[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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KurosMalkil escribió:

I tried this build before and right after Ascendancy released and now I am pretty excited to try it again with the CA/Poison boosts, as a Pathfinder. Still a huge fan of this build over any other IIR build I have tried (which has been a small handful).

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Serleth#4392 escribió:

Aug 2, 2018: Due to IRL complications, I will no longer be updating this thread, until further notice, if at all.

Sorry.

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Before We Get To The Guide…

The Item Rarity Gem and Degeneration Skills:

• As of patch 1.0.6, the IIR/IIQ gems have full functionality with degen skills. The patch notes say "Righteous Fire," but it applies to all sources of degeneration: Searing Bond, RF, CA Cloud, Viper Strike DoT, etc… So yes, the IIR gem works for this build.

A Shadow Build in the Ranger Section:

• This originated as a ranger build in 2.0, and now covers over 600 pages of questions and replies. Even though it's better built from Shadow, I don’t want to kill anyone’s bookmarks, and there's a fair amount of people that follow the build every league.
  
  As such the build will remain in Ranger.
  
  To that end:

Passive Tree for the Ranger Start:

• I will not be posting a Ranger tree, but I'll be glad to answer questions about building it as a Ranger if that's your preference. You can closely follow the Trickster tree, as it's virtually identical save for starting node changes.

Special Credit:

• Thanks to all the people who provide constant help to players in this thread. Answering all the questions, especially in when a new league kicks off, would entail entire WORKDAYS of effort if it wasn't for your assistance. You all help make the continued existence of this thread possible.
• Special SPECIAL thanks to ChronoExile for the snazzy new formatting for the guide to help make this easier to navigate.

3.2 Changelog:

Spoiler

Just a quick compendium of changes for 3.2. This spoiler will cycle every league and delete / refresh only for new leagues (in other words, not retain prior changes). This is here specifically for players who use this build every patch and just want to keep up to date with the main changes:

• The build is now done from Shadow-Trickster. No other significant changes to report.

And one more thing: I will not respond to private messages (either on the website or in-game) regarding the build.

Post your question in the thread. Thank you.


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- Table of Contents -

[01.00] - Overview
[02.00] - Media
[03.00] - Skill Tree & Ascendancies
[03.01] - Shadow Trickster Tree
[04.00] - Bandit Rewards
[05.00] - Pantheon
[06.00] - Gearing
[07.00] - Enchantments
[08.00] - Gems & Links
[09.00] - Finished Stats
[10.00] - Tools
[11.00] - FAQ (Post 2)



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- Overview -

The purpose of this build is for those that don't like to party or do boss runs, although with the changes introduced in 2.2, it actually now functions reasonably for boss runs and can work decently in parties as long as you're willing to organize a culling setup for bosses and such. That said, this setup is designed specifically for solo map farming with good MF, life and res balance, combined with a relatively fast clear speed.

Oh, and it can run any map mod comfortably up to T14 maps.

Any. Mod. T14.

Pros:

• Earn 0.5ex/hr** without selling a DAMN THING. (See the FAQ)
• Fast pack clear speed, solid boss kill speed (pending 3.0 boss changes?).
• Runs any map mod
• Extremely mobile
• Cheap starting cost (buy any item level 64 5L bow for 5c, alt-spam for +2 bow gems) NOTE: +2 bow gems requires an Ilvl 64+ bow
• Atziri capable (just remove Andvarius'. Or don't, if you're badass!)
• HC viable with some adjustments.

Cons:

• Semi-Late Acrobatics - mid 50s.
• It's evasion, so it's prone to physical burst damage if entropy hates you.
• Not the fastest leveling, but it is better in 3.0.

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- Media -


Deathless Atziri Run with almost full MF spec - didn't *quite* have full res balance =( --- June 15, 2015. While outdated, undergeared and less powerful than CA currently is, this video remains to give you an idea of how to go about doing Atziri in general with CA and I feel is still relevant for showing how you can go about fighting it before you're fully kit.

Inventory and Stash Management - Exactly what it sounds like! A video talking about stash and inventory management while mapping.



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- Skill Trees & Ascendancies -

With 3.2, Scion Ascendant-Occultist no longer provided -chaos resistance, rendering it a suboptimal choice for the build.

