[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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Chrystalian wrote:

Would you want to play this build this league?
It seems to end up requiring a lot of investment to smoothly get going but what do you think ?

I might play this build this league. I will point out I usually just stick with a +2 bow, play for quantity over quality (mid tier maps, chaos recipe and alt shards), and find the play style very relaxing.

With the above information I would feel pretty good about playing this league, but would not likely see any Liches, due to spawn level, and might not make the timers (for cracks or spires). This is my own limitation, and going for the full +3 with empower bow would result in slightly higher content than I normally do with CA (in a challenge league). And if you wanted to complete most of the challenges by way of trade, this would more than fund it for sure.

Playing this build again this league, and it's running fine. I like the fact that it can kill some of the tougher bosses a bit more safely (especially Ambrius), although the lower dps does mean boss fights last longer and you have to deal with mechanics more than some builds do. Note: it can be scaled to higher dps to an extent, but I'm using it like most for generating currency, so I'm keeping it fairly simple.

I just got a lucky Rigwald's Quills drop from turning in a Void card, and it looks like it might be a viable quiver for the build, considering the increased projectile damage and forking mods. Though the forking may not apply or come into play since the play style isn't to always aim for an enemy. Any thoughts on this unique over a corrupted additional arrow quiver? Path of Building shows a +6% DoT dps with Rigwald's Quills versus added arrow. POE's tooltip shows a similar increase. The trade off though is losing the life and resistances from the rare quiver.

Due to dual Andvarius, the build used to rely pretty heavily on resistances for jewels in order to fit in Drillneck for what used to be a 100% damage boost, then 50%.


Since the mechanic behind Drillneck changed (making its benefit SUPER inconsistent) we switched to a rare quiver because even a reasonably rolled quiver (30% to all res) allowed us to drop resistances on at least three of the six jewels (depending on gear), substituting damage rolls instead. Assuming however that each jewel constituted one resistance of 15% each (totalling 90% resistance), a 30/30/30 quiver would allow all six jewels to lose a resistance roll, to the tune of 60-72% increased damage.

That's 10-22% more than a top-rolled Quills.

Of course the better the quiver, and the better the resistances on the other gear, the easier this becomes. I typically allow for mid-tier damage rolls (10% each) on jewels and assume at least two jewels will still have resistances rather than damage, putting us at approximately a 40% damage increase via the rare quiver permitting dps on jewels.

Meaning essentially that Quills is basically not recommended, as simply investing in a better quiver and being willing to throw a few extra chaos on better res rolls on the helmet/amulet/gloves/belt slots allows you to at the very least match Quills, if not beat it.

Unfortunately it also does mean more investment for jewels (life/dps/dps is always going to be more expensive than life/dps/resistance), but short of divination cards, you're looking at a 4ex+ for Quills anyway, making it not only the more difficult option, but the less prudent one.

at what level does empower beat out less duration for damage?

Level 2 (assuming you have a +1/+2 bow), and assuming LD is level 20 for comparison.

Could this be used as a starting off weapon? and would it last me a while until I make a "gg" bow?

Yes, but it's not worth 5Ling that.

As you can see via this search, 5L +2 bows are available for 3c or less.

And in the event none of them reply, you can always buy a white/magic ilvl 64+ 5L and craft +2 yourself.

No other affixes are useful for CA unless you get a Decay-crafted bow or slap the Leo DoT mod on it, and for a starting +2 bow you shouldn't worry about that anyway.

It seems that mirage archer would be a good choice as one of the links. Have you looked into replacing any of the links with mirage archer to see how it fares in comparison?

It is not. CA cloud damage cannot stack, so you would effectively just be removing a damage gem.

Nothing, realised my question.

But thanks for the build, I love it :)