Starting with the most important question: "Why Raider of all classes?"
For powerful defensive abilities, QoL features and speed. When damage is not a problem, these are more valuable qualities than slightly higher dps number. That's why i believe this is the best ascendancy choice for life based CA.
This build features over 6000 life, very high evasion with up to 95% evade chance cap, 50/40% dodge/spell dodge. It's also immune to all ailments and can run absolutely any map mod. Any incoming damage can be easily solved with two instant life flasks healing you back to full life. Capable of clearing all content in the game.
Pros
+ Cheap starting cost, great league starter
+ Very easy to play
+ Tanky end game, over 6000 life and very high evasion + dodge
+ Fast without flasks (over 100% ms, high AS)
+ Flexible build, many ways of end-game optimization
+ Can run any map mod, including "No regen"
+ Capable of clearing all end game content
+ Permanent flask uptime while mapping (except bosses)
Cons
- Mediocre single target damage
- Slightly expensive end game gear
- Weak against spells
This is the recommended path for majority of the players, focuses on scaling Caustic Arrow only. Budget and beginner friendly. Guide will be focused on this tree.
If you've reached level 93 using any of the trees, start picking up closest jewel slots. You can also replace some life/damage nodes for 2 point jewels if you have the money for it.
Bandit Reward: Kill All (recommended) OR spare Oak
Ascendancy: Avatar of Veil (Phasing) + Avatar of Chase (Onslaught)
Avatar of Veil and Chase provides amazing defensive, speed and QoL features. No other ascendancy can really match it. Best used for pure mapping, but still works against end game bosses.
Build uses Way of Poacher for levelling purposes, before finishing merciless Labyrinth.
Other Ascendancy Classes
Spoiler
Allright, i get it. You dislike Raider for some reason, probably not enough damage. There are alternative ascendancies using the exact same passive tree. Beware, the guide is NOT optimized for these ascendancies.
Starting with the best one:
Trickster
Ascendancy: Patient Reaper -> Prolonged Pain -> Ghost Dance -> Escape Artist Base passive tree (Level 95)
Highest damage output out of all ascendancy classes. Good survivability against all type of content. Lower speed and QoL compared to Raider.
Pathfinder
Ascendancy: Nature's Reprisal -> Master Toxicist -> Nature's Boon -> Master Alchemist Base passive tree (Level 93) - Same as Raider's
Great middle ground between Raider and Trickster. Almost as high damage as Trickster while having elemental ailment immunity like Raider. Flask recharge is incredible as well.
You can sacrifice one of the Master nodes to take Nature's Adrenaline node for additional speed.
If you hate dying, here's your choice. Perma fortify makes Champion strongest against big hits. Taunt branch is also great for clearing packs of mobs. Low QoL with great defence and decent damage.
You can use Inspirational and First to Strike, Last to Fall nodes instead of Taunt branch. Gives massive conditional damage and defence.
Deadeye
Ascendancy: Gathering Winds -> Far Shot -> Endless Munitions -> Fast and Deadly Base passive tree (Level 93) - Same as Raider's
Good option for mapping. Great offensive QoL features with good damage. Quite weak defensively.
You can pick Ricochet as 4th point if you prefer. Gives higher damage output at cost of mobility.
Pantheon
Major God: Soul of Lunaris
Nuff said, straight up has the best synergy with the build. Others barely do anything except few specific cases.
Minor God: Soul of Shakari OR Ryslatha OR Garukhan
All three of them are pretty good, but my personal favorite is Shakari. Having full ailment immunity simply feels great. Use it only if you upgraded it.
Ryslatha is 2nd most useful minor god, i use it for any end game boss encounter. It's great for labyrinth as well and overall best choice if you don't want to look at pantheon ever again.
Garukhan is also great option for defence during mapping. Additional evade chance is very powerful combined with high evasion.
Gem Setups
Main Skill - Caustic Arrow:
Your bread and butter. First 3 support gems have no real downsides and should always be included in the build. Conc Effect and Damage on Full Life have downsides, which one you prefer is up to you (i recommend the second one). Empower has no downside but requires level 3 or 4 to be worth using. Costs a lot of money or time.
Other Support Gems you can use: Greater Multiple Projectiles - for massive AoE which translates to clear speed. Use only for clearing if your damage is high enough. Use instead of Swift Affliction, switch back for bosses. Efficacy - Use instead of Concentrated Effect to get rid of AoE penalty for small price in damage. Recommended for console players. Mirage Archer - Additional clear speed if you have necessary AoE to make it worth. You cannot use Concentrated Effect OR must have at least 3 arrows total. Good situational gem.
Wither Totem:
Nearly doubles damage against bosses. Place the totem somewhere on the side and let it do the work. It also slows their movement speed, so keep that in mind against some bosses. Totems are squishy and destroy easily, you might have to resummon them.
