[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

nicebuild

As my build stands right now, level 86, I have 25/302 on my flame totem+cull, about 20k tooltip dps with 5 frenzy charges up, and just under 4k hp with much of the Scion hp wheel taken.

I'm pretty satisfied with the build, not building wealth super quickly, but with patience it will come.

I can't come anywhere near affording a 21/20 PA gem yet, or a 6L +3 bow... but once again, that will come with time. I'm leveling 2 extra PA gems so I can use the vendor recipe to get Q20 gems, re-level them, and try to corrupt them to L21 myself.

I've had to use jewels to cap some of my resists, with 2x Andvarius, resist are REALLY stretched thin... so I'm just barely above 75%. I don't see any way I can reach 113%, so I just avoid maps with -% elemental resists, and try to focus on magic monster and pack size. I'm considering dropping 2 life nodes to pick up Cloth&Chain, maybe with that I can drop resists off my jewels and pick up a bit more damage?

I do run into mana issues sometimes, especially with -20% regen affix on maps, but it's not THAT big of a deal with some kiting and careful management.

I'd like to pick the 10%projectile damage nodes up again, which will happen as I level - for right now I feel better having the extra HP.

Do we have any idea yet how badly this build will be nerfed on Dec 11th, or in Ascension?

Any other advice for where I stand right now?

Thanks for the excellent guide, as a new player I REALLY appreciate it.

"

SpidaFly wrote:

As my build stands right now, level 86, I have 25/302 on my flame totem+cull, about 20k tooltip dps with 5 frenzy charges up, and just under 4k hp with much of the Scion hp wheel taken.

I'm pretty satisfied with the build, not building wealth super quickly, but with patience it will come.

I can't come anywhere near affording a 21/20 PA gem yet, or a 6L +3 bow... but once again, that will come with time. I'm leveling 2 extra PA gems so I can use the vendor recipe to get Q20 gems, re-level them, and try to corrupt them to L21 myself.

I've had to use jewels to cap some of my resists, with 2x Andvarius, resist are REALLY stretched thin... so I'm just barely above 75%. I don't see any way I can reach 113%, so I just avoid maps with -% elemental resists, and try to focus on magic monster and pack size. I'm considering dropping 2 life nodes to pick up Cloth&Chain, maybe with that I can drop resists off my jewels and pick up a bit more damage?

I do run into mana issues sometimes, especially with -20% regen affix on maps, but it's not THAT big of a deal with some kiting and careful management.

I'd like to pick the 10%projectile damage nodes up again, which will happen as I level - for right now I feel better having the extra HP.

Do we have any idea yet how badly this build will be nerfed on Dec 11th, or in Ascension?

Any other advice for where I stand right now?

Thanks for the excellent guide, as a new player I REALLY appreciate it.

I did have a look at your gear that you are using atm. You are leveling 2 PA gems in your gloves. While you don't have any weapons/shields in your second weapon slot.
Did you know that gems also level in the second weapon slot ? This way you are not only able to level up more gems but it will also free up a possible 4-link in your gloves.

"

SpidaFly wrote:

As my build stands right now, level 86, I have 25/302 on my flame totem+cull, about 20k tooltip dps with 5 frenzy charges up, and just under 4k hp with much of the Scion hp wheel taken.

I'm pretty satisfied with the build, not building wealth super quickly, but with patience it will come.

I've had to use jewels to cap some of my resists, with 2x Andvarius, resist are REALLY stretched thin... so I'm just barely above 75%. I don't see any way I can reach 113%, so I just avoid maps with -% elemental resists, and try to focus on magic monster and pack size. I'm considering dropping 2 life nodes to pick up Cloth&Chain, maybe with that I can drop resists off my jewels and pick up a bit more damage?

I do run into mana issues sometimes, especially with -20% regen affix on maps, but it's not THAT big of a deal with some kiting and careful management.

Do we have any idea yet how badly this build will be nerfed on Dec 11th, or in Ascension?

Any other advice for where I stand right now?

Thanks for the excellent guide, as a new player I REALLY appreciate it.

First, thanks man. I worked really hard to try and keep the guide accessible for new players so that they could jump right into the game and feel comfortable following my work, so I'm glad it's panning out for you. =)

I'll just kind of address things in order here.

a) Those are pretty good numbers for flame totem, but the sort of "slow and steady" wealth increase you're probably feeling is likely in part because it is in Standard league, which has been around for ages and also serves as something of a dumping ground for temporary leagues. What this translates into is that most players have their builds in Standard completed, meaning it's tougher to move items.