In addition, Trickster became a LOT more powerful for the build. The short version is the new Trickster adds 20% more chance to evade, 5% additional chance to dodge attacks and spells, 20% increased DoT (and mana/life/es recovery on kill), and 15% MORE Dot (compared to 3.1 Trickster).

The combined changes make Trickster far superior for the build compared to Scion-Ascendant and as such, this build is now Shadow Trickster.

- 3.3 Shadow Trickster Tree

• Is the same as the 3.2 Tree. Nothing's changed.

Ascendancy Order:

Swift Killer
Patient Reaper
Prolonged Pain
Ghost Dance

I don't have any Trickster CA characters built, so there will be no PoB pastebin or updated stats for 3.2 or beyond.



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- Bandit Rewards -


My personal recommendation is to go with Kraityn for some QoL for the Frenzy CoH setup, dodge chance and movement speed. If you're in HC, Oak is probably your preferred option though a MoM variant should probably take Alira for the regeneration and to help make gearing easier.


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- Pantheon Powers -


With the Pantheon system, you can have one major god and one minor god active at a time. When you're in town, you can cycle through these at will.

Major God: Soul of Lunaris

• 1% additional physical damage reduction for each nearby enemy, up to 8%
• 1% increased movement speed for each nearby enemy, up to 8%
• With Soul of Arachnoxia: 10% chance to avoid projectile damage
• With Soul of Master of the Blade: 5% chance to dodge spells and attacks if you've been hit recently
• With Lycius, Midnight Howl: 50% chance to avoid projectiles that have been chained.

This is a drastic improvement to our general mapping. For certain boss fights, you may want to switch to Soul of Solaris (6% physical damage reduction if only ONE enemy is nearby | 10% chance to take 50% less area damage from hits | (With Penitentiary Incarcerator: 5% reduced elemental damage taken if you haven't been hit recently and some other less important stuff).

Minor God: There a bunch of good options here. I'm going to list these in my ordered recommendation from most recommended to least.

• Soul of Grukthul: 1% additional physical damage reduction for each hit you've taken recently up to a maximum of 5% (Upgrade from Legius Garhall: Enemies that have hit you with an attack recently have 8% reduced attack speed).
• Soul of Tukohama: While stationary, gain 2% additional physical damage reduction each second, up to a maximum of 8% (Upgrade with Tore, Tower Ancient: While Stationary, gain 0.5% of life regenerated per second each second, up to a maximum of 2%
• Soul of Garukhan: 5% chance to evade attacks if you've taken a savage hit recently (Upgrade with Rek'tar The Breaker: 6% increased movement speed if you haven't been hit recently)
• Soul of Ryslatha: Life flasks gain 3 charges every 3 seconds if you haven't used a life flask recently (Upgrade from The Winged Death: 60% increased life recovery from flasks when used on low life).

The reasoning here is that Grukthul helps mitigate problems with the way entropy works with evasion, and increases survivability against physically-oriented bosses. Tukohama is more of an option if you prefer to stand in the pocket and fire, rather than dodge. If you feel as though you're good on physical damage reduction front, then take Grukthul instead for better map QoL clear speed and to counteract the entropy a bit. Ryslatha is last because our life flasks typically take care of themselves with how fast we clear through regular packs, but it is an option to take if you would prefer some extra QoL for flasks during boss fights.


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- Gearing -

The goal of this build is to maximize magic find and survivability, so for gearing you are looking to get life, rarity, and resistances on the majority of your gear. The spoilers show examples of gear, some suggestions on gear progression, and crafting help where applicable. Do not use this section for Gems or Links, there is a section specifically for those after the gear section.

Note for HC Players: You will want to prioritize eva/es hybrid gear where you can.

Weapon

Caustic Arrow cloud damage scales with gem levels, thereby we want a +3 bow (Paragon’s (+1 level of socketed gems), Sharpshooter’s (+2 levels of socketed bow gems)),

For the other affixes, you're looking to craft Damage Over Time (15-30%) from Leo, the arguably most useless master in the game. Thankfully it only requires level 3 Leo, and you can crush that with just a few PvP missions. Heck, you can even get a friend to help you.

For suffixes, not much really benefits the build. We don't particularly need attack speed, but resistances will be lacking, especially if you want to run Carcass Jack. So, ideally, you will look to eventually mastercraft your own +3 bow with dual resistances.

