[3.25] Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - Fast, tanky, fun to play

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thedeathbeam wrote:

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WhoMans wrote:

So will this be viable as a league starter too? Played LL BL Mines and then changed to Arc Mines for farming legion monoliths while still being good enough to kill AL8 Sirus deathless in 3.9 and was very successful/enjoyable except for odd one shots from Legion rares and porcupines and other on-death effects were the bane of my existence. Plus, BL/Arc Mines levelling was the easiest league start and transition to maps I've had with literally no currency needed at all.

I'm guessing the poison prolif will solve my on-death problems, although not sure if it will work with Delerium mobs who will also have a BS on-death spikes effect.

Also, how expensive will it be crafting the endgame bow? As a unique alternative Darkscorn comes to mind, but that was very expensive in the first month of Metamoprh, will it be the same for 3.10? Plus I'm still not sold on Evasion/Dodge/Acro for defence, and that 9 times out of 10 nothing touches you until something does eventually touch you and will probably absolutely hork on you when it does.

Yeah it should be pretty good as starter, mostly because of clear speed orientation of this league, and PF prolif is amazing for that.

For on-death effects, poison prolif do not destroys corpses so porcupines can still be an issue (even though on this build I did not really had issues with them as I just dodge majority of the spikes and rest wont kill me).

For crafting the bow, depends on fossil prices, but it usually takes around 3 or 4 fossil sets to craft good bow as the crafting method is very consistent (as we block majority of stuff we do not want, and rest of the mods have very high chance to roll).

For eva/dodge as defense, as long as you have EHP to back it up, its very strong. And this build has enough after gearing.

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LesserForms wrote:

Hey! I just leveled a char before league end to try and test this build, and so far I feel like it has really good clear speed on maps. Bosses - not so much, but it might just be me that needs to understand the working of char + I'm only lvl 72.

I also feel like this build is hard to get tanky. But if you feel okay with dying abit, but gaining absoulte insane movespeed and clear speed. it seems okay.

I was wondering something about the gem set-up.
I'm really bad at self-casting curses so I changed skitterbots with blasphemy support in my despair setup. How much dmg. the increase does skitterbots actually provide? Is it okay to skip it, to gain this QOL-upgrade until one can afford "curse on hit" gloves?

Hey. Yeah the build gets really a lot from levels, so at 72 it will not feel as good for bosses.

For tankyness, the biggest issue this build has is sustain but after you solve that its really smooth. For early sustain, stuff like Soul Raker annoint is amazing, same with hunter chest with regen, atziri promise etc.

If you do not like self-casting curse, just run Witchfire Brew. Dropping skitters is too big damage loss imo (and also, as starter, if you decide to go Lioneye, you can drop Precision and run Malevolence instead, temporarily before upgrading bow).

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artradis wrote:

SA 65M+ Shaper DPS: An end-game min-maxing guide addendum (whilst NOT on a budget)

As Metamorph is coming to an end, I thought I'd wrap up my thoughts on taking this build to the end-game limit (not on a budget) for 65M+ Shaper DPS whilst still keeping survivability, and see if this may be beat next season with e.g. the new jewel mechanics or new crafting.

Before I start, a huge thanks to @thedeathbeam for this awesome build and guide of it! I've played it for the second season now, and I've never stayed with a build (nor brought it as far) as SA during Metamorph. It just keeps scaling!



Offense (65M+ Shaper DPS)

Spoiler

The only gear I vary over the three offense modes below is the quiver, the Watcher's Eye and the belt jewel.

Offense - Mapping/Metamorph/Conquerers
- 65.7M Shaper DPS w/ Vile Toxins variation
- 54.7M Shaper DPS w/ Mirage Archer variation

I mostly used the Vile Toxins variation here.

Spoiler

For this mode blood magic suffices for frenzy charge generation (even non-mob heavy bosses die before I loose my charges), and I do not need phasing. Thus the following quiver/Watchers/belt jewel combo:

Offense - Delve
- 63.6M Shaper DPS w/ Vile Toxins variation
- 52.9M Shaper DPS w/ Mirage Archer variation

I mostly used the Vile Toxins variation here.

Spoiler

For this mode I replace the Watcher's Eye with one giving me phasing during haste, which is near-constant phase in Delve via Vaal Haste. Thus the following quiver/Watchers/belt jewel combo:

Offense - Sirius/Uber elder etc
- 61.8M Shaper DPS w/ Vile Toxins variation
- 51.5M Shaper DPS w/ Mirage Archer variation

Even here I mostly ended up using the Vile Toxins variation, but this may be a matter of taste.

