[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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hankinsohl wrote:

I would, however, recommend Pierce over Slower Projectiles (same "more multiplier" but less mana cost).

I replaced SP with Pierce, so I thought I would drop Poacher's Aim for another jewel to cover more life/res but pierce chance dropped to %90. Is that a bug?
Edit: Is projectile speed affects CA travel distance? If yes, then at the same gem level Pierce will have a slight chance of being better than Slower Projectile when/if it benefits from Deadeye's buff.

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Hvakhshathra wrote:

I replaced SP with Pierce, so I thought I would drop Poacher's Aim for another jewel to cover more life/res but pierce chance dropped to %90. Is that a bug?
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Are you looking at the tool tip numbers or the Character Panel? The 10% implicit from the Drillneck quiver does not show in the tool tip, but does display in the Character Panel.

Tooltip shows %130 and character screen %90 with Pierce gem and no Poacher's aim.

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Donnerdrummel wrote:

You traded for those whetstones, right? Because I am slightly baffled. I always use all of mine up to create chisels. You having more than 1000 lets me wonder if I am doing something wrong.

On a completely unrelated matter: what jewels do you aim to use? I'm using mainly % max life / all res jewels, which I am crafting myself, in order to be less squishy. As the game progresses and my equipment improves, I slowly shift to jewels with more damage. While doing this, I sometimes craft jewels with combinations that look interesting to me. But since I never played anything else than this CA build and Tornado Shot-build, I have no idea what is worth keeping. Or regaling, for that matter. Does anyone know of a guide to this particular problem?

My personal opinion, the chisel recipe's largely a waste of time for us. Everything else that we're doing outstrips the value of getting an occasional chisel. Given how many rares that we're vendoring, scrolls tend to be at a premium, and thus whetstones have more value being vendored for additional scrolls so they do not have to be purchased.

The way I see it is that four scrolls is about 2 alts worth of identified rares. Each chisel recipe requires four whetstones, which is 16 scrolls, or 8 alts.

Meanwhile, on the market, chisels are about 3.5:1c, while alts are 16:1c, meaning each chisel is about is worth 4.5 alts, or 9 scrolls.

However, if we're spending four whetstones (16 scrolls) for each chisel recipe, which we have said is worth 8 alts to us, that means for every chisel recipe you're doing, you're effectively losing 3.5 alterations worth of scrolls for each chisel recipe you do.

Granted, this doesn't factor in the rares that will net augs or alc shards instead. But you get the drift.

Then there's the opportunity cost of time you could be spending doing chaos recipes instead of chisel recipes.

The chisel recipe is fine for non-MF builds where currency generation is at more of a premium, but as an MF'er, it's a loss, not a gain, unless you're absolutely swimming in scrolls.

A lot of the time I find I'm barely maintaining my scroll pool unless I get lucky and run into a few Artisan strongboxes, or deliberately take the time to pick up every scroll I come across. Even being diligent about vendoring every transmute/scrap/whetstone, I find I'm generally breaking even until I start running twinned maps or stringing unique maps together, then they drain *fast*

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As for jewels, it depends on whether you're going for Carcass Jack or not. While it's BiS, it's not necessary, so if you're going for Carcass Jack, imho the priority should be, in order, life, resistances, damage. The reason being it's significantly more difficult to balance resistances running CJ than it is a rare chest.

Thereby, if you're fine with a rare chest, then your priority is life, resistances, damage (until res balance is sorted, which should only take a couple jewels), then it's life, damage, damage, damage, more damage. And then some damage.

Forgive a newb question, I have never dealt with levelling / getting a lvl 4 Empower before. Can you help me evaluate my options here?
Current Prophecy SC prices:

lvl 2 Empower (uncorrupted) ~15c
lvl 3 Empower (uncorrupted) 1.5 ex
lvl 4 Empower - 7 ex

Option 1 - buy several lvl 2s, level to 3, pray and corrupt myself
Option 2 - buy a lvl 3, pray and fail to corrupt +1, cry
Option 3 - save a lot and go for a ready lvl 4
Option 4 - buy several lvl 2s, corrupt a +1, while farming for Option 3

I don't think levelling from 2 to 3 myself is realistic.
I understand a minimum of lvl 3 Empower is required to outperform Pierce in a 5L.

When corrupting, I have 5 outcomes with Empower, right (no change, +1 level, -1 level, -quality, +quality), are they evenly distributed?
If yes, then options 2 and 3 are rougly equivalent, but option 2 is prone to more variance, so generally option 2 is better for richer players.

So my bet would be to go with Option 4, what do you think?

I'm not sure what the distribution weighting is. But assuming it's equal, then yeah you basically have it, unless you have a lot of time on your hands to level them yourself.

But, assuming 1/5, and 15c per attempt, you're looking at 1.25 ex probable attempts to get +1, right? Going from Empower 2 > 3.

If you REALLY want to play it safe, your best option is to just buy the level 3, then save for a level 4. It's only about a 25-30 chaos difference, which this build recovers quickly.

It's unlikely you're going to miss six (1.5ex) attempts though.

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Donnerdrummel wrote:

You traded for those whetstones, right? Because I am slightly baffled. I always use all of mine up to create chisels. You having more than 1000 lets me wonder if I am doing something wrong.

On a completely unrelated matter: what jewels do you aim to use? I'm using mainly % max life / all res jewels, which I am crafting myself, in order to be less squishy. As the game progresses and my equipment improves, I slowly shift to jewels with more damage. While doing this, I sometimes craft jewels with combinations that look interesting to me. But since I never played anything else than this CA build and Tornado Shot-build, I have no idea what is worth keeping. Or regaling, for that matter. Does anyone know of a guide to this particular problem?

I tend to run jewels with 2 x damage mods + at least dual resists. I'll take all resist if I can get them. I really like the 2 x damage + life jewels, however, they are bloody expensive. For example, I can buy the first group for under 10c. The second group is 1+ ex.

So if you're crafting to sell, life + double damage! :)

Hey Serleth. Excuse me for asking, But what would I 6 link for a shadow HC build? is it worth it just dropping the inc AOE for another damage gem or should I just take the hit to DPS?

Also how would I go along with using Drillneck for my 6L? Should I drop one of the gems for a pierce gem?

A corrupted lvl 3 empower goes for <30 chaos, I'd go for that to be honest, the price difference to get empower 4 isn't worth spending all your money, you're better off getting better offpieces, lvl 26 or 27 caustic arrow doesn't make that big a difference. It's significant don't get me wrong but it's really not gonna slow you down at all overall.

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Microchaton wrote:

A corrupted lvl 3 empower goes for <30 chaos, I'd go for that to be honest, the price difference to get empower 4 isn't worth spending all your money, you're better off getting better offpieces, lvl 26 or 27 caustic arrow doesn't make that big a difference. It's significant don't get me wrong but it's really not gonna slow you down at all overall.

Level 4 empower is the last thing I buy. With the possible exception of crazy high end rare helmet / gloves / amulet / belt that are silly prices and only slightly better than my current end-game gear.