[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Just got told I'm dumb for using conc+inc aoe over pierce+IIR in a 6l setup - what do you think? I'm currently using the links you recommended in the op (except with an IIQ gem instead of IIR) and am curious if its worth recoloring my sockets to fit in pierce. I was under the impression that the clear speed of conc+aoe was going to increase my income better than IIR in mid tier maps.

(I didn't read through all 200 pages so sorry if this has been asked)

Any rough idea of what a "budget" version would do in terms of damage? I'm debating trying PA in the next 5 week league before they change everything about poison. Since I play mostly solo self found**, I won't have access to a +1/+2 6link bow, empower, 20% quality gems, level 21 corrupted versions and 50ex jewels. Last time I tried PA was before 1.3 and it was absolutely horrible up to level 60, at which point I had stopped playing for a reason I can't remember.

Don't need exact figures but I'm curious if by level 75 with a 5link I'll do 7k dps or if I'll do like 15k. Is there a spreadsheet for damage since PA is fairly linear?

**for solo self found, I'll buy something if it's absolutely necessary, but not trading means I have little currency to buy anything. For example, I bought the LMP jewel for totems in the 1month for like 5c because it's required for the build.

"

Nexi wrote:

Just got told I'm dumb for using conc+inc aoe over pierce+IIR in a 6l setup - what do you think? I'm currently using the links you recommended in the op (except with an IIQ gem instead of IIR) and am curious if its worth recoloring my sockets to fit in pierce. I was under the impression that the clear speed of conc+aoe was going to increase my income better than IIR in mid tier maps.

Whoever told you that doesn't understand the difference between "more" damage and "increased damage."

In order, your gem links should be PA - Slower Projectiles - AoE - Conc Effect - Empower - IIR

If you're following the guide to the letter and using Poacher's Aim for one of your jewel sockets, Pierce is only providing you with a 35% increase in damage. If you wanted to, you COULD drop AoE for Pierce, but I wouldn't recommend doing so unless you're also running Carcass Jack and even then, I find the extra AoE boost extremely beneficial for clear speed and improving the build's ability to "fire and forget," allowing you to fire a shot and move on to the next pack while things die, simultaneously keeping an eye on the drops that fall behind you. Without AoE, I find the build is slowed down significantly while you refire shots for mobs that you've missed.

To clarify the difference between more and increased:

Let's say you have 1,000 base damage, and 100% increased damage modifiers. Increased damage modifiers are all added together first before they're applied, so with the Pierce gem you would end up with 100% + 35% = 135% increased damage:

1,000 * (1 + 135%/100)
1,000 * 2.35
2,350 dps

With Concentrated Effect, the damage is factored in AFTER the increased damage modifiers, instead of added to them. Let's say your CE is at 50% more damage, for sake of easy math, and you're not using Pierce so your increased modifiers are back to the 100%.

[1,000 * (1 + 100%/100)] * (1 + 50%/100)
(1,000 * 2) * 1.5
2,000 * 1.5
3,000 dps

So yeah. That guy's an idiot. Conc Effect wins, all day.

Maybe he doesn't understand that CE's damage boost doesn't reflect on the tooltip damage? Known bug, but it's just a tooltip issue. The actual damage is still being modified.

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Namcap wrote:

Any rough idea of what a "budget" version would do in terms of damage?

https://vmoddin.wordpress.com/poisonarrow/

You can calculate it yourself here.

"

Namcap wrote:

(I didn't read through all 200 pages so sorry if this has been asked)

Any rough idea of what a "budget" version would do in terms of damage? I'm debating trying PA in the next 5 week league before they change everything about poison. Since I play mostly solo self found**, I won't have access to a +1/+2 6link bow, empower, 20% quality gems, level 21 corrupted versions and 50ex jewels. Last time I tried PA was before 1.3 and it was absolutely horrible up to level 60, at which point I had stopped playing for a reason I can't remember.

