[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

I've pm'd you about this.

How is the damage on this build in 3.0? Is it capable of clearing high tier maps and bosses reliably, or is the damage kind of meh and bosses take long to kill and you get one shot in high tier maps?

I'll be posting my thoughts on that after launch. All I wanted out of the Beta was to check the base cloud damage at higher levels so I didn't push it past T5 maps.

Before I start Harbinger I'm going to do quick passes of T13-15 maps in Standard and then report back my thoughts, at least regarding bosses.

That said, even in 2.6, survivability wasn't an issue at all up to T12 maps, and the only real concern was boss damage in T13 and higher. As a veteran of the game and the CA skill itself, I personally was comfortable up to T14 maps and bosses, as well as the T15 mobs, but survivability became an issue for T15 bosses (particularly Daresso in Colosseum).

Damage wise for the regular map mobs CA has been good since 2.0 up to T15 excepting really tanky things like Golems with the Union of Souls Bloodline.

So, for general clear speed and map clearing.... yeah, this build takes you to T15 just fine. I would say for more casual or just less experienced players, bosses will start to give you issues in T10-12, but if you're a veteran you won't really find bosses that hard until T15s.

That said, yeah, CA isn't great for killing bosses. Never has been compared to other things like Ngamahu Cyclone or ST Ele builds. If you're looking for something that's going to crush bosses relatively quick as well, CA isn't for you, but the clear speed is reasonably competitive with something like Cyclone, maybe like 10-30 seconds longer in a Gorge or Strand run or something.

That's great to hear, I've been playing this build of yours each season and will be doing so again, thanks!

@Serleth

So this is probably a stupid question but i've never leveled a scion before.

I noticed your skill tree for scion went down than to the left for health nodes than it pops over to ranger starting position.

Does this mean once you hit that life node by scion starting area you just bank your skill points until you get to the point with ascendancy points to be able to start @ the ranger?

No, you progress down into Duelist, over to Ranger, up to Shadow, etc., completing the tree with available passive points all the way until you get Path of the Ranger from the lab.

At that point, all you need to do is make sure your tree is connected to Ranger start through the projectile damage path. Once you have that, you can unspec the connecting points on the highway down towards Duelist and move them elsewhere.

So let's say for example you're level 80ish and your tree looks like this, and you've spent the first three labs getting Deadeye and then moving to grab Occultist.

Then you go do Uber lab and get Path of the Ranger.

You can then use quest respec points or regrets and change it to this, whereupon I moved the three highway points towards Phase Acrobatics.

Make sense? =)

Hi Ser, just follow your thread throught 4 leagues. It's best guide for CA i ever seen.


I have small question: How do you think about 2 skill point from Bandit quest in 3.0 ( kill all ) ?

Glad you're enjoying the build and thanks so much for your kind words =)

The defensive bonuses from Kraityn or Oak are better than the two passive points, especially for Scion which gains additional passive points. In 3.0, Scion's Path of the (class) nodes in the Ascendant tree now also grant an additional two passive points.

I can see it being more beneficial in HC if you're really concerned about your life pool, but definitely NOT for the SC variant.

Oddly, my tooltip damage with CA at level 17 is still higher than I was getting with molten strike. Going to try leveling with CA for a bit, see how it goes.

Oddly, my tooltip damage with CA at level 17 is still higher than I was getting with molten strike. Going to try leveling with CA for a bit, see how it goes.