[3.13] TOXIC RAIN + HERALD OF AGONY Pathfinder Build (6-8K life) (UBER ELDER done!) +VIDEO GUIDE!

I'm interested in trying this build out, and I have a few questions.

1.) Which chest do you guys use for mapping/delving? I already have an RF Jugg for bossing, so I'm not too concerned about it (though being able to do red elder and shaper guardians is nice).

2.) Is Herald of Agony worth 6Ling? I'm seeing mixed results with it reading over the last few pages, trending towards "not worth."

3.) When using Thief's Torment for mana sustain, I'm getting the idea that using Inc. Duration support probably isn't worth it since the pods need to explode and hit for you to regain mana and I should use Damage on Full Life or at the very least Efficacy instead. Is that a good assumption to make?

Just tried Minotaur and got annihilated. Well, maybe annihilated isnt the best word, but only got him down to about 40%.

Apparently since everyone else is killing him with this build it's just my lack of skills. I think 4 of the 6 deaths came from him popping out of the ground all of a sudden which one-shotted me every time.

I did recently respec some to match what all the top Toxic Rain builds on poeninja are doing, even spent the last of my cash on a two socket tombfist. I did a few tier 15 maps and it felt fine, damage seemed to be the same but I had much more life than before, so figured I was good. So disappointing. Still have never even attempted shaper!

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Angry_Roleplayer wrote:

Hi and thanx for a massive input! HIGHLY APPRECIATED!
I sank 300c in shaper frags so it won't be soon before i start crafting a -9 helm, but yeah, it's in my priorities as well.
What do you think about Mirage Archer Quality? I thought doing 20/20 is pretty pointless for Quill Rain.

You are right, the Mirage Archer quality isn't useful (which is true for most of the supports). Heck it's probably better to by a 21/0 Mirage Archer for 12c, just to increase his DPS by 1% :)

The fossil crafting of the helm isn't that expensive, though buying a rare helmet with the right enchant will cost upfront. The chaos fossil costs an alch, and the life fossil is 2c? The helmet is super easy to roll if you require zero ele res from the helmet slot too!

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churoshyo wrote:

Overall is a hard fight, it's also a fight that can snowball very fast once you're died and the floor is covered with vortexes and the propagator degen. i also manage to up cold res to 86%, not sure if that helps but yeah.. and it's true you don't really need witchfire brew in this fight, i'm more like a bad player so my 5th flask are normally untouched. lol!

Purity of Ice is a reasonable choice, and was something I considered. It combos well with the Sapphire flask and Pathfinder's flask uptime. Max cold res helps tremendously with the fight. Shaper balls are cold, Shaper beam is 1/3rd cold, Shaper degen balls/vortex are cold DOT, Elder icicle projectiles are cold. Plenty of physical attacks too, like melee attacks and the degen from the propagator is physical.

Yes the fight snowballs out of control quickly, and the degen on the ground becomes too much. If you panic and run around too much, you'll never have enough DPS to end the phase, which guarantees your death. Congrats on your victory!

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Adder10_0 wrote:

I'm interested in trying this build out, and I have a few questions.

1.) Which chest do you guys use for mapping/delving? I already have an RF Jugg for bossing, so I'm not too concerned about it (though being able to do red elder and shaper guardians is nice).

2.) Is Herald of Agony worth 6Ling? I'm seeing mixed results with it reading over the last few pages, trending towards "not worth."

3.) When using Thief's Torment for mana sustain, I'm getting the idea that using Inc. Duration support probably isn't worth it since the pods need to explode and hit for you to regain mana and I should use Damage on Full Life or at the very least Efficacy instead. Is that a good assumption to make?

There are many chests you can use, and you don't have to worry about the cost of linking the chest, since the chest really only needs a 4L or 5L. This assumes 6L Quill Rain, which is a cheaper 6L to get than any 6L chest.

In order of popularity on poe.ninja builds using Toxic Rain: Queen of the Forest, Lightning Coil, Cherrubim's, Cloak of Defiance, Kaom's Heart, Belly of the Beast, Carcass Jack, and some 1%ers like Loreweave. You could also use a Shaper rare chest with Phys taken as Ele.

