Where are my pathfinders at?

I feel like there aren't many of us, so wanted to start a threat to discuss what's working and what isn't and pool our knowledge and experience together.

So, what's working? What isn't? I'll start.

Good Skills:

Gas Arrow - Really good clear and decent single target, running with Comorbidity, Scattershot, and Deadly poison right now. This is my main skill that I clear with.

Plague Bearer - Very strong single target with concentrated effect and + skill levels, blows up rares and chunks bosses, very strong when used with toxic growth to blow up the spores as well.

Toxic Growth - Feels really clunky to use, but does really good damage, used to use this as main skill with gas arrow to blow up the spores, but the gameplay was just really clunky feeling. Might go back to it for some more testing.

Vine Arrow - Good as a support ability and adds some extra dps, using with magnified effect for aoe and encumbrance for the extra slow

Despair - More damage, not much else to say. Using with Heightened Curse and Focused Curse for more effect and less delay.

Bad Skills:

Poisonburst Arrow: I've tried to go back to this one a few times since getting Gas Arrow, but I feel like Gas Arrow just outshines it. Not sure if I'm using it wrong or with the wrong supports, but it's just felt very underwhelming every time I've used it since getting gas arrow.

Snipe: I've tried to do some Snipe shenanigans with poison, trying to get a massive poison on an enemy, but it just feels bad compared to Plague Bearer.

Haven't Tried Yet:

Spiral Volley
Tornado Shot
Pathfinder Poisonous Concoction (Trying to get 3rd ascendancy points so I can try this out, could be good for building poison for plague bearer)


Side Notes: If you have flat chaos damage anywhere, you can use Rain of Arrows with withering touch to quickly stack wither on a boss, and get up to 50% more damage against it. Works better with concentrated effect, but I've been using that with plague bearer instead for the massive damage gain.

Hey,

I have the same experience with Gas- and Poisonburst arrow. Gas arrow is just better.

Toxic growth is a bit clunky but it works for me. Set vines, Set poison area (w/o scattershot), spam Toxic Growth für massive damage on area. If you position yourself smart, you can use it to dodge attacks. But I'm on Act 3 normal so that might change.

But I've been wondering. Ive taken Featheres Fletching (modifiers to proj. Speed apply to damage with bows) and run acceleration support on my gas arrow. However there is no change in DPS and I'm struggeling to find a difference in poison dmg on Mobs themselves.
Does the skill just not work with Accelleration?
Does anyone have any insights?

Gas Arrow just got nerfed btw.

But my rotation is Vines + Gas Arrow then spam Poisonburst (with scattershot and pierce) and it takes out groups pretty quickly. The only issue is that Vines don't actually slow enemies, it's bugged. Also I'm not sure if the Plague explosion even works.

My main boss killing rotation is Gas Arrow + Poisonburst then normal bow attack spam with increased attack speed and Execute.

Yea, but just the Detonation. But good to know vines are actually bugged and i wasn't just imagining things.

Plague Burst support works afaik on Gas arrow but not on any other skill, like toxic growth or vines. although vines don't even actually poison enemies, but it just deals chaos damage as a percentage of applied poison...

I reached mid Act 2 cruel atm. I had a pretty rough time for most of Act 2 and 3 due to not finding a proper Bow but now i'm pretty much cruising (if i'm not derping on bosses).

Clear is basically:
Toxic Growth + Gas Arrow.


Singletarget:
The above + Plaguebearer and Rain of Arrows.

I lost vine Arrow because the Slow just didn't seem impactfull enough to warrant even casting it. Sure it does a little dmg but I didn't feel it.

For lategame I plan to have a second weapon set with Bonestorm for more singletarget and to use chaotic freeze... I'm a bit scared to try out PCoc, I just don't see how I could ever sustain it and if anything I need more dmg on bosses/rares, not more clear.

Hopefully the high int will also open up some other utility spells.


What Auras do you run?
I atm run Plaguebearer, Withering Presence and Wind Dancer charges because I couldn't support anything else. Anyone got better ideas? I atm lack the int for a Blashpemy-Setup.


Would be interested knowing what Supports you run on your spells.

Just ascended to pathfinder, I'll go for the 2 poison nodes first.
I mainly use Gas Arrow + Toxic Growth for some burst
And Plague Bearer (nova) + Vine Arrow
Also switched from Poisonburst Arrow to gas arrow: it feels better.
Wonder if I should use it to break armor/chaos resis.

Trying to get max poison stack on tree & &scendency.
Not entirely sure where to find max dps : (poison magnitude, chaos dmg / gem lvl, phyis damage, bow dmg, crit..)


For now it's very smooth, the concoction seems useless sadly. Loving the game so far :D
I've also tried couch coop with some firemage and it was really fun with the combo gaz+fire.

I'm currently level 47, just finished the campaign. Fully invested into poisons and it feels great on regular mobs but bad on bosses. I'm using mainly gas arrow with comorbidity and rain of arrows + evenom,corrosion and bursting plague. I've tried a couple of different option but having pin somewhere is really good. On bosses it tend to run out of mana.

I have to agree that vine arrow feel a bit slow, mainly using it on bosses, toxic growth was nice for burst. However, packs just feel very fast and get out of it quickly. Overall, I don't have gold to respec, the damage is okay, the defences could be better.

I got oneshotted by a couple of bosses and ofc when you get surrounded. I'm investing a lot of passives into evasion now.

Wind dancer feels ok, recently added combat frenzy aura and the experience is getting better.

How do you guys generate Frenzy charges? If at all.

I feel like I'm understanding more about the class now, thanks guy. Changed by build a bit to use gas arrow and pin mobs.

+spirit on armor gives me the ability to use combat frenzy to generate charges

- just using pin + lockdown on basic attack to save mana, just using it to trigger charges for enhanced rain of arrows

- additionally, for rares i put down a vine arrow and it allows rain of arrows to trigger it

I've just finished the second act, I'm playing lightning build pathfinder. As soon as the two-shot bows appeared, i turned into over damage glass cannon. Sometimes i don't understand how evasion works, and periodically get one shots from bosses. In the future, I hope to try building through bleeding or elemental concoctions.