Chaos Acolyte [Poison Arrow, Viper Strike, Shock] [IR/EB/MoM/AA] Potential 1.2.0 Tree in Latest Post

Sure, you could do that as long as you have a fast enough base attack speed. It's really just a matter of preference.

With a level 17+ gem you get 12% chance to blind on hit. With the 4 hits it takes to give maximum Viper Charges to an enemy, you have 57.4% cumulative chance to Blind it. That's actually pretty damn good!

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Iao wrote:

Sure, you could do that as long as you have a fast enough base attack speed. It's really just a matter of preference.

With a level 17+ gem you get 12% chance to blind on hit. With the 4 hits it takes to give maximum Viper Charges to an enemy, you have 57.4% cumulative chance to Blind it. That's actually pretty damn good!

Was looking at its potential for things like kole. With the high armour, the altered build (disc+training in templar too good to pass up), and with blind + enfeeble (instead of temp chains) you get very good blind on enemies. The frenzy charges give you plenty of aspd, my +1/0 sword atm is 1.6 base which gives me 0.18 aspd, so even in a group I get 4 charges on things very quickly, and with blind I can poison arrow spam, vuln, stick totem and facetank so my totem doesn't die while just spamming the multiviper.

I found the totem seems to be a better option for shock, with arc, simply because it is fire and forget, and because casting it myself the cast speed is too slow and I find I am mostly trying to combo to keep things up for degen

Alright, this seems like it'd be the optimal skill tree for level 90 after careful consideration. That is, if one doesn't take Unwavering Stance and goes the Blind route. One could also remove some life nodes and take the life regeneration nodes in the Golem's Blood cluster, depending on preference.

Personally I'd wait until I had a perfect weapon before I'd replace Faster Attacks with Blind. It's pretty damn hard to find a claw/dagger/sword (especially two-handed sword, which will be optimal when support gems come along that are good for Viper Strike) with high enough base attack speed along with +1 to Gems and +2 to Melee Gems-- mostly because not many people use Viper Strike as a main skill. I've only ever seen one being sold and just about no one crafts them. You'd have to spend a bunch of currency on Scourings/Alterations/Regals, but at least you won't have to use Exalts/Chaos/Eternals.

About proliferating Shock: I like using Shock Nova because it usually takes a maximum of two casts, but using a totem does indeed make things easier when you start also needing to use Frenzy because of Death's Oath. I haven't tried it as of late (I haven't been playing much at all) but will definitely level my Arc further to do so.

So I take it you've made a character using this kind of build. What level are you thus far? How do you like the gameplay?

I'm at alow level still, 46, cruel act 3.

Been fairly breezy through content. Feel that dps is lower than a build, but at the same time item requirements are lower.

Currently using a +1 silverbranch (anarchy) and a +1 dagger, so will be looking for upgrades around level 50+ where the +3 can roll, but I have noticed +3 bows are selling for exalteds or more based on the item being used for EA builds.

I feel in terms of builds this is better, as it grabs the extra frenzy charge which really helps with the regen, though grabbing the frenzy charge would be last thing you would do

Linky

It grabs the same amount of health (on the right instead) and will give you better regen, while not wasting as many points around the start area

Yeah it can be a little slow, but it picks up a ton when you get higher gem levels and can reliably keep enemies Vulnerable and Shocked. With the perfect equipment for the build you can easily solo maps.

As for the kind of bows needed, yeah they're pretty expensive. Luckily you don't need as many sockets/links for Poison Arrow, though.

I go the Strength route because Dexterity is useless to the build other than for requirements because Resolute Technique and Iron Reflexes. You got about as much life and another Frenzy Charge but also gave up Inner Force, which I think to still be a worthwhile investment.

If you don't take Inner Force, you could use a tree like this and have only -0.2% life regeneration but +18% increased maximum life and 50 more Strength (+37 base maximum life with Duelist's Strength entry node and +10% increased spell damage with Iron Will).

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Iao wrote:

Yeah it can be a little slow, but it picks up a ton when you get higher gem levels and can reliably keep enemies Vulnerable and Shocked. With the perfect equipment for the build you can easily solo maps.

As for the kind of bows needed, yeah they're pretty expensive. Luckily you don't need as many sockets/links for Poison Arrow, though.

I go the Strength route because Dexterity is useless to the build other than for requirements because Resolute Technique and Iron Reflexes. You got about as much life and another Frenzy Charge but also gave up Inner Force, which I think to still be a worthwhile investment.

If you don't take Inner Force, you could use a tree like this and have only -0.2% life regeneration but +18% increased maximum life and 50 more Strength (+37 base maximum life with Duelist's Strength entry node and +10% increased spell damage with Iron Will).

50 str vs 70 dex isn't very significant a difference. I just grabbed the HP nodes on the right because they were on the chain, with a 10%er. Overall though, your build is spending points to get +10 str nodes which aren't really that great as its flat health. Sure, its more valuable than the dex, but overall I feel the extra skill poinmts could be used on a +str notable to get similar output if you really wanted it

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Real_Wolf wrote:

50 str vs 70 dex isn't very significant a difference. I just grabbed the HP nodes on the right because they were on the chain, with a 10%er. Overall though, your build is spending points to get +10 str nodes which aren't really that great as its flat health. Sure, its more valuable than the dex, but overall I feel the extra skill poinmts could be used on a +str notable to get similar output if you really wanted it

We're comparing tree routes using the same amount of points, though. I also even put a point into an +30 Intelligence notable to make up for the amount lost when removing Inner Force and the path to it.

Speaking of Inner Force, you accidentally kept a node that leads to it in your tree. Even if you take that point and used it on a life node, you would still have -12% increased maximum life compared to my version.

Also, how is flat life not great? The 37 I mentioned previously is ramped up to +125 maximum life with the increases, which is pretty significant.

There's also the fact that if you were to use your tree you'd have to trek through a bunch of Dexterity nodes at the beginning of the game and wait until later to put points into anything useful, making for a worse leveling experience.

Do you know if, with the new Voltaxic Rift bow, the chaos DoT effects will cause shock as well?
If so it would be incredibly easy to triple shock stack everything you are near or that is in a cloud. If thats the case then I REALLY want to make a build around this.

Degeneration cannot inflict Shock because technically it doesn't hit, and the initial hits of the skills are too weak to inflict Shock anyways. It'd be better to use a bow that provides +1 to Gems and +2 to Bow Gems, as those 3 extra levels provide an additional 352 Chaos damage per second (from 676.5 to 1028.5). It is also already quite easy to inflict and proliferate Shock on enemies with Shock Nova or Arc.

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Degeneration cannot inflict Shock because technically it doesn't hit, and the initial hits of the skills are too weak to inflict Shock anyways. It'd be better to use a bow that provides +1 to Gems and +2 to Bow Gems, as those 3 extra levels provide an additional 352 Chaos damage per second (from 676.5 to 1028.5). It is also already quite easy to inflict and proliferate Shock on enemies with Shock Nova or Arc.

Ah okay. I still kinda wanna make a chaos degen build and try out that bow.