shards recipe will increase profits?... I figure an MF build will benefit the most from this...

If you haven't seen it, the recipe is a full rare set of Elder OR Shaper items... ID is 2 shards, unid is 4 shards, no bonus for 20% quality... mixing and matching uses the old recipe or regal recipe (unclear which)
It'll be proportionate to everything else.

RE:

* People who don't chaos recipe at all
* People who don't MF, but chaos recipe
* People who do MF, and chaos recipe

Whatever category you fall into, you'll see the same proportionate difference with the exalt shard recipe as you would with chaos/regal/gcp/etc. recipes.

Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
Last edited by Serleth on Mar 14, 2018, 4:07:37 AM
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Piros wrote:
How much do you think the discovery of the 2-4 exalted shards recipe will increase profits?... I figure an MF build will benefit the most from this...

If you haven't seen it, the recipe is a full rare set of Elder OR Shaper items... ID is 2 shards, unid is 4 shards, no bonus for 20% quality... mixing and matching uses the old recipe or regal recipe (unclear which)

Hey Piros - glad to see you posting here!

>> I figure an MF build will benefit the most from this
Only if MF increases the rate of ELder/Shaper drops - I've no clue whether this is true or not.

Is the algorithm for Elder/Shaper drops:

1) Drop an item. If it's rare, roll for Elder/Shaper; or
2) Drop an item. Immediately roll for Elder/Shaper.

If 1 - then you'll see more Elder/Shaper drops going MF. I'd guess that IDing and then vendoring for Exalt shards is the way to go;

If 2 - then MF will have no impact on Elder/Shaper drop rates.
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I tend to think that 1 is more likely - but I've done no research into this so it could just as well be 2.
Thoughts on the league:
Spoiler

I'm liking this league a ton! My thoughts are likely distorted in large part because I'm liking the original build I chose so much.

My original build...
I decided to farm the unique Oni-Goroshi sword from day 1. 8 hours after league start I dropped one. Oni-Goroshi is a 6-link 1-handed sword that occupies both weapon slots, and gives you a fire-damage debuff when you ignite an enemy along with a very nice DPS buff. The sword takes over your normal voice acting, replacing it with statements from the sword. This later part is itself a reason to get the sword as it introduces new voice-overs for much of the leveling content.

At any rate, the sword is extremely nice; it does more and more damage as you level.

I breezed up to maps 4 hours after dropping the sword (12 in total) in spite of spending 8 hours farming Twilight Strands.
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My goal for the Oni-Goroshi toon I'm now playing (as Jugg Molten Strike/Wild Strike) was simply to farm Uber Lab to fund a 2nd or 3rd character; in fact, my toon is performing much better than expected. I still plan to fund other toons, but my current character is more than capable of complete most challenges, but will struggle as a boss killer - and although Wild Strike is very nice for map clearing - it's not a top tier map clearing skill.
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This league, I plan on rolling 3 toons in total:
1) An Uber Lab clearer to fund other characters - my Oni-Goroshi toon is perfect for this;
2) A super fast map clearer that's not too bad at bosses (Deadeye Ranger seems perfect for this, with the additional arrow, nice movement speed and good defenses); and
3) A boss killer - Zizran's toon looks to be insanely defensive - check out the dual Uber Elder kill linked above.
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In short, this league offers a lot of fun - so many ascendencies have been buffed that numerous builds are uber powerful.
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League downsides:
1) Summoners have been unnecessarily nerfed given the huge buffs to other classes; if summoners were completely unchanged, they'd still be lagging behind several Champion/Juggernaut/Hierophant/Deadeye/etc. builds. The buffs to other builds make the summoner nerfs completely unneccessary;
2) It's buggy - this is the buggiest league I've played. Crashes, lockups, can't complete certain unique maps, etc. abound;
3) Beastiary mechanics are poorly implemented - legendary beasts are too rare; it would be nice to track what maps to run to farm certain legendary beasts; the necro-nets, although a nice addition, don't allow you to corpse target (work around this by equipping some corpse targetting skill); the UI for Beastiary recipies is confusing; etc.

All-in-all - the Beastiary League and mechanics to this point are very poorly implemented - if GGG spent another month developing Beastiary mechanics, I think that Beastiary would in itself be really fun; that said, the viability and power of so many ascendencies/builds overshadows the poor implementation of new Beastiary league mechanics.
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In all, a super fun league for me.

Last league I wandered between characters, leveling about 5 or 6 possible end-game toons to 85+, never settling on one or more as fit-to-purpose. As a result, I finished at 34/40 challenges. I enjoyed last league, but was disappointed in my progress.

This league, I'm pretty sure that I'll hit 40/40 - but I'm playing a lot more this league than last and I seem to have hit upon a super first toon, perfect for clearing Uber Lab and thus funding a map clearer and a boss killer as my 2nd and 3rd toons.
Last edited by hankinsohl on Mar 14, 2018, 11:22:39 AM

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