Other semi-beneficial suffixes you'd want to keep an eye out for before your crafted bow (if you choose to craft one) are:

• Attack Speed
• Mana Gain on Kill
• Life Gain on Kill

Crafting a +3 Bow with room for Damage over Time:
There are three different methods for guaranteeing a +3 bow, and it all comes down to personal preference. All three methods start off with an item level 64 or higher white 6-link bow of your choice. Maraketh is the recommended base for the additional 6% move speed, and decent attack speed.

Worth noting, in most cases it will be cheaper for you to just buy a 6L +3 bow gems these days. The major exceptions where you would want to pursue crafting are:

* SSF (you will need minimum 2 exalts to drop)
* Dual res crafting
* You specifically are looking for a Maraketh base and none are available

Method One

Original method from reddit:

• Use Alterations until it is a single stat Sharpshooter’s (+2 level of Socketed Bow Gems)
• Mastercraft “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Caterina, level 8)
• Regal the bow, the only prefix available is Paragon’s (+1 level of Socketed Gems)
• Did you hit Paragon’s? If not Exalt the bow
• After hitting Paragon’s remove the “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Leo, level 3)
• Exalt out the last suffixes or call it done

Method Two

Second method from reddit:

• Use Alterations/Augmentations until Sharpshooter’s (+2 level of Socketed Bow Gems) with a Suffix
• Regal the bow. If a suffix was hit continue, if a prefix was hit Scour and start over
• Mastercraft “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Caterina, level 8)
• Exalt the bow, you will hit Paragon’s (+1 level of Socketed Gems)
• Remove the “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Leo, level 3)
• Exalt out the last suffix or call it done

Method Three

Method Three, Serleth’s Method

This is EXPLICITLY if you want to get a dual-res bow. Otherwise, use one of the aforementioned methods.

• Mastercraft Dexterity (Vagan, level 2)
• Regal the bow, did you hit Sharpshooter’s (+2 level of Socketed Bow Gems)? If not Scour and start over
• Remove the mastercrafted Dexterity (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft “Can have multiple Crafted Mods” (Elreon, level 8)
• Mastercraft “Cannot Roll Attack Mods” (Caterina, level 8)
• Mastercraft a random suffix / random prefix so you only have one prefix slot left
• Exalt the bow, you will hit Paragon’s (+1 level of Socketed Gems)
• Remove the mastercrafted mods, (Tora, level 7)
• Mastercraft “Can have multiple Crafted Mods” (Elreon, level 8)
• Mastercraft two resistance rolls (Tora, level 5)
• Mastercraft (15 to 30)% increased Damage over Time (Leo, level 3)

Quiver

With the changes to Drillneck in 3.0, Drillneck is no longer considered BiS in my opinion, however it is a valid option still. The important note to make here is that "Drillneck now grants Arrows that Pierce deal 50% increased Damage."

What this essentially means is if you're firing at the enemies feet, Drillneck does nothing. You need to be firing through packs in order to see any benefit, and on bosses you have to be a lot more precise in order to proc the benefit. The arrow is essentially the payload for the cloud, so it will require a hit AND pierce in order to benefit the cloud damage. It will be a lot less consistent until you practice and get used to it.

In my opinion, given that we will be getting resistances on all six jewel slots in order to make gearing the rest of the build easier, and the fact that Drillneck now only provides a 50% damage boost, we're better off going with a:

Rare Penetrating Arrow Quiver
- High flat life
- Tri res 35%+ for each resistance

What this will allow us to do is drop the resistance rolls on our jewel slots and instead get damage affixes. This will increase our total damage by over 60% (minimum), beating Drillneck's effectiveness by at least 10% while being a consistent source of damage, and generally just providing more QoL. The better quiver you get, the easier it will be to also add Carcass Jack to the build (which is buffed in 3.0).

Regardless of what quiver you go with, you should strive for a +1 arrow corrupted implicit as this will benefit your overall clear speed more than an additional pierce will, even in cases of Drillneck.

Helmet

Life, IIR, resistances. If you can get additional defenses, great. If not, oh well. Look for a pure evasion base if you can, hybrid eva + ar/es if you have to.

Gloves

Same as the helmet: life, res, IIR, defenses if you can, preferably an evasion base if you can, hybrid evasion + armour/es if you must.

