[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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gutsquasher wrote:

I find the best time o switch to caustic arrow is when you get your hands on a 5l bow that you can craft +2 on. At that point, your ca should be high enough level that you can do good damage, as long as you have been leveling your support gems as well/done the quests. From there you can grab decent res rings until you can get a drillneck, goldwyrm, and andvarious rings. Usually around level 50 is when I try to switch. I at least will finish a3c with caustic arrow. At that point you can still rely heavily on totems, if ou find damage is lacking.

Yup - that works too.

I'll be switching late because it's a new league and I want to switch into a 6-link +1/+2. So I'll probably just wait a week until someone has level 8 masters around and I'll just pay them to craft onto a 6-link.

Meanwhile, I'll just MF/level on dual bladefall - not ideal for MF but very doable.

If I get bored of this before level 8 masters are available, I'll just buy a +1/+2 and try my luck linking it on my own (can get very expensive going this route though so I'll need to be very bored before I do this :-)).

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gutsquasher wrote:

I find the best time o switch to caustic arrow is when you get your hands on a 5l bow that you can craft +2 on. At that point, your ca should be high enough level that you can do good damage, as long as you have been leveling your support gems as well/done the quests. From there you can grab decent res rings until you can get a drillneck, goldwyrm, and andvarious rings. Usually around level 50 is when I try to switch. I at least will finish a3c with caustic arrow. At that point you can still rely heavily on totems, if ou find damage is lacking.

This is typically what I do. Around level 50+ is when you start to get decent ilvl 64 5L bows, so that's the moment I start shopping to make the switch.

That is certainly not a bad way to do it, but some things to keep I mind. In order to get a totem build to make it mapping not viable requires a rather large point investment away from where we go on the tree. This increases the cost of respeccing to ca considerably more than respeccing earlier. A 6 link now is going to be very expensive for the first couple of weeks in a league. On top of that cost will be the cost of buying all the mf equipment you will need, along with a decent amulet and belt. Master crafting +3 onto a bow is still very expensive, adding another 3ish exalts into your cost this early. You would require some excellent rng.

You might be better off starting with a pure totem build, then making another ca halfway into the week.

You don't really need a lot of gear to get totem builds going well though. Any moderate wand and shield will do to get BF totems working well with MF.

Realistically you're only increasing your cost by the respec points as long as you otherwise go self-found. More like half an exalt.

Hi Serleth,

Any thoughts on leveling this build tomorrow for the 2.3?

What do you think whats the best?

Thx a lot, will stay here this league ^^

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k33s69 wrote:

Hi Serleth,

Any thoughts on leveling this build tomorrow for the 2.3?

What do you think whats the best?

Thx a lot, will stay here this league ^^

Hi! I may not be Serleth, but a couple posts ago I went over our leveling options and strategies.

It basically boiled down to Frost Bolt and Nova/Vortex, or Searing Bond and Flame Totem.

Leveling our Caustic Arrow gem and supports along the way as well.

We level with those til around level 50, when we start looking for a 5 link iLvl 64 bow, which we can craft +2 to bow gems onto, and once we get that, we can safely make the change to Caustic Arrow.

Hope this helps!

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gutsquasher wrote:

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k33s69 wrote:

Hi Serleth,

Any thoughts on leveling this build tomorrow for the 2.3?

What do you think whats the best?

Thx a lot, will stay here this league ^^

Hi! I may not be Serleth, but a couple posts ago I went over our leveling options and strategies.

It basically boiled down to Frost Bolt and Nova/Vortex, or Searing Bond and Flame Totem.

Leveling our Caustic Arrow gem and supports along the way as well.

We level with those til around level 50, when we start looking for a 5 link iLvl 64 bow, which we can craft +2 to bow gems onto, and once we get that, we can safely make the change to Caustic Arrow.

Hope this helps!

+1

This is the way to go IMO.

Don't get side-tracked by my discussion about dual totem - it's only because I'm going to be switching very late (85ish) to CA that I'm going this route.

Just looking over the tree and gems for Scion.

It looks to me - unless my math is off - like level 20 Pierce will be better than Empower 3 as a support gem.

Level 20 Pierce gives 29% more damage (will actually give 30% more in a +1/+2 bow).
Level 3 Empower boosts a level 21 CA in a +1/+2 bow from 861.1 to 1073.7 = 25% more damage
Level 4 Empower boosts a level 21 CA in a +1/+2 bow from 861.1 to 1198 = 39% more damage

Since it takes so long to get Empower 4, it looks better to go with Pierce which would allow us to respec out of the 3 nodes in the Piercing Shots wheel.

Also Pierce has a mana multiplier of 1.1 versus 1.25 for Empower making it less mana intensive.

Much later in the league when/if you get Empower 4 you could recolor your bow and respec into Piercing shots; I've never managed to acquire a level 4 Empower in a challenge league.
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The above has likely been covered elsewhere and may be too much detail to include in the front portion of this guide. But maybe consider recommending Pierce with a mention that level 4 Empower will be better if you can get it.

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hankinsohl wrote:

Just looking over the tree and gems for Scion.

It looks to me - unless my math is off - like level 20 Pierce will be better than Empower 3 as a support gem.

Level 20 Pierce gives 29% more damage (will actually give 30% more in a +1/+2 bow).
Level 3 Empower boosts a level 21 CA in a +1/+2 bow from 861.1 to 1073.7 = 25% more damage
Level 4 Empower boosts a level 21 CA in a +1/+2 bow from 861.1 to 1198 = 39% more damage

Since it takes so long to get Empower 4, it looks better to go with Pierce which would allow us to respec out of the 3 nodes in the Piercing Shots wheel.

Also Pierce has a mana multiplier of 1.1 versus 1.25 for Empower making it less mana intensive.

Much later in the league when/if you get Empower 4 you could recolor your bow and spec back into Piercing shots.
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The above has likely been covered elsewhere and may be too much detail to include in the front portion of this guide. But maybe consider recommending Pierce with a mention that level 4 Empower will be better if you can get it.

You are forgetting all the extra multipliers.

I will outline all my math in the spoilers below, with the ultimate dps calculated outside. For these calculations, all gems are 20q, we are not including jewels, and we are using a drillneck, so we count the 10% pierce from that when we add the pierce from the tree.

With Pierce and no Empower
Caustic Arrow DPS: 13,996.32

MATH BELOW



With Empower, no Pierce
Caustic Arrow DPS: 19,163.20

MATH BELOW


The difference between Empower and Pierce ends up being about 5k, which makes a huge difference. This difference is a little less with a level 3 Empower, but still very noticeable.

EDIT: I just reread the Drillneck page, and the maximum damage gained from it is 100% increased, due to pierce capping at 100%. This means that with 90% from our tree, and only 10% gained from the pierce, my math for the with pierce portion was slightly above what it should be. Specifically, the increased multiplier should be .2% lower.

Let total damage = T
Let base damage = B
Let sum of all additional damage = S
Let product of all more multipliers = P

The below ignores Pierce quality which in the scheme of things is negligible.

T = B * S * P

With Empower 3
TE3 = (B *1.25) * S * P

With Pierce level 20
TP = B * S * P * 1.3

TE3 >? TP

(B * 1.25) * S * P >? B * S * P * 1.3

1.25 >? 1.3

No.

So I still think Pierce is better than Empower 3 but not Empower 4. Let me know if you see mistakes in the above.

I don't see the 30% more damage from Pierce in gutsquasher's calulations - the more multiplier with Pierce will be 1.3 times as great as without Pierce which is better than 1.25% greater base damage provided by Empower 3. Basically it comes down to 1.3 > 1.25 as shown above.