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

soo ..and now ? Trickster ? OCC ? ^^ i hope Raider hit not to hard . ^^
"
Thesorrow10 wrote:
soo ..and now ? Trickster ? OCC ? ^^ i hope Raider hit not to hard . ^^
Ok, let's unwire the Pavlov's dog brain from NERF -> ABANDON SHIP conditioning and think for a moment.

Why is this guide for Raider?

Because author plays hardcore and wanted defensive ascendancy.

What Raider gives defensively? 35% more evasion and 15% extra dodge.

Was that nerfed? Doesn't look like it.

What was nerfed? Ailment immunity -> 50% chance, but all other ascendancies got it nerfed too.

And Onslaught. What Onslaught does for this build? Nothing really, just lets you run faster through a map improving your clear speed. It contributes no dps. If you played Toxic Rain which scales with attack speed you could wonder: should I go Deadeye for free Tailwind instead? But on CA, attack speed does nothing.

Should you play Occultist instead? There was already an off-meta but moderately popular CA Occultist with Death's Oath build that had probably around 40% more dps than this version thanks to Death's Aura, Malediction (enemies take 10% inc dmg), 15% more chaos damage, passive wither and -20% chaos res aura.

The downside? It's a complete glass cannon as a life-based Occultist.

You choose.

Anyway, we need to wait for patch notes and see how hard the cluster jewels are hit, how possible is to cap ailment immunity from 50% base, can we somehow counter curses like vulnerability on maps (you can yolo ignore it on softcore, but it's risky).

All builds lost damage. All builds lost movement speed. All builds lost flask uptime. Builds that didn't rely on flasks, like minions, got hit with another nerf to minion HP (unless you play something like Hoag or animated weapon and don't care for minion to survive).

Idk which one pisses me off the most, the killing of warding flasks, the gutting of second wind support, or the removal of phys reduction from basalt flask. Nerf damage, ok, nerf movement speed, fine, but why nerf defensive options? Second wind could be used on instant skills like guards to reduce cooldown, now not anymore.

And tbh I really want Raider to get +1 ascendancy node, every other has 7 or 8 and Raider and Jugg are stuck with 6, and they both could use an extra.
I feel like people are misreading the onslaught change in the ascendancy nerf:

"
The Raider's Ascendancy node "Rapid Assault" no longer provides Onslaught Effect. The Onslaught path was too easy a choice relative to the higher-investment Frenzy Charge branch. We've also replaced Movement Speed on the small Phasing passives with Elemental Damage, as there was already plenty of speed available on that Ascendancy.


It specifically says "onslaught effect" not that it no longer applies onslaught. This is a small attack speed nerf and a 10% movement speed nerf lost from the 50% onslaught effect. They are not going to make a branch of the ascendancy that specializes around onslaught and then you have to figure out how to get it elsewhere. I also think they would have worded it entirely different. They did not make any mention of nerfing Avatar of the Chase (yet at least)

Total from the ascendancy nodes that we know of so far this is an 18% movement speed nerf.

The 50% elemental ailment avoidance can be picked up in the bottom right corner of the tree where we are anyway. The life nodes and crystal skin(all 5 nodes if you want 100% avoidance). This does hurt us a little in that it's a lot more passives than we used before, but it's still much easier than most other classes. This is of course assuming that the nodes don't get gutted in patch notes. We don't know about the gloves/helmet craft yet either, but that's also an option.

"
To put more importance on weapons, we've changed the large type-specific Damage over Time Multiplier modifier on Weapons to be a Suffix rather than a Prefix, with no reduction in power.


This change also makes it significantly easier and cheaper to craft a really really good bow that is comparable to a +5 bow (comparing against my build from ultimatum). The crafting method is also super simple and deterministic, but costs a handful of exalts.

* Get ilvl 86+ hunter influenced bow base
* spam alts to get T1 generic damage over time multi suffix, regal and anull down to 1 mod.
* slap on multimod + cannot roll attack modifier
* slam twice for +1 gems and % increased chaos damage over time (you'll get a minimum of 69% with the bottom tier, you can't guarantee which tier you get sadly)
* remove crafted mods and finish off with multimod, +2 support gems, and chaos dot multi

The perfect example if you get lucky with the prefix slam, but worst case it's still 69% increased. Total cost for bench crafts is 9ex and then probably expect 1-2 ex for the rest depending on how lucky you get starting the base.
Prefix: +1 to Level of Socketed Gems
Prefix: 94% increased Chaos Damage over time (hunter mod)
Prefix: +2 to Level of Socketed Support Gems
Suffix: +35% to Damage over Time Multiplier
suffix: +35% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier
Suffix: Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers



Depending on how patch notes hit us and how strong some of the numerical changes are I still feel like it'll be a very powerful build *knocks on wood*
"
Posid wrote:
I feel like people are misreading the onslaught change in the ascendancy nerf:

"
The Raider's Ascendancy node "Rapid Assault" no longer provides Onslaught Effect. The Onslaught path was too easy a choice relative to the higher-investment Frenzy Charge branch. We've also replaced Movement Speed on the small Phasing passives with Elemental Damage, as there was already plenty of speed available on that Ascendancy.