Cursed Frenzy:
Setup designed for additional damage against bosses/rares. Each successful hit generates Frenzy charge and curses enemies at the same time. When at maximum charges, it refreshes their duration.
Guard Skill:
Steelskin for extra durability. If manually cast, it's great for any encounter. If you're lazy and linked Steelskin with CWDT, it protects you from multiple hits in quick succession. The entire setup is optional, but recommended nonetheless.
Primary Auras:
Malevolence is undoubtly best aura you can use. Significantly increases your damage and duration of your skills.
Grace is used primarly for levelling and early mapping. Once you're capable of reaching evade chance cap, the aura should be replaced with Malevolence. Vaal version of Grace is still used as a situational skill.
Clarity is not mandatory, but it's the easiest way to greatly increase mana regeneration. Without it, you will find yourself running out of mana all the time. Clarity's maximum level should be 10, do NOT level the gem above it.
Situational Skills:
Blink Arrow is used to cross gaps and escape tough situations quickly. Your primary way of moving around is still on foot.
Vaal Grace allows us to cap Dodge / Spell Dodge. It's a temporary aura which is best used during harder encounters like abyss/breaches/harbingers etc. Vaal Grace should be linked with Increased Duration support for longer uptime.
Vaal Blight is a great utility skill for slowing down enemies, so it's easier to keep them inside degen ground. Also applies some extra damage. Vaal Blight should be linked with Increased Duration support for longer uptime. It's an optional gem, but very much recommended.
These are the only mandatory gems and we still got 2-4 free gem slots. How you fill the rest of them is your choice.
Optional Setups
Spoiler
Bestiary Aspect / Flesh and Stone:
You won't be able to use both of them due to already high mana reservation from primary auras. You have to choose one.
Aspect of the Crab is an amazing source of physical mitigation for evasion characters. With very high evade chance numbers it can easily act as permanent 20% physical damage reduction. It's a reservation skill only obtainable through specific uniques and beastcrafting.
Flesh and Stone is a short-ranged defensive aura that blinds nearby enemies and slightly reduces attack damage of enemies unaffected by blind. You're going to be evade chance capped against all blinded enemies, even without flasks. Onslaught buff is still required to reach evade cap.
Enlighten support gem reduces the high mana reservation of the auras, allowing for easier mana management. You can link it to Malevolence, Flesh and Stone, Clarity to increase your unreserved mana pool. It cannot support Aspect of the Crab since it's not a skill gem.
Optional setup to Wither Totem. It's much, much worse when it comes to raw damage increase and reliability. However this setup can be used in any situation for additional utility/damage which is not possible with totem.
6-link Cursed Frenzy (GGGGBB): Frenzy - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Curse on Hit - Despair - Additional Accuracy - Enhance
If you're rich, that's probably the best 6-link body armour setup. Additional Accuracy for more reliable cursing and frenzy generation. Enhance for extra damage from Despair. You can also use Culling Strike, but in best case scenario you'll get lucky to save more than a single second against end game bosses.
Fortify:Vigilant Strike with The Vigil threshold jewel
Only usable if you have melee weapon swap. Gives ~35 second long Fortify, awesome bonus for hard hitting bosses. Without threshold jewel the duration is only ~12 seconds, but it's enough if you facetank a monster.
Golem:Stone Golem OR Flame Golem OR Chaos Golem
Stone Golem is most useful with his taunt and high flat health regeneration. Flame golem for the damage, Chaos golem if you want to try some phys dmg reduction shenanigans. Golems tend to die quite often in high tier maps, but are very useful in early mapping or against labyrith traps (stone golem).
Portal Gem
If you have a free gem slot, why not? Pair with Enhance support for extremely fast portals.
Equipment
My current gear / TL;DR:
Spoiler
Weapons: +3 CA Bow (self-crafting recommended, see crafting section)
Quiver: Life and Resists, late game get +1 Arrow shaper quiver
Armour: Kintsugi
Helmet: Life and Resists, 30% CA duration enchantment
Boots: Life and Resists or Atziri's Step unique, 8% chance to Dodge Spells enchantment.
Gloves: Life and Resists
Belt: Life and Resists, Leather / Heavy Belt with Elder mods if possible
Rings: Life and Resists, at least one elder ring with +5% chance to Evade Attacks
Amulet: Life and Resists, Agate/Lapis/Marble base preferred
Flasks: 2 Life flasks, 3 utility flasks recommended. Flexible, however you need Jade Flask with 90%+ increased evasion rating and another one with curse immunity.
Jewels: Life and damage on all of them, very efficient if you have at least 3 good mods.
Notes: High evasion is important. Not as much as life, but use evasion bases if possible.
Aim to have ~160 strength and intelligence, so you can use lvl 20 gems.
It's good to cap elemental weakness curse (109%). X% Mana regen is very good QoL.
Below you will find the gear explained in-depth. Piece by piece.
