[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Just a heads up:

I'm leaving town tomorrow for a week, so I won't be available to reply to this thread until March 25th.

Happy farming, everyone.

"

grimjack68 wrote:

As for freezing chests, I keep a set of boots around that prevent me from getting frozen, and I ID all chests.

Everyone has their own chest tricks - your's is good certainly :-)

I Yolo all chests. I use Flesh or Bone Offering to blow up all mobs around the chest, pop a quicksilver of heat and a quicksilver of warding, hit the chest and then immediately blink away once it's activated. Only problem is sometimes blink mechanics are such that you don't blink.

One thing to watch out for if you Yolo like I do is the affix that ignites you. You can take a pretty big life hit depending on map mods if that happens - so be ready to heal up fast.

I swear the price of 6L bows is going up faster than I'm making currency at the moment. 2 days ago there was one for 1.5ex. Yesterday the cheapest was 2ex. Today the cheapest is 2.5ex.

/me waves fist angrily in the general direction of poe.trade!

My gems are getting closer to lvl 20 so i've started to think about quality. Which gems do need quality 1st and which don't need at all? Is there any gems whose exp should be sacrificed for lvl 1 20q?

Also, what about Increased AoE? i've swapped it with Item Rarity a loong time ago and didn't noticed any changes. What is the point of this gem? Why is +40% aoe so important? Maybe use Slower Projectiles instead of it?
Please excuse me if this questions already was here - ive tried to use searching in this thread but it doesnt work at all. ggg fix pls

And the last but no least. Can you guys PLEASE (except Serleth ofc, ive read 1st post well and know that he doesnt answer about gearing) check out my gear and tell me, what should be changed first? Thank you!

"

GintoSakata wrote:

My gems are getting closer to lvl 20 so i've started to think about quality. Which gems do need quality 1st and which don't need at all? Is there any gems whose exp should be sacrificed for lvl 1 20q?

Also, what about Increased AoE? i've swapped it with Item Rarity a loong time ago and didn't noticed any changes. What is the point of this gem? Why is +40% aoe so important? Maybe use Slower Projectiles instead of it?
Please excuse me if this questions already was here - ive tried to use searching in this thread but it doesnt work at all. ggg fix pls

And the last but no least. Can you guys PLEASE (except Serleth ofc, ive read 1st post well and know that he doesnt answer about gearing) check out my gear and tell me, what should be changed first? Thank you!

Gear

Flasks

Jewels

and

^ forget about this one, im run out of chaoses now and will buy 2 damage mods when will get some currency

Gems that you should 20% quality:
- Concentrated Effect - yes. This gives you 10% more damage at 20.
- Rapid Decay - yes. Another 10% damage boost.
- Item Rarity - yes. This will boost rarity by 10%.
- Void Manipulation - yes. Another 10% damage boost.
- Empower - maybe. It boost how fast it gains experience, but this one you'll have to spring for gcps... and there is a decent chance you'll end up just making enough currency to buy a lvl4 empower outright eventually.
- Caustic Arrow - kind of. This will increase your area of effect, which is nice. However, the extra level from corrupted is more important, so Serleth suggests leveling a bunch of these at once in your secondary slots and Vaaling them until you get a level 21 quality 0. Use that, then level a bunch more, sell them for quality 20, level them again, THEN Vaal them until you end up with a level 21 quality 20. However, this is absolutely a last priority.
- Blink Arrow - Sure. It's not really useful. I think this is the one that Serleth suggested leveling to 20/20, selling, and starting over. :)
- Frenzy - nope. The guide says to keep this at level 1. I agree. Leveling this gives you too much damage with it, and that can be deadly with reflect maps.
- Curse on hit - yes. This will make your curse 10% more effective.
- Vulnerability - no. The increased physical damage does nothing for us. I don't even level it past about lvl10. The benefits from a higher level are increased area, increased physical damage, and increased duration, at the cost of more mana and a much higher int requirement. The area is cancelled by curse on hit, the increased physical damage does nothing for our cloud, and nothing lives 10s in the cloud except bosses, and I re-curse them all the time for the frenzy charges anyway.
- Greater Multiple Projectiles - no. Increased attack speed really doesn't help.
- Chain - no.
- Grace - no. Unless you are playing in a party, where the increased area will help other members.
- Clarity - no. Unless in a party, again.
- Flame golem - no.

Increased AoE doesn't affect individual targets, it makes the cloud so big you can clear entire rooms with a single shot. Even so, I'm not using one anymore either, and I'm not really planning on swapping it back in. In a 6L I'd use exactly what you have equipped.

As for gear... replace the Sadima's with IIR gloves, the IIQ is covered by your boots now. Start buying jewels with resistances + damage mods - I try to fit every jewel with at least two functional damage mods plus a double or triple resistance affix. That will let you fit Andy rings, which REALLY push up your IIR. Then the currency will really start rolling in. Lastly, I'd get either a Carcass Jack or a much higher Ev chest with better resistances.

Are you still actually using the mana flask?

Odd... anyone else notice that chain / fork doesn't appear to work? Maybe the 100% pierce is killing it?

Ok, did some digging on the forums, and found this little nugget:

"

A projectile can only do one of the three at a time. If it pierces, then it can't chain/fork from the same enemy.

So, with all our frenzy projectiles already having 100% pierce chance, I guess we can no longer chain / fork / whatever.

Any suggestions for something else to put in the 5th link? Alternatively, I'm thinking I might switch the curse / frenzy setup to boots / helm / gloves and use the chest for something that can take advantage of the 5/6 links.

"

grimjack68 wrote:

Ok, did some digging on the forums, and found this little nugget:

"

A projectile can only do one of the three at a time. If it pierces, then it can't chain/fork from the same enemy.

So, with all our frenzy projectiles already having 100% pierce chance, I guess we can no longer chain / fork / whatever.

Any suggestions for something else to put in the 5th link? Alternatively, I'm thinking I might switch the curse / frenzy setup to boots / helm / gloves and use the chest for something that can take advantage of the 5/6 links.

A few pages ago it was suggested to just use LMP aswell in the 5L Frenzy Setup, so Frenzy - Curse on Hit - Vulnerability - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Lesser Multiple Projectiles.

4link frenzy is more than enough with 100% pierce. i'd use the 5l for essence drain to boost the single target dmg

I just did Atziri with this build and it was super easy. Granted my gear is ok at this point and i've run her and uber in previous leagues hundreds of times but i didnt think it would be that easy. i bet this would be very doable with way worse gear. we don't have to stand still to do damage which is always nice. even the trio was no problem. you just have to shoot in front of you and essence drain them and run in circles. i killed arrow bitch - dual striker - cyclone in that order. no chaos res.
well, 3 challenges to go. ofc i had the coin to buy myself through them, but that's why i played this char instead of an all-out-deeps one :)

thx again for the build.

Gear