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

Also from patch notes bows can roll +2 arrows at high level apparently, that sounds like a nice upgrade!

Also Transcendent Mind rework:

now grants -1 Intelligence per Intelligence on allocated Passives, 3% increased Mana Recovery Rate per 10 Intelligence on allocated Passives, 2% reduced Mana Recovery Rate per 10 Intelligence on unallocated Passives and +3% to Damage over Time Multiplier per 10 Intelligence on unallocated Passives.

Worth it or nope?

Good news, there's basically no changes that are affecting the build. The only that do are crafting changes and potential passive tree changes if you want to go ham on cluster jewels. I'll focus on my other guide first which i have to finally update to the final state.

"

Tetrad wrote:

Spoiler

Worth mentioning from the patch notes.

Minor New Content and Features
"Caustic Arrow visual upgrade."

Fossil Crafting
Helmet: Nearby Enemies have -x% Chaos Resistance (now from Hunter's Influence)
Belt: Increased Chaos Damage (now from Hunter's Influence)

This is 2nd visual rework of CA. Current visual are quite awful, i jokingly call it "sewer arrow". At least it shows the area of effect very clearly compared to Celestial MTX or the first version. We'll see how GGG improves it.

Fossil crafting changes are good for the game imo. Fossil are already strong thanks to mod weighting and having exclusive mods on top was an overkill. Now there's finally a reason to use essences again. Right now i tend to collect them and never use on a single item.

As for the influences, there was no reason to use influenced helmet before so now there's finally something to do. While elder belt is better than hunter, that influence isn't bad either. Hunter has #% max life is what you always looked out for anyway. Having all 3 chase prefixes in one place is cool.

"

Viktranka wrote:

Spoiler

Also from patch notes bows can roll +2 arrows at high level apparently, that sounds like a nice upgrade!

Also Transcendent Mind rework:

now grants -1 Intelligence per Intelligence on allocated Passives, 3% increased Mana Recovery Rate per 10 Intelligence on allocated Passives, 2% reduced Mana Recovery Rate per 10 Intelligence on unallocated Passives and +3% to Damage over Time Multiplier per 10 Intelligence on unallocated Passives.

Worth it or nope?

When i saw the change i couldn't really believe it at first. +2 arrow as a single affix is NUTS, in more ways than just extra aoe. It means you can straight up ditch shaper quiver and focus on hunter's DoT multiplier mod. It's much easier to craft hunter's quiver thanks to chase mod being a suffix, so alt->regal crafting looks solid. That also means you can potentially roll extra pierce on quiver so again, potentially ditch pierce nodes on passive tree. Domino effect at it's finest.

Considering i already preferred 3 arrows over 2 arrows and DoT multiplier from quiver or bow, this is the best part of the patch notes.

Transcended Mind look damn good, but there's nowhere to socket it. Either you get very little from it or waste too much points and also get a downside on top of it. Cluster jewels are 100% better investment.

I started this a while back when this guide came out and used a raider. I changed to Pathfinder the last league and never looked back. Master Tox and Master Alch are really good for this build.

Been pushing this build to the max, 5.5M DOT and butter-smooth using Pathfinder. Can do easily:
Heavy t16 with 4 sextants + Double bey and heavy mods. Only Mod you cant do is no mana regen.
Sirus 8 deathless
All conquerors easy
Uber Elder
Elder
Delve 600, farming nodes and cities
Elder Guardians
Shaper Guardians
Easy Lab runner
--
Struggles with:
Catarina
AUL 500+
Kurgal 500+
Ahu 500+

Overall it is a very versatile build and once you go over 3.5M DOT it starts really shining with bosses as it does struggle with single target.

Try and get as much chaos damage multi and chaos damage as you can and a +3 bow min.
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https://pastebin.com/DKgzRv0K

I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you're not playing HC. Just because you use the same skill does not mean it's anywhere near the same build. The primary focus of this build is that it's viable for HC.

Every time I see this it reminds me why Synthesis didn't go core in its full extent. It was a source of truly OP items like the showcased +7 bow. I don't think any recent league introduced as much power creep in its mechanics as synthesized items, and probably for the better. We'll see how cluster jewels compare but they're limited by passive point pool so you can't really go super ham on them (in b4 build authors surprise me on that).

Obviously don't expect similar dps results if you play with league-restricted gear. Still, cool to know what's the upper limit when you include legacy stuff.

P.S. Why Catarina? I played toxic rain pathfinder few leagues ago and struggled more with Uber Elder than Catarina.

Build looks good. Going to try it out in HC Delirium.

Howdy,

I'm planning to play my third caustic arrow Ranger in 3.10, but going for something with a little bit more boss DPS is intriguing. The pathfinder option looks nice as it obviously does not change too much, compared to the trickster where I pretty much have to relearn everything.

Having said that, can you explain how to get that insane bow?

It's a synthesized mirror bow. I think they only way to get one like that is a mirror service in Standard.

March 13th, 2020 - Delirium League

PoB link for convenience: https://pastebin.com/pdeVK5D5

The scope of the update was really small. I still suggest reading the patch notes of the build. PoB build received quite large update with one more on the horizon. I am NOT racing this league so if something needs an update, it won't take weeks before i finally take care of it.

Thread is very silent this league. Recommendation from content creators is powerful indeed, this time i got none. Rightfully since the damage output of CA might not be enough. But like i said i have potential solutions in mind which shouldn't fail, but it's likely to be expensive.

As in tradition i'll be league starting with CA in SSFHC. Afterwards i would like to try a new build that's more or less meta, but with a pinch of memes. Should be 100% hardcore viable too. Getting necessary uniques (exactly 2 of them) might be a problem.

Anyway, have fun in the new league and good luck!

"

DankawSL wrote:

Thread is very silent this league. Recommendation from content creators is powerful indeed, this time i got none. Rightfully since the damage output of CA might not be enough. But like i said i have potential solutions in mind which shouldn't fail, but it's likely to be expensive.

Tbh I've watched a slew of "league starter build compilation" videos and it seems for some reason now suddenly people woke up CA exists, Brittleknee and Tarkecat both made their own guides (for Trickster) so could be people moved there, yes, for sc Trickster is a more damage oriented choice, but imo your thread is much more detailed and to the point (Tarkecat was saying you can upkeep wither debuff with withering step which is only true if you play ED + blight but it won't be true for CA no idea why he claimed wither totem is "POB warrior thing").

Keep up the good job, I've learn a lot about crafting and stuff from your guide.