[3.9] [Updated] Caustic Arrow CI Trickster - Very tanky, fast mapper, safe playstyle

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Lakh wrote:
You've got frenzy stacks turned on in the PoB config currently, but I'm not seeing the source of frenzy - am I just not spotting it, or is that outdated?


It is from Vaal Cold Snap (and regular Cold Snap in CWDT when mapping), with all my increased duration I have 3 frenzies for like 20+ seconds on bosses when I pop it.
My builds:
Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2551841
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Hi:

What is the exact functioning of the flesh offering?.

Thx for the build

"
Abelrasu wrote:
Hi:

What is the exact functioning of the flesh offering?.

Thx for the build



Hello. You mean Spirit Offering? It is just to get rid of corpses, e.g Porcupines etc, as we do not have any other way to get rid of them and Immortal Call was nerfed.
My builds:
Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2551841
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Small update:

- Removed Toxic Rain section (again)
- Removed Web Preview info

The reasoning behind these changes is that Caustic Arrow is already in so good that that there is no point for me to reccomend Toxic Rain to people, because with this tree and build Caustic Arrow will feel a lot better than TR and CA DPS at this point is very solid.

Removal of Web Preview info is because it is a bit too hard to keep up with both PoB and pob.party. Nothing major, you can still just import build to pob.party, or just to PoB.
My builds:
Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2551841
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
"
FadeXF wrote:
Hey Death

I just wanted to thank you very much for this build. You really inspired me last league and I ended up going through about 3 stages of gearing as well as playing around with various auras. Since I had such an extremely lucky, and rich flashback, I was able to craft and buy so many things - but the most fun I've had was experimenting and playing around with crafting with it.


Flashback Gear:
Spoiler


One thing I would like to mention here is that once Enlighten hits level 3 (you do not need 4) AND you get a Solstice Vigil: you can run Discipline, Malevolence, Purity of Elements, Blasphemy+Temp Chains, as well as Clarity(1) all at once.

This will actually leave you with 68 mana which is under 57 needed for Caustic Arrow - and I can confirm you can run this all very comfortably since you get mana regen per second from Solstice + Clarity - it's likely not 100% optimal, however it is like 95% optimal, and I HIGHLY encourage the use of Purity of Elements in this to alleviate a lot of resist needed on gear. (YOU ARE UNABLE TO RUN "YOU CANNOT REGEN" MAP MODS - all other mods are fully on)

You can also look for very cheap "reduced Mana Reserved" gems including Conqueror's Efficiency (quest reward) which then you can easily push 3 aura's prior to having Enlighten3.

Another couple of things I think may be useful to know in leveling up to "end, end game" state gear is that in the next iteration of the build, we will be VERY CLOSE to +curse node now that we are in the top left of the tree - so instead of relying on the +1 curse on your gloves (Vixen's Entrapment) or even earlier in the league until you can afford the 3Ex to craft +curses on your chest it may be worthwhile to spec and respec as needed. This in itself will free up a lot of resists in both your chest and gloves and I think well worth the 4 respec points early on. (Look top left: Whispers of Doom) This actually will allow you to skip "having to" buy Vixen's gloves altogether - and this is actually what I'm going to do... unless Vixen's are really cheap.

In terms of needed Strength: because of +all in Solstice, you really only need +30 on your belt, and +30 on your ring - so you can really easily focus on +30 strength, 40+ energy shield, then look for 1 or 2 40+ resists for both belt and ring. Ensure you leave 1 prefix open so eventually you can do damage crafts (chaos, or full damage are both fine).

Also - I found that while I did have 2 6L bows (one for single target and one for AOE) I noticed I ended up using the AOE one even during boss fights like Shaper because having Mirage Archer aiming "for free" for me while I moved around ended up being more valuable to me than the extra damage... so I ended up coming to the conclusion that this pass I'm actually going to stick with just Caustic Arrow, Concentrated Effect, Mirage Archer, Damage on Full Life, and Empower as my 6links... even if I don't craft a vicious projectiles bow this league.

Finally: anything higher than 8k ES is fully strong for all content, so depending on how overboard you want to go with it you can always play with more or less ES nodes as you go - there are easily reachable damage+maximum energy shield nodes right at the start of the Shadow tree for example. Obviously if you feel more comfortable with 9 or 10k ES, you can reach that with this build with a lot of investment, however I'm just saying that realize as a player you have a lot of flexibility to remove or add ES as needed and put those towards +damage, or chaos damage nodes. (Growth and Decay, "Damage, Area and Projectile Speed", 2x damage nodes at start of Shadow, 2x Chaos damage nodes by Corruption)


Death - I haven't been this excited about Path in a long long time - and haven't had this much fun in ages knowing that I am essentially unkillable in 95+ content means that this time I'm actually going to try to go for level 100... for the very first time in Legion!! Thanks so much for this build man!! You've really inspired me.


