[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Hi everyone, first time posting and following an mf build!

I have a couple of questions, and forgive me if they've been answered before! (wish there was a ctrl-f feature for searching within these 400+ pages!)

My goal is to complete the 40/40, and I plan on doing so with your build, and my question was for the 1200 voll runs, making it as profitable as possible, should we be stacking as much iiq and iir as we can ? I'm not too concerned about speed. I saw in your Auriseize faq answer on Reddit talking about bosses, since there's no multiplier for open world locations and boss farming that stacking iir and iqq would be efficient? Just wanted to check with you guys about it!

Here's my current gear


I vaaled my empower back to 1 unfortunately. i just bought this bow and i am trying to link it! for my setup until i am able to buy level 3 empower, would you reccomend carrow-rd-vm-ce-incAoE-IIR until i can replace the incAOE with empower?

thank you so much again for this amazingly fun build and the awesome support you and everyone is giving to all these questions!

"

AYYYBIGBOOOOTTYY wrote:

Hi everyone, first time posting and following an mf build!

I have a couple of questions, and forgive me if they've been answered before! (wish there was a ctrl-f feature for searching within these 400+ pages!)

My goal is to complete the 40/40, and I plan on doing so with your build, and my question was for the 1200 voll runs, making it as profitable as possible, should we be stacking as much iiq and iir as we can ? I'm not too concerned about speed. I saw in your Auriseize faq answer on Reddit talking about bosses, since there's no multiplier for open world locations and boss farming that stacking iir and iqq would be efficient? Just wanted to check with you guys about it!

Here's my current gear

Spoiler

I vaaled my empower back to 1 unfortunately. i just bought this bow and i am trying to link it! for my setup until i am able to buy level 3 empower, would you reccomend carrow-rd-vm-ce-incAoE-IIR until i can replace the incAOE with empower?

Spoiler

thank you so much again for this amazingly fun build and the awesome support you and everyone is giving to all these questions!

Hello AYY, and welcome to the thread.

The theory behind magic find is basically that you want to maximize the product of IIQ * IIR. Let's call this product Q.

Now, if a map or other area has magic find attributes as well, then the map/area IIQ * IIR comes into play as well. Let's call the map/area IIQ * IIR, M.

The total magic find is T = Q * R

You want that to be as high as possible.

But note, to maximize T for a given area/map where R is fixed, it doesn't matter what that R is if you're trying to maximize T.

In other words, to maximize your magic find, maxmize Q, the product of your IIR and IIQ. R, the map/area IIQ/IIR doesn't affect this.

This is not to say that if you have a choice between two maps, one with high IIQ and IIR and another with low IIQ and IIR that the high magic find map is the same as the low magic find map.

Instead, what this says is that you'll have higher magic find with higher Q (the product of your IIQ and IIR) in either map.
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TL/DR

Maximize the product of your IIQ and IIR to maximize magic find. Do this regardless of the map's IIQ and IIR.

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Caveats:
1. IIQ is somewhat better than the Q = IIQ * IIR formula suggests because IIQ applies to currency and card drops which is not reflected in the formula for Q.
2. Your IIQ and your IIR are subject to diminishing returns. At very high IIQ and IIR (you're unlikely to get into this situation without access to legacy gear) it becomes worth less and less to get further IIQ and IIR on your gear.

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With regard to speed - even with stacked IIQ and IIR your kill speed won't suffer if you're just killing Voll assuming you have decent gear. I would strongly recommend against using Greed's Embrace - that movement speed penalty will be just awful especially given the amount of times you need to kill Voll. Other than that you should be able to go hog wild on magic find.

Personally though, I'd stack movement speed if I were trying to do the 1200 Voll kills. Run past all mobs killing only to refresh quicksilver flasks. I'd probably be using 3 quicksilvers for this.

Devoto's Devotion wuold definately be an item I'd want to equip. If you really want you could switch helms for more magic find once you reach the boss - I probably wouldn't bother though - I'd be worried that I'd accidently vendor my Devoto's or my MF helm by mistake.

I'd also strongly favor IIQ over IIR (so long as IIQ * IIR doesn't get too low) while doing this to increase the chance that The Brittle Emperor will drop.

I'm wondering if a drillneck with adds an additional arrow would be any good for this?

"

Lunet wrote:

I'm wondering if a drillneck with adds an additional arrow would be any good for this?

It is a very good option for the build. Greater AoE is greater clear speed, which leads to more items.

hank, thank you so so much for the detailed explanation!

if you wouldn't mind, could you also please comment on the bow question i had regarding what gems should I run in a 6 link before i can obtain empower 3?

i was thinking: caustic arrow - rapid decay - void manipulation - concentrated effect - inc AoE - IIR ?

thank you again for such a quick and thorough response!

