[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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lussiano wrote:

PA nerf confirmed. I'm sad!

From the Development Manifesto:
"Poison Arrow (Nerfed due to new passives and supports now working with it)
Because we've introduced a whole new set of Chaos Damage passives and supports, Poison Arrow's damage has been reduced to bring it in line with other skills when it makes good use of the new support gems and passives. It has also been renamed to Caustic Arrow."

So, the developers' intent seems to be to make the new Caustic Arrow damage as good as Poison Arrow currently is, when CA is augmented by the new set of passives and supports. Whether or not they've succeeded in this goal (perhaps it will be stronger or weaker) remains to be seen.
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As an aside, I wish that GGG would implement all these changes a few days before the start of the new leagues in order to give players a chance to figure out builds/leveling tactics.

will you update the tree before talisman starts? and do you think pa will still be the best solo/party mf skill after 2.1?

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hankinsohl wrote:

"

lussiano wrote:

PA nerf confirmed. I'm sad!

From the Development Manifesto:
"Poison Arrow (Nerfed due to new passives and supports now working with it)
Because we've introduced a whole new set of Chaos Damage passives and supports, Poison Arrow's damage has been reduced to bring it in line with other skills when it makes good use of the new support gems and passives. It has also been renamed to Caustic Arrow."

So, the developers' intent seems to be to make the new Caustic Arrow damage as good as Poison Arrow currently is, when CA is augmented by the new set of passives and supports. Whether or not they've succeeded in this goal (perhaps it will be stronger or weaker) remains to be seen.
=======

As an aside, I wish that GGG would implement all these changes a few days before the start of the new leagues in order to give players a chance to figure out builds/leveling tactics.

Yeah. I like the heads-up, but one thing we know: it's still going to work with our build.
I've just very quickly scanned the new imgur pics from the tree, there lots of new regen / chaos damage in our sector (shadow, ranger) which in turn could make our tree less spread and thus easier to spec. Not seen the entire tree, gotta head to work soon.

@ Flawlicity yes, I'm sure Serleth is going to add new tree spec as he always delivers ;-)
we don't know if this is 'the best' yet, remains to be seen. It won't be for party tho, this is mainly a solo mapper build.

I'm still reading through the manifesto post but the bottom line is the nerf probably isn't significant, just enough to compensate for the scaling options introduced with the supports and the tree.

Until we see the patch note (Tuesday-ish), we won't really have a good idea of how bad it's been hit. But I wouldn't worry about it that much.

I will have an Offline Skill Tree available before Friday.

You can find the latest release of the program here:

https://github.com/EmmittJ/PoESkillTree/releases/tag/2.2.3

http://exiletools.com/passive-skill-tree/

trackpete composed an online tree, maybe better for posting, but worse for comparing values since there's no summary of stats.

I also think we're staying well with CA / PA in Talisman. Perhaps the switch to our mainskill will be a tad later due to more passives and less power from gem itself.

I'm thinking about the levelling much more at the moment, flamebrotem gets the hammer, humm

Yeah but now you can Searing Bond + Flame Totem + PA.

:P

2.0 Base Stats (extra jewel socket, level 95 tree)

151% life
3.6% regen
10% all res
169% proj damage
40% mana regen
79% chaos damage
62% DoT

2.1 Sketch #1: (Takes as similar a pathing route as possible)

152% life
5% regen
18% all res
145% proj damage
60% mana regen
74% chaos damage
99% DoT

This is suboptimal. Its best improvement is the additional mana regeneration, life regeneration and only sees an 8% increase in damage. This version is basically scrapped, it was my first sketch. This includes me taking the additional Scion jewel, which I needed to grab for resistances more than anything to get Carcass Jack working. Offline planner link if you want to see it just for comparison purposes. DO NOT USE THIS FOR 2.1. I'm just posting this so you can see my planning process if you're interested.

