[3.24] fezz's Toxic Rain Champion - Step-by-Step PoE Build Guide for Beginners & Casuals

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Thayaric wrote:

Nice guide.

I'd add different tree options. For instance with my devouring diadem version there's little to no reason to go up past ghost dance for the 2nd aura cluster.

I find your content reviews a little off.

Legion is the only content this build struggles to do well. It's probably the best heisting build I've ever played. It eats anything trapped in a circle like breaches and rituals. It can do all bosses, all invitations, any map mod (weak auras and - max resists should probably be rerolled). Harvest can be rippy but if you've done your fair share of harvests you'll be aware of the dangers.

Gem pressure is light, so a bit on optional gems like blood rage or enduring cry or even precision aura.

Optional unfocused ballistas. Why you might not want focused ballistas. Possible gem swap in ballista between mapping and bosses.

Discuss linking vitality to arrogance. You don't miss the 400 hp.

Craft options. I prefer chaos damage over time to attack speed as a modifier but take the attack speed harvest enchant. Also forcing a +2 chaos ammy. It can be done but there's no details.

You could also prepare a build using ashes of the stars. Explain why this is possibly a bad idea. IMHO this is one build I wouldn't take that amulet on.

Maybe a raider option.

Thread of hope tree options.

But a great starting point.

This league I finished my atlas, did all invites, farmed a lot of 4 sextant, 4 scarab maps often with beyond on them. ( be careful of Bameth and his huge corpse explosion). Managed 38/40 challenges (my best ever by a long way). Farmed all 12 fave slots. Although i play trade league softcore I don't much like trading so play an almost SSF-like game. This build suited that style of gameplay. The only thing I asked for help with was the feared and only because i had never run the feared before.

As I said before I had a real blast playing and tinkering with this build. I'd league start it again in 3.18 but im moving house and likely to miss the first month or so of 3.18.

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Rinkirikaki wrote:

Wow this guide is insanely detailed, it's the perfect guide for my friend that just started playing and I'm gonna play the campaign with him but I thought it might be hard to explain everything and guess what.. I open the forum and I see this - holy cow this is 100x times better than the PoE tutorial itself. Thanks a lot for this guide my man. Cheers.

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Nevzat wrote:

Any gameplay videos?

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fezz8386 wrote:

Thanks a lot for this very extensive feedback, I really appreciate it.

I will take all points into consideration when thinking about further improvements, but I noticed from the feedback in 3.17 that sometimes less is more. Listing too many options is too much information in some places and new players can't use this information properly due to lack of experience. This is for example the reason why I made the base skill tree in the new version without optional nodes. In the endgame milestones, however, I will go into how to make changes here and there, if that makes sense.

Regarding the league mechanic assessment: I get your point, but it really depends a lot on the state of the build. Incursion, for example, is totally fine in the late-endgame once you have some damage, but in early maps it's quite bad due to the fact that Incursion monsters have so much life and your damage is only decent. And considering that the assessment is right before maps (if you follow the guide), I think it's fair to say that Incursion can be hard (normal - hard would also be legit, I guess).

The good thing is - if I understood you correctly - that you would rate the build even stronger than me on many mechanics - correct? If that's the case, that's good in principle. I'd rather give a slightly too pessimistic assessment than a too optimistic one ;)

Again: Thanks a lot for the feedback!

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Thayaric wrote:

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fezz8386 wrote:

Thanks a lot for this very extensive feedback, I really appreciate it.

I will take all points into consideration when thinking about further improvements, but I noticed from the feedback in 3.17 that sometimes less is more. Listing too many options is too much information in some places and new players can't use this information properly due to lack of experience. This is for example the reason why I made the base skill tree in the new version without optional nodes. In the endgame milestones, however, I will go into how to make changes here and there, if that makes sense.

Regarding the league mechanic assessment: I get your point, but it really depends a lot on the state of the build. Incursion, for example, is totally fine in the late-endgame once you have some damage, but in early maps it's quite bad due to the fact that Incursion monsters have so much life and your damage is only decent. And considering that the assessment is right before maps (if you follow the guide), I think it's fair to say that Incursion can be hard (normal - hard would also be legit, I guess).

The good thing is - if I understood you correctly - that you would rate the build even stronger than me on many mechanics - correct? If that's the case, that's good in principle. I'd rather give a slightly too pessimistic assessment than a too optimistic one ;)

Again: Thanks a lot for the feedback!

