Mirage Archery question and more

I am on my first build, a Shadow using Bow and Caustic Arrow. Since this game doesn't show damage number, I have a hard time telling if my Mirage Archer's Caustic Arrow stacks with me. I assume it does because it's doing 60% less damage?

What about Poison and Bleeding triggered by Mirage Archer? Do they stack with mine?
I am asking this because I am sort of stuck on the "chart". I took all the Chaos and DoT damage nodes but I haven't decided if I want to go with Bow or Spell. I figure to get more DoT damage, I can go to the Poison route (assuming Chaos and DoT nodes improve Poison damage and so is Void support). Any thought on this?

What if I use Elemental Hit and trigger Aliment? Can one target be suffering from shock, frozen, ignite at the same time or one over writes the other?


Do my Chaos damage nodes buff Chaos Golem?

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I am on my first build, a Shadow using Bow and Caustic Arrow. Since this game doesn't show damage number, I have a hard time telling if my Mirage Archer's Caustic Arrow stacks with me. I assume it does because it's doing 60% less damage?

no, clouds do not stack. only the strongest one is active

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What about Poison and Bleeding triggered by Mirage Archer? Do they stack with mine?
I am asking this because I am sort of stuck on the "chart". I took all the Chaos and DoT damage nodes but I haven't decided if I want to go with Bow or Spell. I figure to get more DoT damage, I can go to the Poison route (assuming Chaos and DoT nodes improve Poison damage and so is Void support). Any thought on this?

yes poison can stack. bleed by default can have only one instance active. similar to most of the DoTs, the strongest one is active.

in general there is no point in using poison and bleed for damage reasons unless you fully focus on in. These days making a strong build with this ailments is not easy so I cant recomand that to a beginner

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What if I use Elemental Hit and trigger Aliment? Can one target be suffering from shock, frozen, ignite at the same time or one over writes the other?

yes all can be active at the same time but because shock/freeze effectiveness relies on hit (lightning/cold) damage relative to target max life, you can expect some results only if the damage is high enough. with ignite it is a similar story like with bleeding

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Do my Chaos damage nodes buff Chaos Golem?

no. minions are different entities, they dont have your stats or skills. The general rule is that "none of your stats apply to minions unless specifically stated otherwise"

You are awesome. Thanks for the response.

I have been a Caustic Arrow for a long time now. I devoted a lot of points into Chaos damage. Not sure what direction I should go. I use Essence Drain and Contagion for stacking Dot and that's about it.

I was hoping to get Poison to stack with my Caustic but you don't think it's a good idea eh?

I am annoyed that most of the items I find are +elemental damage which doesn't apply to Caustic.


Question. Can my DoT critical? Does critical chance or damage matter to my build?

well if you invested a lot in chaos damage then yes, you can theoretically add poison. but since caustic arrow is a typical fire and forget skill, I think it would be better to stay away from it as poison requires constant hitting which could harm your safety. Also Im not sure if you are able to include poison without crippling your other DoTs. Focusing on one type of things generally leads to better results. I think pairing it with Essence drain is fine. Also invest in Wither totem (wither + spell totem + two of your choice from increased duration/faster casting/Increased AoE).

using mirage archer is certainly not a good idea with caustic arrow

in general, good bow for caustic arrow has + levels to bow gems, because the cloud scales from the gem and is not related to your weapon damage at all. there are no other mods you can find on a bow (maybe except some late game stuff) that would apply to caustic clouds. ofc, there are many possibilities, there is certainly an option to use good phys damage bow and use arrows to kill single targets and use the clouds as a secondary AoE effect. It depends on what playstyle you are looking for. If direct archer, or fire and forget DoT build.

DoTs cant hit thus cannot crit so no, crit wont affect you. Ailments created by hits (poison, bleed) are maybe somewhat (but not fully) affected but Im not sure here, since last mechanics rework Im not confident any more in that area:)

edit: I forgot to tell you, if you are new, dont expect too much from your first character. the game is very complex and more difficult than these days standard. there is almost impossible not to make any serious mistakes as a beginner (no matter if you follow a guide or not)

Well, offensively, I think I am "stuck". I took most of Chaotic damage nodes but I don't want to be a full Spell user (yet).

I guess I can use the remaining points for defense. I am dying more now. lol


I find switching skills between Bow and Spell is weird. It's not smooth.

My other option is to go with dual claw Poison. lol


Ok. So critical damage doesn't apply to me. sigh.

Speaking about Poison damage stacking.

If I use Barrage and equip two Poison support to get to 100% chance, does this mean Poison damage stacks 3 times on the same target?

All the Chaos damage nodes I took can increase Poison stacking damage?

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chinesefoodverygood wrote:

If I use Barrage and equip two Poison support to get to 100% chance

You cannot do this.

Only one would be active.

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chinesefoodverygood wrote:

All the Chaos damage nodes I took can increase Poison stacking damage?

Yes, Poison deals Chaos damage and nodes on the tree will increase the damage dealt.

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Sarno wrote:

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chinesefoodverygood wrote:

If I use Barrage and equip two Poison support to get to 100% chance

You cannot do this.

Only one would be active.

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chinesefoodverygood wrote:

All the Chaos damage nodes I took can increase Poison stacking damage?

Yes, Poison deals Chaos damage and nodes on the tree will increase the damage dealt.

You mean between Lesser Poison and Poison support, only one of them is active? So I need to get 10% Chance to Poison on the chart to get as close to 100% as possible?

Do you know what duration Poison is? Without seeing the damage numbers, it's very hard to tell!!! I wish this game allowed me to turn "show damage number". I am so used to that.

Is Barrage even a good way to proc poison? I feel taking Chaos nodes just to improve Poison damage is not effective. lol Better to just increase my Physical damage.

You can´t have same poison support gem twice that´s what he meant (two or more different gems are ok).

The default base duration of poison is 2 seconds.
Poison article on wiki for more info here:

Tooltip dps doesn´t show everything but you can use PoB for that purpose:

Barrage skill is the best way how to inflict as many poison stacks as possible.

Quill Rain bow would be the best choice here (without taking many phys/crit nodes).

Skill gems needed: Barrage + Greater multiple projectile + added chaos damage + lesser poison and/or poison support (depends on chance to inflict poison but should be as close to 100% as possible).

It would look like this .... shot 1-2 caustic arrow, put decoy totem and use your barrage setup to finish the boss ...
You can use barrage yourself or use ranged totem etc ...

I can´t see your tree, your profile is private so if you want more sophisticated answer you should change it in privacy settings.

You are so awesome. I actually have not toyed with Totem yet.

So far Caustic Arrow is strong but it's kind of boring. I changed the profile setting and hopefully you can see my chart. +Projectile damage also increases Chaotic damage right?


I want to play Elemental arrow stuff but I took all Chaos damage already. Oh well.


So Lesser Poison Support + Poison Support = 100% chance ?

When do I have access to Multiple Projectile?