Herald of Agony does not need a 6L, and does not need to be used at all. In fact, only 43% of Pathfinder Toxic Rain users on poe.ninja use Agony; the rest have decided to abandon it entirely. You can use that extra room for a 2nd 6L, perhaps with Caustic Arrow, or making a stronger RAT that uses a second Toxic Rain. Use the saved mana reservation for Grace or something :)

Thief's Torment in mapping, combined with long duration, can make mana sustain 'spotty' at times. If you spam your shots into thin air, or into packs that are about to die, your mana will hurt. This is easily seen when running a No Regen/Leech map, which requires careful aiming of every shot. During big bosses like Uber Elder, this is much less of an issue, assuming you don't spam your shots into thin air. Remember that you get a 'hit' when the arrow lands, and another 'hit' when the pod explodes. For mapping, it's reasonable to have a shorter duration on your pods and to go for more 'upfront' damage, so packs die in one shot and die quickly.

The power of Thief's Torment really shines in Delve, at the end of an encounter like an Azurite room. I can full auto my attacks and never run out of mana, since there's so many mobs and they keep spawning. Hold still, flasks up like life regen from Sulphur and smoke cloud from Witchfire, onslaught on kill proc'd, and Tukohama minor giving me some more life regen.

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Baldrick wrote:

Just tried Minotaur and got annihilated. Well, maybe annihilated isnt the best word, but only got him down to about 40%.

Apparently since everyone else is killing him with this build it's just my lack of skills. I think 4 of the 6 deaths came from him popping out of the ground all of a sudden which one-shotted me every time.

I did recently respec some to match what all the top Toxic Rain builds on poeninja are doing, even spent the last of my cash on a two socket tombfist. I did a few tier 15 maps and it felt fine, damage seemed to be the same but I had much more life than before, so figured I was good. So disappointing. Still have never even attempted shaper!

Minotaur is tough. He is also the toughest Guardian when it comes to rare/corrupted rolls, since so many things make him incredibly lethal. I comically bricked my first attempt on him with this character, though I knew the fight would be tough because of the map mods. There's a general thought that the Shaper Guardians, with most rare/corrupted rolls, are harder than the Shaper fight itself, because the Shaper fight has no mods and is the same thing every time.

Minotaur is most lethal when he is off-screen, because he will often do his burrow attack which is crazy strong and has massive range/radius. The longer the fight takes, the more of the lightning barriers come up or w/e, making the fight even harder. It's not intuitive, but you actually want to hug him quite close, and just DPS him down. The slow from Toxic Rain and Maim makes this quite doable. You can also 'cheat' by using a Vaal Blight, for mega slow. Dodge his telegraphed melee attacks, stay out of the large circles with rockfall, and just hug him close and full auto him down.

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Adder10_0 wrote:

I'm interested in trying this build out, and I have a few questions.

1.) Which chest do you guys use for mapping/delving? I already have an RF Jugg for bossing, so I'm not too concerned about it (though being able to do red elder and shaper guardians is nice).

2.) Is Herald of Agony worth 6Ling? I'm seeing mixed results with it reading over the last few pages, trending towards "not worth."

3.) When using Thief's Torment for mana sustain, I'm getting the idea that using Inc. Duration support probably isn't worth it since the pods need to explode and hit for you to regain mana and I should use Damage on Full Life or at the very least Efficacy instead. Is that a good assumption to make?

1) Cherrubims for general things, Loreweave is great too. Belly of the Beast is what i prefer for 7k+ life. Kaom's Heart is also good and you can put Herald in gloves
2) Not matter what people will tell you = it is worth it. He does a lot of damage and paired with Pierce he greatly helps in tougher Delves like Abyssal Cities and outposts. Uber Elder was already killed with JUST the Herald so it technically proves he has the damage for anything.
3) It's great for everything. And the duration has no big impact since they will overlap quite fast and you won't even notice.

