[3.16][HC][ON BREAK] Caustic Arrow Raider, DoT Focused | Tanky | 6k+ Health | All Content | In-depth

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rade0n wrote:

Spoiler

why do you prefer deadly/heavy draw over avatar of the hunt?
both ways would be 8 points.

e: after comparing them on pob i guess ur right - d/h draw provides more damage. i got blinded by 200 eva + movement skill reduce.

Even when i pathed around this cluster (3.6 i believe?), i didn't pick it up. It's not bad, but others are simply better and the secondary stats simply don't offer anything the build needs.

The parallel path is more efficient and gives the very much needed life with 7% per point.

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Mydgard6 wrote:

Spoiler

Maybe strange question(s) for you, but even as i play since 2.3 and have over 1200 hours of PoE, i never played any bow chars ;)

1) I noticed the bow damage itself is REALLY low ... is that unimportant? Like the bow in PoB (+3 short bow) has only 7-19 physical damage.

2) About Caustic Arrow: As far as i understand, it forms a piece of damage over time on ground and won't do damage when it hits?

Thx :)

Build's damage comes solely from the chaos degen ground which it's secondary effect. We completely ignore hit damage.

Every time you hit an enemy, the arrow explodes dealing damage in AoE (hit) and leaves the chaos degen ground (DoT). The arrows travel until they reach the destination you've chosen (where you clicked) and explode once more, also leaving the degen.

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SoCal wrote:

Spoiler

CA is most likely my league starter (Pathfinder).

When I'm converting 3.7 builds to 3.8 in pob there is like a 30% damage jump, I dont remember any big number changes in the patch notes, are the "damage over time" nodes just that much stronger to support all the poison builds (as this is only chaos)?

Its crazy to see a 1M DoT dps when I played this build and was only in the few hundred K dps and it did well for me as a league start.

With newest update PoB removed support for "Non-Ailment Chaos DoT Multiplier" since it doesn't exist anymore. By converting the tree you instantly gain bonuses from all of the allocated passives with reworded Chaos DoT Multiplier. Tree convertion doesn't fix mods on weapons, so the best course of action is to download newest PoB i've provided.

Thanks for the answer

Sorry I should have been more specific. I was surprised to see how many ones now applied as its a ~30% dps boost.... single target was the only issue I had playing this before... boost me 30% and problem solved.

What ailments are we imune from by picking avatar of veil?

GGG shared outcomes of all oil combinations, allowing to plan ahead when making a build. 4 out of 5 notables i mentioned require oil(s) of the highest rarity, so it's going to take time to get them. The only one that's reasonably powerful yet not extremely expensive is the damage one - Corruption. That notable also received well deserved buff. From notables that should help you during levelling, the clear winner is the Diamond Skin with 12% to all elemental resistances. Makes it much easier to gear during storyline.

List of all noteworthy notables:

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mcout wrote:

What ailments are we imune from by picking avatar of veil?

Node specifies elemental - chill, freeze, ignite, shock.

Immunity to other ailments is easy to acquire with Shakari pantheon (Poison), Watcher's Eye mod for Malevolence aura and flask mods.

Good luck to everyone in Blight League!

I am leveling right now, CA feels really underwhelming. I had to switch to Toxic Rain. Does this change later in the game?

Also, I have been looking for other guides with toxic rain, what is the advantage of CA over Toxic Rain?

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mcout wrote:

I am leveling right now, CA feels really underwhelming. I had to switch to Toxic Rain. Does this change later in the game?

Also, I have been looking for other guides with toxic rain, what is the advantage of CA over Toxic Rain?

You can use both while levelling on a 4-link each until you get a tabula, put CA down then pump toxic rain in between (I did it last season during levelling).

Advantages of CA:
- you don't need so much mana regen / mana reductions (seriously the moment you start using empower for toxic rain you're gonna run oom)

- you don't need so much attack speed because CA doesn't stack and toxic rain you have to stack multiple copies on top of each other, or your damage is gonna feel crap

- you have more downtime to put totems, dodge mechanics, click blight towers, cast manual frenzy for the charges, etc. while toxic rain any moment spent not spamming your mainskill is a damage loss

- you can use concentrated effect as a "more" multiplier and just cover it with extra pierce / extra projectiles, toxic rain loses damage if you use concentrated effect (you actually want to invest in increased aoe size), and doesn't gain much from extra projectiles (and gains nothing from pierce)

- toxic rain has bigger delay from you starting shooting to it starting doing its damage

If you're looking for a decent guide for toxic rain, I'd say this one is quite in-depth: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2467666

As long as you can bypass the author's hate for rangers and just skip whatever is Trickster's specific (like for example needing an ES helmet base), I think it explains what you need for the spec. Unless, well, you embrace playing a Trickster (it's a good option for both CA and toxic rain and will be no matter how many nerfs they do to Trickster as long as it keeps 20% more damage over time and 50% increased damage over time nodes...)

