[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Serleth, thanks for the guide! I'm trying your build and it's one of the best I've played so far. I'm still on a +2 5l and my dps is low at the moment (about 8k tooltip dps) and I'm feeling rather squishy but I'm enjoying the playstyle and mobility.
I've just found a cheap 6l though, and now I can begin the crafting process. I've got a question about sockets color though: why pick the item rarity gem over item quantity? Wouldn't IIQ be better since it also increases currency drop?

The central reason is because this guide is not geared towards Standard or legacy gear. It's meant for new challenge leagues.


That said.


Preference. You can choose IIQ if you want.

I find I get more reliable alterations and recipes completed with IIR. Other people report the opposite. Ultimately, however, more rarity means more uniques than what more quantity will provide. Even if you only drop one good item every two weeks, that's still 2ex more than you had in the bank before, compared to IIQ which would see one good unique every three weeks.

(These time frames are totally arbitrary btw, just illustrating a point).

So over the course of a month and a half, with those arbitrary values, you would see 4ex in uniques with IIQ compared to 6ex in uniques with IIR.

Obviously this is entirely RNG dependant but, over time, I have noticed greater results with IIR than IIQ in the gem slot.

But the more IIR you stack, the more IIQ becomes important.

Because this guide is centered around having a balance between survivability, damage, and good MF, most people will cap around 20/300. 300 IIR is approximately the threshold at which you want to start scaling more than 20% IIQ, but you need to do so WITHOUT losing IIR. Hence, IIR gem gets priority.

If you're willing to say, drop life and resistances off the rare gloves, pick up Cloth & Chain to cover off the resistances, generally be less survivable and run Aurseize, then maybe drop a resistance off the helmet and cover it of elsewhere and get a 40%+ IIR helm so you're sitting closer to 350% IIR (with the IIR gem), you would then be able to drop IIR for IIQ and sit at approximately 56/290. Then it makes sense.

You also have the option of just running Carcass Jack, sacrificing the AoE gem for IIQ and you get the same result.

Again though, this guide is built around the presumption that you're playing in challenge leagues and thereby don't have access to the IIQ gem or any legacy IIQ gear. A lot of new players go into challenge leagues rather than standard and I'm trying to keep this guide accessible to the broader portion of the veteran AND new playerbase, the majority of which are challenge-league players.

Hi,
With the new skills tree, would Shadow or Dualist class be more optimal?

So considering trying out the soon to be heavily nerfed poison arrow instead of kinetic blast this coming league.

Couple of different builds I've considered.

Well rounded with 1 jewel Gives 185% life and 161% evasion and 8% all res.


No Atrophy, 5 jewels Gives 165% life and 197% evasion and 23% all res.

You could also glass cannon up the second one and ditch a ton of evasion to get 71% more projectile damage from the ranger tree. You could also lose a bunch of life nodes as well and get atrophy back while keeping the jewels for 71% more chaos damage. So 142% more damage and 4 more jewels at the cost of dying every time you stub your toe on the map device...I've played worse.

EDIT: Hah glass cannon build has 549% damage before jewels are added but only 49% evasion and 121% life. Potential of over 720% damage with 4 tripple damage jewels plus poachers.

"

Melzas wrote:

So considering trying out the soon to be heavily nerfed poison arrow instead of kinetic blast this coming league.

Couple of different builds I've considered.

Well rounded with 1 jewel Gives 185% life and 161% evasion and 8% all res.


No Atrophy, 5 jewels Gives 165% life and 197% evasion and 23% all res.

You could also glass cannon up the second one and ditch a ton of evasion to get 71% more projectile damage from the ranger tree. You could also lose a bunch of life nodes as well and get atrophy back while keeping the jewels for 71% more chaos damage. So 142% more damage and 4 more jewels at the cost of dying every time you stub your toe on the map device...I've played worse.

How exactly was poison arrow "heavily nerfed"? It seemed like it was just balanced and given more support gems to work with? Maybe I'm missing something.

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Poison Arrow has been renamed to Caustic Arrow as part of the poison changes. The damage of this skill has been increased by around 37% at level 1, but reduced by around 42% by level 20. This reduction is more than compensated for by supporting the skill with the new supports. Caustic Arrow's mana costs have been increased, from 5 to 8 at level one, and from 13 to 16 at level 20.

Jesus.

Well I think you just answered the question of the guy above me, and to continue on that note, the new support gems have to be far more than 42% better than support gems that you currently would use for this build.

The reality is that the new gems probably mean nothing for people that don't have a 6-link since slower projectiles and concentrated effect are still going to be the most effective gems to use. This give you the potential for two more supports on a 5-link which is a reasonable end game for most people. Previously those would probably increased AoE and item rarity. So from the looks of this one of the new supports has to be FAR better than increased AoE to be worth it.

Edit: Stupid math time

if the old PA did 100 damage

old build would do 420 damage
new build would do 278.4 damage

this is based on the numbers found in the first post on page 1 comparing the 2.0 build to the 2.1 build. The new build would have to increase damage by around 630% in order to break even with the old PA.

Heavily nerfed it is. So is PA now joining the ranks of cleave and spectral throw in the dumpster? Yeah I think it is.

Keep in mind "reduced" is not "less", that's going to be key for me being able to predict the Talisman DPS.

Once I figure out how to math that out properly :P If someone wants to assist on how an additive reduction would look like compared to a multiplicative reduction, I can tell you exactly what will or won't be necessary.

Work from a base gem damage of 2833

"

Serleth wrote:

Keep in mind "reduced" is not "less", that's going to be key for me being able to predict the Talisman DPS.

Once I figure out how to math that out properly :P If someone wants to assist on how an additive reduction would look like compared to a multiplicative reduction, I can tell you exactly what will or won't be necessary.

Work from a base gem damage of 2833

2833 is a level 28 gem? Do you really get it that high?

Anyway the reduction of 42% is at gem level 20, the higher you go the worse off you are going to be, so I think that until we see how the gem scales beyond 20 we wont know what were looking at.

That kind of reduction at level 20 would take the 947.42 down to 549.5

I'm guessing that it won't continue to be reduced by more than 42% past level 20, otherwise even with the new support gem and tree options it'd be pointless to play it.

Alright I'm going to watch a couple tv shows then I get into the math but expectation is that with at least one of either Void Manipulation or Rapid Decay, it'll end up being fine.