[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

I just hit level 63 in HC Perandus and switched to CA, it's working well but I rolled shadow and I'm regretting it due to the fact that I can't hit 100% pierce chance without pierce gem.

I think I'm going to reroll Scion...

Although this might not be a big deal, you don't mention the order to take the ascendancy nodes.


I've found it extremely helpful to split the nodes in normal (so I take the 40 dex from ranger start and 40 int from witch start). This gives a huge boost to int which lets us continue to level our gems without needing too much int on gear. This has made gearing incredibly easy this time around compared to my previous league with this build.

Then in cruel, you use your two points to get to deadeye, and then merciless for occultist.

How would you feel about lightning coil rather than a carcass?

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How would you feel about lightning coil rather than a carcass?

This has been discussed in the past, and I believe that it was far too inefficient to wear a LC due to the negative resistances. Coupled with the double Andvarius, it made it impossible to cap elemental resists.

The other benefit was the AOE and damage of carcass that allows us to clear faster as well as drop the inc AOE gem (I don't know if the current iteration of the build uses inc AOE gem anymore).


I think in the past, the general consensus was "go for it if you're able", but in order to make this guide beginner friendly and cheap to gear, Serleth has opted out of recommending lightning coil as an end game goal.

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Leszczu wrote:

I have one more problem with Gems section: is Blood Rage really good for this build?

Since we don't use Armour, we don't have any physical mitigation. We'll be getting 4% max life as phys damage with no way to mitigate other than life regen and flasks. All that for just 20% attack speed bonus.

Is it worth it? I sustain my Frenzy Charges purely from Frenzy, which I'm already using to proc curse.

It's not the attack speed bonus.

You get 4% multiplicative damage per frenzy charge, which is 28% more with all frenzy charges up. It's a huge boost. It's the difference between something like 50k to 60k in a finished build.

@DSJ:

Tree looks fine.

I'm not an expert on xp/hr for levelling the fastest. Supposedly Dried Lake to 75-80 does very well but I get super bored of it very quickly so I just go to maps as soon as I'm finished all the quests, which usually has me ~level 64.

I wouldn't start mapping though until about 3.8k hp.

To that end, drop Blazon for a rare belt. The 8% quantity isn't that significant to be concerned by. You have enough quantity with Sadimas.

CA DPS is all about:

* Gem levels
* +3 bow
* Drillneck
* More gem levels
* All the gem levels
* Cursing as necessary
* Dropping Wither totem as necessary

I leave Distillate up to player discretion. Personally I'm not a fan of using it with this build, as I find it clunky with all the regeneration we get. Best way to do it is to fiddle with your Clarity level and run your third life flask with the affix that removes mana on use, so that you can keep hitting it and keep the Distillate buff up.

I personally think having two Quicksilvers and two Seething flasks trumps running Distillate. There are a lot of burst damage situations where only running one Seething would suck, or you get dead-ended and only having one Quicksilver (especially with the nerf) will leave you walking across maps for too long.

@asddsa:

You're basically set. From this point it's min maxing. I don't recommend running Aurseize simply because if you want to push higher level maps, the lack of life is going to hurt you, and it'll be more difficult to get the res balance done if you want to run Carcass Jack. But, if that's your preference, there's nothing wrong with it either.

Your belt needs work, it's life is super low. You have no life on your amulet. And you should try to get an evasion version of your helmet.

Otherwise you're good.

"

Although this might not be a big deal, you don't mention the order to take the ascendancy nodes.

I've found it extremely helpful to split the nodes in normal (so I take the 40 dex from ranger start and 40 int from witch start). This gives a huge boost to int which lets us continue to level our gems without needing too much int on gear. This has made gearing incredibly easy this time around compared to my previous league with this build.

Then in cruel, you use your two points to get to deadeye, and then merciless for occultist.

I think this is the correct way to handle it.

Also, thanks for answering the question about Lightning Coil. That's spot on.

"

Serleth wrote:

"

Leszczu wrote:

I have one more problem with Gems section: is Blood Rage really good for this build?

Since we don't use Armour, we don't have any physical mitigation. We'll be getting 4% max life as phys damage with no way to mitigate other than life regen and flasks. All that for just 20% attack speed bonus.

Is it worth it? I sustain my Frenzy Charges purely from Frenzy, which I'm already using to proc curse.

It's not the attack speed bonus.

You get 4% multiplicative damage per frenzy charge, which is 28% more with all frenzy charges up. It's a huge boost. It's the difference between something like 50k to 60k in a finished build.

I know what Frenzy Charges are for, but since we're using Frenzy already, we don't need Blood Rage to get charges - we get them from Frenzy+CoH+Vuln combo, which we use anyway to apply curse.

So again, what do we need Blood Rage for? :)

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Leszczu wrote:

I know what Frenzy Charges are for, but since we're using Frenzy already, we don't need Blood Rage to get charges - we get them from Frenzy+CoH+Vuln combo, which we use anyway to apply curse.

So again, what do we need Blood Rage for? :)

Blood Rage allows you to generate frenzy charges faster without having to stop at all.

Given that, in a finished build, you will only be cursing tanky blue packs and rares/uniques, most of the killing that you do is just fire-and-forget. If you're stopping to curse every pack and get a frenzy charge, you're adding literally 1 second per shot, between the time it takes for you to decide "yes, it's time to Frenzy" - the time it takes for your body to physically react to that decision - and the in-game time it takes to generate that shot.

You're probably going to fire off in the neighborhood of 30-60 frenzies without blood rage, per map.

That's up to a full minute extra per map that you don't need to spend.

Now, let's say you're running maps in 4 minutes because of this.

That means that you're getting about 15 maps per hour.

Meanwhile, I'm getting 20 maps per hour because I'm only spending three minutes, letting Blood Rage do the heavy lifting for my charge generation.

That's another 120 alts per hour I'm generating. Or 15 fuse, which at say... 130:1 ex, is an additional 0.11ex/hr.

The math obviously isn't accurate but you get the drift. I'm getting more strongboxes per hour, more boss kills per hour, more opportunities to run into Perandus Chests per hour, more chances at unique drops per hour, etc.

All because of Blood Rage and taking a bit of regen on the tree.

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Serleth wrote:

Meanwhile, I'm getting 20 maps per hour because I'm only spending three minutes, letting Blood Rage do the heavy lifting for my charge generation.

Although this varies from one player to another, based on experience/familiarity but the cheap layout of the maps (sorry there is no polite way to describe them) it's very hard to achieve that. All those dead-ends that forces you to backtrack and obstacles designed to slow you down you have few options; either avoiding those maps (selling them/ vending them in 3 packs for next tier) or just quitting and moving to next map once you hit the boss.
Again, this differs from one player to another but once I hit 90+ in Talisman league, I was clearing up to T13 with a very decent speed without using blood rage or even stopping to use frenzy.

Anyone know would the quality Caustic Arrow do much difference? Since you are already shooting 2 arrows.

Or would it be just better to Vaal normal level 20 gems.

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Moksu wrote:

Anyone know would the quality Caustic Arrow do much difference? Since you are already shooting 2 arrows.

Or would it be just better to Vaal normal level 20 gems.

The extra level is quite important for good dps, so first I would start vaaling your 20/0 gems until you get a 21/0, then Q20 the rest and bring them up to 20 again for a try at 21/20.

Try to get that 21/0 ASAP though.