2.2 Ascendant Caustic Arrow [FIRST DRAFT]

Hey all!
This is my first serious guide for a particular build that I feel has come together quite well to my liking. It is not an entirely original or new build, but there is enough complexity to the build and additional toys from the Ascendancy expansion that it's worth writing up.

Now the essential thing to get about this build is a budgetary hardcore build that uses Hidden Potential and Grace to build the character up on the cheap. Later on, you can use more expensive pieces of gear like a level 4 Empower or a Drillneck and so on into the late game.

As this is a first draft, expect a lot of revisions and additional content as I update the thread.

Now I will go into a few things that I think that few build guides really bother explaining: The mechanics. New players that have no basic understanding of how a skill or a build works are just going to come out with a build that just won't work if they overlook the important details.

1) Every time Caustic Arrow pierces, it creates a cloud.

This means that the build is getting 100% pierce and that you will generally want to place your aim a little bit behind or inside a pack to get the most coverage. It is the interaction between Caustic Arrow and Pierce that makes it a powerful "fire and forget" build.

As a Hardcore evasion toon, this will add quite a lot of safety as you are able to focus on being able to move and shoot constantly.

2) Vulnerability is a multiplicative damage bonus, not an additive damage bonus.

"Cursed enemies take x% increased damage from damage over time effects," can be misleading. Both myself, and other players that I've met assumed that the "increased" was not "more" damage.

It is actually more like "increased critical multiplier." As in, the game takes whatever damage you would deal and multiplies that you would deal in the event of a crit.

In this case, "increased damage taken" is a modifier applied after all the calculations for your damage are taken into account. If you would do 1000 damage, then you would do 1300 damage with a "30% increased damage taken" debuff applied.

All this means is that Vulnerability is going to be applied by a Curse on Hit just before or after you spray clouds all over a pack.

3) Caustic Arrow's cloud effect is neither a spell nor an attack.

Caustic arrow is a bit of strange animal in that the main form of dps (the cloud) scales directly with gem level like a spell and does not get any meaningful dps from the arrow actually hitting a mob.

However, it is technically not a spell, so don't waste your time taking spell damage nodes.

The cloud damage however does scale with increases to: damage over time, chaos damage, projectile damage or generic increases or "more" bonuses to damage.

This is a Hidden Potential build.
So the majority of your pieces will be cheaply rolled blue items.

You can easily buy a stack of Transmutation orbs for a Chaos Orb and spam them on items off vendors and drops to get what you need. And Elreon makes it quite easy to craft resists on the cheap.
The 30% movement on boots can easily be crafted using the vendor recipe involving Quicksilver Flasks and boots and finishing it with an Elreon resistance craft.

For the chest, you will just need a simple Queen of the Forest.
In Leagues, one can usually be found for a fusing or less. And since we'll be running Grace and 30% movement boots, we needn't worry too much about its drawback.


Either way, evasion is not a highly prized stat, so a rare evasion chest is not hard to come by for a bit more currency.

(However, I've had this particular chest for quite some time.)

Finally, the staple of all CA builds is the +3 bow.

As intimidating as it looks, these bows are entirely craftable for a fairly reasonable amount of currency. (More details on that later.)

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAABAABeBZMFtQguCGcJ2Q5IES8TbRQJFbgWvxmKGY4i4iLqI_YmiCaVKk0qWysKMHEwfDE1MgE1kjY9OkI64T7PPydDNkfiSRNKyEtXS3hNkk3jUUdRTFLsVUtZbVpSXfJfmF-wYeJh62KsbAhsjG6qb552gnn2elN7bnvDfVt9dYTFhweIW4ngjX2Nv5ARkx-WMpcGlyGbJptdm42btZ2qpDmmV6iarEewC7IZtMW00bVItfK3MLvjvebA48F8wuzDOsSiyAzIW8pGykrN6s8yz3rTftQj2L3b592o4q3mWOjW62Ptg_GK8bPyRfKX_gr-j_66?accountName=DeviantLightning&characterName=Device_MD