Help with Assassin Caustic Arrow Build

Hi All, I am a new player (~1 month), and have just reached level 75 for the first time on a character (SC Essence). It is a caustic arrow using assassin. However, I began to struggle with content at-level around level 60, and have been over-leveled for most of what I have been running since (I am still running tier 2 and 3 maps, although I don't yet have any higher to test).

I have been reworking some of my passive nodes to pick up more life and evasion, but I also feel the dps on this guy is not enough to clear packs quick enough to avoid damage. My caustic arrow Chaos DOT is hitting for around 4.8k dps right now with rapid decay, void manip, and slower projectiles, and I have no idea how much bleeding or poison damage DOTs I have from Noxious Strike and Toxic Delivery, and it still takes quite some time to take down blue mobs in Merciless Crystal Veins/Act 4 level high 60s areas. I manage by running around effectively, but for small boss rooms, this rarely works. I also only have about 3.8k hp and 3.8k evasion, although I have been investing a lot in hp and evasion nodes. I picked up Acrobatics, etc. for the dodge and spell dodge chances. In merciless act 4 and maps, if I get swarmed by a pack and do not already have blade vortex up, I usually die, even with a granite flask and a mana flask that gives 90% evasion boost. This means I am slowly earning less and less xp as I continue to level.

I am linking my passives and gear and future plans (poeplanner) in the hopes that I can get any pointers. I have just begun to save collect Chaos orbs for nicer gear, so right now I only have an infractem bow with nice pDPS.

Perhaps this build is not set up to progress much further, but I had hoped I could get the caustic arrow DOT into the 20-30k range, and my hp and evasion to the ~5k I have seen with forum builds.

Current Passive Tree


Planned Passive Tree at 100


I am not sure how to link gear here, but it is in my profile. Like I said I have an infractem bow (3-link), and a 5-link chest piece with Caustic Arrow-Rapid Decay-Void Manip-Slower Projectiles-Increased Rarity. I have been using the increased rarity in hopes of finding a few nice uniques either for this build or others, but have so far only found low-level uniques.

For the rest of my gear I focused on resistances, evasion, hp, and some energy shield (in the hopes I could get it high enough to help). I use an armor helm because it gives me three red sockets for CWDT support with immortal call and molten shell.

I have a blade vortex 4-link set up, but I only use it if I get swarmed by mobs or when opening strong-boxes, as I was not aiming for a blade vortex build. I do find it frustrating that I am more effective with my secondary skill than my primary with bosses and clear speed.

Any advice would be much appreciated, as I am not sure whether to keep slowly leveling with low-tier maps and hoping for some nice drops, earning currency to purchase some better gear, or just to abandon the build and try another.

/edit: think I made characters public now.

First of all if you are struggling I would never use Increased Rarity. That is an endgame thing people use. If you are low on damage / survivability increase those things and you will clear faster therefore finding more items.

Caustic Arrow is a weird skill. It has a hit where you gain extra chaos damage and it has a damage over time cloud. So there are 2 parts to the skill. Everyone that plays Caustic Arrow focuses on the DOT cloud not the hit. If you focus on the DOT then the damage from your bow actually means nothing. A bow like this increases the damage of the cloud more than a super high physical damage bow.

In this case Caustic Arrow acts like a spell where the more gem levels you have the more DOT damage you do unlike an attack which would focus more on the damage of your weapon. Your Ascendancy class is not helping you out either. Noxious Strike is attacks have 30% chance to bleed so since the cloud doesn't hit it is whenever you arrow actually hits so it is very doubtful it is ever going off. If you want to stick with Caustic Arrow I think you are going to have to change Ascendancy to Trickster for the Increased DOT. That will take a lot of regrets so it may not be worth it.

If you want to make the change let me know I've got 20 regrets and I'll sell them super cheap don't want you struggling when you already leveled a lot.

A +2 Bow would be better than Infractem for Caustic arrow. I liked Maraketh bows because of the speed boost.