Let's see. I started my league slow taking a week to get through the horrid campaign. I'm not one to be in maps in 4 hours. It took me maybe 3-4 weeks to slowly progress to t16 maps. I had a 5 link queen of the forest, I bought a devouring diadem (also got one from my 1st mastermind), and i was using a 5l quill rain. This was enough to farm t16 alc and go maps and less nasty corruptions for the atlas points. I took time to farm about 10 ex to make my weapon but this league I knew that was going to be the major expense so I spent nothing and saved every ex for crafting. I found a bow, 6 linked it, sniped a hunter's exalt for something like 0.8ex and crafted my weapon with my saved up currency. Took a while to farm the attack speed harvest enchant but I got it. Once I had that weapon I started juicing my maps more. I hadn't found much I couldn't cope with while using quill rain as long as i took a little care. Once I had the weapon i went for shaper, then sirus, did elder and uber elder, and eventually maven which I royally screwed up. It was my first attempt at maven, it was a me problem not a build issue. Did the 4 shaper and 4 elder guard invites deathless, did elderslayers deathless, got my 6l queen of the forest around that time then I juiced maps more, sextants, corruptions running anything except - max res. Started adding scarabs for more mobs, concentrating on strongboxes, expeditions, and blights which i've never really been keen on but this build was good for them. I didn't bypass any mechanic, if it was in my map randomly I did it. Everything was smooth really. Some harvests were rippy. I didn't get much incursion so didn't do much. All breaches and breachlords were a doddle. I died once doing the hidden, got caught by esh's huge attack. At this time I was running the free defiance banner, determination, grace and malevolence and had vitality linked to arrogance. I had maybe 3.6k hp something along those lines and deaths were fairly rare at least for me. By late league I had 7m damage, 25k armour, 42k evasion, 4 utility flask having no need for a mana pot, and the only mechanic i had trouble with was legion. It's not that you can't kill the mobs, it's you can't wake them up fast enough. I could see incursion being hard in early maps, and some harvests can be too, but once you have the weapon it's all systems go even though it's actually overkill as quill rain really is good enough for most things.
My most common death was to bameth. He has detonate dead or something similar. Devouring diadem consumes corpses but does so only every 5 secs. I've never played a build quite like this. It is absolutely my favourite build I have ever played and I'm usually a self-cast mage fanatic. It's brilliant for heist. Excellent in delve. A reasonable mapper. Bosses are doable but it's not the quickest of boss killers. Rituals were mostly easy. Great for expedition and logbooks. I didn't find any problems with syndicate. I farmed a few thousand beasts all were relatively easy. Coped ok with beyond. I didn't do much delerium but I ran a few 40% t16 juiced dele maps deathless, I ran only 1 simulacrum and got to wave 24. That's probably the only time I felt my HP could have done with being higher. I don't have much experience with simulacrum. Works great for blight as long as you set the towers up right, but the dps is delayed being a DOT skill and so sometimes a boss will slip through and end your blight but still pretty good. I really felt the only thing it couldn't do well was legions. I did the 4 way for the 5th slot. I never do 5 ways but I don't think this is the build for those :)
I'm a long way from min-maxed and intend when leagues are boring to take this to 100 on standard. It's just so fun to play. you pretty much die to nothing but your own stupidity.
Thanks for the basis of a great league Fezz. My build is pretty true to yours except i stopped at the cluster socket and didn't go up for the second aura cluster, and took some attack speed and duration with a thread of hope in the scion area. For me the helm makes the build. Devouring diadem and this build go together like bacon and eggs. I can't be doing with enduring mana pot antics. Been there on another build and didn't enjoy it much. It just gives so much. Eldritch battery is perfect for this skill and you also get superfast es recharge on skill use and free up any socket you used for life tap. At the same time negating the need for the long tree traversal for the aura cluster and improving your enlighten and three expensive auras. Sure it's not the easiest item to find in SSF but certainly not beyond the realm of possibilities. I bet finding a hunter thicket bow or a conquerors exalt is just as hard. In trade league it's usually around 1ex a price virtually anyone can afford simply by running the chaos recipe if nothing better to do.

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Thayaric wrote:

Because I'm moving house and going to be without internet for at least three weeks and maybe 5 I'm not even sure i'll play in next league, I may just bum around on my toxic rain champ on standard and keep on improving its gear. See how I feel when I get net up and running.

I understand your less is more comment and I would split the guide into two main sections, for beginners, and for experienced players. Beginners need one build, a selection of rares that they can find or easily trade for and need handholding into red maps. Perhaps add simple crafting of each item.

More experienced players might be interested in various build variations, various gear variations and the effects various pieces of gear will have on where you take your skill tree. Hardcore/softcore changes. Min-maxing. High end crafting. Aoe radius when you take extra arrows.

I think you've done an awesome job. It's a polished work. However having done such a good job it seems a shame to not make it even more complete.