[3.12] Scottoria's Caustic Arrow Trickster 7mil Shaper ✔️ League Starter ✔️ All Content ✔️ All Map Mods

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Caustic Arrow without Toxic Rain has rapidly become my favorite build following the Raider Variant I ran in Harvest League 3.11. There is really no difference in the skill tree concept between the two however Trickster ascendancy is almost 2 million more shaper DoT than Raider.


Playstyle:
The playstyle for this build is very much fire and forget. For boss fights you simply drop your wither totems, drop your self cast curse, and shoot caustic arrow. You then can just focus on dodging boss mechanics while occasionally reshooting Caustic Arrow on them.

Path of Building Pastebin


I am using PoB Fork for this guide:

https://github.com/PathOfBuildingCommunity/PathOfBuilding/releases
You must have this installed in order to be able to import the pastebins.

Path of Building 3.12:

All Trees; Including Leveling: https://pastebin.com/AB8YqRG1

Mirror Tier Gear to strive for 7 Mil Shaper DoT: https://pastebin.com/5attUFky

About 15ex investment all content still easy 3.1 Mil Shaper DoT: https://pastebin.com/gTwFMRCa

Tree without Cluster Jewels: https://pastebin.com/GXGSk9gF

Youtube Build Guide/Showcase:


My Live Streams/Socials:
If you have any questions or need help with the build feel free to join me in my Discord or live streams. I love to help out newer players as well as talk theory craft with seasoned.


Leveling Trees:
Spoiler
First 28 Points:

Next 44 Points:

Next 60 Points:

Next 93 Points:

Thread of Hope Setup:

Cluster Jewels:

Complete Tree:


Ascendency + Bandits + Pantheon

Spoiler
Bandits: Kill all for the passive points. There is nothing we can get from any of the bandits that will do anything for us outside of resists or something. Basically nothing superior to passive points.

Ascendancy:
First: Patient Reaper
Second: Prolonged Pain
Third: Ghost Dance
Uber: Swift Killer


Pantheon:
Major: Soul of Solaris primarily for bossing. Lunaris is good as well if you are feeling squishy during mapping however once your tree and gear is in a good place you should be one shotting everything in maps.

Minor: Soul of Garukhan is my personal favorite due to the increase in speed mostly. I like having the added speed for bossing mechanics as well as the added dodge chance is very helpful. Ryslatha is another more common choice especially during trials.


Gear:

Spoiler
All Endgame Content approximately 15-20ex investment:
Spoiler


Mirror/Harvest Tier Gear to Shoot For:
Spoiler


Obtaining THE bow:
Base:
Maraketh: If you do not have the currency for a fractured or synthesized bow then a Maraketh is our best option. You can pick up a 6L for about 20c.
Synthesis: A synthesis bow with the implicit 40% increased chaos damage is the best choice on a thicket. The thicket just has higher APS which means we drop our Caustic ground faster. However note that it does not stack so the APS is very negligable.
Fractured: Fractured "damage over time multiplier" is THE best base we can grab to craft on. Since that is the only mod that we struggle to hit via fossil crafting, being able to obtain it guaranteed is the greatest amount of DoT you can possibly get.

Pre-craft:
If you want to get spicy and really juice damage true min-max then grab some tempering orbs. You hit the bow with tempering orbs until you get a increased effect of chaos mods enchant.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT 6L BEFORE DOING THIS AS TEMPERING ORBS REROLL SOCKETS!

I personally then use perfect fossils to hit 30% quality then benchcraft 18% more quality before going into the 6L process. Perfect fossils are about 4c right now so well worth the investment in my opinion.

Crafting the Beast: You use a 3 socket resonator using the fossils Faceted, Corroded, and Metallic. These should help block most other mods and leave us with the only mods we want which is +1 socketed gems, +1 Dexterity Gems, and +1 Strength gems. Fingers crossed you hit no other mods than that so you can multi-mod +2 socketed support gems and chaos damage over time multiplier.


Gem Links:

Spoiler
Bow: Caustic Arrow, Concentrated Effect, Awakened Swift Affliction, Awakened Void Manipulation, Awakened Vicious Projectiles, Empower
Notes: non-awakened variants of the same gems are fine.
Before you obtain a lvl 4 empower efficacy works fine as well.

Auras: Malevolence, Aspect of the Cat, Clarity (lvl 10), and Divergent Grace
Notes: Only take Aspect once you get Farrul's fur. Self casting Frenzy is an option in the meantime.
I chose Divergent Grace for the added chance to avoid chaos. I also did not take Grace until I got a level 4 enlighten and was able to obtain intuitive leap for the reduced mana nodes.

IMPORTANT: Make sure Aspect of the Cat is on a piece of gear where you can socket less duration so the aspect "links" to it and you can then maintain perma frenzy charge duration.

Movement: Dash with second wind

Totem Setup: Wither, Spell Totem, Multi-totems

CWDT: lvl 9 Summon Flame Golem, lvl 12 Withering Step, and lvl 9 Cast When Damage taken
Notes: You can use stone golem for more defense and immortal call instead of withering step are fine. I went for a more offensive setup as I do not feel as though I get hit or die very often anyway. However if you are having issues then go with these defensive choices.

Frenzy Charge sustain without Farrul's: Frenzy, GMP, Culling Strike
Notes: Culling strike with frenzy I personally still use after Farrul's to one shot the big bosses when they reach low health.