Has anyone else noticed when playing Caustic Arrow that now the Degen damage is delayed?
It used to be:
Impact Damage > Immediately Degen starts

now it's:
Impact Damage > About 0.1-0.2 second delay > Degen starts

It's hell trying to kill fast units with it when they can move out of degen just as it starts doing damage :/

We also do not penetrate the Blight Specific mobs that have the invulnerability bubbles on them, which you have to stand inside. Even though CA works fine against non-blight bubble mobs.

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Viktranka wrote:

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mcout wrote:

I am leveling right now, CA feels really underwhelming. I had to switch to Toxic Rain. Does this change later in the game?

Also, I have been looking for other guides with toxic rain, what is the advantage of CA over Toxic Rain?

You can use both while levelling on a 4-link each until you get a tabula, put CA down then pump toxic rain in between (I did it last season during levelling).

Advantages of CA:
- you don't need so much mana regen / mana reductions (seriously the moment you start using empower for toxic rain you're gonna run oom)

- you don't need so much attack speed because CA doesn't stack and toxic rain you have to stack multiple copies on top of each other, or your damage is gonna feel crap

- you have more downtime to put totems, dodge mechanics, click blight towers, cast manual frenzy for the charges, etc. while toxic rain any moment spent not spamming your mainskill is a damage loss

- you can use concentrated effect as a "more" multiplier and just cover it with extra pierce / extra projectiles, toxic rain loses damage if you use concentrated effect (you actually want to invest in increased aoe size), and doesn't gain much from extra projectiles (and gains nothing from pierce)

- toxic rain has bigger delay from you starting shooting to it starting doing its damage

If you're looking for a decent guide for toxic rain, I'd say this one is quite in-depth: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2467666

As long as you can bypass the author's hate for rangers and just skip whatever is Trickster's specific (like for example needing an ES helmet base), I think it explains what you need for the spec. Unless, well, you embrace playing a Trickster (it's a good option for both CA and toxic rain and will be no matter how many nerfs they do to Trickster as long as it keeps 20% more damage over time and 50% increased damage over time nodes...)

Hmm, I see. I actually dont mind the skill too much. I am using this build more or less as a template for its tankiness, I am going to add a bit of MS to reach +- 200% and put in a skill that I can reach the most damage.

Do you have any suggestion for a skill like that? Since I wont have as much points in the tree left and my accendency would be in QoL and tankness what skill would be better to scale off mostly equipments?

After decent but slow start i unfortunately got popped randomly in T5 map. I didn't have any defensive issues against blight until that point. The death formed my current opinion of the league mechanic, which i'll share soon. First of all, death recap:

4,3k life, 40% spell dodge with flasks up. What i died to was a "flamethrower" move from multiple monsters, killed me from full hp within ~0,1-0,2 second. I did not have steelskin setup yet, however i doubt it would help with this amount of burst. All of this happened due to the right blight path suddenly leaking mobs (no i didn't have minion tower), so i rushed and you know the rest. Monsters hit me from half screen away. I didn't record since i didn't expect this turn of events on the first day, especially since everything was going well.

As for my opinion, the league mechanic is better than expected. As in tradition with GGG, the execution is subpar. "Few" glaring issues:


Conclusion - with how the league mechanic plays out, you need stupid amounts of damage and range or simply play totems.

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mcout wrote:

Spoiler

I am leveling right now, CA feels really underwhelming. I had to switch to Toxic Rain. Does this change later in the game?

Also, I have been looking for other guides with toxic rain, what is the advantage of CA over Toxic Rain?

In 5th act when you finally get to the good nodes, CA starts rolling. Just shoot once or sometimes twice and run through content. It's partially due to levelling tree i've set up. However despite everything, it's still not terrible damage wise if you know what you're doing.

The other part, Viktranka already answered.

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fakado wrote:

Spoiler

Has anyone else noticed when playing Caustic Arrow that now the Degen damage is delayed?
It used to be:
Impact Damage > Immediately Degen starts

now it's:
Impact Damage > About 0.1-0.2 second delay > Degen starts

It's hell trying to kill fast units with it when they can move out of degen just as it starts doing damage :/

We also do not penetrate the Blight Specific mobs that have the invulnerability bubbles on them, which you have to stand inside. Even though CA works fine against non-blight bubble mobs.

Yes, i felt it as well but i thought it's just my imagination. Guess not. It definitely wasn't the case until this league.

Proximity shield "monsters", i think i encountered them twice so i can't say much about it. Pretty sure i shot them few times inside bubble and they wouldn't take any damage despite that.

Overall this league feels buggy in all places, including already well estabilished ones like delve. No idea what's going on.