Don't need exact figures but I'm curious if by level 75 with a 5link I'll do 7k dps or if I'll do like 15k. Is there a spreadsheet for damage since PA is fairly linear?

**for solo self found, I'll buy something if it's absolutely necessary, but not trading means I have little currency to buy anything. For example, I bought the LMP jewel for totems in the 1month for like 5c because it's required for the build.

on budget u will get around 9-10k dps (in description) (+2 in a 5L, gem lvl 18-19)(crappy mf gear (no andvarius just rare mf)

"

Serleth wrote:

So yeah. That guy's an idiot. Conc Effect wins, all day.

Thanks for explaining it! I appreciate it a lot :)

One thing I have been trying to do for a while is plan out a version of your (final) tree that's a bit more efficient. One thing we both know is that jewels are incredible, but I don't think you quite go ham enough on them. For example, we take a bunch of +10% projectile damage nodes around the tree, but don't take the jewel node proceeded by two +4% proj damage nodes. If we respec out of those +10% nodes and take the jewel, we only need to get +22% damage on the jewel. Anything beyond that makes it worth it. This is really easy to do, even if you are just crafting your own mediocre jewels.

The same idea translates into other parts of the tree too, although it depends on how good your jewels are. The chaos wheels are all pretty trashy - for example, the Entropy wheel is only giving us 9% damage per point spent. If you spec out of that, you get 5 points. Spec out of Master of the Arena and you have 6 points. Spend those on the two nearby jewel nodes, fit in good jewels, and you can gain something like +10% life in trade for -1% regen while retaining the same or better damage.

There's a lot of weird stuff like that, another thing I managed to do was trade 5% life, and 1% regen for +5% MS and the entire Acrobatics wheel by avoiding method to the madness (and its nearby jewel slot) altogether. It just comes down to how great your jewels are.

Yeah a lot of that min-max efficiency stuff is for pushing beyond level 88. The only reason I don't do it is because this guide is meant to be achievable for decent players with average playtime investment, which typically runs anywhere between level 80 and level 90.

It's the 90+ tree that's able to get that efficiency sorted.

Regen's there for Blood Rage and that's not optional for the way I've put together the guide. If you aren't using BR, then yeah, you can drop MotA but otherwise it stays.

The top right chaos cluster is largely about the intelligence nodes you get on the way, which ends up freeing an affix on jewel slots or gear. You would otherwise need to get int on jewels/gear in order to compensate for the lost intelligence and that means you're sacrificing possible damage/iir/resistance slots. So for the MF build, that's also not optional.


Keep in mind a lot of this guide is to cater to those without as in-depth an understanding of the game and the small tradeoffs they can do to min-max the potential of the build. I'm trying to make the guide as accessible as possible, which means sacrificing some efficiency in order to make it easier to follow and, less expensive. As you say, a lot of it comes down to GG jewels and that gets hefty on the Wraeclastian Savings Account.

Yeah, more points make stuff like the above extra easy, but in the examples I gave I was making sure I wasn't spending anything more than you had already allocated. Still, it makes sense that you want it to be easy to follow and not made just for those with GG jewels.

Is mota really required for blood rage? I know that having it allows you to keep it up without any real degen, but I'm not entirely sure how much -1% degen is actually going to impact us in terms of effective health. I've gotten away with -2 and even -3% degen before, but I've never tried it on a character that can't leach. Maybe you're right and dropping it is too harsh on our hp.

One thing I did see is that we actually could drop the Soul Siphon cluster for the Primal Spirit cluster. We lose -5 MGoK and 3% max mana, but gain +20 int, +20 str, 20% mana regen, and 20% flask charges gained. This is probably a good idea to do even if you don't need the extra stats, but it goes a long way towards fixing any stat issues we might have. We could take it a step further and get the 8% mana node behind it, which allows us to spec out of the 15% stun recovery node behind Heart of Oak.

