Caustic Arrow

Is there a bug or can Caustic Arrow no longer be used with Mirage Archer? I can link Mirage Archer to Toxic Rain and have it spawn just fine, but it doesn't matter how many Caustic Arrows I shoot through a pack (using pierce), I cannot get a Mirage Archer to spawn and use the skill.

I know the ARROW has to hit for the Archer to spawn, but I would assume that the arrow IS hitting if it's triggering its DoT pool on the first enemy of the pack and I can see it piercing to also trigger another pool where I aimed my cursor. Yet, I haven't had a single Archer spawn.

Before the rework, I had Mirage Archer linked to my Caustic Arrow and remember it triggering just fine. But, returning to the character, I don't understand how I cannot now.

I kind of like how you've changed CA so it can be played different way.

However I am very unhappy with the new visual effect. To be honest it feels really cheap compare to other skill effects. You've turned poisonous gas cloud into strange puddle of vomits. It works fine as 'on monster death' visual effect which is actually great improvement. But can we please have separate visual effect for Caustic Arrow itself? Perhaps it doesn't sounds that important when we are talking about visual effects but for me the way how the skill looks and feels is something that determinates if I like the skill or not. Until now CA was probably my most favorite bow skill in the game but the visual effect change kind of ruin it for me. Furthemore I was playing piercing CA build and since the new arrow effect is less visible than the previous version it's harder to iterate aiming for piercing projectile trajectory.

I don't mind buying MTX but non of existing ones suits the theme of verdant archer and since CA default effect is already green I am afraid it's unlikely that you'll come up with something like verdant MTX for CA. Anyway you would make me happy even if you would sell me the previous visual effect as MTX!!!

I decided to try Caustic Arrow again after not having used it since Warbands and my impression is a resounding "What the heck? This sucks now."

The radius is pitifully tiny and the duration doesn't even increase with levels. 2 seconds is so low that even if you go for skill effect duration, you will see only see tiny improvements. For example, 5% more adds puts it at a STAGGERING 2.10 seconds.

Just like Arctic Breath, this skill is weak, boring and most importantly outclassed by other similar ones.

I'm a lvl 93 trickster. The 1 big issue I have with this skill is that it can't hurt raging spirits, holy relics or things that are "floating" with the cloud portion of the skill. This is especially important during blight league, since you're defending a zone where enemies can be invulnerable to your skill. Doesn't really make sense to have enemies be completely immune to your damage.

Iam using CA level 28 but there are some wrong when using empower lv3 and empower lv2 plus 1 supported chaos from new base amulet. Can someone explain me why it have the big different?? (It's about 90k dot)

Needs more damage for end game bosses and the feared. Even with +3 bow, end game boss fights took minutes in early league. After, min-max so hard, not enough for the feared. I couldn't find any way to increased enough damage like 2-3m without losing def.

PLS buff CA .♥

Hello staff,

With minor nerfs to Toxic Rain now in the Siege of Atlas expansion the other aoe chaos dot scaling skill caustic arrow is still too much behind. In terms of numbers and in terms of mechanic and scaling.

Caustic arrow needs a change in its fundamentals. Just changing the numbers wouldn't help long term.

An idea of people that regularly play caustic arrow over the past 10 years would be to give the chaos dot cloud a debuff - similar to wither - that increases damage taken by the chaos cloud of caustic arrow and scales up as long as the mob is affected by the caustic cloud. The debuff would instantly drop when the mob stops taking dmg from caustic arrow.

This would even enhance the gameplay of causting arrow as you have to predict the enemies pathing to place the clouds clever.

Cheers

I don't know why a 5l and level 19 Fire Trap (on a very basic, early SSF setup) should be able to deal slightly more damage than a level 21 Caustic Arrow on a 6l +3 (with +1 to all chaos amulet, a ~60% chaos damage ring and 12% DoT multi on quiver) does.

Caustic Arrow is a skill that feels extremely smooth, but extremely underpowered unless you dump dozens of exalteds worth of gear into it... and even then you're not getting a lot of bang for your buck. Well, compared to other skills of course. It's a shame that its base damage is laughable and its scaling options are very narrow and limited.

While a damage buff would be welcome, I really think CA requires a mechanical rework to let players scale it in other ways.

TL;DR - scaling bad, skill good


Hi everyone,

Caustic Arrow is one of my absolute favourite skills in the game, and playing it makes me happy, it's so smooth and especially on occultist Profane Bloom makes it such a bloody satisfying mapper.

I'm currently playing it on a level 94 character called YoinkedAtBirth on Sentinel trade league, and I'll be honest, even though I'm having a blast actually playing it, getting meaningful upgrades hasn't felt... satisfying.

My character is currently worth a good couple of exalted orbs now (well, Ashes alone is already more than a few...) and aside from levelling my Awakened Gems to 4, replacing my 2 damage-stat quiver with a 3 damage-stat quiver and chaos DoT gloves that are in the making, I've not got that much I feel I can do to improve (granted, each upgrade is quite meaningful to my damage). Maybe getting a +3 bow with DoT Multi and Chaos DoT Multi crafted on it as well. Upgrading all of that will probably put my DPS at 2 million Sirus DPS in PoB and... It just doesn't feel worth it.

If I didn't have so much personal and emotional investment in Caustic Arrow, I'd have dropped it long ago in favour of other builds who can scale to 5 million Sirus DPS with just 5 - 10 ex invested. Scaling its damage is unsatisfying and unrewarding for the effort and currency going into it.

Is it viable? A level 21 gem and a +3 bow is enough to get you started, but if you want to kill like Sirus or Shaper, you need 10x more time and investment than most meta builds, otherwise you just don't have the damage. Currently I don't think I will be able to do Uber bossfights with Caustic Arrow. It needs a steeper scaling curve, honestly.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk, I am Hairyloco, if you actually read up to here, thank you for your attention. I only wish the best for my favourite skill in the game.


-HairyLoco

PS. If you want to check out my build, you can import my character in PoB with account name HairyLoco.

Edit: I have as of time of editing cannibalised my character's gear. I can quickly summarize my gear and key stats on them (focusing on offense) to give an idea of what's equipped:

Gear


Gems