+3 Caustic Arrow Bow
Spoiler
The first core item of this build.
Caustic Arrow's cloud has very limited options when it comes to increasing it's damage output. Additional levels and crafted mods are the only way to make your bow actually benefit the build in the first place. CA setup socketed inside +3 bow easily increases the damage output by ~50-60% more compared to a normal 6-link.
To make it clear, on the bow we NEED:
* +1 to Level of Socketed Gems (prefix)
* +2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems (prefix)
* +33-40% Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier (prefix, crafted)
You can also use super budget version with only +2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems,
it's enough to actually beat almost any encounter in the game. However the more damage, the easier it gets. Crafting +3 bow is not that expensive and massively boosts the damage.
I recommend to self-craft the bow as it's the cheapest way to do so. Plus, you can directly upgrade the +2 6-linked bow into +3 once you acquire currency. Chaos DoT Multiplier doesn't have to be highest level, any tier already gives really good bonus and you can upgrade it as you unlock tiers.
Elder versions of the bow can roll few amazing QoL mods on top of socketed gem modifiers, but crafting one is extremely expensive and you shouldn't bother with it until there's no other significant upgrade you can make.
Bow crafting and elder versions of the bow are fully covered in crafting section.
Armour
Spoiler
Kintsugi
My personal choice of body armour. I use it to mitigate potential oneshots from bosses, and it saved me multiple times in the past. Additional 50% evasion if you get hit is a really nice bonus for mapping. The "20% Less Damage Taken if you've not been hit Recently" also works against degens (LAB TRAPS!) until you've been hit.
Kintsugi is a mandatory end game body armour for Raider. Combined with with very high evasion + dodge, the unique passive acts as 25% more life. It is true for many bosses.
Before you reach the end game, you might want to use Carcass Jack or Cherrubim's for additional DPS. If you're non-Raider ascendancy, you might want to consider Queen of the Forest instead. You will find more explainations below.
Optional Armours:
Spoiler
Carcass Jack
Best chest for start of the league. Good amount of additional damage, life and some resistances. Also massively boosts the AoE which is a bit small without high gem level. It's still inferior in the long run and should be used only for league start.
Cherrubim's Maleficence
Best choice if you want more damage. It has up to 80% increased chaos damage, giving around ~15% more damage in the final build. Has a lot of life as well, making it OK defense wise. Can be used instead of Kintsugi in the end game, but i wouldn't recommend it for hardcore characters.
Queen of the Forest
Option for non-Raider ascendancies. Movement speed is our primary way of moving around the map and dodging skills. Raider has enough speed on her own, allowing the use of defensive chests. Others ascendancies don't have that luxury, so you should consider using it.
Quiver
Spoiler
A rare pierce quiver with life and resistances. Later on you'll want to craft or buy shaper quiver. Something like the first one i linked, the more life and resists the better.
Shaper quivers can roll +1 arrow. It's a quite rare mod, so getting one with high health is going to be damn hard. Crafted 41-55 life is going to suffice for majority of the game. Shooting 2 arrows feels a bit weird at first, but it's a huge QoL and effective AoE increase.
Shaper quivers are fully covered in crafting section.
Helmet, Gloves and Boots
Spoiler
Packed into same category, as you want same thing from all of them:
* Life
* Resistances
* Open Suffix (optional)
* Movement Speed (boots only)
Evasion based preferred, especially the helmet (can achieve really high evasion). Atziri's Step unique boots are amazing defensive option if your resistances allow it. That's pretty much it, what's left is to look at the enchantments:
Gloves: of Spite
Nothing else is useful, really. You can totally ignore the gloves enchantments.
Boots: 8% chance to Spell Dodge if you've taken Spell Damage Recently.
Best late game enchantment. The build is nearly invincible against attacks, but spells still hit quite often. 80% chance to avoid stuns is also a great alternative.
Both are on similar power. In my opinion Duration enchantment and the QoL it gives are more valuable, you should be aiming for it. The latter gives around ~7% more damage, small but welcome upgrade.
Belt
Spoiler
Once again, life and resistances. Strength is also a desirable stat. Leather Belt is the best base, with Heavy Belt being slightly weaker option.
I also have to remind that elder influenced belts are absolutely amazing. They can roll few VERY good mods:
* 8–10% increased maximum Life (prefix)
* 16–20% increased Life Recovery rate (suffix)
* 13–15% to all Elemental Resistances (suffix)
That's not even all of the good mods. If you ever accumulate enough money to buy/craft it for yourself, i recommend getting one.
Rings and Amulet
Spoiler
Like majority of other gear and little more:
* Life
* Resistances
* Strength and Intelligence
* #% Mana Regeneration
* +(4-5)% chance to Evade Attacks (elder mod)
Attributes to reach ~160 requirement for lvl 20/21 gems. Mana regen is not required but allows to drop Clarity if you have enough of it.
