[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

More gear for the asking if you're trying to equip this setup:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

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mezmery wrote:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

Well you heard the man! Everyone delete your Scions and re-roll totems...
Better lock this 330 page thread too so no one makes the mistake of rolling caustic arrow again.
[/end sarcasm]

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mezmery wrote:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

The nice thing about MF CA builds is that they are unlikely to get nerfed into submission in 3 months.

Or maybe we like to play CA and not fall asleep while our totems do all the work, Totems are so boring.

To be fair, RF MF totems are pretty solid.

They're better for boss clear speed (though not nearly as much thanks to Ascendency), but they suffer for map clear speed since you have to wait for the totems to recognize there's enemies nearby to trigger the RF. Longer than virtually any other totem I can think of.

So it balances out, really.

Just a matter of playstyle preference.

Are there any good glove enchants for CA?

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j33bus wrote:

Are there any good glove enchants for CA?

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/List_of_glove_enchantment_mods

Only ... of Light that makes sense to me. Regen when crit. Unless you want chilled ground.

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mezmery wrote:

no point in doing mf ca anymore, when you can do mf rf totems actually.

Yep, my CA MF isn't giving me enough loot.

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Serleth wrote:

To be fair, RF MF totems are pretty solid.

They're better for boss clear speed (though not nearly as much thanks to Ascendency), but they suffer for map clear speed since you have to wait for the totems to recognize there's enemies nearby to trigger the RF. Longer than virtually any other totem I can think of.

So it balances out, really.

Just a matter of playstyle preference.

+1

Totems are a strong, all-purpose, single-character solution; good at MF and very good at bosses, but not the best in game at either.

CA has much better clear speed thus makes a better MF toon.

I do like totems and am playing a totem toon now... but my toon just isn't as good at bringing in currency.

Some issues to consider when comparing CA to totem MF are listed below, based on my play experience.
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Gearing:

For most totem builds you'll want a 6-link. It's going to be much more expensive to 6-link a chest (or a staff if you go that route) than it is to 6-link a bow, since you can buy a white 6-link bow and then fix it up if you're CA.

Yes you can do a similar thing to get a 6-link chest (buy a white one or maybe use Divination cards) and then chaos spam - but the end product won't be optimal; i've taken the card approach the last few leagues and end up buying an unlinked, perfect chest eventually and 6-linking that - spending much more to optimize my totem character than I would to optimize CA.
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DPS After Swapping in Item Rarity:

For the totem builds I've played (flame totem, OP incinerate a few leagues back, OP bladefall last league, crit Shockwave and now flame converted to chaos), all of them take a pretty big DPS hit when subbing out one of your blue gems for Item Rarity.

For CA you can compensate for any DPS loss by culling with a totem. You cannot effectively cull with totem builds.

Back when it was poison arrow, swapping out a blue gem took no DPS hit for CA. I don't know now that it's CA... but at least in the past, CA suffered a much smaller DPS hit when swapping in Item Rarity.

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Map Mods:

Both builds can handle any map mod.

But totems are potentially slowed by reflect (depending of course on what type of totem you use - RF and chaos converted don't suffer this problem though).

Totem players must also be super-cautious with "projectiles chain" maps.
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Perandus Caches:

Totems are wiped out fairly quickly by caches (maybe not so much with super high life RF totems but my poor chaos totems sure are).

CA has a much easier time with the cache mobs.
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Breaking Crates:

Totems don't aggro on crates. To break them you either need to manually click on each one (yuck!) or equip some other skill (e.g., Ice Nova) just to break crates.

For utility I also equip Portal and either Flesh Offering or Bone Offering (to get rid of corpses around chests and to kill off Necrovigil or Shrouded corpses), plus some sort of movement skill.

All in all, that's a lot of pressure on hot-key slots; at least with CA you've got one additional hotkey slot free b/c you can use frenzy to break crates.

Of course some totem builds use a secondary skill to generate charges - for those builds, the crate-breaking issue doesn't apply.
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Charge Generation:

CA generally has an easier time generating charges than totem builds. Since CA kills are credited to the player, there are numerous ways to passively generate charges for CA builds (bloodrage, Blood Dance, Poacher's Mark, etc.).

Generally speaking, kills for totem builds are not credited to the player (but see below). Therefore, totem builds must generally use a secondary active skill if they want to generate charges. This sort of playstyle takes away from the inherent safety of totems since you'll now be in the line of fire generating charges.

A workaround for this issue though is to get some sort of damage over time to kill mobs. Even with totem builds, mobs killed by DOTs are credited to the player. Usually this is done by equipping Southbound Gloves and then killing with poison or ignite.

But the Southbound Glove trick is a bit of a kludge - if you're crit, relying on crit-induced ignites to finish off mobs, then sometimes mobs will survive longer than they would have if you run into a streak of non-crits. For totem builds incorporating poison of some sort, this isn't an issue.
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But in the end it is playstyle preference. Both totem MF and CA MF are fun and each have their strengths and weaknesses.