[2.5] Grocery's Caustic Arrow Scion! HC Viable!

This is a more offensive minded build. For a more defensive minded variant with perma fortify, while still taking decent damage nodes, check out my Duelist Guide here

For a Shadow variant check out my Shadow Trickster guide here

The first thing to note about this build is that it has stacks life, jewel slots and tons of chaos damage/DoT. This build utilizes many of the gems out in 2.1 including void manipulation and rapid decay as well as many other gems that have multiplicative modifiers.

I am sure that this can do Uber Atziri as most poison arrow builds can do it in 2.1. I am currently wearing semi-MF gear so my stats would be even higher if I went for pure damage/defenses and dropped ventor's as well as my other mf pieces. This is a moot point as I am just messing around on Standard while I wait for Perandus.

For leveling, I would go with Searing Bond/Flame Totem. Make sure to pick up CA early and use it if you get a +1 or +2 bow while leveling.

2.2 Video Guide here!

Here is my Youtube Channel where you will find all sorts of guides/boss videos/atziri encounters.

2.2 Talent Tree


The main part of this tree you will see is that I take quite a bit of life 200%+ with 5 jewel sockets which should have life/damage on them. With regards to Ascendance class options, we take 1 ranger Ascendancy class, Deadeye. It gives us quite a bit of damage, an extra projectile and 50% pierce chance. We do not have to run increased AoE because we have 2nd projectile and very high pierce chance (100% with the ascendancy boost and pierce gem)!

Below are online talent tree plans - they are all missing 7 to 9 talent points due to exiletools not being fully up to date

See the Summary for Ascendancies we take below!

Deadeye - Ranger (always taken)
- 50% chance of projectiles Piercing
- 20% increased projectile speed
- fires an additional projectile
- far shot giving 30% increased damage at range (not sure this works with the degen effect of CA

Trickster - Shadow (Optional)
- 30% increased recovery rate of life, mana and ES iuf you have killed an enemy with a DOT recently
- 20% more chance to evade when on full ES
- 20% increased damage when not on full ES
- 100% increased mana regen if you have used a movement skill recently

Occultist - With (Recommended)
- 20% increased maximum ES
- 1% ES regen per second
- cursed enemies have -15% chaos res
- 20% increased damage if you've killed a cursed enemy recently

Please note that I do not take phase acrobatics. Physical Damage is the most dangerous damage type nowadays and that should be avoidable as CA. It is not needed unless you are planning doing Uber Atziri in my opinion. If you are planning on doing Uber, I would either drop a jewel node+a damage node or two and pickup Phase Acro.

My Current Gear on Standard (IDEAL)


My Current Gear on Perandus


Gear Choices/Reasoning


UBER ATZIRI


Gem Choices


Bandits


Videos


More videos will be posted as time goes on!

A 2.2 website "online" skill tree is available too - http://exiletools.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYB

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Tacks98023 wrote:

A 2.2 website "online" skill tree is available too - http://exiletools.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYB

Unfortunately it counts the ascendancy nodes as passives and doesn't give you additional passives for the Scion nodes. As such, it gives you 9 less possible talent points.

This is what I will be using, but foraying into the jewel node below piercing and the chaos nodes at the shadow start. I might drop some life for the shadow chaos nodes until high 90s.

I don't get why you don't just connect your Scion pathing to the duelist area and get a second ascendancy (occultist).

"

IlyaK1986 wrote:

I don't get why you don't just connect your Scion pathing to the duelist area and get a second ascendancy (occultist).

I don't disagree. It is an option and this build will have many of them. Trickster is another good option too.

If the player is using Frenzy GMP Chain Vuln then Occultist is VERY good. It is a playstyle thing. I definitely do it quite a bit, so I would heavily consider it.

I went ahead and added the Occultist and Trickster options. Again, multiple talent points missing due to the way exiletools works vs the offline planner.

Thanks for the heads up!

Hi Grocery, and what about taking "Piercing Shot" nodes, gaining 26% Increased Projectile Damage (106% to 132%), and 50% chance of projectile piercing (50% to 100%). That leave a free socket (assuming that piercing can't give more than 100%), for Slower Projectile. Maybe droping some eva, or life.

Thanks for all :)

Ps: Now i'm running a CA build (in a scion) and want to make the build more OP, we all together can make this much better! :))

Pictures talk more than me.

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Kungisma wrote:

Hi Grocery, and what about taking "Piercing Shot" nodes, gaining 26% Increased Projectile Damage (106% to 132%), and 50% chance of projectile piercing (50% to 100%). That leave a free socket (assuming that piercing can't give more than 100%), for Slower Projectile. Maybe droping some eva, or life.

Thanks for all :)

Ps: Now i'm running a CA build (in a scion) and want to make the build more OP, we all together can make this much better! :))

Pictures talk more than me.

Images

You could definitely do that! I don't plan on it YET because I want to see what pierce is at 20/20. If it is only a minor difference, then we don't need to take those nodes. If it is a big difference we will take the nodes and drop pierce for slower proj.

Remember that the pierce gem gives a more multiplier now, so we would hit 100% pierce and still get a damage boost. the question is whether the damage boost +4 talent points is better than slower proj!

Does playing a scion over a ranger bring something actually useful and important?

With the "ascendant-ranger start" build, it takes only 3 points to fully connect the tree. In this case, 3 points don't seem that much of a benefit of that whole split tree thing.
With the other builds, you get to the ranger starting point anyway, so you could do the exact same thing as a ranger and work your way backwards towards scion area.

So, do you consider the scion ascendancies superior? Deadeye+occultist > pure deadeye?

That perma fortify in your duelist build could be extremely good, but here, I can't see what makes this scion version special.

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Gell wrote:

Does playing a scion over a ranger bring something actually useful and important?

With the "ascendant-ranger start" build, it takes only 3 points to fully connect the tree. In this case, 3 points don't seem that much of a benefit of that whole split tree thing.
With the other builds, you get to the ranger starting point anyway, so you could do the exact same thing as a ranger and work your way backwards towards scion area.

So, do you consider the scion ascendancies superior? Deadeye+occultist > pure deadeye?

That perma fortify in your duelist build could be extremely good, but here, I can't see what makes this scion version special.

I hope this answer is not too all over the place, sorry if it is. Got a lot of thoughts on this, so thanks for the question!

Deadeye with the Scion Ascendancy gives you the 50% projectile piercing (baseline, not based off distance traveled) which can let you get 100% pierce without using the gem and going on the tree for piercingnodes or taking the gem and gaining the 4 points from the tree you would have otherwise taken. This could save you 4 passive points and You keep 100% pierce at all times for your drillneck dps boost.

With the Scion to Ranger start option you save 3 points and a 4th if you want to drop master of the arena. The Deadeye/Occultist will give the most damage, Deadeye/Trickster the most balanced and Deadeye to Ranger the most defensive.

Scion is about options in my opinion. If you have the currency to go HAM on 3/4 prop jewels you can alter the build a bit and get more jewel slots than any other class. I did not want to put that into a tree because it is specific to players with higher levels of currency that we won't have at the start of the league. That is one of the pros of Scion v Ranger.

Further the occultist or trickster mixed with the deadeye is very good.

I don't want to paint this as black or white as this is still theoretical and ranger will still be VERY good. Ranger might be better than the Scion to Ranger start, but I don't know for sure on that. Just trying to be honest.

I prefer Scion (deadeye/occultist) v Ranger. The duelist with perma-fortify is probably my favorite though.

I see. Those jewels could be godly, yes. Guess it all comes down to personal preference and playstyle.