Once you hit the end game, i recommend buying a good Marble amulet. Life regen is really helpful in mitigating degens / small hits. Elder rings are also necessary to hit evade chance cap with their "+(4–5)% chance to Evade Attacks" mod. It's required in the end game maps, for safety reasons.
Flasks
Spoiler
This is the setup i run personally and recommend it for everyone. 2 life flasks to quickly heal from 0% to 100% health. 3 utility flasks which you use every ~6 seconds. The mods on those flasks combined with Raider ascedancy and Soul of Shakari allow for complete ailment and curse immunity during mapping plus very high evasion.
Life flasks - i recommend 1 Bubbling and 1 Seething with bleeding/freeze/poison immunity for emergencies.
Utility flasks - you should use Quicksilver and Jade. You NEED curse immunity and 90%+ increased evasion rating on them. They should also have "Reduced Charges" mod, it's undoubtly the best affix for flask uptime in maps. For additional effects, curse/bleeding immunity and increased evasion rating are the only good options.
Flask setup is flexible, you can adjust it if you like. However anti-bleeding life flask and two utility flasks mentioned above are MUST have.
From unique flasks:
* Dying Sun - Ultimate AoE flask. Luxury upgrade to the build, not required, expensive.
* The Writhing Jar - Great flask for end game bosses. Allows you to generate fortify and onslaught before the fight starts or to refresh frenzy charges during waiting phases.
* Witchfire Brew - Good flask if you start out the build, but as you progress with the build it starts to feel like a dead weight. Especially against bosses, where the flask overrides the Curse on Hit setup and will "delete" the curse once you're out of blasphemy range.
Jewels
Spoiler
There's not much to discuss, you want any 3 out of these 6 mods on your jewels:
* 5-7% increased maximum life
* 3–4% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier
* 9–13% increased Chaos Damage
* 10–12% increased Damage over Time
* 10–12% increased Projectile Damage
* 10–12% increased Area Damage
* 8–10% increased Damage
Life on the jewel is especially valued, get it if you can. Getting a jewel with all 4 good mods is kinda impossible, but finding one with 3 mods at once should be easy. Be sure to look out for other mods that can be beneficial for you:
* 14–18% increased Evasion Rating
* 7–13% to Chaos Resistance
* 4–6% increased Rarity of Items found
* Any resistance / strength / intelligence mods
Watcher's Eye is an expensive jewel you want to acquire once you reach the end game maps. It is incredibly strong both offensively and defensively. Primary mod you would look for is 18-22% Chaos DoT multi while having Malevolence, as it provides around 10-15% more damage. Anything else is just a bonus. Worthwhile mods from strongest to weakest:
* +(18–22)% to Damage over Time Multipliers while affected by Malevolence
* Unaffected by Bleeding while affected by Malevolence
* (15–20)% increased Recovery rate of Life and Energy Shield while affected by Malevolence
* (-5 to -10) to Total Mana Cost of Skills while affected by Clarity
* (20–30)% increased Mana Recovery Rate while affected by Clarity
Levelling and Progression
Caustic Arrow levelling (Act 1-10)
Spoiler
I've tried to be beginner friendly in this section, but didn't want to write essay either. If you're a veteran, i'm sure you can get all important information without reading guidelines. Please do read the short "Preparing for maps" section anyway.
You'll get Void Manipulation at lvl 8, Vicious Projectiles at lvl 18. Use Pierce Support gem until you pick up pierce nodes on passive tree, around level 40-45. Once you do, use Swift Affliction instead (buy from Siosa).
Toxic Rain - Mirage Archer
Additional utility/damage setup for bosses. Shoot Caustic Arrow, then attack once or twice and repeat. Slows enemies and can easily generate frenzy charges/onslaught from Raider ascendancy.
Wither - Spell Totem - Multiple Totems
Used for additional damage against bosses, can be used starting from level 38. Place and forget, single cast should be enough. You might need little bit of strength/intelligence to use it.
Do NOT level up Wither until you reach act 9.
Despair : Curses enemies to increase damage. Use on bosses, tough packs, rares etc.
Do NOT level up Despair until you reach act 9.
Dash : Your primary movement skill during levelling Blink Arrow : Your secondary movement skill, to cross gaps. Grace : Your levelling aura, grants additional evasion. Purity of Elements : If you really need resistances. Use instead of Grace if necessary.
Any gems you don't receive as a quest reward can be bought from Siosa (act 3) or
Lilly (act 6) once you complete their quests. Petarus and Vanja (act 4) also sell Multiple Totems after you enter Belly of the Beast.
