[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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mezmery wrote:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

Yep, my CA MF isn't giving me enough loot.

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Serleth wrote:

To be fair, RF MF totems are pretty solid.

They're better for boss clear speed (though not nearly as much thanks to Ascendency), but they suffer for map clear speed since you have to wait for the totems to recognize there's enemies nearby to trigger the RF. Longer than virtually any other totem I can think of.

So it balances out, really.

Just a matter of playstyle preference.

+1

Totems are a strong, all-purpose, single-character solution; good at MF and very good at bosses, but not the best in game at either.

CA has much better clear speed thus makes a better MF toon.

I do like totems and am playing a totem toon now... but my toon just isn't as good at bringing in currency.

Some issues to consider when comparing CA to totem MF are listed below, based on my play experience.
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Gearing:

For most totem builds you'll want a 6-link. It's going to be much more expensive to 6-link a chest (or a staff if you go that route) than it is to 6-link a bow, since you can buy a white 6-link bow and then fix it up if you're CA.

Yes you can do a similar thing to get a 6-link chest (buy a white one or maybe use Divination cards) and then chaos spam - but the end product won't be optimal; i've taken the card approach the last few leagues and end up buying an unlinked, perfect chest eventually and 6-linking that - spending much more to optimize my totem character than I would to optimize CA.
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DPS After Swapping in Item Rarity:

For the totem builds I've played (flame totem, OP incinerate a few leagues back, OP bladefall last league, crit Shockwave and now flame converted to chaos), all of them take a pretty big DPS hit when subbing out one of your blue gems for Item Rarity.

For CA you can compensate for any DPS loss by culling with a totem. You cannot effectively cull with totem builds.

Back when it was poison arrow, swapping out a blue gem took no DPS hit for CA. I don't know now that it's CA... but at least in the past, CA suffered a much smaller DPS hit when swapping in Item Rarity.

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Map Mods:

Both builds can handle any map mod.

But totems are potentially slowed by reflect (depending of course on what type of totem you use - RF and chaos converted don't suffer this problem though).

Totem players must also be super-cautious with "projectiles chain" maps.
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Perandus Caches:

Totems are wiped out fairly quickly by caches (maybe not so much with super high life RF totems but my poor chaos totems sure are).

CA has a much easier time with the cache mobs.
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Breaking Crates:

Totems don't aggro on crates. To break them you either need to manually click on each one (yuck!) or equip some other skill (e.g., Ice Nova) just to break crates.

For utility I also equip Portal and either Flesh Offering or Bone Offering (to get rid of corpses around chests and to kill off Necrovigil or Shrouded corpses), plus some sort of movement skill.

All in all, that's a lot of pressure on hot-key slots; at least with CA you've got one additional hotkey slot free b/c you can use frenzy to break crates.

Of course some totem builds use a secondary skill to generate charges - for those builds, the crate-breaking issue doesn't apply.
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Charge Generation:

CA generally has an easier time generating charges than totem builds. Since CA kills are credited to the player, there are numerous ways to passively generate charges for CA builds (bloodrage, Blood Dance, Poacher's Mark, etc.).

Generally speaking, kills for totem builds are not credited to the player (but see below). Therefore, totem builds must generally use a secondary active skill if they want to generate charges. This sort of playstyle takes away from the inherent safety of totems since you'll now be in the line of fire generating charges.

A workaround for this issue though is to get some sort of damage over time to kill mobs. Even with totem builds, mobs killed by DOTs are credited to the player. Usually this is done by equipping Southbound Gloves and then killing with poison or ignite.

But the Southbound Glove trick is a bit of a kludge - if you're crit, relying on crit-induced ignites to finish off mobs, then sometimes mobs will survive longer than they would have if you run into a streak of non-crits. For totem builds incorporating poison of some sort, this isn't an issue.
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But in the end it is playstyle preference. Both totem MF and CA MF are fun and each have their strengths and weaknesses.

Pretty crazy for Lab speed runs if you can stand the complete lack of stats other than movement.

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hankinsohl wrote:

Pretty crazy for Lab speed runs if you can stand the complete lack of stats other than movement.

Works amazing with a couple quicksilver flasks for regular / cruel runs!

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Hvakhshathra wrote:

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mezmery wrote:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

Yep, my CA MF isn't giving me enough loot.

http://s14.postimg.org/bl76e50m9/Capture.png

diffrence is that i can run 8 mod t15 in mf setup and 4 min atziri runs with double andvarius.
but as you wish.

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Nick42 wrote:

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mezmery wrote:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

Well you heard the man! Everyone delete your Scions and re-roll totems...
Better lock this 330 page thread too so no one makes the mistake of rolling caustic arrow again.
[/end sarcasm]

oj, you know i compared myself. not even theory

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PureRnd wrote:

Or maybe we like to play CA and not fall asleep while our totems do all the work, Totems are so boring.

sticking at sub 9 maps is fun?
mf is not about fun, it's about effectiveness, you dont need 6l bow and empower for exmaple, just tabula or any 6l chest, carcass preferable but not mandatory unlike +3 bow. including effective lab runs too.

del

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hankinsohl wrote:

Pretty crazy for Lab speed runs if you can stand the complete lack of stats other than movement.

since these lab is not as much of a pain anymore :D

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mezmery wrote:

diffrence is that i can run 8 mod t15 in mf setup and 4 min atziri runs with double andvarius.
but as you wish.

sticking at sub 9 maps is fun?

I don't normally pull out the claws, but this is such unmitigated horseshit.

This build can 8-mod t15 as well (excluding Daresso & Core bosses, granted), and I have Atziri runs down to about 5 minutes again, just like I did in 2.0.

Which MURDERS your contention that this build has to stay T9 and below.

So this:

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mezmery wrote:

you know i compared myself. not even theory

Is clearly false.

Because if you had, you'd know that this build can run T15s comfortably in full MF once it's fully geared, and you'd know that your general map clear speed is SHIT with RF totems compared to CA, but that you make up for it (to some degree) on bosses. Less so now with Occultist providing a huge boost to cursed enemies.

Your only valid point is that the gear requirements to get to that point are more intensive.

If you want to come onto the forums and trash someone's build, you'd best know what you're talking about. It's blatantly obvious that you don't.

Sub T9. Roflcopter.

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hankinsohl wrote:

Back when it was poison arrow, swapping out a blue gem took no DPS hit for CA. I don't know now that it's CA... but at least in the past, CA suffered a much smaller DPS hit when swapping in Item Rarity.

Thanks for your feedback as always, hank.

In regards to the above, CA's significantly better this league, even better than it was with 2.0. With Scion's Deadeye/Occultist hybrid, and the helmet enchant for radius + Carcass Jack, you can now drop the AoE gem, allowing you to swap in another DPS gem in its place.

I forget the exact numbers, but it results like this, basically:

2.0: 48k
2.1: 36k
2.2: 55-60ish k (accounting for -chaos res on cursed enemies, and the aforementioned gem swap).

Throw in Wither stacks on top of the curse benefit, and it's rivalling RF totem's boss damage as well. I'm killing the Atziri trio significantly faster in 2.2, and I'm still missing three gem levels.

With significantly sub-par gear compared to yours, I'm clearing T11 rare maps with no troubles yet.



With a 6L +3 bow and Empower, this is just going to get easier.

Admittedly, my bladefall toon does more raw dps, however... I'm still *playing* this one.