Chaos Acolyte [Poison Arrow, Viper Strike, Shock] [IR/EB/MoM/AA] Potential 1.2.0 Tree in Latest Post

I've edited the post and I think it's all accurate now. The one thing I'm iffy about is the base damage of a level 23 Viper Strike. If anyone can get screenshot proof, that would be great!

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Malpheas wrote:

Does Red Beak increase DoT? If so, you could still run it with viper strike and blood magic / auras.

Normal increased/more damage modifiers do not affect degeneration (damage over time) yet, so Redbeak doesn't affect Poison Arrow's poison cloud or Viper Strike's viper charge.

The only modifier that applies directly to degeneration is "increased damage over time", which is only provided by Vulnerability at the moment.

The reason Shock and the Blood Dance work is because they increase the enemies' damage taken, which is a multiplier to any source of damage they receive.

I'm afraid you won't be putting any triple shock stacks on enemies without putting your Viper Strike into Thunderfists even with static blows. Even then you need to put Melee Splash or better yet Elemental Proliferation in for shock to spread to other enemies (VS + FA + Multistrike + Ele Prolif) unless you want only one of them to take the multiplied damage. Prolif is better because its quality increases shock duration which you badly need with low direct damage.

Regarding PA, you don't need to put every single support there is on it to buff it.

1. Duration. The gem has over 6 second duration with the passive nodes at level 18, almost 7 at 23—what would you need it to last longer for if you can just shoot again?
2. Area. Combining gem quality, LMP/GMP, AND Increased AoE support makes it really really redundant, especially since you can aim at the ground with PA. Choose one of the supports, but not both—you're only increasing mana consumption this way, not clear speed. I know because I leveled one of my HC builds with quality PA in a +3 bow gem bow. 14% quality lv 20 PA with LMP covered pretty much the whole screen already.

Dropping a support or two means you can drop some of the mana on kill nodes, maybe even all of them. They aren't very helpful on single targets anyway.

Passive tree-wise, I think this could do better. It has way better survivability thanks to Inner Force (buff to Vitality and Grace), an additional EC, and more life regen. Curse keystones can be dropped because the only one that will increase your effective DPS is Vulnerability; everything else is just a survivability crutch for the reasons already explored above (and the +1 curse ring is more efficient anyway). You don't need phys damage nodes either, so you can escape the starting area the other way.

Of course, the single biggest problems with it are the clunkiness of the killing combo setup, huge dependency on certain pieces of gear and mods on them (you have to have a lot of chaos resistance and life from other items thanks to the idiotic Death's Oath, all for a very modest DPS increase), and damage in groups. With the right gear and maxed-out gems it can do decently well for a quirky flavor build.

All in all, this is actually pretty similar to a RF degen damage build I was doing, which I might revisit some day thanks to the new unique boots. It's even worse in terms of gear dependency, but the potential damage is higher, and it complements a burning discharge build a lot better in some ways.

Shock stacks are done with a spell because of the unused 6 sockets of your chest armor. Anyone with that and enough Strength can reliably spread Shock with Iron Will + Elemental Proliferation + Lightning Penetration.

The Poison Arrow supports I listed are really just a bunch of cheese. You can omit a few and of course you'd see very similar effects. I'll include that in the guide. The Mana Gain on Killing Blow nodes are very nice regardless of mana cost, though of course they can also be omitted once you are doing enough damage with the Lightning spell when linked with Mana Leech.

I do like some of your changes to the skill tree, however. There are a few optimizations here and there, and a few things I could include a options in the guide. This is what I would consider to be optimal. That extra Endurance Charge really isn't needed, but is an option of course.

The reason I went through the Strength side of the starting tree is to buff the Lightning spell with Iron Will and gain a little extra life. It only costs another point but I think it's worthwhile, seeing as how Dexterity is unneeded at a point (Resolute Technique negates accuracy, Iron Reflexes + Unwavering Stance makes the evasion obsolete, and we already have enough for gem requirements).

I can honestly say that Death's Oath is not needed but it still required to maximize Chaos degeneration. By the way, it may be a modest DPS increase with 4 viper charges included in the calculation but with just a level 23 Poison Arrow, it's around a 40% DPS increase. In fact you wouldn't even need to use Poison Arrow or Viper Strike against normal mobs in lower level maps.

Without Death's Oath your gear requirements are very minimal. Really all that's required is the bow and melee weapon with gem level modifiers and Doedre's Damning if you like Temporal Chains.

