[3.9] Rangercosta's 4-Totem + Mirage Archer Toxic Rain (Deathless Uber Elder) - low/medium budget

Well it's nice that there new totems nodes in the area of the ranger. Is totem damage scaling with the toxic rain dmg? or only the hit and not the poison/chaos stacks?

https://pastebin.com/PKeHCqR0

Is this something to consider?

alright.
so ya wwwZugZugorc pastebin looks good. you should also be able to get up to 8 ballista totems now too, if you get both passives that add one (by way of annointing too). 3 from gem, 2 from multi totems (which is best to drop 2 at a time anyway), and 2 from passives then 1 from skirmish. thats 8. but still might be better to use a quiver with chaos damage over time multiplier, though.
so maybe stick with 6 totems placing 2 at a time and use something other than skirmish quiver and anoint something other than the +1 totems. probably best option.

"

https://pastebin.com/PKeHCqR0

Is this something to consider?

that is something to consider, yes. i personally don't prefer pathfinder for this build, but its definitely solid. the AoE PF gets would play extremely well with toxic rain DoT pod stacking. extremely well. and the final points at least give you 10% more dmg, essentially. except the tree is a bit spread. you're not going to get to level 100, so i suggest more something like this

https://pastebin.com/N6s7HzvH

with more points you can get to Heavy Draw. the aoe/dmg from that cluster shouldn't be easily passed up.

with pathfinder, it'll play fine no question, but you'll be less defensive since you won't have access to evade cap. your choice though.

i honestly do think this build is going to be super good for this next league the way things are going, but one thing that i did miss about the patch notes is you can no longer get Vicious Projectiles on elder bow mods.

"

Hybrid Physical Damage and Support/Spell Damage and Support modifiers can no longer roll on two-handed weapons.

this includes vicious proj/% phys dmg on elder bows. so the best bows will be +3 bows, for sure.
this actually isn't bad, to be honest. its pretty easy to get a +3 bow, and now you can reliably get it on a 6 link base by farming The Imperial Legacy divination cards, instead of having to manually 6 link an elder base.
so....maybe this is actually a buff?? lol


EDIT: if i consider this build for later in the league (not doing it as league starter) i'd probably consider not going up to scion life wheel and staying more south of duelist. its hard to say, i haven't played around with it yet...but its a possibility. you can get basically the same amount of life and you're closer to the other totem nodes

Guys,

With the nerf to Mirage Archer and the possibility to have many many more ballistas than before, what do you guys think will be a good match up with the 6-linked ballista support + toxic rain? I mean, it looks like the mechanics of this build can change so that the ballistas will do majority of the damage. Is Toxic Rain the best skill to have in the bow, in addition to the ballistas in my armor? For example the buffed caustic arrow, with more radius and dot?

xMustard, I'm planning to SSF with this build. Would you still recommend Raider?? If so, this three you recommended would stay the same (except for the ascendancy)? https://pastebin.com/N6s7HzvH

Also, mind sharing your tree progression 30-60-90, something like that?

ok, for reference this is my current PoB: https://pastebin.com/5kd3CGtf
Note: i added 29% more damage on my jewel in order to simulate summon skitterbots which is a 20/20 gem + 29% effect crafted on amulet. 20% more dmg +44% effect = 28.8(29% more dmg taken)

alright. so with the changes...i think i would change up the tree a bit, to be honest.
Lucasperin to answer your question, toxic rain is absolutely the best to use for self-cast and to still use mirage archer is basically required. its just too good. majority of your damage actually comes from you and not the ballistas.
i'll do a breakdown of the calculated DPS based on my build and my PoB.



so. significant gear changes are going to be. again this will be based off of my PoB and current SSF blight gear setup.
it doesn't matter if you want to do the gear or even tree a bit differently, this write up is just going to highlight changes so you can directly compare how the build works right now compared to how it should work in 3.9.



now i'll go over changes to the passive tree.