As you're progressing, you have a couple other options:

Sadima’s Touch is a solid pair of gloves to use while leveling, but these will need to be replaced with a pair of rare gloves to help with resistances, and survivability.

Boots

Due to the nature of how IIR and IIQ interact, you do want at least a modicum of IIQ for MF, hence we go with Goldwyrm. While the movement speed isn't the best, it's easily compensated by two Quicksilver flasks while the boots themselves provide a high-roll fire resistance and mana regeneration.

While saving up for Goldwyrm a good pair of rare magic find boots can be used.

Body Armor

In my opinion Carcass Jack provides the best balance of QoL with the AoE and dps with the buffed 3.0 version as well as some resistances, making it easier to equip in light of the Andvarius rings. However if you end up with a +1 arrow quiver, the AoE is less important and, if you're willing to min-max the rest of your gear to make it work, then:

Cherribum's Malefience is your best option for raw damage output. Important to note it has no resistances on it, so while it's BiS for damage, it's going to require some pretty hefty investment to equip with the Andy rings in play. (Just a note, that's a legacy chest, the damage rolls are now 50-80%).

Until you can get either of those going:

A rare chest that covers off your life, and other resistances. Look for a pure evasion base if you can, hybrid eva + ar/es if you have to.

Accessories

Andvarius is the core of the item rarity in this build, start with any ring you can afford and work your way up from there. Max implicit rolls on gold rings are 15%, and the max explicit roll is 70%

Ventor’s Gamble looks good in theory, but the practical application of the IIQ/IIR map coefficient means you need to have a Ventor’s rolled with +7%IIQ and +40%IIR explicit mods. The math for these calculations can be found here.

Any rare gold amulet life, rarity and resistances. There's no other option here better than a decently rolled rare amulet, at present.

A rare leather belt with life and ALL three elemental resistances. If you manage to land a belt with an open prefix, you can compensate a bit more for the lack of good MS on Goldwyrm by mastercrafting the MS prefix here from Tora (Level 6).

Flasks

We use two Seething Hallowed Flasks, one Catalysed Divine or Eternal Flask, and two Chemist's Quicksilver Flasks of Adrenaline (superior to Ample as we can recover a use ~7.5 charges instead of per 10). You can find an explanation for the Hallowed choice in the FAQ.

Jewels

The desirable mods on jewels for the build are:

• Chaotic (Chaos Damage 9% to 13%)
• Vivid (Max Life 5% to 7%)
• of Archery (Projectile Damage 10% to 12%)
• of Wounding (Damage 8% to 10%)
• of Entropy (Damage over Time 10% to 12%)
• of Blasting (Area Damage 10% to 12%)
• of Resistance (Additional All Elemental Resistance 8% top 10%)

Jewelcrafting

Full details provided by Nasty Toxic
Surprisingly, the Crimson Jewels have the best chance to roll our desired affixes. Here is the source of the Crimson Jewel values as pulled from poedb.tw/us/mod.php?type=42&attr=136 (link may be unreliable depending on the site-owner).

Jewel Affixes and Chance to be Rolled, by Jewel Color:

%increased life:
R 2.84%
G 1.81%
B 2.00%

% increased Chaos Damage:
R 1.14%
G 1.04%
B 1.14%

% increased Area Damage:
R 3.79%
G 3.66%
B 3.60%

% increased Projectile Damage:
R 3.03%
G 3.66%
B 2.88%

% to all Elemental Resistances:
R 2.27%
G 2.20%
B 2.16%

% Damage over Time:
R 3.79%
G 3.66%
B 3.60%

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- Enchants -


For the below enchants, I have bolded my personal preference for each category. You can feel free to adjust based on your own playstyle.

Gloves

Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Light

• Deals a portion of your main hand damage in an area around you and creates Consecrated Ground, Causing You and your Allies to Regenerate Life.

Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Reflection

• Creates a clone of you that attacks with your weapon.

Word/Edict/Decree/Commandment of Spite

• Releases a nova of projectiles based on your weapon, leaving chilling ground in their wake.

Boots

• Chance to Dodge if you've taken a Critical Strike Recently.

• Increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently.

• Chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently.

Helmet

Due to the nature of how difficult it is to achieve a desireable helmet enchantment, my recommendation is to just stick with the first one you find that more directly benefits the build (Damage, Radius, Curse Effectiveness).