It specifically says "onslaught effect" not that it no longer applies onslaught. This is a small attack speed nerf and a 10% movement speed nerf lost from the 50% onslaught effect. They are not going to make a branch of the ascendancy that specializes around onslaught and then you have to figure out how to get it elsewhere.
Yep, I thought at start they completely replaced Onslaught with something different there but judging from what I saw on Path of Matth's video it seems they removed "50% increased onslaught effect" not onslaught in general. If someone really needs more Onslaught effect I guess you could spec Graceful Assault, if not nerfed gives +60% onslaught effect. But for this build I think it's not needed, would only consider for builds scaling with attack speed like ele hit / toxic rain (maybe the new storm rain or explosive arrow too).

They also said they replaced small movement speed nodes with elemental damage (sadly useless to us) and that they will, in fact, nerf the crafts for ailment immunity. Patch notes tonight, guess we'll see. I'm more worried about cluster jewel nerfs but tbh for people who played on SSF you could potentially not even find any useful chaos cluster to craft on, so it was more late game min maxing than baseline.

50% ailment avoidance is decent, I bet Pathfinder will get some garbage like "remove an ailment when you use a flask" or somesuch. I guess I'll see tomorrow.

"
Posid wrote:

* Get ilvl 86+ hunter influenced bow base
* spam alts to get T1 generic damage over time multi suffix, regal and anull down to 1 mod.
* slap on multimod + cannot roll attack modifier
* slam twice for +1 gems and % increased chaos damage over time (you'll get a minimum of 69% with the bottom tier, you can't guarantee which tier you get sadly)
* remove crafted mods and finish off with multimod, +2 support gems, and chaos dot multi

The perfect example if you get lucky with the prefix slam, but worst case it's still 69% increased. Total cost for bench crafts is 9ex and then probably expect 1-2 ex for the rest depending on how lucky you get starting the base.
Prefix: +1 to Level of Socketed Gems
Prefix: 94% increased Chaos Damage over time (hunter mod)
Prefix: +2 to Level of Socketed Support Gems
Suffix: +35% to Damage over Time Multiplier
suffix: +35% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier
Suffix: Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers


Perfect example could use Aisling but that's kinda gamble-ish.

- Roll liquefaction
- Regal
- Aisling slam and pray it removes regaled mod not liquefaction
- pray again you unveil the correct suffix (this might be hard!)
^ if this succeeds the rest is similar, but if it fails you have to restart from scratch or try to annul the wrong mod
- cannot roll attack modifier + 2ex slam
- craft catarina's mod for +2 gems
You'd have empty suffix left, idk what to do with it...

Btw why 86 bow? Hunter mod caps at 78 and liquefaction is 82. The only thing that needs 86 is +2 arrows which I don't think is realistic to get.

P.S. Can't believe you stopped 1 challenge short of the Toucan. :o
"
P.S. Can't believe you stopped 1 challenge short of the Toucan. :o


Yeah I just noticed the same :) pretty silly considering I had a lot of easy ones I could insta complete. I don't really bother looking much at challenges and suddenly got very bored with the game so just ducked out of the league early.

"
Btw why 86 bow? Hunter mod caps at 78 and liquefaction is 82. The only thing that needs 86 is +2 arrows which I don't think is realistic to get.


yeah you're right, for some reason I remembered liquefaction as being 86, 82 hunter base is a lot easier to get.

Influence will leave out the +1 to support gems implicit, but it kind of feels like there is no useful 3rd prefix without the hunter influence and getting the large % chaos increase is probably pretty similar to it anyway so it's just the much cheaper option.

And yeah there are probably shennanigans you can do with veiled mods, but I'm not going to mess with it early on because of the changes and this was just sort of a quick draft of the bow I will be aiming for earlyish in the league. There's basically no RNG involved after the initial alt spamming and anulling.

Post patch notes edit:

Well I'd say we went rather unscathed through that compared to a majority of other builds. CA will be a bit more dumpster tier for single target damage, but can still do everything and still becomes fine with investment.

Not sure how much the evasion removed from levels affects us, but our defenses outside of elemental ailment immunity are pretty much untouched. We will still get elemental ailment immunities we just have to spend 5-6 more passive points to do it.

The cluster jewel changes are honestly not too worrisome and I still think a large + 2 medium cluster setup is value.