A +3 bow is your ultimate goal.

Exchange Item rarity for concentrated effect. You won't see it in your tooltip, but you will notice a difference.

Stibnite flasks are you friend. The blind is probably more helpful than "of reflexes" affix. Also, Basalt flasks are helpful when combined with a Granite. Or Quartz flask to add to your dodge.

Run a spell totem with Wither. It will increase the chaos damage monsters take. I haven't tested it since they changed it to a channeling spell, but it was very helpful last league.

Edit: This is a personal preference thing and probably considered dumb. Since you can't leech with DOT, I ran a split arrow with LGoH to help sustain life. Usually with FA, fork, pierce or chain. Didn't care about damage, just hitting as much stuff as possible. The chaos clouds were supposed to kill stuff.

Hmm, it has taken some time trying to figure out all the mechanics with caustic arrow. However, when I equip this bow, as opposed to a lower pDPS bow, my caustic DOT goes from ~3100 to 4800, so it does seem there is some relationship between the "x% of physical damage as extra chaos damage" that the caustic arrow gem tooltip shows, and the damage of the DOT. Unclear how this adds though, so I am sure a general damage over time buff bow would be better. Which master do you use to craft the DOT buff?

The caustic arrow DOT is an enigma. Projectile damage buffs increase it, chaos damage buffs increase it, and physical damage buffs seem to increase it by a % (probably the % listed on the gem, but unclear).

I know I should run with a damage support gem instead of rarity, and will do so for hard fights, but have been trying my best to save up some currency and possibly luck out with a few uniques. I just got the Shav boots, I realized today, from a tier 1 no-mod arcade map yesterday, so I might be able to buy some better gear now (why does everyone like those boots so much, it seems they only grant 35% run speed?).

Thanks for the offer on the regrets, but I don't want to waste a bunch on redoing the ascendancy. I will shift to make due with the Assassin. I took it because I thought the combination of the Chaos DOT, poison DOT and bleed DOT would be quite impressive with a high physical damage mod. However, I need to switch back to greater multiple projectiles to test it, and that drops the chaos dot quite a bit. I may try lesser multiple as a happy medium.

Thanks for the advice and offer. I think I will mess around a bit with gems and options before committing to an ascendancy change. If I can't make it work, it might be better to shift to a poison and bleed-based build and just swap out my remaining chaos damage nodes. If I can't, Trickster sounds like it would be a better option.

The caustic arrow cloud damage has nothing to do with the %conversion part of the skill, the cloud's base damage is determined purely by the gem level. Physical damage buffs will not increase it, but projectile and chaos will (and also area damage).

This caustic cloud build is entirely different from what Assassn is good at, because you can't get +gem levels and high weapon dps on the same bow. Assassin is more suited toward dealing direct hit damage, and proccing dots off of those hits. Using Caustic Arrow hit damage instead of the caustic cloud is almost unheard of, but I guess it's possible to make it work with Assassin.

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sgoer wrote:

Hmm, it has taken some time trying to figure out all the mechanics with caustic arrow. However, when I equip this bow, as opposed to a lower pDPS bow, my caustic DOT goes from ~3100 to 4800, so it does seem there is some relationship between the "x% of physical damage as extra chaos damage" that the caustic arrow gem tooltip shows, and the damage of the DOT. Unclear how this adds though, so I am sure a general damage over time buff bow would be better. Which master do you use to craft the DOT buff?

The caustic arrow DOT is an enigma. Projectile damage buffs increase it, chaos damage buffs increase it, and physical damage buffs seem to increase it by a % (probably the % listed on the gem, but unclear).

That shouldn't really be happening? Are you sure you're looking at the right number? When you hover over the skill icon and it says "DPS" in white, it has no relation whatsoever to your caustic cloud's DoT damage. That number is only the DPS of your Hits dealt by the arrow (i.e. whatever you Hit directly with 1 arrow). It does not even account for Poison or Bleed DoT (though both are derived DoTs, so increasing Hit damage increases DoT damage). What you should be looking at for cloud DoT is the text in blue that says "Deals 1234 Chaos Damage per Second."