Bandit Reward: Kill all (recommended) OR spare Oak
Ascendancy Order: Way of a Poacher (1st Frenzy) -> Avatar of Chase (Onslaught) ->
-> respec Way of the Poacher (merciless lab) -> Avatar of Veil (Phasing)
Additional twink gear:
* Silverbranch/Silverbough
* Tabula Rasa
* Goldrim
* Wanderlust
* Hyrri's Bite (Int/Str)
* Karui Ward
Important reminder: Don't forget to level additional CA gems in your weapon slot. They still level even if you don't use them.
General levelling rule: First and most important to remember - when searching for equipment, your priority on them is Life and Resistances. Links are equally as important, be sure to look out for correct socket colors. This applies to all acts.
Act by act guidelines:
Spoiler
Act 1-3 should be very easy in general. That's where you slowly shape up your main skill. Majority of the necessary gems are rewards from quests. The ones you can't, you can buy from a Nessa, Yeena and Siosa as you progress through the main story.
In act 4 it's important to have good resistances, especially fire resist. Outside of that, it should be a breeze. It's a good idea to enter Labyrinth after you find waypoint inside Crystal Veins. Should be trivial at this point.
Act 5 is where things get little bit tougher. Monsters out there are quite dangerous and it's recommended to have capped fire and lightning resitances. It's also a time where bleed removal life flask becomes necessary. I suggest to farm Chambers of Innocence until you reach level 45 and then face the Innocence himself. Next boss is Kitava, 1600 life is enough to tank all of his abilities.
Once you arrive in act 6, check your resistances. If they're below 60%, you should pick up Purity of Elements from Clarissa (act 3) - use it instead of Grace aura until you solve the resistance problem. It's recommended to have them capped before the final boss.
Act 7 is quite easy. Beware of ghosts inside the Crypt, they can hit pretty hard. Around the end of this act, you should have all points from provided level ~53 passive tree and 10 respec points. Once you do, you should unallocate Ranger's starting nodes and take Atrophy chaos wheel. You might have to go back to earlier acts to have necessary amount of respec points.
Act 8 features Deodre, the hardest boss you encounter during levelling. It's relatively safe if you have 2500 life, but that might be hard to acquire. After that, the act is going to be trivial. It's good to have freeze removal flask for Lunaris area, in case you don't have it already. Kill the final boss of this act and proceed to Blood Acqueducts.
Preparing for maps:
The area with a long stream of blood is where you'll spend next 1-2 hours. It's a great place to farm experience. Look for gear upgrades and slowly replace your gems to recommended final setups. Before you proceed, you need a Tabula Rasa which you can farm in Blood Acqueducts OR you can buy 5-link bow with ilvl 64, high attack speed base if possible. The second option is better in general. On your newly purchased 5-link you can craft +2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems with alteration/augmentation orbs. You should roll it within ~100 tries, still a bit RNG dependant. Or you can try buying the 5-link with specified mod already. The 5-link CA setup is:
CA - Vicious Projectiles - Void Manipulation - Swift Affliction - Damage on Full Life
Now you're ready to get into maps. Progress through last 2 acts and face Izaro in merciless Labyrinth before the final fight. After you complete 3rd labyrinth, you should respec 1st frenzy ascedancy node. You can acquire all necessary points from side quests. When you're ready, defeat Kitava once and for all. 4000 life is enough to not get one-shot in both fights.
Mapping Progression
Spoiler
If you're here, i assume that you have at least lvl ~73 and CA gem lvl 17. Cursed Frenzy setup and Wither Totem should be included in your build as well. If you don't have all of them, you might find single target damage disappointing. This build is dependant on levels, especially if you're starting the league. Don't rush the content.
Before you begin mapping, it's wise to pack as many CA gems to level as possible (if you didn't already). Once they hit lvl 20, you can corrupt them with Vaal orbs for a chance to get lvl 21 gem. You can have up to 12 gems levelling at same time, as CWDT setup isn't very useful until red maps.
They shouldn't be a problem at all. Most map mods are trivial, running them blue is completely viable. No real danger outside of few bosses like Pen, Grotto or Spider Lair. For this map tier, you have 3 very simple goals:
It's possible that you've acquired money for all of them before killing Kitava. If not, simple unid chaos recipe should do the trick. Body armours are optional boost to damage/clear. They're meant to help you early on, only to be replaced once you engage harder content.
Your primary goal right now is acquiring 6-linked bow, it's very simple. Buy ilvl 64+ 6-link bow, then spam alts/augs to roll +2 bow gems (prefix). You should get it within ~100 alts. The links on the bow should look like this:
CA - Vicious Projectiles - Void Manipulation - Swift Affliction - Damage on Full Life - Concentrated Effect
Keep in mind that you can use Efficacy instead of Concentrated Effect permanently, provides higher AoE for small price in damage. You also can always switch Swift Affliction with Greater Multiple Projectiles for map clearing. The AoE coverage is massive QoL in exchange for single target damage, which you can always solve by switching the gems again.
