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

Hi, what do You think about Vaal CA, it looks hella exciting! For regular map bosses it’s gonna be huge increase in dps. I am going to try start this league with it

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RudyKojot23 wrote:

Hi, what do You think about Vaal CA, it looks hella exciting! For regular map bosses it’s gonna be huge increase in dps. I am going to try start this league with it

Vaal CA is INCREDIBLY strong. 240% of normal CA's damage for thrice as long time? Stationary bosses will melt. Instead of the killing boss in 30 seconds, you'll kill him in 12,5 seconds instead. I expected roughly ~150% of normal skills damage like many other vaal skills (+ some extra mechanics) but here we are!

But let's not forget about possible issues. Based on preview it doesn't have same levels of AoE compared to normal issue and extra arrows should greatly help. You also can't allow yourself to misuse it. If a boss suddenly dodged out of it then you'll be locked out of the ability restore souls for a long time, and then still have to wait at least 4 seconds / 8% of boss' health to replenish enough souls to use it again.

In any case it's impact in campaign (if you find one, check all vaal side areas!) and mapping is going to be visible. Very likely CA Raider is a good starter now once again... but sadly it's still not as powerful defensively as it used to be. Boss damage should be back to old levels though if not higher.

I am wondering if pathfinder isn’t the better choice right now? More dmg (15% or sth) and aoe, possible permanent flasks with phasing and onslaught

Any one else playing this league? I love the new play style deciding when to hold Vaal CA or when to use it, and the positioning challenge. Just crossed 500k pinnacle DPS on CA (not vaal) in SSF and still missing a bunch of upgrades. Fun as always!

So, we went from 55% wither effect to 20% AND if you have chaos res capped (I have been capping my chaos res recently) we lose 34% Chaos DoT Multi, which sucks, also 10% life from the mastery.
On the other hand, the mana reserved should still be fine with Mind Drinker + Mana Mastery + Mortifying Aspect (fyi I run Malevolence + Grace + Clarity + Aspect of The Crab, might consider also Discipline in the future) with 100+ mana to spare, which is nice. Also, free +1 arrow on tree, which makes clearing even more easier, free up a suffix on quiver.
All in all, not considering the Weapon Crucible tree yet, this should be a slight nerf on our DPS, and also a smol QoL buff.
I'm excited for the weapon tree!

Another league around the corner, another update from me. CA Raider i've made in Sanctum was really enjoyable as i've mentioned. 2-3 min flask setup with solid defences was greatly empowered with Vaal CA that allowed to deal with map bosses just fine. This patch put a wrench in it.

Biggest hit for me is removal of utility flask charge regen and 10% flask effect masteries. PoE causes carpal tunnel symptons for me these days as i've mentioned in the past, so having lazy perma flask setup on non-Pathfinder characters was a life saver. With that gone i might have to think of using The Traitor or to just switch to Pathfinder (which looks better than ever before imo). There's also pricy 3rd option in form of Forbidden jewels, but that's not something i can recommend. We'll see how it goes.

Corruption notable got nerfed quite significantly (35% -> 20%) and chaos mastery that gave 20% Wither effect got removed. That's a hefty damage loss, ~15% more to be precise. The good news is that Withering Step totems should be a thing now! The fastest way of applying wither from range we've had so far. I'm a bit unsure if Multiple Totems will apply the stacks once or twice, but it's only ~1-2 seconds in AoE and can be used for. Self-casting Withering Step (which i started using recently since Wither Totem became redundant outside of single boss encounters) is still a viable alternative. I also used +3 wither stacks enchantment to maximize damage ASAP, so totem version allows me to grab something else instead (40% CA damage).

Changes to passive tree near Phase Acrobatics also made me heavily consider Thread of Hope (Large Ring) for the first time. I never liked using it since jewels slots are extremely efficient, but this time it saves A LOT of points:

* Two +1 Arrow/Projectile notables
* +2 Pierce node
* Quickstep notable (10% spell supp + 6% ms)
* saves 1 point travelling to Wind Dancer
* allows to grab Aspect of the Eagle without 12% dmg node.

That's total 6 notables grabbed. Unfortunately large ring is expensive to my knowledge so this might troublesome. In any case - strong. I didn't have troubles with resistances anyway with my flask setup so the extra downside is negligible.

