How do you properly scale Caustic Arrow damage?

CA is pretty slow at killing bosses. I am running a 5L using VM-RD-SlowProj-ConcEff with a +2 bow. Tooltip is about 11K, so with ConcEff about 17K.

With wither totem and faster casting, I think I can get about 8-10 stacks, maybe more. Inc Dur would help. Curses don't work so well on bosses though, so sometimes I change split arrow to CA w/added chaos, phys proj and poison. Poison stacks with cloud and is improved by wither. But it can be a pain. Red maps are slow.

Just got a +1 +1 bow, and already its MUCH better (Empower jumping a full level helps alot). Using a Drillneck + Pierce gem and the Piercing Shot node (= 100% arrow pierce chance), you guys seems to say either that or slow proj... and i DONT have Conc. Eff. yet (well, I'm still 5L and using Empower, so I guess its getting tight on what to put there).

Just not sure of the importance of each gems (which order).

Accuracy is almost useless (if someone went 100% cloud based damage)? :-O

Accuracy is largely pointless, yes. Fartgas Arrow gives no shits about its primary impact, it's all about the methane.

Empower is probably your most important support, if at sufficient level, as it scales everything else as well through higher base gem levels to beef up. Fartgas Arrow REALLY wants gem levels; my prototype this league snagged a +3 Silverbough on the dirt cheap (well, technically a +2 Silverbranch and a prophecy); with a lvl.2 cheap Empower, that ends up as +5 gem levels to Caustic Arrow, which is a monster damage boost.

After that? Chaos, DoT, and Proj damage on the tree, and anything you can do to weaken enemies. Boss killing seems to suck regardless; I've got a Wither Totem set-up and a Witchfire Brew, and my boss kills are still agonizing next to a typical build. Poison may help, but the dismal single-hit damage/accuracy of most Caustic Arrow builds don't help poison, especially in 3.0.0 where Poison will be 110% worthless. You may just have to put up with slow boss kills. CA builds are pretty mobile and can dodge around, so they're a relatively safe(r) boss build. Just...not fast.

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Tarille wrote:

4 main things you want for CA:

+3 Gems Bow
Chaos Damage
Projectile Damage
DoT Damage

"minor" DPS boosts:
+area damage <- this one may not show up in the tooltip DPS - not sure
+generic damage

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Tarille wrote:

Though you can switch Conc to something else like Faster Proj or Point Blank.

To avoid confusion: The 'Point Blank' 50% more does not apply to the cloud damage. But the %increased on 'Point Blank' does.

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kjykjy1985 wrote:

What about Empower. That's a huge bonus to Caustic Arrow.

Empower also "gives" extra radius on CA. At lvl 5 its the best link for CA.

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DiGG wrote:

Currently using 5L (with Empower lvl2), with a Wither spell totem setup, and the dps good on trash, but faarrrrr from being extraordinary on bosses. Will try with CoH + vuln...

You may want to consider a separate single target solution.

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DiGG wrote:

Just got a +1 +1 bow, and already its MUCH better (Empower jumping a full level helps alot). Using a Drillneck + Pierce gem and the Piercing Shot node (= 100% arrow pierce chance), you guys seems to say either that or slow proj... and i DONT have Conc. Eff. yet (well, I'm still 5L and using Empower, so I guess its getting tight on what to put there).

Just not sure of the importance of each gems (which order).

Depends on lots of things (playstyle, #arrows, %pierce, Ascendancy, DPS, map, single target skill, ...). Dont think there is a general "best order" answer.

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DiGG wrote:

Accuracy is almost useless (if someone went 100% cloud based damage)? :-O

Accuracy is somewhat helpful to get more clouds if you shoot through packs with pierce?

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1453R wrote:

Boss killing seems to suck regardless; I've got a Wither Totem set-up and a Witchfire Brew, and my boss kills are still agonizing next to a typical build. Poison may help, but the dismal single-hit damage/accuracy of most Caustic Arrow builds don't help poison, especially in 3.0.0 where Poison will be 110% worthless. You may just have to put up with slow boss kills. CA builds are pretty mobile and can dodge around, so they're a relatively safe(r) boss build. Just...not fast.

Separate single target skill works to "fix" the boss problem at least for easy bosses.

CA in the bow and some dps boosts in the chest

For killing the bosses faster use Abyssal Cry (in 4l is ok, 6l is great) linked with poison support (it will spread poison on enemies and inflict poison on boss).

FCK42 - He´s right Bow with the decay mod is also great choice. Btw you don´t need any expensive one just with decay mod and alternate them.

You need single target? A +3 decay bow (preferably maraketh bow) would help, but they're expensive AF.

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FCK42 wrote:

You need single target? A +3 decay bow (preferably maraketh bow) would help, but they're expensive AF.

Would like to have one too. Unfortunately the expected cost (120 ex + some essences) is a bit high for SSF.
Hmm.......... too bad.......

Or is there some way to craft it which is less expensive?

For single target... Until 3.0 kills it, Essence Drain is pretty nifty.

Scales from Proj damage, DoT damage, Chaos Damage, Gem levels... Essentially all the things you are going for to make CA work.

Bonus of being able to whack your CA 6L on your bow for the +3 gems, with ED on a 6L chest, then swap to The Consuming Dark + some high scaling Spell Damage off-hand to fire off a sick ED to melt single targets.

But yeah... Once 3.0 rolls in and ED won't scale off Proj damage for its DoT... RIP in pepperoni build...