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Thanks for the offer on the regrets, but I don't want to waste a bunch on redoing the ascendancy. I will shift to make due with the Assassin. I took it because I thought the combination of the Chaos DOT, poison DOT and bleed DOT would be quite impressive with a high physical damage mod. However, I need to switch back to greater multiple projectiles to test it, and that drops the chaos dot quite a bit. I may try lesser multiple as a happy medium.

Thanks for the advice and offer. I think I will mess around a bit with gems and options before committing to an ascendancy change. If I can't make it work, it might be better to shift to a poison and bleed-based build and just swap out my remaining chaos damage nodes. If I can't, Trickster sounds like it would be a better option.

Yes, if you want to continue as an Assassin, you will either have to accept less power, change your main skill, or go into hipster mode and use Caustic Arrow for the conversion and not the cloud. Assassin ascendancy literally does nothing (maybe culling on low life critical strike) for a standard Caustic Arrow build (the cloud can't crit, poison, or bleed, so Assassin is about as good as having no ascendancy at all for standard CA). As Hunt8722 said, the vast majority of people who play Caustic Arrow use it for the cloud, but you could try using it for the conversion instead. In that case, you could support your Caustic Arrow with GMP and crit gems instead.

I forgot to mention that one of the reasons I run with increased rarity is because the 4-green and 1 blue linked slots were the best color combo I could come up with after a number of chromatics, and I don't yet have a concentrated effect gem (not available to shadows through vendors). I almost have a templar to act 2 now, so will get one there and try it out. However, with only one arrow, I worry concentrated effect may make my AOE so small I loose utility in clearing packs of creatures. I will play around with it.

How to people get +2 and +3 gem 5 and 6-link bows? Trade for them? Is there a crafting option I don't know about? I know some essences grant elemental gem bonuses, but I have not seen a generic one yet.

I will try some different flasks. My mana regen is so low that I always run with at least one and use it almost constantly. Gear issues, I guess, although I skipped a lot of mana nodes.

Yeah, I just tested different bows again, and you are all right, the chaos DOT doesn't change. I could swear it went up when switching from a previous bow, but I must have changed something else at the same time.

I really liked the idea of a caustic arrow build, but perhaps I am better set up to switch over to a poison/bleed crit chance build with barrage or something. Sounds fun, and all I really wanted to see was dots working, so I may give that a try as well. Is there any reliable way to figure out your poison/bleed damage?

You can find random 5-link bows around the place from time to time. Then you can use Alteration Orbs to get the +2 to bow gems affix. There is a method to go from that to having the +1 to all skills as well, but that's not really for beginners.

The other option is to find a rare bow with +2 or +3 already on it. +3 will be extremely rare though. The you can socket and link it yourself. Make sure to pick up 6-socketed "useless" items and vendor them for 7 jewellers, those drops will fund your socketing and linking for the most part.

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Zed_ wrote:

You can find random 5-link bows around the place from time to time. Then you can use Alteration Orbs to get the +2 to bow gems affix. There is a method to go from that to having the +1 to all skills as well, but that's not really for beginners.

The other option is to find a rare bow with +2 or +3 already on it. +3 will be extremely rare though. The you can socket and link it yourself. Make sure to pick up 6-socketed "useless" items and vendor them for 7 jewellers, those drops will fund your socketing and linking for the most part.

Ok, I figured there was some manipulation involved. I have yet to find a 5-link bow, but I can probably trade for one. Any idea on how many alterations on average it takes to get a +2, and whether it would be more or less feasible than trying to add 5 sockets and link them, which I have already tried a bit and do not enjoy :)

I have a 5 link Marketh bow on Essence. Can see what I can do with it when I get online.



A 5 link +2 bow shouldn't be too expensive tho.