You literally cannot spec out of the stun recovery node. You need Heart of Oak for the 1% regen, for the same reason dropping MotA isn't an option. There's no other way to get access to Heart of Oak.

When you can't leech, dropping that regen ends up being a big deal when that degen stacks with a crit puncture or you get vuln cursed at the wrong moment, etc. Can't tell you how many times I've dropped to sub-500 health and without the extra regen there for when degenerative effects stack, those last-second saves would be regrettable rips.

It's all about buying time for your flasks, and to keep your flask charges up. Otherwise you'd have to constantly spam at least one life flask.

As for MGoK, it's more of a playstyle preference I guess but if you want to run three life flasks and two utility flasks, then dropping Soul Siphon isn't an option. Just run a 60% reduced recovery map. You'll see why. Without Soul Siphon, you'd need to carry a mana flask with you. If you're running a level 81 map and don't have Soul Siphon for the MGoK, you're forced to drop a granite... which you don't want to do in high tier maps, and that means you'd have to spend chaos rerolling the map. Which ends up being a currency sink. So as you can see, multiple reasons to keep Soul Siphon. But like I said, if you're fine carrying a mana flask instead, then so be it, it's a reasonable option to do as long as you're okay with one less utility flask slot.

You can drop that node because you no longer need Heart of Oak's last node to link up the rest of your tree. Here's the tree, for some visualization:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwIAAF4A7gMeBS0FtQYjCC4M8g-rFSAWvxmKGY4ZtBvIH0Ej9iSLJJ0mlSpNKlss6S2DLlMwfDWSNj031D7PPydDMUM2RwZHfkkTSshNklFHUq9S7FVLWhpaUmHiYlpirGVNZ_xsCGyMbWxuaW6qdO11y3aCefZ7w311gl6ExYTZhrOJ4I19jX6Nv5MflwabjZu1naqhIqJApcuomrTFtNG18re2u029Nr3mvqfC7MMzwzrEosgM0NDTb9N-1CPV-Ni92sHb591f35jjhOZY6mLtP-2D73rxivT49qP-ug==

You're still keeping the heart of oak notable, you're just swapping out a 15% stun recovery node for an 8% mana node. You can only do this if you go with Primal Spirit instead of Soul Siphon, though.

-60%/no regen maps can be a problem, yes, but I don't think it makes sense to drop 20 str, 20 int, 20% flask charges gained, 20% mana regen, and 5% max mana just so you don't have to go through the effort of swapping one of your life flasks for a mana flask during the rare -60/no regen map run. Especially given we're playing MF anyway, so it's not like we'll be constantly running top tier maps where -60% regen is even possible.

Misinterpreted you there, my bad (re: Oak).

You don't need the strength, nor the flask charges, or the max mana. The regen would only be significantly beneficial and enough to offset the lack of MGoK if you also ran a higher level Clarity, so basically the extra max mana is negated anyway.

So you're pretty much only gaining slightly easier gearing options with the +20 int, compared to not ever needing a mana flask with Soul Siphon. Which when you want to run dual Quicksilvers, as an example, is a drastic improvement on your clear speed. It shaves off literal minutes from maps where you have to backtrack through areas. Even the extra flask charges gained doesn't offset those moments.

With Soul Siphon, the options are much wider. Like how you can run a significantly lower level Clarity, or outdrop DROP Clarity in favour of something like Artic Armour. MGoK also makes running no-regen maps significantly easier. You would need to run a mana flask for emergency situations but you'd barely touch it as long as the pack density was reasonable. Which means charges aren't ever an issue, either. And even with the extra flask charges gained, if you didn't have MgOK, you'd probably want to run two mana flasks just in case you had to spam shots.

Trust me, bud. I've thought this through. The benefits of the MgoK far outweigh Primal Spirit. It just opens up way more options and generally makes life WAY easier than to not have it. The only tradeoff is the intelligence requirement factor. Otherwise Soul Siphon is better in every way possible.