Some other things worthwhile noting:
* New chaos mastery is a must have - "Deal 10% more Chaos Damage to enemies which have Energy Shield".
* New chaos mastery is an option - Recover 1% of Life per Withered Debuff on each Enemy you Kill
* New life mastery is an option - "You count as on Full Life at 90% max hp or above".
* Spell suppression should be easier to cap (15% from evasion mastery), and the notable which gives 1% extra damage prevented / -2% suppress chance per spell hit taken recently should be great if you're overcapped on spell suppression. Alternatively, you can try going for Phase Acro.

Overall i'd say that other than losing my precious flask setup, this is a net positive long term. Then we still have Crucible passive trees which should spice things up. According to yesterday's teaser, most skills have a dedicated notable for them so... We'll see how it goes.

I'll be starting with CA Raider as usual. Unfortunately for me i know i'll be a bit busy roughly 1 week after league launches. However any crafting league (and Crucible is one in a way) always keeps me playing so i might stick for longer.

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MrShika13 wrote:

Spoiler

So, we went from 55% wither effect to 20% AND if you have chaos res capped (I have been capping my chaos res recently) we lose 34% Chaos DoT Multi, which sucks, also 10% life from the mastery.
On the other hand, the mana reserved should still be fine with Mind Drinker + Mana Mastery + Mortifying Aspect (fyi I run Malevolence + Grace + Clarity + Aspect of The Crab, might consider also Discipline in the future) with 100+ mana to spare, which is nice. Also, free +1 arrow on tree, which makes clearing even more easier, free up a suffix on quiver.
All in all, not considering the Weapon Crucible tree yet, this should be a slight nerf on our DPS, and also a smol QoL buff.
I'm excited for the weapon tree!

10% life from mastery stings but imo it's not so bad. I usually have a lot of regen and that mastery reduced it by 10% as well. In a way i'm glad it's gone because i always felt forced to pick it up, even though i never liked the downside.

I'm not sure where you got 34% chaos DoT multiplier gone. Didn't it give bonus based on current chaos res, and not how much we get from gear? That was up to ~19%. I could be wrong here.

I have mixed feelings about getting 12% mana reservation efficiency mastery. That's 4 points in my case, and while Mind Drinker is amazing... well, not sure if it's worth it. However if notable is strong enough to not require Clarity, that's a different matter. Worth checking it out in any case.

Can you elaborate how withering step totems can be a thing?

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The good news is that Withering Step totems should be a thing now!

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Miscellaneous Player Balance
[...]
* Withering Step is now able to be supported by Spell Totem.

So with this combo you can very quickly apply ~6-9 stacks of wither in fairly large AoE around the totem's location. If Multiple Totems work and both totems will apply wither on the enemy, then it's easy 12-15 stacks with a press of a button and from ranged. Unlike self-casting Withering Step (or using on left mouse button) you can always resummon a totem to apply it again without waiting those 3 seconds of cooldown.

To make it even better, totems won't cast anything else but Withering Step so they'll keep applying wither as enemies are spawning/entering it's area which isn't exactly possible for self-casting. Think about abyss encounters, rituals and so on. Now also add Recover 1% of Life per Withered Debuff on each Enemy you Kill chaos mastery and you get yourself stupidly high sustain.

This is so far the fast and most versatile wither application we've had so far. But like i said manually casting Withering Step is still a solid option and likely better while mapping, but i don't see too much of a point.

Is it just me or is pierce not creating addtional caustic arrow clouds?

They do not, i wasn't even aware of that until act 4. This change was documented in patch notes but i overlooked it.

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Miscellaneous Player Balance
[...]
* Projectiles which explode or otherwise destroy themselves only when they cannot move further, such as fireball, which return will now consistently not do so until after they have returned, just like they don't do so before piercing, forking, or chaining if they have those behaviours. Previously this was inconsistent. As a general rule, if a projectile wouldn't do something when it pierces or chains from an enemy and continues on, it also won't do that when it hits an enemy and returns from them.

This is a quite big nerf and especially feels awful during levelling. I somewhat dealt with it by allocating 20% AoE mastery in bow cluster and Carcass Jack to boost AoE enough to hit majority of enemies. Concentrated Effect is a big no-no now. It shouldn't be as bad in the end game with extra arrows, radius and CA quality (10% AoE). However it certainly doesn't feel as smooth as it used to.