[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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ShaUrley wrote:

Any suggestions/comment/critiques on where to go from here:

Spoiler

Lvl 57 skill tree

My plan is to go over to the Duelist nodes, even though the Scion life wheel is tempting. I play exclusively solo/HC/self-found (with some transfers between characters) so I'm looking for a solid defensive build that can do maps comfortably with equipment that I can reasonably find or craft myself. Extreme MF isn't required. I'm also not too worried about getting extra Frenzy changes or more than a few jewel nodes.

This isn't a self-found friendly build. But if you're a self-found player, I'm sure you know how all that goes down, so I won't bore you with the caveats.

Frenzy charges are huge. If you're not going to go jewels, you should at least invest in Frenzy charges. Jewels are mostly to compensate for resistances without sacrificing much, and it's probable you aren't going to be running dual andies any time soon so you might as well pick up the damage from the frenzy charges. Though you can do that later.

The most important thing here is Thick Skin is inefficient, albeit mildly.

Compare this tree with 189% life and 103 points.

Compared to your Thick Skin pathing with 195% life (+6%) for an extra point.

Which you can easily compensate for by spending that extra point on the first tree into a travel node to a jewel socket, level once more, then get a 6-7% jewel with damage and etc.

Jewels OpieOP.

Your call though.

I would go, in order:

Golem's Blood
Fury Bolts
Bravery/Master of Arena
Scion Life
Frenzy charges

Double post.

almost ripd to cb apes pack at vuln volcano
thx i have 60% preduction and aa ontop :)

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mezmery wrote:

almost ripd to cb apes pack at vuln volcano
thx i have 60% preduction and aa ontop :)

You must be doing a LOT of standing in the pocket and throwing down to be using AA.

I move way too much to bother with it. The only time I stand still is when I'm vendoring. :P

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Serleth wrote:

This isn't a self-found friendly build.

Well, that tends to be true of many builds. ;)

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Frenzy charges are huge...Though you can do that later.

I realize Frenzy charges are now very useful, but they are last on my list of things to get, and I'm not sure how many jewel sockets I'll have the luxury of getting.

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The most important thing here is Thick Skin is inefficient, albeit mildly.

Thanks for the suggested tree and order. I can always spec out of thick skin once I have some more efficient life nodes. In the meantime, I think it'll be useful to have. It seems like a CA build can take the scion life nodes when standard TS/LA builds don't -- I suppose because CA still requires (or has) fewer supporting skill points?

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Serleth wrote:

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mezmery wrote:

almost ripd to cb apes pack at vuln volcano
thx i have 60% preduction and aa ontop :)

You must be doing a LOT of standing in the pocket and throwing down to be using AA.

I move way too much to bother with it. The only time I stand still is when I'm vendoring. :P

i dont overuse CA, it has 6 sec anyway, and my dps is way too low(about 9k)
so ye, i have enought time to stand
there are no ther auras to use there, except purities, that i use sumetimes to cover resist gaps at unoptimized gear

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ShaUrley wrote:

Thanks for the suggested tree and order. I can always spec out of thick skin once I have some more efficient life nodes. In the meantime, I think it'll be useful to have. It seems like a CA build can take the scion life nodes when standard TS/LA builds don't -- I suppose because CA still requires (or has) fewer supporting skill points?

Believe it or not, other than CA, I'm not very familiar with ranger, but based on my experience with other crit-based builds, it mostly has to do with the pathing and investment in critical strike chance and multiplier that results in less life, although jewels have mitigated that to some degree.

Take for example this very quick sketch of a crit phys bow build I've done here

115 points, two frenzy charges, one power charge, all the important crit stuff, and it's a level 95 build to get 189% life. No jewel sockets.

Compare that to what, the 103 point build I linked earlier for CA.

If you scale back the crit somewhat, and compensate for it with well-rolled jewels (crit chance, crit multi, accuracy, and hopefully life, and at least one with mana leech) you can get more survivable-efficient at the cost of a bit of damage for the same point investment but really at the end of the day every build needs to push mid 90s to get everything it wants, in an ideal world.

I guess also crit builds are more concerned with things like leeching for survivability, rather than CA which is predicated on solid flask use and regeneration, precisely because it doesn't leech. So that's a factor, too.

actually there are a some builds that are frindly to selffound as they need just gear defensive stats.
summoner and IW posion bladefall for example

PA isnt a case actually, cause it has very specific weapon and jewel reqs

Goddamn it, not a single one of my 20/0 CA's went 21/0 when I vaaled. Rip

Edit: Forgot to mention that I will brodeal away 6 20/0 corrupted CA's for free. Send me a PM here to claim one :)

Are they going to fix area dmg display? How I can know it actually works, when concentrated effect gives nothing on paper and slower projectiles does. I believe you that it works, but how can you be sure? I reached over 11k on frenzies with 5l and 20/20q, still failed Oba's.
Probably this map is for even more crazy dps on 6l maybe, since most of mobs there had chaos res.