[3.16][HC][ON BREAK] Caustic Arrow Raider, DoT Focused | Tanky | 6k+ Health | All Content | In-depth
"Make a boss killer secondary character. XD One downside of this build is that it's really hard to push single target damage. I've seen someone reach 5mil on CA recently but it was an Occultist not Raider and pure glass cannon setup. For pure glass cannon you can make some crit assassin and reach much higher damage. Now if you mean what can you do to increase damage on this build: - empower 4 - t1 chaos multi on quiver or getting dot multi in addition to chaos multi - lvl 85 hunter helmet with -9 chaos res (or -12 maven orbed, no idea if accessible without harvest crafts nowadays) - awakened orbed gloves with hunter chaos multi + warlord's culling strike or inc dot damage - hunter amulet crafted with aberrant fossils for chaos multi and +1 chaos gems (luxury option: +1 dex gem fractured then the other 2 rolled on it) - essence crafted rings for +30-35% inc chaos damage - hunter stygian vise with hunter's inc chaos damage and jewel w/ "increased damage over time while wielding a two-handed weapon" - remove avatar of the hunt, aspect of the eagle and silent steps, and try to fit a second cluster setup, or maybe just normal jewels and toxic strikes - quality your spell totem and multi totem supports However I'd say you have to evaluate is it worth investing a lot of currency to up the damage of this build, or rather rolling another character that is easier to scale for single target damage. |
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Thanks for the great guide. I've only played a few leagues but this is by far the most fun I've had with a character.
Could you offer me some advice on where to improve my build the most? I feel I'm starting to reach diminishing returns on investment and don't know where to invest next. Mapping is great and I can clear ultimatums easily. Single target is expectedly lacking and I still suffer the occasional one-shot in high tier maps/bosses. Character is UpArrow on my account. Skill tree is the same except I made a couple small changes by removing small life nodes to grab 3 jewel sockets. Gem setups are mostly the same but I'm casting despair as an aura using blasphemy and the Impresence amulet. Any tips are appreciated! Thanks again. Also, here are the gear pieces in my stash I'm currently trying to craft (no luck so far): |
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"This is normal. I mean the "diminishing returns on investment" or "coming to a point where one upgrade costs more than your whole current gear". It always comes to that point, and then there's a decision do you keep saving and investing, or do you roll another character instead. One thing if you weren't doing it already, you should swap arrow nova for swift affliction and efficacy for conc effect for bosses. This instantly nearly triples your dot damage, at the expense of area. Second thing you should get a quiver with 90+ life and 20%+ chaos multi for bosses, yours doesn't do much except extra arrow which is mostly useful for fast mapping. Most of the advice I wrote to Nachho23 applies here, except that you have empower 4 already, but no awakened gems. If you have issue dying, you should consider aspect of the crab, physical damage is a weak point of this build, esp. one that cannot be evaded (degens, spells). One reason why I'm a fan of Atziri's step because spells cannot be evaded (only attacks) and nowadays crafting a good redeemer boot after harvest nerf doesn't seem very realistic. Personally I'm not a fan of impresence, but we discussed that before. You probably also know about bow upgrade to the end game double dot bow, but that'll cost you ~8ex or so, so you can consider smaller upgrades first. It's a decently big upgrade (basically double the value of the current veiled mod). Gloves with chaos multi would be good too. |
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If anyone is feeling rich in the late game and want an endgame bow there's a pretty good method for crafting one that is fairly reliable and gives you the unveiled chaos dot multi roll. Fair warning though, it's not cheap and if you're at the point of being able to make it I recommend also acquiring a +1 support synthesized bow.
I'd guestimate the price to craft one to be in the 10-15ex range with current prices. This can be done on either a +1 dex +1 str 2 suffix base, or a damage dot multi + attack speed suffix base (+1 dex/str + DoT multi is the god role, but is also... very hard). Key is to have no more than 1 prefix and 2 suffixes.