Oh damn, glad you ejoyed the build that much :) Your gear is pretty neat as well.

And yeah I understand the ele resist frustration way too much, it was a bit pain in the ass to cap it on my Synth char as well when I was running Solstice. But it should not be that big of an issue anymore, because Solstice drop rate got nerfed, so now it's just rare amulet, with what capping resists should be alot easier (and can be always optimized to one I have currently in PoB).

For no regen maps, yeah, you missed very tiny, but very very important mod for those, + flat mana and 6% of damage gained as mana over x seconds, this mod allows us to run also no regen mods with no issues (of course movement skill spamming will be limited, but outside of that its breeze).

For the single target, I was actually doing the same pretty often, just leaving Mirage Archer socketed in, except for end game like Shaper and U Elder where the extra DPS you get from that socket is pretty valuable imo, but, with Mirage Archer it is also very nice because the uptime of CA is super high and we do not need to actually do anything for like 8-10 seconds :D

Yeah, you are right the build feels very very tanky even with smaller amount of ES, mostly because of insane sustain while mapping and high eva and dodge, what feels really good. Even though, on tree I am already taking most of the chaos dot clusters, but, yeah, depends on player and what they want to prioritize, I usually priorite ES.

For the gearing in 3.7, as Solstice is now out of the build, there is actually no need for extra curse as well, so gearing should be even simpler (more ES and possibly resists on body for cheaper, yay!).

Even without Solstice, the build is now even tankier, it will be most noticeable at single target, because WW is just awesome. This also opened up some slots for utility setups in gloves (currently I run Phase Run + Inc Duration + Efficiacy + Vaal Haste) what can be freely altered to 2 skill setups for defense/offense (like, some guard skill, Vaal Grace, possibly Chaos Golem, or maybe even offensive golem, Vaal Blight, all valid and very strong options).

Anyway, have fun in 3.7 and GL with leveling to 100 :) I never managed to push myself enough to do that, but, 3.7 actually sounds really good, so if I will be lucky on my first char I might pump some currency to this build as second far and try to push it a bit.
My builds:
Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2551841
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Hi All.

First of all, thx for the guide!

I have one question about commments i saw in this topic.

Ppl are talking about two curses in case we use the amulet for Temp Chains, but without it, i cant see any curses... there's something im missing??

Cheers!
"
PandaDap wrote:
Hi All.

First of all, thx for the guide!

I have one question about commments i saw in this topic.

Ppl are talking about two curses in case we use the amulet for Temp Chains, but without it, i cant see any curses... there's something im missing??

Cheers!


Hello,

the first curse is from Witchfire Brew (Level 21 Despair aura). Also, if you do not have currency, I would not reccomend Solstice setup, as I got rid of it for good reason, because they adjusted the rarity, and also slightly nerfed %ES on tree, what makes Solstice worse pick because now it costs even more, and we would have less ES. So best approach now is to just get some nice ES from rare amulet.
My builds:
Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2551841
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Hi, thanks so much for the guide! I was wondering what your opinion is about Karui Ward, it seems good for this build on paper.
For my 4 links I'm pretty much sticking to Deathbeam's normal build setup. I am using dash like you though, feels pretty smooth. I never thought to put enhance on it, will try that.

Things are going great so far, haven't been playing at ton but, just hit 69 and able to swap to all the uniques and go CI with about 5.5k ES. Just rocking +2 bow skills 6L so far. What i like is I can litteraly just save up everything to try to craft a Elder Bow and Dying Sun and still get ES gear in small chunks.


So any thoughts on the new Jewels? Is there a spot we can fit the chaos or projectile damage one?



"
For my 4 links I'm pretty much sticking to Deathbeam's normal build setup. I am using dash like you though, feels pretty smooth. I never thought to put enhance on it, will try that.

Things are going great so far, haven't been playing at ton but, just hit 69 and able to swap to all the uniques and go CI with about 5.5k ES. Just rocking +2 bow skills 6L so far. What i like is I can litteraly just save up everything to try to craft a Elder Bow and Dying Sun and still get ES gear in small chunks.


So any thoughts on the new Jewels? Is there a spot we can fit the chaos or projectile damage one?





Dying Sun is actually super cheap this league, what is awesome. I would get it ASAP because it drastically improves the clear speed.

Hmm, I did not checked most of the new jewels yet, but the chaos damage one definitely sounds interesting. Do you have link to one? Or example in current tree where it could be placed.
My builds:
Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2551841
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/

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