"

AYYYBIGBOOOOTTYY wrote:

hank, thank you so so much for the detailed explanation!

if you wouldn't mind, could you also please comment on the bow question i had regarding what gems should I run in a 6 link before i can obtain empower 3?

i was thinking: caustic arrow - rapid decay - void manipulation - concentrated effect - inc AoE - IIR ?

thank you again for such a quick and thorough response!

That would certainly work, but you'd need GGGBBB - somewhat hard to roll these colors.

For the Voll runs, you'll be running past mobs for the most part then killing Voll. For this, AOE isn't a big concern.

I'd go with: CA - Conc - VM - RD - Pierce - IIR (GGGGBB - a bit easier to color, more DPS for faster kills, sacrificing AOE which isn't a big deal if you're just killing Voll).

"

AYYYBIGBOOOOTTYY wrote:

hank, thank you so so much for the detailed explanation!

if you wouldn't mind, could you also please comment on the bow question i had regarding what gems should I run in a 6 link before i can obtain empower 3?

i was thinking: caustic arrow - rapid decay - void manipulation - concentrated effect - inc AoE - IIR ?

thank you again for such a quick and thorough response!

Also, dump that Rustic Sash belt for one with life asap. The Rustic's +physical damage does nothing for the caustic arrow cloud, so you might as well start with a belt that has a useful base. If you're online and see me active, feel free to shoot me a message, I'm pretty sure I've got a spare belt hanging about that I can donate.

Recently this item came to my attention:



It's situationally useful for magic find.

Currently, I'm working on the 300 maps from map bosses challenge. To make things go as quickly as possible, I've been running linear or open outdoor area, low-level maps, skipping past mobs except to fill flask charges and then killing the boss. I typically trans/aug Tier 1 - Tier 4 maps to do this.

For these runs, The Ascetic works out nicely. I'm wearing these in conjunction with the amulet:


The amulet gives me a tad more IIR than I would normally have on another amulet + helm + belt and allows me to squeeze a bit more IIQ into the mix.

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Edit 1:
For normal MF in higher level maps, The Ascetic might not work out as well since mobs hit harder - in which case you'd want more health - and you're often challenged with resistance-lowering encounters where you generally want to be over-capped on resistances.

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Edit 2:
I'm now equipping these with the amulet:



I've got

IIR: 378
IIQ: 51

DPS took a hit without drillneck of course, but for the content I'm now running (< Tier 5) it's not a big deal.

I could try to work a Divination Distillate into the mix as well... but I probably won't bother. Too much trouble getting the flask to go off and remain active during kills IMO.

Ah, they renamed it, but I discussed it here in depth, however did not account for any additional sources of IIQ outside of Goldwyrm and the Ascetic.

I mean basically you can read it and you'll see what I mean about what gear I talked about adjusting, in terms of minimizing the sacrificing the balance intention of the build.

"

Serleth wrote:

Ah, they renamed it, but I discussed it here in depth, however did not account for any additional sources of IIQ outside of Goldwyrm and the Ascetic.

Nice write-up. And I agree that for normal magic find Ascetic probably isn't worth it.

The low-level content (LLC) farming scenario (e.g., killing Voll over and over or farming 300 maps from map bosses) discussed below is outside the scope of your analysis which assumes normal magic find and an unwillingness to swap out clear-speed gear such as Carcass Jack (in the LLC approach outlined below, Drillneck is swapped out).

LLC farming assumes that you simply run past mobs as quickly as possible to kill the boss. You kill mobs along the way just to refresh quicksilver flask charges. In this scenario, AOE and high DPS aren't nearly as important as they are for normal magic find. AOE loses value because you're just trying to kill the end boss and high DPS loses value because the boss is low level and because the bulk of your time is spent running past mobs.

For LLC farming, I swapped out amulet + belt + quiver for Ascetic. As an alternative to Ascetic, you'd equip a rare MF amulet, Perandus Blazon (assuming you're willing to equip this given the easy content) and Drillneck.

So, for LLC farming we have 2 approaches (IIR/IIQ referenced below assumes perfect gear):

Approach 1 - Equip Ascetic, normal belt and magic quiver: 120 IIR and 15 IIQ
(or you could equip Ascetic, normal belt and magic chest)

Approach 2 - Equip rare amulet, Perandus Blazon and Drillneck: 74 IIR and 8 IIQ

Net: 46 IIR and 7 IIQ gain with Ascetic

IMO Ascetic is a niche MF item, useful for LLC farming assuming that the rest of your gear is good enough to take the DPS/life/resists hit entailed if equipping the amulet.
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This is the gear I'm using for LLC farming. I have enough life and resists (resists are not quite capped) for this content. If others are considering the approach outlined above I recommend doing so only if your gear is about as good as that shown below. Be sure to factor in jewels - which I use to significantly boost life and resists.