Spoiler

For this mode I use a frenzy charge generating quiver, and also switch belt jewel for fire damage as I loose that on the quiver (Cinderswallow synergy). Thus the following quiver/Watchers/belt jewel combo:

Calculating damage values
Damage values above have all been calculated using the following formulas.
- 1.2 * <thorn arrows dps> + <release at 5 stages dps> for Vile Toxins variation, and
- 1.276 * (1.2 * <thorn arrows dps> + <release at 5 stages dps>) for Mirage Archer variation.

I.e., we do not consider the extra 1M+ damage from Plague Bearer.

Defense

Spoiler

Defense does not vary too much between the offensive modes above and can be summarized as:
- 6.2k life
- 66% chance to evade attacks
- 60% chance to dodge attacks
- 54% chance to dodge spells
- 75% (over-capped) ele resists, 86% chaos resist
- 82% elemental damage mitigation (all elements)
- 36% physical damage mitigation

As the main guide covers, we get quite tanky with the Darkscorn and Divine Flesh combo. I wouldn't run this for hardcore, but part the accidental death now and then this rips through all content without survivability problems.

Details - An end-game no-budget min-maxing guide addendum

Spoiler

See POB Link for detailed gear and tree details. A summary of the most important aspects follows below.

I will try to summarize, in order of importance, the different end-game min-maxing choices you can make to push your damage values really high. I assume you've already reached the state of "end-game optimizations" of the guide. Also, this is absolutely not necessary, but some of us enjoy this part of PoE :)

Spoiler

Double pure damage Circle of Nostalgias with strong explicits

Spoiler

At the very least 2x Nostalgias with +1 frenzy charges and good rolls on implicits. An extremely strong combo of attack speed and damage explicits could work in place for +1 frenzy charges.

The following are all viable:

BiS life/res/dmg jewels + Large Thread of Hope

Spoiler

To facilitate wearing 2x pure damage nostalgias as well other investments below, getting resistances from jewels can be key. My experience from this season is that the following combo is the Best in Slot

But that you may only be able to carry two or three of those, whereas you may need to swap a damage mod for another resist for the remaining (three or two) rare jewels:

In addition to these five rare jewels, your naturally want a Watcher's Eye:

But more importantly, you want to use the mechanics of a Large Ring Thread of Hope (corrupted for corrupted blood immunity) to allocate 5 strong notables (King of the Hill, Master Fletcher, Poisonous Fangs, Adder's Touch and Aspect of the Eagle):

See the POB link for tree details.

Get a strong damage/life/resistance belt

Spoiler

Also facilitates other upgrades.

We could arguably try to find one where we swap one resist suffix for 40% increased damage with ailments, but you'd probably need a mirror to buy such a pair.

Tailwind/Elusive boots

Spoiler

If you can't find both, Tailwind is more important than Elusive, as the base build use Withering Step, but getting also Elusive on the boots allows us to drop Withering Step for other gems (see below).

My high res on jewels facilitates somewhat low res boots and allows me to use the open suffix for intelligence instead of resistances; the former facilitates a higher leveled Despair.

Awakened skill gems

Spoiler

Getting awakened skills gems, particularly for the largest boosting one (Awakened Added Chaos Damage) is actually not that expensive, as you can get them as Level 1 as early as possible and just level them to Level 5 by yourself. For true min-maxing you want them all at Level 6.

A perfect Coralito's Signature

Spoiler

This is by far the cheapest end-game investment, but I'll list it this far up, as the difference is huge between a perfectly rolled and a poorly rolled Coralito's Signature flask. Get a perfect roll!

+1 Frenzy charges corruption on Fenumus Weave Gloves

Spoiler

Ideally a double corrupt for +1 frenzy charges and +2 AoE gems (or even temp chains on hit if you can hit a +1 curse on chest or amulet) on a perfectly rolled (damage with hits and ailments explicit + good attack speed explicit) set of gloves. This is my own failure of the season as Alva has really not been liking me, and I've bricked/failed at least 10 perfect-pair corruptions, and in the end had to settle for these ones :(

Bottled Faith + Lethality

Spoiler

We can reach quite a high effective crit chance with this build (I'm at 65% with Bottled Faith) so the somewhat broken Bottled Faith flask comes as a natural (but somewhat expensive) choice. Combine with the Lethality notable (we already have King of the Hill). Make sure to divine you flask into a strong combo of crit chance and damage taken by enemies. The duration is not as important as we're Pathfinders.

Good rolled and 6-linked Darkscorn + Empower (boost Despair)

Spoiler

You can 6-link Darkscorn and socket Empower for a nice boost to the blasphemy/despair combo, but meanwhile also boosting e.g. plague bearer, vaal haste and increased duration for some extra damage and QoL.

