How can I make my Toxic Rain Trickster less squishy?

Hi all,

I seem to have hit a wall in levelling/progressing at Map Level 14/15, and can't level beyond 90 due to losing all my XP to death whenever I scrape some together. I'm doing a decent amount of damage, I've got all my resistances at 75/75/75/1, and i've got Max Life+ on every piece of gear, but I still seem to get one-shot by bosses.

I know that a link to my gear and build would be helpful, but i'm not sure how to do that, so if someone could let me know how, I will.

Any tips would be great, because i'm having a lot of fun with this character (after being only able to get to 70-80 in previous leagues) and don't want to let it go.

Can't take a look at the char, so in general.

Basically, all pure EV/dodge chars are squishy af and hard to survive lategame. With DoT bow builds (CA/TR) it's even harder because they require quite a lot of points in offence (nodes,auras,etc.).

There are three different approaches:

1. Ignore any kind of defensive nodes besides Acro (low opportunity cost), pump HP to the max and call it a day.

2. Target moderate HP, pump EV and pray in fights.

3. Work around damage taken conversions. That's the tankiest you can get with such a build.
Damage taken as an element on helm and chest, eventually lightning coil. It makes tremendous difference while dealing with phys damage lategame, and I'm fairly sure it's what kills you. Pump all you can in HP.
Basically minor dodge, very high HP, conversion.

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Raidensoul/characters

My TR is RaidensoulTricky.

I've got 5k HP/5k EV, along with 40% dodge to attacks and 30% to spells.

Account is set to private, that's why I can't see it. Whatever.

5K is way too low, it's normal to constantly die. Minor dodge can't help alone. Can't see your gear, but I guess it needs serious improvements. Unless you've pumped all in damage.
With such a build you need at least 6-6.5K to feel comfortably lategame.

I managed to push such a trash build archetype ( CA in my case) to 96 on HC. But with 7.5K HP and 37% phys to ele conversion. No EV, minor dodge (situational 46-51%).
Basically it's the high HP pool and the conversion what keeps him alive, and it works.

Gear is definitely my issue (I've changed the privacy settings so hopefully it can be seen now).

Between resistances I've tried to pump as much +life as possible, but the cost between +50 life on gear and +80 takes an item from 1-10 chaos to 1-10 exalted, which is way out of my price range.

I have to admit though, I've always found gearing difficult, so I feel like there's something obvious i'm missing.

Rings and ammu are all terrible. Gloves could be better, there are cheap upgrades. Divine the kintsugi when you can. The asenath's chant is basically bullshit - buy a helm with phys to ele conversion or whatever but a normal item.

You did a mistake with the bow, +3 gems and crafted chaos mult is the norm for such builds.

Where's malevolence?

IMO remove duration nodes and eventually Master Fletcher cluster. Get the Lethal Assault node. Progress to the templar area and allocate the fat HP nodes and AoE next to it. Or go up and get the HP/mana and AoE nodes around the witch instead. Also finish the incomplete HP clusters.

OP: What kind of budget do you have? Looking at your gear, it seems you are really low budget and that is the main problem--TR can do damage fine on low budget but if you want to feel comfortably tanky with your damage, you need a fairly high budget to do that. I would recommend farming lower tier stuff to earn the currency you need to get high end upgrades for your pieces.

The other thing I'd recommend is trying to make your tree more efficient to get more out of it. One example I can point out is that Potency of Will is costing you SEVEN points to reach (counting from life node) with half of those points being dead weight. If you get a normal amulet with some better stats (shouldn't be expensive), you can annoint that point and reinvest those 7 points elsewhere. There are other places in the tree where if you change something here and there, you can get a lot more out of the points you have.

At the moment budget wise, I've got 1 ex and about 300 chaos - which I know is low budget. If farming yellow maps for ex is what I need to do for better gear, then that's what I'll do :)

As for my actual build, I followed this guide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2y7ihxXUss

Because to be honest, I'm pretty slow when it comes to figuring out what is best for myself, and the PoE talent tree can give me a headache. Honestly, there's no game that makes me feel more like an idiot than PoE, but when I finally wrap my head around something I appreciate it more.