If you're comfortable rerolling in Talisman when it comes out, you'll notice it'll be much easier to sell items as everybody starts at 0 in a fresh economy and will look for incremental upgrades.

As for resistances, that's fairly normal as you're building the character but I noticed you sacrificed quite a bit on your helmet in order to get that 48% IIR. I think it's fine to have that until you get your bow 6L'd but at that point you should definitely swap the helmet for one that gives you life and a secondary resistance.

You're also not running any resistances on your amulet, which is by far the easiest upgrade for you to make right now. For that reason, I would advise you to stay away from Cloth and Chain until at least you upgrade your amulet and see where your resistances are at then.

Based on your gear my guess is the mana issues are largely because you're running Purity of Elements. What regearing to get better resistances on gear (tri-res belt, dual res + life + int + IIR helmet, and a gold amulet with life + explicit IIR + at least one resistance) will allow you to do is drop Purity for Clarity. At which point you'll see your mana issues completely disappear.

In turn what THAT will allow you to do is drop Primal Spirit and instead path fully through Heart of Oak, getting you two extra points to either invest in life or damage.

Lastly, once you feel you're done leveling the character, regardless of what your resistances are, I would advise you to not roll over -max res% maps. It's one of the most profitable affixes you can run, giving 18% IIQ, 9% IIR and 16% pack size. One of the central advantages of this build is that it can run virtually every map mod.

In a completed build with life on all non-unique pieces, you should end up with 4.8-5k life which is more than enough to run -max maps without feeling threatened anyway, excepting the occasional boss. Especially once you get used to flask timing and have good monster awareness.

What I advise you to do to get comfortable with certain mods is when you find a map affix you normally wouldn't run right now, put that map off to the side and wait until your next level. Then run it. If you die, no biggie, you aren't going to lose much XP anyway. That way you'll start to get a better sense of how hard certain map mods are for your current life pool and power level.


As for the nerfs, all indications from the developers right now is that PA won't get a nerf for December 11th. Or at least not a significant one. We'll know in about 7-8 days or so when they release the patch notes, but I'm confident in saying this build will survive until at least the end of Talisman.

After that, who knows. But given the investment required in order to get PA good at clearing high-level content, in conjunction with the fact that other OpieOP builds like CoC Mjolner discharge haven't been touched in forever... I find it hard to believe they'd really do anything about PA before addressing other glaring issues in power creep first.

I heard someone say that Poison Arrow gets a nerf in the upcoming patch. He even stated that he read it somewhere.

Does anyone know if this is true ? And should we be worried about this build ?

Nothing has been confirmed as of yet regarding a PA nerf. Whoever said that, was lying/speculating.

We'll know more when the patch notes come early next week (on schedule to be released Tuesday NA, Wednesday NZ).

"

Serleth wrote:

Nothing has been confirmed as of yet regarding a PA nerf. Whoever said that, was lying/speculating.

We'll know more when the patch notes come early next week (on schedule to be released Tuesday NA, Wednesday NZ).

That was what I thought thanks for the check.
What are your thoughts on a PA nerf ? What will become of this build if it does ?

Until we see the patch notes /shrug

Historically they don't reactively nerf-hammer builds that have only been meta for one challenge league, as is the case with PA. They usually give at least two challenge leagues before nerfing them. (Flameblast, for example).

And take a look at how long SRS and Incinerate have been meta. Incinerate's only just getting a nerf (confirmed) with this patch.

Wouldn't expect anything more than a reversal of the 10% base damage increase it got mid-Beta. Should be fine.

But like I said, we'll see come Tuesday. I'll throw something together real quick if I have to.

We'll get the tree on Sun / Mon, then the patchnotes Tue / Wed, after that we know for sure.

All the "X gets nerfed" or "Y gets buffed" is kinda just fear / trolling, except for maybe Incinerate, Chris explitely stated something in line of "should get adjusted". What you always can do is research some alternatives as I do. 'Cause you never know :)

Yeah, his exact words about Incinerate was that it had a "silly power level." You could pretty much steamroll content in a 3L +2 Fire Sceptre.

PA's not like that. That's one of the central reasons I don't think it's going to get heavily adjusted. It's good in a +2 bow, but it's not really GREAT until 21/20 in a +3 with Drillneck. Requires a significant amount more investment than 2.0's Incinerate, SRS, Fakener builds, etc.