[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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flipser wrote:

Is Projectile Damage still working with CA? It does not show up in the gem description.

Yes. Rory confirmed a while ago they would not change that mechanic for this patch.

What does this mean for the future of this build? The damage nerf is gonna hit hard the clearspeed hard as hell :(

Edit: Looked into it abit more and should be more than viable with the new gem setup, correct? :)

Preface: These 2.1 values are from Vmoddin's calculator, which is close to finished, but may not be 100%.



Ahem


Let's put it this way.

The 2.0 build was considered "finished and high-tier farmable" (so, 78-81 maps, Atziri, etc.) with a level 20 PA and an Empower level 3.

Actual DPS at that point in the 2.0 build was ~35,000.

Hell, you could have Atziri on farm with 10-15k less than that.



With the 2.1 tree, if you have a 21 PA and Empower 3 and run Rapid Decay in your 6L, you have ~37,000 with one Wither stack.

Replace Rapid Decay with IIR (and have one Wither stack up), you're looking at ~26k dps. Which is still Atziri farmable.

Each Wither stack adds a little bit less than 2k dps. So if you REALLY need to for boss fights, Wither covers you off, no problem.

Wither has a cast speed of 0.25 seconds, and the duration a stack lasts is two seconds. So without ANY increased cast speed, you can generate up to 8 Wither stacks before the first stack disappears.

That's a 12k dps increase. With the IIR gem slotted in.

Now turn that into Empower 4, you get 42k dps. Which is only 6k dps shy of a totally finished 2.0 build.

So really, for everything else other than chaos resistant mobs, of which there are only two that you'll run into consistently, I really don't see what the problem's going to be. It's logistically slightly slower, but in terms of actual damage dealt at cap when necessary, the PA nerf (for the MF build) is only actually about 12.5%. Yes, Wither stacks need to be up, but there you go.

I imagine the damage is actually BETTER for PA users running a full dps setup. It'll probably be about ~12% less without Wither stacks, but then blow the shit out of the water with the stacks up.

Of course it's not as fun as it was before, pretty much just afk entire rooms but /shrug, it's what we have to deal with and all indicators are that it will be fine.

Again, I have not tested this in Standard fully, because I don't have Void Manipulation 20/20, and mostly I want to focus on playing Talisman.

If anyone wants to buy and lend me a 20/20 Rapid Decay in Standard, I'd be more than happy to give Atziri or t13 map boss a test to confirm its effectiveness in a finished build.

At the moment my damage is 7.4k what you would change of the gem setup and the tree to be able to finish maps fast.

Slower Proj ---> Rapid Decay or Void Manipulation.

You shouldn't need the str/int nodes. Delevel your immortal call if you have to. Or just don't use it. But you should just be able to replace your amulet to cover off whatever you're missing if you want to (see vuln/clarity below).

You also wasted two points around the Sniper area.

Swap to this tree to fix those, get an extra jewel slot. Mana flows should cover most of your intelligence requirements. Your lapis probably does way more than enough anyway.

You also don't need that high a vulnerability. That's probably why you think you need more intelligence than you do. You realistically only need about a level 9-11 vulnerability. Levels don't help damage, just aoe coverage. Same for Clarity, you don't need higher than a level 15.

After that, level into Dirty Techniques.

It's just your CA level after that. Gotta get it to 21. Gem levels are the most important thing for damage, even without changing anything else.

I didn't catch the correct placement/usage of "Wither". Is it with CWDT, manually or..?

Thanks,

You'll want to do it manually with faster casting so you can control how many stacks you throw on.

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Serleth wrote:

You'll want to do it manually with faster casting so you can control how many stacks you throw on.

Faster casting, not increased duration?

I wish Wither had more of a visual indicator while it is on a mob. I can't really tell that it's on. Or I'm using it wrong.

I'm using caustic arrow -> rapid decay -> void manipulation -> conc effect -> empower lvl 3 now, and sacrificed 500 of HP to bring my dps up to 13.7k (pre-frenzy). I'm not sure that was entirely wise, but what's done is done, I'm running out of assets and can't afford a Shavronne's for a low life MF build. /shrug

I really hope 21/20 caustic comes down in price due to this....

I've been using Wither will Spell Totem while I level and it works pretty great.

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SpidaFly wrote:

I'm using caustic arrow -> rapid decay -> void manipulation -> conc effect -> empower lvl 3 now, and sacrificed 500 of HP to bring my dps up to 13.7k (pre-frenzy). I'm not sure that was entirely wise, but what's done is done, I'm running out of assets and can't afford a Shavronne's for a low life MF build. /shrug

Is the void manipulation a permanent replacement for increased area of effect? That's a lot of chromatic to spend on 6L to get the new coloring, so I wanted to make sure.

Right now using: CA-IAOE-CE-RD-IIR-Empower
Thanks,