• Increased Caustic Arrow Damage

• Increased Caustic Arrow Radius

• Increased Caustic Arrow Duration

• Reduced Grace Mana Reservation

• Increased Despair Curse Effect

• Increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Flame Golems

• Blood Rage grants additional XX% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill

• Increased Blink Arrow Cooldown Recovery Speed

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- Gems & Links -


Primary Skill:

• In a completed build the primary set up in a +3 Bow is - Caustic Arrow - Void Manipulation - Conc Effect - Swift Affliction - Empower (5L) - IIR (6L).

Q: What about before Ascending?
A: Before gaining Deadeye it is up to you if you want to run Increased Area of Effect or not. If you do decide to run AoE your gem links would be Caustic Arrow - Void Manipulation - Conc Effect - Increased AoE - Swift Affliction / Empower (5L) – IIR (6L). There are some situations where Empower should be used over Swift Affliction, and the explanation can be found in the FAQ.

Curse Setup & Terrain Breaker:

• In a 4-Link we run Frenzy - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Curse on Hit - Despair. Faster Attacks or Lesser Multiple Projectiles are potential fifth link options, but neither is needed for the setup. I leave the decision up to you. Personally, I prefer the extra projectiles to make it easier to break barrels and spread the curse more effectively. If you decide to get a 6L chest, you can add the other one in.
  
  In a 5L, you will also want to add Decay, to help improve single-target damage against bosses. You can choose to drop GMP here if you only have a 4L.

Damage Boost & Utility

• Wither - Spell Totem - Faster Casting to help kill bosses, and the occasional tankier blue/rare or high chaos resistance mob, Wither totem is your friend. Increased Duration or AoE could be added as the fourth link, but is not required. Duration would be more beneficial for more situations, as Wither's primarily used as a single-target boost except in high-life, high-tier maps where you may want more coverage for the generally tankier mobs. But Duration will generate more stacks, which is a single-target damage boost: the primary reason to drop a Wither totem, normally.

• Blood Rage - Vaal Lightning Trap - Increased Duration – (Enduring/Rallying Cry) Vaal Lightning Trap is the only reliable source to create shocking ground which provides 50% more damage, useful for bosses. Blood Rage allows us to automate our frenzy charge generation, as most monsters do not need to be cursed to melt. One of the most common questions I get is why run Blood Rage if we're running a Despair CoH setup.
  
  Fact is, you'll only be cursing bosses and tankier monsters. This automates the frenzy generation and dramatically improves your clear speed.
  
  Enduring/Rallying cry is listed in brackets to indicate it's optional and at player discretion.

Auras

• Grace- Clarity – Enlighten will be your core aura setup, with Enlighten added mostly as QoL in order to provide a slightly larger mana pool in order to assist with reduced recovery maps. It is not required to have Enlighten.
  
  While levelling, and especially before you're fully geared, you may want to run any of the Purity auras to help out with res balance. If so, drop Grace, and ensure you take Acrobatics.
  
  You shouldn't need to exceed a Clarity Level 10, and in fact the central reason we even still have this aura in the final build is to make reduced recovery maps possible without having to reroll the map, or swap in a mana flask.

Other

• Any other spare gem slots should be used to fit in Flame Golem, Blink Arrow and Portal.
  
  As you reach the final stages of this build, you'll see why Portal is so beneficial: it's very easy to run out of Wisdom scrolls. This 5-7 chaos gem allows you to sustain your Widsoms more reliably.
  
  Lastly, don't forget to level other gems in your swap gear. And keep special attention to when you're levelling Empower or Enlighten: you will want a Haku Weapon for this.

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- Finished Stats -

Stats

3.0 DPS Stats on Scion-Ascendant With:

* CA 21
* Empower 4
* 20/20 Concentrated Effect, Void Manipulation and Swift Affliction
* 6 frenzy charges
* Occultist's increased damage if you've killed a cursed enemy recently.
* 50% AoE dmg Carcass Jack
* Post-Drillneck era (so, rare quiver)



The rest of these stats are "outdated" but the only real relevant thing here is life and MF. Your life will vary typically anywhere between 5000-5300 depending on how you prioritize your passives by level 90-94.

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- Tools -


Path of Building - OPieOP.

Effective IIQ/IIR map coefficient (C Value) calculator by Caliark.