Spoiler
The crafting steps:
1. Acquire a bow base 2. get it to 30 quality if you prefer 3. This is the point where you would craft on quality and 6 link it if it isn't already 4. Use Aetheric + Faceted resonators until you hit + 1 dex and +1 str (or the better and much rarer roll +1 dex or str and dot multi, I don't recommend it though) 5. If you only have the 2 wanted suffixes skip to step 6, otherwise you'll have to yolo anull and try to hit the unwanted suffix. You need at least 1 available prefix as well. 6. Craft on multi mod and suffixes cannot be changed and use a veiled chaos orb. What we're hoping for is that it will clear the prefixes and only add the veiled mod. For me at least, it's very common for it to only add the veiled mod, I've done about 20 attempts across my gear and I've only gotten a second mod like 3-4 times. 7. If it hits just the veiled mod as the only prefix go to step 8. If you have an unwanted prefix it's cheapest to just add on suffixes cannot be changed and use another veiled chaos orb. 8. Unveil the mod, if it didn't hit chaos dot multi we go agane. 9. After you land the veiled mod isolated you replace multi mod with "cannot roll attack modifiers" and then you slam to get the +1 to socketed gems. 10. you craft on +2 to socketed gem supports. 11. At this point you have a 3 prefix and 2 suffix bow with 1 craft on it. You can't Aisling slam it because it already has a veiled mod so at this point you're stuck with 3 options. The 3 options I could come up with 1. yolo slam and hope for something decent. Hitting dot multi would be insane, but honestly the odds are against you on this one, things like stun recovery, life on kill and useless things like that are very common. 2. Use an augment speed to hit either attack speed or projectile speed. Both are beneficial, but augs are pretty hard to come by... 3. Use an augment fire/cold/lightning if you have holes in your resist 4. Craft on Aspect of the crab. Don't do this if you're using aspect of the spider though as it will make your mana reservation for it go up. I made a pastebin that can be imported to craftofexile if you're curious to see the steps in the craft. In that example I managed in what craftofexile estimated at 1100 chaos https://pastebin.com/kxyaj8Zt Last edited by Posid#1291 on May 3, 2021, 5:28:28 PM
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"Keep in mind this only works if you stick to the recommended aspect of the crab. If by any chance you want to use spider instead, it reacts very badly with support gems and usually ends up as 40% reservation instead of 25%. Crab afaik doesn't interract with supports or at least with most of them. P.S. If you don't use a synthesized base, you could potentially warlord orb slam it (synthesized items cannot be influenced though). Good suffixes is extra arrow and culling strike, but their chances are pretty low so it's probably better to stick to synthesized base. You could also potentially redeemer orb slam it, but again there are some useless affixes like onslaught on kill (you can't gain onslaught twice and the build already has it). Good affixes are movement speed or auras increase your damage. Last edited by Viktranka#3883 on May 3, 2021, 5:00:40 PM
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" Good catch, Aspect of the spider interacts with swift affliction and it makes it reserve 31% instead of 25%. So yeah don't put it on your bow if you're using aspect of the spider. I looked at the influenced suffixes and yeah I wasn't really a fan. The implicit gets you to lvl 32 caustic arrow with a +1 amulet, which is the last level before the mana cost goes up which is why I think it's a good level to settle on. But yeah if you expect to go for a +2 neck then I probably wouldn't go with a synth implicit, the increased mana cost is fairly annoying to deal with and the damage trade off is not that great. Last edited by Posid#1291 on May 3, 2021, 5:27:20 PM
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"Idk how are the prices now, when I hunted for bow base in Ritual I got one with 40% chaos damage implicit for 1ex meanwhile +1 supports base was 20-30ex... On the other hand harvest is rarer now, so probably same can be said for good synthesized implicits (unless people actually drop them from synthesis bosses). |
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" You're not wrong. I haven't done the math recently and in several setups but when I checked during ritual 40% chaos damage was very close to +1 to a point that it definitely doesn't warrant the price of a +1 base. Could even be cheaper options with 2 implicits that might just be better. Synth bases are given out by ultimatum though so they were around very early. I banked my currency early and snagged a thicket base for 7ex on day 5 or so. |
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Hi all!
I was thinking about a little bit about the end game of the build. What do you think about the following idea. To sum up is to use a Malomey's mechanism with Toxic Rain + Vicious Projectiles + Concentrated Effect and in the bow Caustic Arrow + Void Manipulation + Vicious Projectiles + Swift Affliction+ Mirage Archer + Damage on Full Life But, I´m not sure how much this will change the build.... What do you think? Thanks!! Last edited by knnb1#3748 on May 5, 2021, 1:54:12 AM
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"A random 3-link without any gem bonuses will do next to no damage. You also lose damage for not having hunter quiver with chaos dot multi. If you want to play toxic rain, I'd suggest follow Zizaran's Toxic Rain Raider build, and go all in on scaling toxic rain instead. "Damage on full life is already recommended until you pick empower, but once you get a +3 bow you start benefitting a lot from having lvl 3 / lvl 4 empower because +1 to socketed gems buffs both CA and empower giving +2 levels instead of +1. The moment you go into multimodded bow with +2 support gems, not having empower would completely ruin your dps because you want CA to be as close to lvl 30 as possible. Mirage archer is a dead link for CA. Puddles don't stack. I see no reason to use it, if someone wants to sacrifice damage for faster mapping arrow nova is probably the best bet. Mirage archer is good for toxic rain builds because your damage stacks with mirage's damage, while it's not the case for CA. |
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