I only did this after dropping withering step (Tailwind/Elusive boots). Note also that the phys damage on the darkscorn scales our damage, so it doesn't hurt to get a really good rolled one before starting to 6L it.

Get a perfect Impresence amulet

Spoiler

As we are min-maxing, we don't underestimates the optimizing of any viable explicits, and make sure to get an Impresence amulet with strong explicits:

I bricked quite a few annointed near-perfect ones trying to get a +1 curses corruption, which would play well with a double corrupted Fenumus Weave's pair of gloves (+1 frenzy & temp chains), but no luck with this for me this league.

Remaining gear: chest/helmet

Spoiler

Goes much with the original guide, but particularly the helmet facilitates the 2x pure damage Circle of Nostalgia (capping chaos resistances):

But if you were to be filthy rich and have a love for gambling you could always try double corrupting one of these chests.

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LesserForms wrote:

WOW!
how much ex did you put into this gear :D
Looks so good <3

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artradis wrote:

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LesserForms wrote:

WOW!
how much ex did you put into this gear :D
Looks so good <3

Thanks! I added an FAQ section to my post as it's a bit hard to answer in any kind of brief manner (that will not be misunderstood) :) In short, the market value of my end-game items is around 350-450 ex, but it does not represent what budget one needs to aim for in order to get these kind of items. I've made my investments throughout the season and I've also made a lot of currency by getting to know the market well for my particular investments as well as when selling replaced items after an upgrade. I think the key is focusing on one upgrade at a time.

See FAQ post for more details.

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Deskroid wrote:

[...]

Will you be running this build again for Delirium? I will be and would love to see how you build this time around with crazy cluster jewel potential. would be interesting to ask you how you path and gear.

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No Witnesses
10% chance to gain Elusive on Kill
25% increased Elusive Effect

(Elusive initially grants 15% chance to Dodge Spell or Attack Hits, and 30% increased Movement Speed. The buff reduces its effect over time, removing itself at 0% effect. If you already have an Elusive buff, you cannot gain Elusive)

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Deskroid wrote:

Also unrelated question but how would you roll this as an Iron Reflexes build for VMS abuse?

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artradis wrote:

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Deskroid wrote:

[...]

Will you be running this build again for Delirium? I will be and would love to see how you build this time around with crazy cluster jewel potential. would be interesting to ask you how you path and gear.

I will probably take a PoE break and not play Delirium at all, although it looks like a lot of fun. Unwavering Focus, Tempered Arrowheads, Low Tolerance and Steady Torment all synergizes well with SA, but I guess we're yet to see the details of how these can be combined (and at what cost).

From the same thread we can also spot some nerfs coming up that affects our build, e.g. by looking at the No Witnesses new notable we can suspect that Elusive has been nerfed by 25% [emphasis mine]:

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No Witnesses
10% chance to gain Elusive on Kill
25% increased Elusive Effect

(Elusive initially grants 15% chance to Dodge Spell or Attack Hits, and 30% increased Movement Speed. The buff reduces its effect over time, removing itself at 0% effect. If you already have an Elusive buff, you cannot gain Elusive)

in 3.10 these values where 20%/20%/40% for dodge attack/dodge spell/increased movement speed.

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Deskroid wrote:

Also unrelated question but how would you roll this as an Iron Reflexes build for VMS abuse?

My personal preference is dodge/evasion builds to pure damage mitigation builds, but this naturally depends on play style, but with the result that I haven't really looked into this variation myself.

However, I think that even in 3.9 every single skill point for SA, up to lvl 100, have very many valuable prospective positions (mainly due to Thread of Hope), and I think this may be even more so with the new cluster jewels in 3.10. So I think that, based on my experience with the tree for SA this season, going towards Iron Reflexes will cost us a lot. I, for one, have had no issues whatsoever with survivability with Divine Flesh/Darkscorn after I reached a good point of sustain (e.g. via Cinderswallow and some life leech on hit), so I would rather spend those points on offense. Moreover, the Divine Flesh approach offers conquering two notables for some very strong variations of both damage and defense.

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Deskroid wrote:

Cheers for the fast reply buddy, appreciate it. One last question, if you were building this from a league start point of view what priority would you buy items for this build before the min-maxing, i.e. helm enchant, darkscorn, divine flesh, cinderswallow etc.

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Deskroid wrote:

Hope you have a good break too :)

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gramcraker1 wrote:

I'm thinking of running this build for league start and was wondering how reliant we are on bows for damage while leveling, what i should look for on bows to increase damage and what kind of bow or unique bow I can use before im able to craft one with fossils.

Thank you