One of the things you should get are flasks with right mods. They're very important. Not having right flasks will heavily affect your survivability. 2 instant Divine Life Flasks with at least one having bleeding removal, Jade Flask with at least 90% increased evasion and Quicksilver Flask with curse immunity. Having these flasks means being evade chance capped.
This is where you'll spend quite a lot of time, recommended level is 80-90. This map tier isn't too risky, but some map mods might be deadly without proper defences/damage. Goals for this tier:
The +3 bow is the primary goal in yellow maps. You should craft it by yourself, as it's the cheapest way of acquiring one. Check crafting section for full details how to do it.
Once you have proper damage and defences, you can face Izaro inside uber Labyrinth. You will be safe as long as you dodge his attacks, which you should do with ease. Allocate remaining points in phasing path and ignore elemental ailments! Do not forget you need to have phasing/onslaught/maximum frenzy charges in order to gain the immunity.
After you acquire correct flask and only after that, you will be able to switch aura from Grace to Malevolence without hurting your defensive capabilities... If you haven't switched earlier. The new aura gives you significant damage boost.
Around the high tier yellow maps most of your gems will reach level 20. When that happens, the most important part is to vaal your maxed CA gems. Corrupting level 20 gem might increase it to 21, giving you significant damage boost.
Non-CA gems shouldn't be vaaled, quality is much more important on them. You can easily raise it with following vendor recipe (sell to shopkeeper):
It will lower your damage/defence for a short while, but within an hour or two there will be barely any difference at all with higher end game potential.
Do not forget about your other gear, it's equally important. Get more life and resistances, good jewels, CA helmet enchantment and all the other good stuff. Evasion gear is also important In short, upgrade it whenever you need, whenever you can.
That's where mapping becomes tough. Monsters can hit hard, map bosses become tanky, map mods are huge pain. Your damage should carry you through most maps easily, but the bosses combined with some map mods can be too scary. The 5 following goals of this map tier will fix all these issues tier:
* Kintsugi
* Elder Ring with +4-5% chance to Evade Attacks
* Empower 3/4
* 7-link +3 Elder bow.
In that order. It's best to acquire Kintsugi as soon as possible. It's a cheap and underrated unique. Gives massive defensive boost for your character.
Despite very high evasion and Kintsugi on top of it, as you progrses through the maps the monsters get more accurate. To counter that you want to use an Elder Ring with +4-5% chance to Evade Attacks. You need ~73% chance on character sheet with Jade Flask up to be evade capped. One ring is enough, with two you can even remove Survivalist node from your passive tree.
Once you upgrade your defences, the next upgrade should be Empower gem. Level 3 is easily enough for majority of the content. Level 4 would be ideal, but it costs massive amounts of money. Price is very high early on and drops over time. Empower replaces Damage on Full Life OR Concentrated Effect, your call.
Elder 7-link bow is a goal you probably won't reach. It increases damage output by ~15% more... for a price. It's not necessary to do all end game content, just makes it slightly easier. Once you get all other upgrades, optimize your gear and everything else - you can think about wasting money on crafting/buying one.
After that, all you can do now is enjoy the build, kill some end game bosses and look for another build you want to play.
End Game Bosses/Maps Guide
Spoiler
As a rule, you're capable of killing pretty much any boss deathless. Scary red maps, end game bosses, all of them. Some of them are not worth the risk tho. Learn to skip them.
+3 6-linked bow is required.
Shaper:
Optional gem setups: Decoy Totem
Shaper himself isn't an issue, but the portal phase is problematic. The spawned monsters have too much health to die quickly. Decoy totem should be enough to protect Zana. Using The Writhing Jar for the talking phase is also recommended (otherwise you might lose frenzy charges).
Elder:
Required gem setup: Frost Wall
Once you get to know his moves, he's very easy. In first phase you should prioritize killing spawned minions, so they won't drop decaying ground (phys degen). Damage elder whenever you don't have to focus minions. Second phase, just protect Shaper with Frost Wall (see video). Third phase can be tricky and even deadly, but overall try to burst down the Elder while killing mobs to recover flask charges.
Uber Elder:
Optional gem setup:
* Enduring Cry - Immortal Call - Increased Duration
* Aspect of the Crab
Optional Pantheon: Soul of Arakaali (recovery upgrade), Soul of Ralakesh
This is mostly mechanical fight. None of the above setups are required, just allow to make more mistakes and allow to handle the physical degen if you couldn't kill Elder's squids fast enough. Against Shaper balls, i recommend kiting. You're fast enough and playstyle allows for near indefinite kiting by simply running in circles. Everything else depends on your skill. You can do it.
