[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

After this last wipe I tried to avoid bow skills and the rustic sash recipe altogether while leveling. I instead tried EK/fire trap and was extremely pleased. EK scales with projectile damage like PA, so you can pick up damage nodes in the duelist area while getting the regen to be able to run blood rage. Your best weapons for this are daggers, allowing the use of whirling blades too.

If ever you have bad weapons, just use the chain belt recipe, which gives you a weapon that will last you much longer than a crafted bow would. I am pretty confident I will manage to cruise up to the 50s this way by which point PA will be usable. In a fresh economy where you can't buy a unique bow easily, this makes the most sense to me.

Oh almost forgot, to level EK, you have to kill hillock with a shadow/witch first

Interesting option. I may post it as an alternative in the guide. If you could be so kind as to provide a slightly more detailed explanation of the process for those that are interested, I'll make sure you get a credit and maybe even a Fireworks display.

Because you're a winner.

If I have time I'll reroll and give it a quick attempt myself before Friday. But we'll see how that goes. I need to push this roll to at least 64 before I can give that a shot and I'm not sure I'll have time to do both.

I think though that if we can start using PA reasonably @ 38, it's not really too arduous a process to get up there.

Basically:

*Mule a shadow for EK (Ennemy at the Gate)
*For the same quest as ranger you get fire trap
*Link EK to added cold as soon as you get supports (no %phys on tree-->cold>fire)
*ID daggers and sceptres (so you can use whirling blades), wands if you're getting bad luck.
You want X-Y elemental damage to spells/spell power/cast speed. If you get +1 fire gems, your fire trap goes in there.
*Dual wield should give the most dps, but a good spell power shield will be strong too.
*With the new vendor recipes, I dont recommend it, but you can sell a chain belt+whetstone+3L dagger for a decent spell power leveling item.

The strength of this build is clear speed. You will be clearing packs and moving between them fast, so you can rush the early game.
The weakness of the build is bosses. I just fight the slow fight, but you might want flame totem just to help out with that single target.

Skill tree:
*Eva/Life -->Heart of Oak and Ballistic Mastery
*Beeline to duelist Mana Flows to help mana issues, then get Bravery-->Master of the Arena
*Pick up Fury Bolts, then path to Golem's Blood
You now have your regen, start using Blood Rage and pick up the Frenzy charge
*Path up to the shadow, pick up Sniper for damage/Soul Siphon for mana/Blood Siphon for survivability in the order you like.
*If still on this build, get entropy to boost fire trap and start the transistion to PA by picking up Method to Madness/Corruption

Edit: I thought we had blood rage from act 2, but I was wrong. Still, keep the same pathing but skip the frenzy charge until you get your hands on a blood rage.

I'm super excited to try this build out on Friday!!! Thanks again for all the work Serleth.

I was wondering if anyone knows how PA interacts between multiple characters. Do both clouds effect enemies? Does only the first? A friend and I are both planning to follow this guide for our first characters in the new league. We intend to party up for early leveling. However I wasn't sure how well that would work once we started using PA full time.

@Lumps EK and/or FT for leveling sounds like a very interesting alternative. I might have to try that out. Would it be possible to mule EK and buy flame totem from a vendor later on to help with bosses? (I don't have beta access so I'm not sure what limits there are on gems at the vendor.)

Unfortunately, both EK and flame totem are only available on a different character. I don't know which ones have access to flame totem. If there is a character that can mule both EK and flame totem, that would be our best bet. Some more testing will need to be done for that though, as the datamined info website isn't too accurate concerning quest reward gems/gem vendors.

@Lumps. Thanks.

@ZX42: Not sure actually, I'm pretty sure they stack though, since they're from different characters. Don't quote me on that. But if/when you find out, please report back so I can add it into the guide.

You get EK and Flame Totem afaik from Marauder (Hillock and Mud Flats eggs respectively), presuming the CB DB is accurate.

If not, mule EK Shadow, mule FT Templar. Same process, not a huge delay since you only need Hillock for EK. Extra 60 seconds.

EDIT: Didn't have a chance to play as much as I wanted to today. Finished at Normal piety. One point away from Method to the Madness atm, then on to Entropy. Got a 3L +1 bow ready for when I do.

I'm going to try see how it functions in just the 3L (PA - SP - Conc/AoE).

Great guide mate.

Any particular reason that you didn't include the Leo Damage Over Time mod on the bow?

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elitedesolator wrote:

Great guide mate.

Any particular reason that you didn't include the Leo Damage Over Time mod on the bow?

Thanks =)

I include that as an option in the guide for mastercrafted affixes (and the preferred one, really). I see how it could be unclear on a quick scan though, it's buried in a paragraph. I'll fix that.

But for my gear section:

a) Bow had 6 affixes
b) PvP disabled in Beta, no way to get it done.

Ah yeah I thought there was a solid reason why you didn't include it, thanks.

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Lumps wrote:

Unfortunately, both EK and flame totem are only available on a different character. I don't know which ones have access to flame totem. If there is a character that can mule both EK and flame totem, that would be our best bet. Some more testing will need to be done for that though, as the datamined info website isn't too accurate concerning quest reward gems/gem vendors.

Thanks for the information on leveling with EK, Lumps. I did it in the beta last night and it worked out very well. I only used EK and Fire traps and the only problem I had by the time I was ~level 50 was with the final bosses in Act4, they just took a really long time to kill haha. The AOE damage is really great though, fast leveling. Around level 50 I was lucky enough to find a 4-link +1 bow, and switched over to poison arrow. My EK tooltip DPS at ~50 was around 3.5K and when I switched over to Poison Arrow, right now it's doing around 2.3K with frenzy charges, but the Poison Arrow seems faster and safer since you can just keep moving nonstop.