I don't know what you're talking about when it comes to damage in groups, because it's pretty amazing. Poison Arrow and Vulnerability need just a single use and Shock Nova/Arc only needs one or two casts. After that you'll just be Viper Multistriking unless the mobs are already dead (they drop quickly).

By the way, when it comes to Righteous Fire degeneration builds I think it's a very difficult comparison. I simply don't know the differences in enemy's Chaos and Fire mitigation. Though it's worth considering the fact that Chaos damage bypasses energy shield and there aren't many enemies that are highly Chaos resistant. Also, this build may be buffed substantially in the future considering there are very little ways to buff degeneration and Chaos damage. As soon as there are, I'll fit this build to use them.

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iao wrote:

Shock stacks are done with a spell because of the unused 6 sockets of your chest armor. Anyone with that and enough Strength can reliably spread Shock with Iron Will + Elemental Proliferation + Lightning Penetration.

Would that do enough damage to triple-stack? Sounds like it'll still need Thunderfist for the extra duration.

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iao wrote:

I don't know what you're talking about when it comes to damage in groups, because it's pretty amazing.

I meant parties, not groups of enemies. DoT-based builds fare the worst in party play according to my experience, as most of the mobs die by the hands of other players before a DoT finishes them off.

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iao wrote:

By the way, when it comes to Righteous Fire degeneration builds I think it's a very difficult comparison. I simply don't know the differences in enemy's Chaos and Fire mitigation. Though it's worth considering the fact that Chaos damage bypasses energy shield and there aren't many enemies that are highly Chaos resistant. Also, this build may be buffed substantially in the future considering there are very little ways to buff degeneration and Chaos damage. As soon as there are, I'll fit this build to use them.

Well, RF degen takes advantage of two curses lowering fire resistance and Elemental Equilibrium by a total maximum of 144%. Chaos can't take advantage of any of those, so resistant mobs will remain as thus. Chaos is very powerful, but ends up rather underpowered because it's almost impossible to buff.

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moozooh wrote:

Would that do enough damage to triple-stack? Sounds like it'll still need Thunderfist for the extra duration.

It always was for me. With my level 67 character I was stacking Shock on enemies in level 66-70 maps (only ones I had done) with an underleveled Shock Nova on a 5L. Really it's all about having enough Strength and links.

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moozooh wrote:

I meant parties, not groups of enemies. DoT-based builds fare the worst in party play according to my experience, as most of the mobs die by the hands of other players before a DoT finishes them off.

Oh yes, this is easily more of a solo build. Like you said, that's really the case of any degeneration build. Though 1-3 party members you should still be pretty effective, with 4-5 your only use will be stacking Shock on normal mobs and fights against certain rare/unique/boss enemies.

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moozooh wrote:

Well, RF degen takes advantage of two curses lowering fire resistance and Elemental Equilibrium by a total maximum of 144%. Chaos can't take advantage of any of those, so resistant mobs will remain as thus. Chaos is very powerful, but ends up rather underpowered because it's almost impossible to buff.

Yep, Chaos resistant mobs are a real crux in any case. I'm sure in the future there'll be more ways to amplify Chaos damage. Hopefully penetration and other means of lowering resistance will come, but sadly I think Chaos Inoculation and mechanical limitations might be holding that back.

Some updates to the guide. I'm also transferring the maximum damage calculation there from the Death's Oath post. The passive skill tree milestones will also be updated momentarily.

Edit: Didn't want to bump with another update. I've made another character with this build in Onslaught. I bought an 18% Poison Arrow for cheap, and a 12% Viper Strike dropped shortly afterward. It seems like RnGGGeezus has me in its favor.

Hello there!

I see that someone finaly put my unique to good use. i never thought of using those unique boots myself but then again i made a CI melee character so i wont need the regeneration.
pretty cool build if i may say so.

Isildria~

Thank you!

It gave a pretty substantial thematic and stat boost for the character. All modifiers besides the drawback and the life leech are super helpful with this build!

Pretty cool unique item if I may say so. :)

Edit: I've updated the first post substantially.

I haven't been playing very much at all lately, so there aren't any updates. I am thinking of how to include one of the bears from Waterfall Cave Level 1, somehow. There may just be not enough slots available to do that, though. Perhaps in a shield slot or something? I don't know.

What I was thinking, does faster attacks really benefit all that much on your multistrike, when your weapon normally has high aspd (at least in my case I have 1.9 on my current weapon, but not hte +3 yet).

Would blind be a stronger support, as you are meleeing so many, if you blind them and skip unwavering stance (with high HP less stuns anyway) you get the huge benefit of not taking damage