The DPS nerf is quite large, but it seems to be the same across the board. I am however a bit worried about mana costs, but that also seems to be the same for other builds. Less spamming while playing maybe.
Last edited by Posid on Jul 20, 2021, 7:47:54 PM

And Onslaught. What Onslaught does for this build? Nothing really, just lets you run faster through a map improving your clear speed. It contributes no dps. If you played Toxic Rain which scales with attack speed you could wonder: should I go Deadeye for free Tailwind instead? But on CA, attack speed does nothing.


ok and you think Frenzy is now better ? ^^ i think CA is not the STRONGEST singel dmg ingame so this dmg boost from frenzy is not better ? ^^ (sry bad english)
"
Posid wrote:

Post patch notes edit:

Well I'd say we went rather unscathed through that compared to a majority of other builds. CA will be a bit more dumpster tier for single target damage, but can still do everything and still becomes fine with investment.

Not sure how much the evasion removed from levels affects us, but our defenses outside of elemental ailment immunity are pretty much untouched. We will still get elemental ailment immunities we just have to spend 5-6 more passive points to do it.

The cluster jewel changes are honestly not too worrisome and I still think a large + 2 medium cluster setup is value.

The DPS nerf is quite large, but it seems to be the same across the board. I am however a bit worried about mana costs, but that also seems to be the same for other builds. Less spamming while playing maybe.


I've crunched the numbers on lvl20 support gems. With Empower + Vicious/Void/Conc/Swift we lose about 24% damage, if you replace Empower early league with Damage on Full Life we're at 31% damage loss.
It might be worth to drop Conc for Damage on Full Life (39% vs 34%).


The cluster jewel changes arent as bad, i think. Basically ~10 multi per medium cluster unless i missed sth.

The new way of crafting the bow might offset quite a lot of it. I plugged the new BIS bow with 94% inc chaos dot and aisling 48% dot multi in my ulitmatum PoB and it performed as good as my +6 48% Dot multi bow.

Edit:
Empower is gonna be expensive this league, as it wont drop leveled anymore and and it's one of the few gems that didn't lose any powerlevel.
And mana is gonna suck hard. Might have to run an enduring mana flask.

edit2:
Our mana multiplier went from 3.15 to 6.17 on a 6link CA OOF.
Last edited by tom333 on Jul 20, 2021, 8:29:21 PM
I waited for patch notes before my judgement and honestly i expected worse than that. Jade Flask still survives, but now you probably need to combine it with Stibnite Flask to reach 95% evasion. Ele ailments avoidance is still a thing, i expected 50% personally. FYI, Raider was the only class who had ailment immunity since the very beginning (only during phasing). Makes sense they kept it. 18% ms nerf stings but it's not end of the world. We're still fast... but maybe not as fast. Maraketh Bow seems more worthy now.

Something everyone overlooks in damage nerfs is that defence nerfs are ALSO damage nerfs due to limited resources. What i mean is that by nerfing defences, you also have to sacrifice something else (damage/utility) to reach the same amount as before. You have a choice - worse defences or less damage. What do you want to sacrifice? I'd that damage nerf is worse than just ~30% damage but i'll check numbers tomorrow.

Damage is going to be quite awful on CA before +3 bow. Afterwards it's gonna be slow but steady, just like it used to be long time ago (not as bad tho). Back in the day i'd run through monsters and see them dying at the edge of the screen. Clear speed shouldn't suffer at all, with exception of killing rares and bosses.

Hunter influenced bow indeed should be the best option we have for damage. It's the only way to get 3rd prefix that gives us something. I wouldn't be so sure about DoT multi suffix yet. There's a possibility they're mutually exclusive now. This should already be a thing for quivers if you ask me and i don't know why it's not. If not this patch then maybe next one?

I'll be working on updating the guide starting tomorrow, but there's not going to be that much to do. Most is just numerical changes.


My opinion on balance changes:
I'm all for the changes, especially the one that reduce the damage. However i feel they're incomplete and don't really fit current version of PoE. Flask immunities again ailments / curses are supposed to be reactive now from the looks of it. However right now that's just not possible at current pace of the game. There's rarely a time for reactive gameplay, especially with abominations such as Ultimatum and Maven content. Not to mention flasks will run out quickly if you try actually reactively remove ailments.

I think everyone knows by now that shock and chill/freeze can easily be a death sentence. I also died to ignite on my bleed Gladiator couple of times. Map curses are also very deadly and mitigating them still ain't easy. I'm all for making game harder, but this is a little bit too much without addressing core issue. Hopefully next patch will tackle it.

It's obviously all step by step preparation for PoE 2, GGG said it themselves. Could it possibly mean that new campaign will appear sooner than later?
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3053600 - My Guides
Last edited by DankawSL on Jul 20, 2021, 9:25:14 PM
Character Balance:
Base Character Evasion Rating has been lowered to 15 (previously 53). Characters no longer gain Evasion Rating per level.
Well, after the patch notes, basically we lost a bit mms, portion of dmg, and our immune QoL. Imo I think those change wouldn't affect the build much in the ENDGAME version, once invested enough, the build would be still OP (in clearing) as hell, but our early game will be significantly affected, since they buff the mobs and nerfed our defense, which tilted me a lot. All in all, the build would be a little bit harder to play next league.

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info