[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Did some cleanup work in the OP. Should be easier to follow now.

Not much left to update at this point for 2.1.

* I want to hit ~level 90 before I start screwing around with the tree more to decide whether we can drop Mana Flows / Primal Spirit. Until then, I've decided Primal Spirit is the way to go (presuming we need to keep it). We don't need anywhere near as much mana regeneration in 2.1, which means the extra 20% from Mana Flows is unnecessary. Might as well improve our flask charges instead.
* I'm finding even in 40% reduced recovery maps though, that extra little bit of regen from Primal Spirit is nice. More extensive testing required.
* Gems are basically finalized, although I haven't edited the OP just yet to reflect that. I want to make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN about the mana concerns first re: Clarity. I did enough testing on Standard to know Essence Drain isn't required, so we're sticking with the Wither Totem. So that's something.
* Lastly, the leveling section will need reworking.

I used to play a PA build before this new patch and after a quick update about the changes on the tree and new gems I came here to see the work you did with the tree and I have a question: Why did you take more DoT nodes than chaos damage nodes?

I'm not an expert on PA builds and my question is meant to gather info about this matter in order to improve my knowledge.

"

dHsn wrote:

I used to play a PA build before this new patch and after a quick update about the changes on the tree and new gems I came here to see the work you did with the tree and I have a question: Why did you take more DoT nodes than chaos damage nodes?

I'm not an expert on PA builds and my question is meant to gather info about this matter in order to improve my knowledge.

CA is one of the simpler examples about how increased damage modifiers work. It gets more complex than this for other skills, and I'll provide a short example of that as well.

For CA, we know that Damage Over Time, Chaos Damage, Area Damage and Projectile Damage all increase the cloud damage. If you didn't well, now you do.

So what happens with increased damage modifiers is that they all add together before applying to the relevant portion of damage. Like I said, with CA, it's simple. There's only one damage type that's being modified.

The (simple) formula for damage modification is this:

Final DPS = [(Base Damage) * (100% + Increased Damage Modifiers)] * (100% + Multiplicative Damage Modifiers)

In the above formula, the 100% is basically there to just say "we're not looking to get 10% of our damage, we're looking to get 100% of our damage PLUS the increased damage."

Another way of expressing that is 1 + (Increased Damage Modifiers / 100).


For the purposes of this example, I'll keep it extremely simple.

Let's say we have:

* Base Damage of 200
* 10% increased DoT
* 20% increased Proj damage
* 30% increased Chaos damage

So we plug it in and it looks like this

FDPS = 200 * (100% + 10 + 20 + 30) * (100% [since we're not adding any multiplicative damage])
FDPS = 200 * (1 + [10+20+30/100]) * 1
FDPS = 200 * 1.6 * 1
FDPS = 320

Now let's change the values on those increased modifiers to:

* 20% increased DoT
* 10% increased Chaos damage
* 30% increased Proj damage.

FDPS = 200 * (100% + 20 + 10 + 30) * (100%)
FDPS - 200 * (1 + [20 + 10 + 30]/100) * 1
FDPS = 200 * 1.6 * 1
FDPS = 320

Notice how the final damage doesn't change.

So for CA, it's completely irrelevant which damage type you have more of because they all scale the damage equally, and because of the way the calculation is done (all increased modifiers adding together with each other before applying to the damage).


Let's take a look at a more complicated example: Fireball with flat added lightning damage.

* Fireball Base Damage = 200
* Flat added lightning = 50
* Increased spell damage = 10%
* Increased fire damage = 20%
* Increased elemental damage = 20%

So the problem here is that the increased fire damage will scale the fireball damage, but NOT the added lightning damage. Meanwhile, because we're dealing pure elemental damage (and not using say, added chaos), both the spell damage and generic elemental damage will apply to both the fireball and the flat added lightning. But again, fire will not touch the added lightning.

I'll break it down into two separate calculations here to make it more readily apparent

Fireball DPS = 200 * (1 + [10 + 20 + 20]/100)
= 200 * 1.5
= 300

Flat Lightning = 50 * (1 + [10 + 20]/100)
= 50 * 1.3
= 65

Net DPS = 365

But what if we have flat added fire instead?

Flat Fire = 50 * (1 + [10 + 20 + 20]/100)
= 50 * 1.5
= 75

Net DPS = 300 + 75 = 375.


Or what about 50 flat added chaos?

Flat Chaos = 50 * (1 + [10]/100)
= 50 * 1.1
= 55


Notice how in the flat lightning damage, the fire did not apply, and for the flat chaos damage, only the spell damage applied.


