[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

My first wander character, ever.

Took three hours of trading, research, respeccing my Ngamahu, but it's up.

Ran one map.

It's fucking badass.



Still have to rework flasks and adjust a few other small details.

Bought the Shavs for 5.7ex @ 142%, divined it to 199% in 3 attempts and promptly 6L'd it in something like 200j and 150f. Savings of like.. 7ex? =D

Looking forward to updates on your wander toon...

How do you like it versus HoWA?

What about versus a boss killer (LL, poison+chaos conversion firestorm) plus a great clearspeed toon (Doomfletch Prism or maybe Vaal Spark)?
=====================
It seems to me that POE is currrently all about clear speed - with some boss killing ability required for certain challenges assuming you don't want to buy them - if you're willing to purchase boss kills, it's all about clear speed - Doomfletch Prism and Vaal Spark would seem to be the strongest builds currently for clearspeed judging from posts in the forums/Youtube videos - but, not having played either toon, I could be wrong.
=====================
Currently I'm struggling with my WI toon - great survivabily - able to clear all content - but clear speed just isn't on par with projectile-based builds.

If I had a "do-over" I would not have rolled this toon given the clear speed meta - tentatively I'm planning on 6-linking the nice 800 ES chest I have and then rolling a HoWA toon - but maybe I'll do something else - Doomfletch Prism in particular is intriguing - I could roll Doomfletch for clearspeed and keep my WI for boss kills.

I'll have more feedback on the build later. Like I said, only ran one map, but based on that T6, its clear-speed is better than HoWA, as is the boss kill damage. Just due to the nature of the mechanical difference in the way KB and ST work (namely, ST requiring the boomerang effect to kick in before it really starts to push out the damage).

The central thing I like about it is that it isn't reliant on a secondary mechanic (poison) to do the heavy lifting.

"

It seems to me that POE is currrently all about clear speed - with some boss killing ability required for certain challenges assuming you don't want to buy them - if you're willing to purchase boss kills, it's all about clear speed - Doomfletch Prism and Vaal Spark would seem to be the strongest builds currently for clearspeed judging from posts in the forums/Youtube videos - but, not having played either toon, I could be wrong.

To be fair, any MMO/aRPG is about the dps output, eventually. It was only a matter of time before power creep exacerbated it.

I'm just going to be glad when ignite/poison are no longer the go-to boss-killer builds and we can start seeing immunity drop from bosses. I mean, there's a reason builders like Mathil run a poison or ignite build for 80% of their characters.

And CI.

:P

Patiently waiting on the meta shift.

Anyway, that said, the LL Wander that I have right now doesn't have high inherent crit chance, and the CoH-AM setup is obviously inferior to a pair of Skyforth's. So I'm figuring I might save up and rework the build to fit those in.



I have this amulet available to replace Presence of Chayula if I get it. Only 6-7ex away.

So, I got Skyforths and ended up having to go with a different amulet.

The central difference I believe is that HoWA is safer. What it loses in clear speed and boss damage (the wander is fricken STUPID at boss-killing, I melted Core Malachai in record time), it makes up in defense.

Without a metric shitload of liquid capital, there's no way you can reasonably break 6000 ES with Skyforth AND maintain the same dps output. We're talking dual 10+ex Opal Rings and an amulet like the one below, but with % ES instead of that phys dmg.

With Skyforth and this amulet:



5278 ES
KB (in Thunderfist 5L): 49,136 (hideout, no charges)
Barrage: 57,266 (hideout, no charges)

With the boots linked in the previous post regarding the Wander, and Presence of Chayula I'm at

6,503 ES
KB: 44,949 (hideout, no charges)
Barrage: 52.562 (hideout, no charges)

While I haven't tested it yet (I'm officially broke AF) I'm pretty sure that just playing intelligent mechanically, the Skyforth setup will flat out be better for things like Uber Atziri, Guardians, Shaper, etc. on the sheer basis of being able to generate PCs without Orb of Storms (which quite frankly, I find useless anyway).

But... that's if you can survive potential one-shots.

Not sure 6.5k would make a significant difference versus the Uber spear, though.

But god DAMN, the single target power is retarded. And I don't even have any unique flasks.

I ran Doomfletch last league, and I'm deep into HoWA this league. Doomfletch was significantly faster clearspeed, but weaker on boss fights. Doomfletch is also a lot less tolerant of low rolled gear - it puts out so little physical damage before the added elemental, that you really have to get gear with max rolls on every bit of phys, or your resulting elemental is weak.

Both physical and elemental reflect mods are suicide with Doomfletch. With HoWA, I put out so little phys that I can take phys reflect maps easy. Not so with DF. DF and tornado shot you barely have to aim - you end up with projectiles everywhere.

Bottom line - I think HoWA is more fun... but I'm pretty sure it's going to get nerfed into oblivion with 3.0, while DF, maybe, maybe not.