Sketch #2

152% life
3.6% life regen
18% all res
115% proj damage
40% mana regeneration
94% chaos damage
117% DoT

This tree retains that extra jewel socket I took. The downside is that we don't cover off Blood Rage anymore, but otherwise it's better overall with an additional 16% damage compared to the 2.0 tree and less sacrificed in general. It's important to note that this tree doesn't take Growth and Decay and instead goes to grab Dirty Techniques down in Duelist. It's a bit more travel, but it's better damage for the points involved. Growth and Decay just has awkward pathing to get to now, as Sniper basically has two worthless travel points unless you're going CI. Which we aren't.

All told though, this is a decent option. The net damage is 326%.

2.1 Sketch #3

147% life
5.0 regeneration
10% all res
115% proj damage
40% mana regeneration
74% chaos damage
169% DoT

This is easily the best base sketch of them all, as far as damage goes. It removes the jewel socket, but allows us to retain 5% life regeneration to cover off blood rage and has a net damage of 358% (compared to 2.0's 310%), which I'm guessing should cover whatever nerf is coming to CA. The cost is 5% life, but the 1.4% extra regeneration makes it a bit more survivable in most situations.


I have a feeling 2.1 is going to be a lot more juggling for players under level 90 for this build. It's pretty clear Dirty Techniques is the better way to go, instead of Growth and Decay, which I would say is the last raw damage cluster we would add. Depending on the potency of the a jewel you roll (3x damage mods) it would probably still be better to grab that last jewel socket rather than pick up Growth and Decay, unless you really want that life regeneration.

I'll continue playing around with ideas, because now there's a chaos damage cluster up in Witch (that's where they moved Corruption), so we may end up heading there instead, which would allow us to grab some AoE off the tree as well.

For Sketch #3 which looks very promising we could exchange a single 5% lifenode for Nullification above Fangs of Viper, resulting in +8% allres and +15% Evasion retaining the 5% life too.

Yeah if you need the resistances. Makes running Carcass Jack easier.

I'm still trying to find a way that makes sense to take Atrophy but I don't think it's worth going for at the cost of duelist area's life, regen + jewel socket, which is about the only section that seems to come close making sense to drop.

It's also not worth removing anything else like Frenzy charges or whatever just to get a base increase in damage.

Jewels OpieOP.

Honestly though if we weren't doing an MF build I wouldn't even go to Scion anymore. I'd stop at the jewel socket between duelist/ranger on the way to scion.

The damage reduction of the projectile damage nodes from 8% to 6% leading into that jewel socket almost makes the traveling not worth it. But jewel sockets are key for resistances in order to run dual Andvarius so... for MFing, I can't see a way to back out of it reasonably, at least not quickly. There's too much gained on the way (10% all res, access to constitution, 2 jewel sockets).

I'll keep plugging away at it.

I'm also working on a Witch-pathing variant that will be significantly less jewel dependant. Not sure if I'm a fan of that though.


There's Sketch #4, which is a 4-socket version that takes Atrophy

148% life
5% life regen
23% all res
103% proj damage
40% mana regen
145% chaos
169% dot

Total damage 417%

Sketches 1 & 2 are 8-jewel, Sketch 3 is 7-jewel. Just for comparison. This Atrophy version is 4-jewel. Lots of missing opportunities for resistances / life, though most of the damage gets covered off from the tree instead. One point difference for that extra all-res though, like you mentioned.

Pretty sure I prefer going more heavily jewel-based, but I think this is a solid workup for something pre-jewel or early "average" jewel. Then spec out of Atrophy into Sketch #3 later on.

did u think about switching PA to the new chaos-skill + trap ?

something like that ?

Contagion - Trap - Trap and Mine Damage - Controlled Destruction - Void Manipulation - Rapid Decay

we should be able to still play heavy chaos-clouds with def-gear + mf in a even more powerfull build ?

I was considering it, especially given the cooldown recovery that's been added to the tree for trappers, but until I get a chance to actually playtest it I'm not going to endorse a switch to it. We simply don't know enough about the skill yet.

Therefore, "more powerful" isn't necessarily true. GGG's taken a much more conservative approach with skills recently, introducing them at lower power levels and then buffing them, rather than introducing them overtuned then nerfing them (which usually causes a community backlash).

So my suspicion is that Contagion will actually be weak on release.