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Baldrick wrote:

Just tried Minotaur and got annihilated. Well, maybe annihilated isnt the best word, but only got him down to about 40%.

Apparently since everyone else is killing him with this build it's just my lack of skills. I think 4 of the 6 deaths came from him popping out of the ground all of a sudden which one-shotted me every time.

I did recently respec some to match what all the top Toxic Rain builds on poeninja are doing, even spent the last of my cash on a two socket tombfist. I did a few tier 15 maps and it felt fine, damage seemed to be the same but I had much more life than before, so figured I was good. So disappointing. Still have never even attempted shaper!

You just need more experience. You can't facetank minotaur with eva/dodge characters. You need to always step a little behind and shoot from a far. Let me come out and just shoot. Watch for teh rocks. Rocks are MUCH MORE deadly than Minotaur :)

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BlueeGreg wrote:

Herald of Agony does not need a 6L, and does not need to be used at all. In fact, only 43% of Pathfinder Toxic Rain users on poe.ninja use Agony; the rest have decided to abandon it entirely. You can use that extra room for a 2nd 6L, perhaps with Caustic Arrow, or making a stronger RAT that uses a second Toxic Rain. Use the saved mana reservation for Grace or something :)

I would rephrase: It does not NEED to be in 6L indeed, but it sure does help a lot when he's in a 6L. Especially against late end-game.
Don't watch Poe.ninja that much. People don't really do uber elders with their builds over there. TR/CA there are mostly mappers / low delvers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slv2-Xs4CiA

anything to make this build tankier? At delve 285 depth is already very rippy for me. not sure what else i can consider?

what about say using lightning coil, and run purity of lightning + topaz flask?

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churoshyo wrote:

anything to make this build tankier? At delve 285 depth is already very rippy for me. not sure what else i can consider?

what about say using lightning coil, and run purity of lightning + topaz flask?

Good options i guess. But i noticed that Atziri's Promise, Sin's Rebirth and Maloney's paired with 6L Lioneye's give me a lot of sustain

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Angry_Roleplayer wrote:

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churoshyo wrote:

anything to make this build tankier? At delve 285 depth is already very rippy for me. not sure what else i can consider?

what about say using lightning coil, and run purity of lightning + topaz flask?

Good options i guess. But i noticed that Atziri's Promise, Sin's Rebirth and Maloney's paired with 6L Lioneye's give me a lot of sustain

i start dying really really fast in delve outposts.. primeval,vaal etc.. it's very frustrating

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Angry_Roleplayer wrote:

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BlueeGreg wrote:

Herald of Agony does not need a 6L, and does not need to be used at all. In fact, only 43% of Pathfinder Toxic Rain users on poe.ninja use Agony; the rest have decided to abandon it entirely. You can use that extra room for a 2nd 6L, perhaps with Caustic Arrow, or making a stronger RAT that uses a second Toxic Rain. Use the saved mana reservation for Grace or something :)

I would rephrase: It does not NEED to be in 6L indeed, but it sure does help a lot when he's in a 6L. Especially against late end-game.
Don't watch Poe.ninja that much. People don't really do uber elders with their builds over there. TR/CA there are mostly mappers / low delvers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slv2-Xs4CiA

I agree with you, poe.ninja is not a good idea to look for boss gear only. I also agree with using Agony in some way, simply because of the flavor of Toxic Rain, combined with Agony, and the Pathfinder bonus for it. That doesn't mean it is best, though.

The reality is that Trickster can make Toxic Rain work without Agony, which likely means that Pathfinder doesn't need to use Agony either. The opportunity cost for Agony is significantly high; 4-6 sockets, and ~50%++ mana reservation (using the helmet enchant for Agony should be a non-starter, because of how solid the Toxic Rain enchants are).

There are things I would love to test, if I weren't retired from the league. Like a 2nd 6L with Caustic Arrow, fired every 2 seconds x skill effect duration, to keep it's mega DOT up for bosses. Or a 6L RAT, giving me 12 remaining sockets to make some fun CWDT and instant cast combos.