Caustic Arrow

1.You're correct, no +damage affects the DOT portion chaos dmg.

2. Correct, the DOT is the cloud only, the Direct Damage is calculated separately.

3. People say it does, I believe it does, there has been no confirmation from the devs and I asked this in my prior feedback post.

4. There's no way to tell, however in my experience the DOT will run it's course, then be refreshed by whatever cloud he's the mob is in.

5. No, the dots never stack even by other people as far as I can tell.

6. Good question, also has been posed but no answers given, I'm gonna speculate that it's fine as it is since it's not overpowered, but it is effective.

7. I've never seen a critical dot, so my experience says no.

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Alegor wrote:

Amplify skill seems to have no effect on chaos DOT? (same summary damage value with and without the skill, Legacy League)

I think this must be a bug rather than working as intended? I am wondering do plain +AoE passives work with it?

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3.Does quantity/rarity bonus affect killing blows by the DoT?

3. People say it does, I believe it does, there has been no confirmation from the devs and I asked this in my prior feedback post.

And i believe it doesn't because it can't!

All support gems added show their effects in the status like to other skills but the "cloud" is just a spawn with fixed stats by the engine. The arrow is modified by the players stats but the "cloud" caused by the arrow can't be modified by the player.

Its the same problem with the minion instability non scaling. If the minion "explodes", it just uses this skill at 35% of its life. The minion spawns a invisible "cloud" and this cloud does instant dmg to all enemys in range.

Reference by Mark to Minion Instability

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The passives you're mentioning increase the fire damage you deal. They do not affect the damage dealt by your minions. When your minions explode, they deal damage to surrounding enemies.

Currently, due to an engine limitation we're going to hopefully get around in future, this damage is not really dealt in the damage system, so is not actually affected by the minion's stats - this will change.

However, stats which increase fire damage you deal will not start affecting damage dealt by your minions.

If the mechanics of both effects are the same, rarity and quantity can't take any effect to the killing blow.

Well if i'm wrong, fine. But this is all what i have learned about the mechanics so far :>

I know, hard to know for sure. I addressed it in my long feedback couple pages back:

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Psomm wrote:

However I would like some clarification on:
Item Quantity / Rarity. Does it work on the DOT portion? Very hard to test. When I test it pure (i.e. no other MF items, just the gem supports) it's not enough to really be able to tell. There's SO many support gems that ONLY work on PA's initial damage, this is something that needs clarified. Currently none of the Leeching, Added Damage, etc works on the DOT, so there's no reason to believe the Item Quantity/Rarity does.

It's worth noting that Gorlak who has been in the alpha and usually is a solid source of information stated that it DOES work on the DOT.

Again, no one knows for certain, and it would be appreciated if a dev would chime in at some point to clarify as it's virtually impossible to test.

I want to give some more feedback to this skill.

My current build is around Poison Arrow and a lot survivability/utility. It wasn't planned, more evolved to this current state. I play on Hardcore League.

My build: Flashiiva the 2nd

My weapon:

The only usefull stat on all the weapons i used was always the +1 GemLevel on them and at least 3 sockets linked to use:

- Poison Arrow
- Pierce
- Multi Projectiles

My wanted bow is a 5 linked to get also quantity/rarity.

My second dmg skill is Firestorm, the dps is increased just by skillduration. Firestorms duration is now 2,5 seconds thats 16 projectiles per cast. I need it just for rares/bosses.

This build can solo caos but its far to slow to be effective. So i just grind Fellshrine Ruins! :>

While playing this character i have two different playstyles:

MF Run:
- poison a cluster of mobs
- cast Vulnerability
- use Firestorm to kill the rare fast
- skeletons if needed

EXP Run:
- rush the mob cluster
- poison them
- run to the next cluster

With this strategy i can grind exp very fast. The mobs die after a short time but instead of waiting for the loot i posion even more clusters. Due the high movement the clusters are fresh spawned and very close together so one shot is enough to poison all.

Positive on this skill

- don't need high dps weapon
- its very safe
- can grind exp very fast
- fixed DoT dps

I like to level my Rangers with this skill. Its save, it doesn't need a uber dps bow and the DoT increases always just by level up. Hit and Run at its finest for HardCore League!

Negative on this skill

- not good for party play
- bad scaling in high levels (reason for no caos)
- low single target dps

I played a lot in parties at level ~10-50.
Compared to the others my dps was always very low and it was always a feel of slacking. The poison wasn't noticeable. The skill doesn't scale well in parties and imo its a solo only skill. But here it also lacks of high end dps to be a good caos grinding skill.
Also there is the question if rarity/quantity works on killing blows by the DoT.

My suggestion to improve it:

- remove the dmg of the cloud
- add to the cloud "Enemys take 20-40% more damage while poisoned" (depends on gem level)
- add to the cloud "reduce caos resistance by x% while poisoned" (depends on gem level)
- increase the percentage of the added caos dmg

With this change the skill would be also good in parties.
And it would have a better scaling with the build and gear. Additionaly it would keep its "poison" as a weakening and not direct damaging component.
Also it would maybe fix the problem with the "does rarity/quantity work on killing blows by the DoT".

Drawback would be the hit and run. But this a good trade off for the better utility and dps because on high level like caos, the poison is a joke right now to kill something just by hit and run. It takes like forever. Right now, i need skeletons and firestorm for caos to kill something in time.
Also party play would be better.

Has anyone a max base dmg build around this skill?
I would like to know how high your single target dps can go up.

Thank you, this clarifies my questions.

So for grinding its better to not use Item Quantity and Item Rarity on Poison Arrow if u want to kill only by the DoT.

For builds with high basedmg its worth, because they kill more likely with the initial hit and less with the DoT.

Well thats good to know :>

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Mark_GGG wrote:

The base stats for increased quantity/rarity of items found apply to all monsters you kill, and will apply to monsters which die from your poison arrow degen.

Thanks Marks,

but so far, when i delibrately use posion DoT to get the last kill on Bosses or Champions, i have not yet encounter a rare drop. Only direct hit kills does.
note: i have a quite a few items with +%rarity find.


Let me test further and feedback to you.


BTW ppl, does it other similar type DoT skills are also the same?

@Mark_GGG

I have a question, i saw that the Support Gem "Added Chaos Damage" had a +%Chaos Damage when the quality is increased.

Does it apply to Poison Arrow DoT if linked ?

Thanks!

It does not apply to the dot, the reason being that the dot doesn't deal damage as of right now. Degeneration can't be affected by anything at the moment.