Build comparison



So there you have it. build is nerfed overall. the hit on damage won't really be noticeable i don't think at all, so really you could just see it as losing 300 hp.
however, you could change the tree around to get more hp and just lose some more damage, since the build already has an abundance of it. something like posted above.
i do however recommend you squeeze out getting the skill effect duration nodes at least the one cluster. duration is just too good on toxic rain.

also, keep in mind that with this comparison mock-up, this is basically a perfect bow for the build. not sure how easy or hard it would be to come by....but something to keep in mind.
also, you could sub out Empower level 4 over Damage on Full Life support, however it really isn't much more damage (only like 1,000 more dot dps) and its Empower lvl4. not cheap, and being as i play SSF, basically not possible.

hope you enjoyed this write up. build is still going to be an absolute game destroyer

edit: forgot about tree progression. basically i just always go north into shadow area first. leave off the kind of sub-optimal 2 point things here and there until later in progression, like the 2x mana passives, or jewels (especially in SSF)
ascendancy progression is to get onslaught tree side filled out 1st and ASAP

"

xMustard wrote:

hope you enjoyed this write up. build is still going to be an absolute game destroyer

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to post the detailed analysis, especially as you mentioned it wouldn't be your league starter. I haven't played Toxic Rain before but will give it a try thanks to your breakdown :)

I noticed a poster back on page 12 mentioned taking Avatar of the Veil - based on your experience, did you have any thoughts about it vs Avatar of the Slaughter? Are the frenzy charges too good to pass up, or do you think we can sacrifice them for the dodging and phasing from Veil?

Thnx mustard for your time. So a little bit of a damage loss. But we do have new gems the awakend en toxic Rain got a little buff did you use them also in your calculations. Again thank you for your time.

"

RwOzm wrote:

Thnx mustard for your time. So a little bit of a damage loss. But we do have new gems the awakend en toxic Rain got a little buff did you use them also in your calculations. Again thank you for your time.

ah right i forgot to mention, i couldn't actually in any way factor in the slight toxic rain gem buff, but its literally just 1.4 base dot dps extra. so not sure it'll actually be anything.

as for Avatar of the Veil vs Avatar of the Slaughter.
basically Avatar of the Slaughter is for dps, Avatar of the Veil is for defense. both are good options. i'd say Slaughter is better overall for this build, because with Withering Step you really don't need the extra available dodge.
if you do want some more dodge, you can also use a Quartz flask over Sulphur flask to get 10/10 dodge and phasing.
so really the biggest benefit that Veil has is the immune to status ailments. this is of course extremely strong.

i have other raider builds in which i would take Veil over Slaughter, and even an elemental damage bow build i would do so. but since this is chaos damage over time and so reliant on attack speed for damage and stuff, and there are other options for the dodge and phasing, i more view it as Slaughter over status immune. so in this builds case i'd take Slaughter over Veil every time

"

xMustard wrote:

as for Avatar of the Veil vs Avatar of the Slaughter.
basically Avatar of the Slaughter is for dps, Avatar of the Veil is for defense. both are good options. i'd say Slaughter is better overall for this build, because with Withering Step you really don't need the extra available dodge.
if you do want some more dodge, you can also use a Quartz flask over Sulphur flask to get 10/10 dodge and phasing.
so really the biggest benefit that Veil has is the immune to status ailments. this is of course extremely strong.

i have other raider builds in which i would take Veil over Slaughter, and even an elemental damage bow build i would do so. but since this is chaos damage over time and so reliant on attack speed for damage and stuff, and there are other options for the dodge and phasing, i more view it as Slaughter over status immune. so in this builds case i'd take Slaughter over Veil every time

Understood, many thanks!

"

xMustard wrote:

hope you enjoyed this write up. build is still going to be an absolute game destroyer

Dude, thanks so much!

I'll probably take it for a spin as league starter. I think it will be great with the league mechanic. S2