Uber Atziri:
Required gem setup: Purity of Fire, Purity of Lightning, Vigilant Strike
Required gear: The Writhing Jar, The Vigil, Topaz/Ruby Flask
Thing with Atziri is, that she's mostly a mechanical fight. You can dodge almost anything... until RNG screws you over and you die. It's possible to kill her without getting hit at all (we got lots of speed after all), but you want to be prepared for anything. Vigilant Strike gives long lasting fortify, Kintsugi reduces damage by another 20%, Purities gives 4% resist each. It won't save you from everything, but gives you chance to actually take a single hit and live. Not sure which resistance flask is more important, so choose it yourself or take both (1 life flask left).
As for Alluring Abyss itself, the zone can be really dangerous. Take it slow, don't tank mobs (rare soldiers hit super hard). It's nothing too hard. Vaals are probably the hardest part to be fair. Use The Writhing Jar to fortify and refresh frenzy charges in waiting phase. Trio is pretty easy, see Vaal Temple below. Disable Grace and start using PoF/PoL for Atziri, also fortify yourself between phases.
Vaal Temple: Shouldn't be a problem. Additional speed, double damage mod, temp chains or twinned are probably too risky. Titty bitch -> Dual striker -> Cycloner. You can kite dual striker with Wither totem easily. Beware of Titty bitch's physical blade rain, it's good idea to remain mobile until it's on cooldown (after she casts it).
Hall of Grandmasters:
Required gem setup: Scorching Ray
Required gear: The Brass Dome
Easy for the most part. The tough part are few exiles that can deal absurd damage in short time. Lethal map purely thanks to them. CI forces us to use Scorching Ray against them, Balefire unique is the easiest way to get the setup. Use it in or even 2 of them in a weapon swap. You need chaos resistance yourself, at least make it positive. Be elemental weakness capped.
Map Mods
As i already mentioned before, we can run pretty much anything... within common sense. So no Twinned Core with LMP + Turbo + -10% max res + 2x 100% bonus ele dmg, or anything like this. We're not immortal RF guardian.
I only mention actual deadly mods that you really gotta watch out for. Triple increased damage and stuff is obvious anyway.
Dangerous mods:
* Player Dodge chance is Unlucky / Monsters have #% increased Accuracy Rating
This is actually one of the hardest mods. Very noticeable in high tier maps or breaches etc. Onslaught path negates the problems for the most part, but spells are problematic.
* Monsters have #% increased Critical Strike Chance / +#% to Monster Critical Strike Multiplier
With high evasion, attacks should almost never crit you. Spell on the other hand can still hit hard.
* Monsters fire 2 additional Projectiles
Scary mod on some bosses and monster types. Some monsters are still able to shotgun, like few new Oriath monsters.
* Area contains two Unique Bosses
This is dangerous mod in some maps as you know. You should be able to do majority of them quite easily. Some can be done safely only with enough damage.
* #% increased Monster Movement Speed / #% increased Monster Attack Speed / #% increased Monster Cast Speed
Speed might be deadly in some boss encounters. The faster boss is, the less damage you deal and the more time you spend kiting him. With temp chains + speed you might not be able to kite at all. Watch out for such combos.
* Players are Cursed with Vulnerability
Negated during mapping thanks to warding flask, but not against bosses. Can be very deadly if you receive bleeding.
* Players are Cursed with Temporal Chains
Not a problem most of the time, but worth mentioning. Mod can be easily negated by Timetwist ring, if you're against a tough boss.
* Players cannot Regenerate Life, Mana or Energy Shield
Not a deadly mod, but worth mentioning. You can do it easily, just bring mana flask instead of utility flask. Almost any high level mana flask can work. Don't forget to turn off Clarity for higher mana pool.
Besides that, typical damage mod combinations shouldn't be understimated. Everything applies like to every other build out there.
Thanks for the build! I didn't follow it step-by-step, but I could tell you built it from a labor of love. For alternative leveling items, I wonder if you've ever considered this Bow with this set up? I've cleared everthing except for Uber Elder, But it was pretty cheap, And it clears maps like a boss.
and while not cheap (it only cost 4 Ex), I found this ammy to be awesome, and let me use herald of Agony.
Thanks for the build! I didn't follow it step-by-step, but I could tell you built it from a labor of love. For alternative leveling items, I wonder if you've ever considered this Bow with this set up? I've cleared everthing except for Uber Elder, But it was pretty cheap, And it clears maps like a boss.
and while not cheap (it only cost 4 Ex), I found this ammy to be awesome, and let me use herald of Agony.
"I didn't follow it step-by-step" is an understatement, because it's a completely different build. You're scaling... everything? Kind of?
* CA, except you don't scale gem level and effectively deal ~1/3rd of the damage you should.
* Poison, but it's not a dedicated poison build
* Herald of Agony, which is small addition to the build but prolly deals highest damage out of all setups? (i'm not good at calculating minion DPS)
* Bane and Contagion are there for... not sure why, because their damage is minimal.
It's something all over the place with no clear focus. In PoE fashion it usually means it's not a good build, at all. There's many ways you can potentially improve it, starting from picking ONE thing you want to scale.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3053600 - My Guides
December 3rd, 2019
Equipment:
* Added suggested amulet annointments.