The PoB that comes with that build does have gear to aim for, but it was all 5-10 ex each when I searched for it, and I'm already exceeding the gear it had listed for budget gear, so I was hoping for middle ground - but I guess I need to grind :)

At this point, I think your goal should be making currency for improve you gear for this or a new char. So, run maps around tier 10, as fast as you can (or chose another methods, is up to u), collect the currency that worth and itens that sells. U gonna see that soon enough a 6L 100 life gonna be reachable. As much as better helmet and bow.

You must have a couple of premium stash to improve you trading.

And about life. it is safer to aim for 6.5k or more and some solid mitigation like flask, endurance charge, Wind dancer. After all, you can get all evasion of the world, some hit gonna get you.

grind indeed. chaos recipe is very helpful for low budget, until you get gear together to start doing some more juicy content. but already being able to do red tier maps is in the perfect place. you really just need to keep spamming t11-13 maps and you'll get currency.
you can watch ZiggyD's video something like "You have more currency then you think"

looking at your character, nearly everything can be upgraded. that bow is far outclassed in red tier maps and its easily replaced with a bit of understanding into crafting.
in any case, regarding your survivability, the biggest first step you can take is getting your uber lab. that is MASSIVE for trickster the route you're going. it will give you a bunch of energy shield and a bunch more evasion.

next, is your totem setup. IMO wither spell totem is garbage and a much better option is toxic rain ballista totem. the reasons are this
#1 its MUCH faster to place down
#2 it stacks its slow and can off screen mobs
#3 also does damage
#4 it can apply BLIND for you

so IMO i would change your chest armor to run 3 green and 2 red.
Ballista Totem Support
Multiple Totem Support
Toxic Rain
Withering Touch Support
Blind

a couple passive points not far away also gives a good chance to blind. blind is basically a free 50% evade. its REQUIRED on evasion builds, in my opinion.

your tree is pretty solid. i would personally spec out of No Witnesses and spec into Silent Steps. and you would save 1 passive by doing so as well.

when looking for different gear prioritize LIFE first. it needs to be Tier 1 life rolls on all pieces. then prioritize resistance on gloves/belt/boots/helmet - as high as you can afford until you're sitting with at least 85% resistance (some ppl go higher for res cap vs elemental weakness).
Rings and amulet should be your last upgrades/changes. amulet mostly fills in for attribute requirements. if you need int/str you get it via amulet implicit/mods. Rings should be your final upgrade, and you should be getting Vermillion rings with as much life as you can afford with useful other stats.

overall i'd say you could get good upgrades for about 50c per piece. except your boots. spend all your money on your boots. make SURE it has Tier 1 life and at least 30% movement speed. then, get a useful enchant from uber lab on them. run uber lab yourself over and over until you get them because that will help you get used to uber lab. after running it 20-50 times its a breeze and will future proof you vs its content.

the most defensive thing in this game is MOBILITY, especially for toxic rain builds. your goal is to SLOW down enemies, while remaining fast. so the next upgrade suggestion is new flasks.
you NEED a quicksilver of adrenaline (movement speed flask with movement speed affix). swap the flask affix's around so you still have curse and freeze and bleed immunity.

next thing, is my suggestion (especially for trickster) for life flask is exactly this

use THIS flask. as a trickster you'll regen like 4k life over 1.9 seconds, if im not mistaken (been awhile since i've done a trickster version of TR).

once you make a couple of those defensive upgrades and farm, your next will be offensive
of course the biggest upgrade you can get is a new bow. any +3 bow with atk spd (thicket base) and crafted chaos damage over time multiplier will be like 3x better then your current bow.
corrupted 21/20 toxic rain will be massive upgrade (only for yourself, don't give totems a 21/20 TR)
20% quality on gems. stuff like that
i would personally recommend an awakened increased area of effect gem. this will MASSIVELY boost your damage with the increased area, but ONLY if you get extra projectiles from different sources (bow mod, helmet enchant). but maybe thats a bit out of your league to worry about right now.

the beauty thing about toxic rain is you don't need insane offensive stats on gear. just a good bow and choice passives will easily carry you. so you can focus on defense everywhere else.