So it's very important to consider your damage sources when you are trying to scale your skills, and sometimes it is more complicated to understand.

A prime example of this consideration at work is Glacial Cascade: physical damage increases will only scale the physical portion of the skill; cold will only scale cold. So every GC build you see takes "spell damage," because it scales both the physical and cold.


And with CA, you would look at the skill and think it's fairly obvious DoT, Chaos and Area damage scale the cloud but a lot of people trip up and think projectile damage will not. But you have to remember, the projectile is in fact what deals the damage, because it explodes with the ground and then leaves the chaos cloud behind.


Sorry for the essay but I hope this makes it clear.

TL;DR increased damage modifiers add together before applying to the damage so no particular damage type takes priority for CA.

Thanks a lot for the update Serleth. Btw since you are updating leveling section, thought I would put my way so far. I was lucky to get a silverbranch drop on my mf toon. I 4linked it and used CA, RD, VM, Conc. effect. I barely get touched in normal except in malachai but no deaths [ Was done with 1100 hp and grace.] In cruel i am using the same setup except flame totem culling and so far its easy as well with 1.6k hp. Still using grace only. Mana isnt really a problem except in boss fights as long as you have 5-10 mana per kill gear.

Now going to see how I fare against malachai in cruel. Btw I used solo play with CA and flame totem.

Would you still take the initial ranger nodes if a scion was chosen for your build?

from 80 to 86 i earned ~2.5 exa, mostly just plain drops of chaos and bulk alt sale. 295 irr, 20iiq
gj ggg :D
mf still helps with reciepes, bought some nice rares and drillneck, still waiting for shiny drop to fund 6l :D

also found out DOT animation bug still works. almost got teared apart by temple piety(double temple piety with bossmods, not going easy way), cause there were no skill animation by them. like at all. my contagion friends having same issues

"

Serleth wrote:

* Lastly, the leveling section will need reworking.

basically it have to be reduced to two words
nights hold

Is there any way of converting this into a trap build? But still achieving the same objectives as the original?

Id love to see this as a trap build, and just use split arrow for barrels ect.

Iv tried to make an attempt at a tree, using the skills caustic arrow, and desecrate while using traps prioritizing DoT damage, also used the idea as a hybrid life/ES build.

I had achieved a similar build as a crit fire trap build and ended up with about 4k energy shield and 3.5k life with the gear I had at the time.


The skill tree I came up with

"

Infiltrator wrote:

Would you still take the initial ranger nodes if a scion was chosen for your build?

Yes, though not all the way to the 16% starting node. Just the first three 10%.

"

mezmery wrote:

basically it have to be reduced to two words
nights hold

Eh, it's not really any better than Searing Bond + CA as far as Night's Hold + Flame Totem.

Night's Hold + Fire Nova Mine, however. Looks amazing.

"

Is there any way of converting this into a trap build? But still achieving the same objectives as the original?

It could work, though desecrate doesn't do enough damage to warrant using. You're better off perhaps working in Bladefall as a secondary trap option.

There's a lot of changes that need to happen here though, the first of which is that trappers pretty much REQUIRE Eldritch Battery, otherwise you're going to run out of mana after your second trap throw, every time.

Meaning hybrid won't work for you. Meaning 3.5k life is nowhere near enough.

Hybrid BF/CA Trapper Tree

I'd do something like that.

Bladefall + Trap + Multitrap + Trap & Mine Damage + Poison (Chest).

Also, with the trap cooldown nodes now, you may not even need a second trap. Not sure.

Anyway the short answer is you can make it work but resistances are going to be much trickier. You're only getting 8% off the tree and two jewel sockets, so you'll almost definitely need to run Ventor + Andy instead of dual Andy.

"

It could work, though desecrate doesn't do enough damage to warrant using. You're better off perhaps working in Bladefall as a secondary trap option.

There's a lot of changes that need to happen here though, the first of which is that trappers pretty much REQUIRE Eldritch Battery, otherwise you're going to run out of mana after your second trap throw, every time.

Meaning hybrid won't work for you. Meaning 3.5k life is nowhere near enough.

Hybrid BF/CA Trapper Tree

I'd do something like that.

Bladefall + Trap + Multitrap + Trap & Mine Damage + Poison (Chest).

Also, with the trap cooldown nodes now, you may not even need a second trap. Not sure.

Anyway the short answer is you can make it work but resistances are going to be much trickier. You're only getting 8% off the tree and two jewel sockets, so you'll almost definitely need to run Ventor + Andy instead of dual Andy.

Thanks for the input! I really appreciate it.