Curse: Despair w/ impending doom
Notes: Self casting Despair is how we can squeeze more DoT out of our build. Since packs are one shot anyways then worrying about curse on them is irrelevant. Since we are also a fire and forget build then dropping a curse on the boss is just a one click endeavor for a faster kill.

Aspect of the Spider: If you are pushing for the 7 million shaper DoT option then losing Farrul's and grabbing Cherribum's Malevolence opens us up to using Aspect of the Spider. In order to use it we drop Grace since we will need the mana reserve and stacking webs juices our damage tenfold.


Flasks:

Spoiler
Bottled Faith is a massive damage boost however we also have alternatives that favor a more defensive way to go. The important magic rolls to get on our life and defense flasks are remove bleed and remove freeze.

Optimal Setup:


Cheaper Setup:


Map Mods:
We can run every map modifier, however no regen maps you will have to allocate a passive node directly off of our tree branch by dualist. It is a pain to do however not impossible. Or take a mana flask.
All reflect mods do NOT effect us.

Last edited by Scottoria on Oct 21, 2020, 10:51:48 AM
Last bumped on Nov 22, 2020, 9:37:25 AM
Great build, I've seen it in action. Good post!
Twitch: twitch.tv/MySurvive
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MySurvive_
Discord: discord.gg/ztCrAdJ
Not sure about the build but this guy is the bomb.
Why eldritch inspiration on cluster over brush with death or exposure therapy? Is it due to mana problems?

Also btw the point under hunter's gambit is only 16% inc damage meanwhile versatile stance picked through thread of hope is 30% inc damage because all characters are in blood stance by default if they don't have any stance aura.

And your vermillion rings have lower rank of leo craft than your belt. I haven't tried essence rings with chaos damage but I don't think these mods conflict with each other anyway.
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Viktranka wrote:
Why eldritch inspiration on cluster over brush with death or exposure therapy? Is it due to mana problems?

Also btw the point under hunter's gambit is only 16% inc damage meanwhile versatile stance picked through thread of hope is 30% inc damage because all characters are in blood stance by default if they don't have any stance aura.

And your vermillion rings have lower rank of leo craft than your belt. I haven't tried essence rings with chaos damage but I don't think these mods conflict with each other anyway.


1: yes especially when I push CA to lvl 31+ we encounter mana problems. It is easier to take the 8% dot multi over the 10% if it means we save 2 passive points elsewhere and opens up jewelry mod spots.

2: I actually had no idea that characters are in blood stance by default! Thank you I will have to allocate that node.

3. Correct I just forgot to slam it with the higher tier bench craft. while i was crafting the other pieces of gear I was leaving the possibility of having to reroll the rings or not due to res fixing so hadnt gotten around to dropping the ex on the craft. You are right tho they dont conflict and the higher tier is preferred.
an video with normal speed would be nice
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Tobinator wrote:
an video with normal speed would be nice


My bad I was trying to shave down the time on the video since it is a longer one. The idea was to just show the gist of how the build operates. I do have normal speed during the boss fights in Uber Atziri however speed between bosses is sped up.

I'll use normal speed in future ones.
Watched him league start this all the way to near mirror, and he made it look easy. Great guide, and he's also available on twitch for any help you could need.
I was searching for caustic arrow guide on forums. I started toxic rain and switched to caustic arrow once i got all endgame items for TR and now i try to do the same for caustic.

I have some questions regarding your build:

Bow like this is not better since caustic arrow dmg is scalling gem level dmg?



Going for helm with redemeer and hunter influence will help alot with mana reserved.
I had 100% ailments imunity on TR and i love that on causctic arrow too.

Problem with mana cost can be easy solved with nonchanneling -9 mana cost craft on rings and amulets and clarity -mana cost watchers eye.

Double cluster is not better then single cluster tree?

I am curious if you got endgame version of this build with endgame items?

You can inspect my char too, is the only one in heist:). I want to min-max caustic arrow since i feel like aoe clear is 1000% better then toxic rain even with bossing kill a bit slower
Last edited by nazgul29 on Oct 29, 2020, 4:08:28 AM
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nazgul29 wrote:
I was searching for caustic arrow guide on forums. I started toxic rain and switched to caustic arrow once i got all endgame items for TR and now i try to do the same for caustic.

I have some questions regarding your build:

Bow like this is not better since caustic arrow dmg is scalling gem level dmg?



Going for helm with redemeer and hunter influence will help alot with mana reserved.
I had 100% ailments imunity on TR and i love that on causctic arrow too.

Problem with mana cost can be easy solved with nonchanneling -9 mana cost craft on rings and amulets and clarity -mana cost watchers eye.

Double cluster is not better then single cluster tree?

I am curious if you got endgame version of this build with endgame items?

You can inspect my char too, is the only one in heist:). I want to min-max caustic arrow since i feel like aoe clear is 1000% better then toxic rain even with bossing kill a bit slower


Correct your bow with the + socketed support gems is vastly better. I believe hitting damage over time multiplier suffix (usually fractured) should be more if im not mistaken. However hitting that mod when crafting is really tough.

yea hunter redeemer works fine as well. frees up a passive point. Are you going for the abyssal socket and -9 res as well? or is your helmet resistance fixing?

The mana cost thing to be honest I just fixed it with scaling regen with clarity and the two notables on the cluster tree. We miss out on a total of 4% DoT Multi by taking 2 eldrich inspiration. However that completely fixes the mana problem and you now have 3 opens spots (rings amulet) to bench damage mods onto.

Yes there is the 7 million shaper DoT pastebin above. I forgot to grab a better damage mod on my rings but thats just minor change.

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