Videos:
* Added 13 new videos.
=====================
Should've done this long time ago. With Blight going core there was no choice but to perform that simple action. Speaking of Blight, i've turned my Guide to Blight Towers into actual guide rather than data dump. You might want to take a look at if you're stuggling.
GGG showcased Arrow Nova support in one of their recent teasers, combined with Caustic Arrow. It was very, very underwhelming. Might be better with high amount of arrows but i'm still very sceptical. Gotta test it myself first.
Greater Volley support is much more interesting, because it might enable poison based version of CA. Well, technically it's already possible but tight arrow spread allows to shotgun enemies from long range instead of having to facetank them. I do like good DoT builds so it's something i would like to play around with. Probably CA is still gonna be suboptimal to Scourge Arrow and similar.
Anyway, only thing left for me is to work on other guides and wait for patch notes.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3053600 - My Guides
Just wanted to say thanks for the build (just took down U.Elder).
i didnt enjoy the leveling experience but once the gear and high 72 range gets in the build became a blast.
When did leveling become better?
I know this sounds ridiculous but I liked how it started with CA but with level 17 it kind of felt slow. Blight encounters become tedious and so on.
Am I right when I say that CA mostly scales off of its gem level. So the bow doesnt matter that much during leveling?
I would like to give this character another go for the weekend before the league closes. Endgame seems great with this build (judging by the videos)
Just wanted to say thanks for the build (just took down U.Elder).
i didnt enjoy the leveling experience but once the gear and high 72 range gets in the build became a blast.
When did leveling become better?
I know this sounds ridiculous but I liked how it started with CA but with level 17 it kind of felt slow. Blight encounters become tedious and so on.
Am I right when I say that CA mostly scales off of its gem level. So the bow doesnt matter that much during leveling?
I would like to give this character another go for the weekend before the league closes. Endgame seems great with this build (judging by the videos)
Around Act 4-5.
Once you start picking up the damage nodes between Ranger and Shadow things really start to even out. Act 2-3 always feels a bit rough, even with twink gear. By the time you get to the Respec things mostly melt - although obviously not as much as a flavour of the month build (e.g. summoners in Blight)
PoE Scrub that returned to the game a few weeks ago and have been using this build SSF while I re-learn the game. Just got to maps and it's been great up to t6 maps so far, and that's with me still being unlucky and not having a 5l or 6l yet... I've used all my fusings :(
Any thoughts on 3.9 yet? I saw the slight nerf to CA, but it didn't sound like it would affect the way this build is structured too much.
When did leveling become better?
I know this sounds ridiculous but I liked how it started with CA but with level 17 it kind of felt slow. Blight encounters become tedious and so on.
Am I right when I say that CA mostly scales off of its gem level. So the bow doesnt matter that much during leveling?
I would like to give this character another go for the weekend before the league closes. Endgame seems great with this build (judging by the videos)
Levelling at act 2-3 are quite slow due to suggested passive tree pathing. It's not very efficient speed-wise, but is more tanky and straightforward - so perfect unexperienced players. I also expect them to slightly overlevel so the extra damage from gem level should carry. It finally picks up the pace starting from act 3 Piety, where you finally get to great damage nodes. It only gets better from there.
CA during levelling cares only about +1 bow gem level bows and few specific uniques. Nothing else increases the damage.
PoE Scrub that returned to the game a few weeks ago and have been using this build SSF while I re-learn the game. Just got to maps and it's been great up to t6 maps so far, and that's with me still being unlucky and not having a 5l or 6l yet... I've used all my fusings :(
Any thoughts on 3.9 yet? I saw the slight nerf to CA, but it didn't sound like it would affect the way this build is structured too much.
Anyway, thanks for the build! It's been a blast.
In order to drop 6-link you have to be extremely lucky, something you can't count on. 5-link is much more realistic but still takes some time. In SSF you're supposed to farm specific divination cards (Imperial Legacy) that gives 6-linked Imperial Bow if you collected full deck.
Atlas receives big changes next league. I'll provide info how you should approach farming it shortly before league start or once i hit maps (~24h after launch).
I never heard about any nerfs to CA next league. Only indirect nerf due to massive focus on bosses might count as one. Either way, i'm not fan of Metamorph league but i will happily engage with new permanent content (atlas).
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3053600 - My Guides
Just wanted to drop by at the end of the league to tell you how fantastic this build guide was!
I'm still very much a PoE newbie and this league was the first time I had made it to red maps. I had never encoutered Shaper/Elder/Uber Elder/Aul/Mastermind before but I was able to kill them on first sight read with this build.
I had wanted to get a deathless Uber Elder before league's end but once I saw that they were reworking the Atlas I gave up, best attempt was 1 death!
All this to say, thank you so much DankawSL, hope you keep up the excellent work
