[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

It's fine as long as you're willing to invest the regrets in afterwards.

I can't recall offhand the amount of respec points you get, but it's to the tune of ~15-20 ish just from questing. So with something like this tree, you will have 46 or so points to respec, so around 25-30 regrets or so.

Bit expensive, but regrets are also fairly cheap in new leagues, often less than 1:1c. This build recovers that quickly enough.

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Sutyrin escribió:

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hankinsohl escribió:

I plan on going dual bladefall totems (buff to spell totem will help a bit for an already strong skill) and sticking with them for quite awhile while I farm for a +1/+2 bow.

Noob question: how will you get dual bladefall totems, by Ancestral Bond? It looks way to far away (~20 points?) from our main skill path...

Yup, I'll beeline Ancestral Bond. You get 18 respec points if you do all the requisite quests - that will cover the bulk of off-pathing. I'll likely take some other temporary nodes though (resists maybe or mana) so I'll be spending a few regrets as well, but not alot - probably 10 or so.

Bladefall totems are quite strong on their own so once I straight-path into Ancestral Bond, I won't be taking any other bladefall support nodes except possibly mana nodes if needed (clarity and the mana nodes along the path to Ancestral Bond should be plenty though).

Keep in mind too that I'll likely be level 85 or so when I eventually switch to CA - for that reason I want my leveling skill to be very strong, even into maps.

Edit:
This is the minimalist path I'll take and once that's in I'll just start filling in CA nodes.

I find the best time o switch to caustic arrow is when you get your hands on a 5l bow that you can craft +2 on. At that point, your ca should be high enough level that you can do good damage, as long as you have been leveling your support gems as well/done the quests. From there you can grab decent res rings until you can get a drillneck, goldwyrm, and andvarious rings. Usually around level 50 is when I try to switch. I at least will finish a3c with caustic arrow. At that point you can still rely heavily on totems, if ou find damage is lacking.

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gutsquasher escribió:

I find the best time o switch to caustic arrow is when you get your hands on a 5l bow that you can craft +2 on. At that point, your ca should be high enough level that you can do good damage, as long as you have been leveling your support gems as well/done the quests. From there you can grab decent res rings until you can get a drillneck, goldwyrm, and andvarious rings. Usually around level 50 is when I try to switch. I at least will finish a3c with caustic arrow. At that point you can still rely heavily on totems, if ou find damage is lacking.

Yup - that works too.

I'll be switching late because it's a new league and I want to switch into a 6-link +1/+2. So I'll probably just wait a week until someone has level 8 masters around and I'll just pay them to craft onto a 6-link.

Meanwhile, I'll just MF/level on dual bladefall - not ideal for MF but very doable.

If I get bored of this before level 8 masters are available, I'll just buy a +1/+2 and try my luck linking it on my own (can get very expensive going this route though so I'll need to be very bored before I do this :-)).

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gutsquasher escribió:

I find the best time o switch to caustic arrow is when you get your hands on a 5l bow that you can craft +2 on. At that point, your ca should be high enough level that you can do good damage, as long as you have been leveling your support gems as well/done the quests. From there you can grab decent res rings until you can get a drillneck, goldwyrm, and andvarious rings. Usually around level 50 is when I try to switch. I at least will finish a3c with caustic arrow. At that point you can still rely heavily on totems, if ou find damage is lacking.

This is typically what I do. Around level 50+ is when you start to get decent ilvl 64 5L bows, so that's the moment I start shopping to make the switch.

That is certainly not a bad way to do it, but some things to keep I mind. In order to get a totem build to make it mapping not viable requires a rather large point investment away from where we go on the tree. This increases the cost of respeccing to ca considerably more than respeccing earlier. A 6 link now is going to be very expensive for the first couple of weeks in a league. On top of that cost will be the cost of buying all the mf equipment you will need, along with a decent amulet and belt. Master crafting +3 onto a bow is still very expensive, adding another 3ish exalts into your cost this early. You would require some excellent rng.

You might be better off starting with a pure totem build, then making another ca halfway into the week.

You don't really need a lot of gear to get totem builds going well though. Any moderate wand and shield will do to get BF totems working well with MF.

Realistically you're only increasing your cost by the respec points as long as you otherwise go self-found. More like half an exalt.

Hi Serleth,

Any thoughts on leveling this build tomorrow for the 2.3?

What do you think whats the best?

Thx a lot, will stay here this league ^^

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k33s69 escribió:

Hi Serleth,

Any thoughts on leveling this build tomorrow for the 2.3?

What do you think whats the best?

Thx a lot, will stay here this league ^^

Hi! I may not be Serleth, but a couple posts ago I went over our leveling options and strategies.

It basically boiled down to Frost Bolt and Nova/Vortex, or Searing Bond and Flame Totem.

Leveling our Caustic Arrow gem and supports along the way as well.

We level with those til around level 50, when we start looking for a 5 link iLvl 64 bow, which we can craft +2 to bow gems onto, and once we get that, we can safely make the change to Caustic Arrow.

Hope this helps!

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gutsquasher escribió:

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k33s69 escribió:

Hi Serleth,

Any thoughts on leveling this build tomorrow for the 2.3?

What do you think whats the best?

Thx a lot, will stay here this league ^^

Hi! I may not be Serleth, but a couple posts ago I went over our leveling options and strategies.

It basically boiled down to Frost Bolt and Nova/Vortex, or Searing Bond and Flame Totem.

Leveling our Caustic Arrow gem and supports along the way as well.

We level with those til around level 50, when we start looking for a 5 link iLvl 64 bow, which we can craft +2 to bow gems onto, and once we get that, we can safely make the change to Caustic Arrow.

Hope this helps!

+1

This is the way to go IMO.

Don't get side-tracked by my discussion about dual totem - it's only because I'm going to be switching very late (85ish) to CA that I'm going this route.