[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

"

Viris wrote:

Is there any leveling trees at all for this build? or a semi general outline of key nodes to get first ect

Thanks

I'm not doing leveling trees anymore, and because of the wide variety of how people choose to level these days, an outline is entirely dependent on what skill you choose to use while leveling AND what your skill level is. Some people can avoid getting as many life nodes early, while others need to get more.

Anyway, it's not terribly complicated. CA sucks while leveling (I'm not including the ability to get +3 Silverbranch as you can in Legacy, because that probably won't stay for 3.0) so you pick an alternate skill, grab life as you feel you need it and try scale some damage for your chosen skill, then around level 54 when you can make the swap to a +2/3 bow you switch out for the CA damage nodes and start using CA.

This isn't the kind of build where Keystones are critical or anything. I like to have Acro by A3M but that's just personal preference.

When you make the switch to CA you're looking for ~3 clusters worth of damage nodes as that's when the skill starts to become decent. This typically ends up being Fury Bolts, Dirty Techniques and Entropy.

"

Nick42 wrote:

I wonder if the upcoming changes to poison will be worth looking into at all for this build.

Obviously we don't currently use poison, but if they are removing the dependency of the poison damage roll from being determined by the initial hit, then maybe all of our chaos damage and DOT nodes would turn a poison support into a viable option?

They would have to change CA itself to poison damage (not chaos), otherwise it won't affect how we use CA (given that the ADC gem does nothing for the cloud).

Further, they aren't removing the on-hit requirement to apply poison. It's just that the poison is no longer based on the hit damage.

It could potentially present an option for an alternate skill to help with single target, similarly to how a Decay-rolled bow helps out, in that it sounds like it MIGHT make ED more potent for a build that does zero spell damage scaling.

Thanks i kinda assumed that much but wanted to ask just to see what peoples thoughts were. Appreciate the info!

@ChronoExile
Grats on 40/40!

"

hankinsohl wrote:

@ChronoExile
Grats on 40/40!

Thanks Hank!

I have now started a SSF version of this build. Still in Normal, still using Shrapnel Shot, but so far so good.

Gz buddy.

Also, relevant for you

"

Serleth wrote:

Gz buddy.

Also, relevant for you

Thanks Serleth.

I was in that thread earlier today. My post chain is likely near the bottom at this point. Still a pretty fun conversation going on all the same. Now if only I could find said master.

"

As a happy side effect of these changes, the effect of Area Damage modifiers will now be reflected in the displayed tooltip damage for the Caustic Arrow.

We'd like to make mechanical improvements to Caustic Arrow in the future, though we may not have time alongside all our other changes in the Beta. We'll definitely review its base damage, but we'd like to improve the skill or add an interesting Threshold Jewel for it in future.

Neat.

"

Serleth wrote:

"

As a happy side effect of these changes, the effect of Area Damage modifiers will now be reflected in the displayed tooltip damage for the Caustic Arrow.

We'd like to make mechanical improvements to Caustic Arrow in the future, though we may not have time alongside all our other changes in the Beta. We'll definitely review its base damage, but we'd like to improve the skill or add an interesting Threshold Jewel for it in future.

Neat.

more than neat, this could be awesome

I guess you answered this a million time but, if I want to play CA full damage, no mf, do you know of a build thread?

I'm trying to think of gear, EV/ES got some cool stuff, life? es/ev and life (with a splendour), the heretic helm, brinerot whalers and more I guess

Care to tell? TY

I'm not familiar anymore. Last I saw for CA was Yoji's CI version, and someone else had a (now out-dated) Hidden Potential variation.

Full-on damage is probably best done from Occultist so I'd start your search in the Witch section of the forums.