[3.16][HC][ON BREAK] Caustic Arrow Raider, DoT Focused | Tanky | 6k+ Health | All Content | In-depth

Just gotta chime in here and say that the build can kill awakener. Wasn't deathless. Wasn't pretty. And wasn't fast. But we are tanky enough to sustain through the fight with Ryslatha flask sustain.
Accidentally spawned him with all watchstones socketed. Guess it is late, lol.

Loot:


Important loadout:
Corrupted Blood immunity jewel. I bought me a corrupted Watcher's Eye earlier today for that matter.

Other stuff to note:
6.5k hp and 36% chaos res.
Being elemental ailment immune is really nice, so keep your frenzy charges up.
I did die once to a tempest at the 25% transition. A second time due to tanking the full tripple(quadruple?) beam and running onto a degen spot. Dont know to what i died after that, but at this point he was below 10% so i just bought a culling strike support and culled him with frenzy.

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Genji084 wrote:

Hey guys,
currently having fun with this build, however i have a question regarding the passive "Master of the Arena", why do we take it?

It gives:
- 1% life regen, okay... it's something
- 8% melee phys dmg, worthless imho
- +2 Melee & Unarmed Attack range aka worthless to a bowuser, right? Or does this
- +20 STR which is nice to have for some skills..

I'd rather take the node named "Damage, Area and Projectile speed" next to Lethal Assault, it'll give more AoE and a little dmg boost. But maybe I don't see what Master of the Arena gives us..

Also, would you guys recommend using % blind to hit on an abyssal jewel?

The reason we take MotA is listed in the FAQ:
Q: Why do you take Master of the Arena node on passive tree?
A: For life regen and little bit of strength. Life regen is great for mitigating small degens for Damage on Full Life and defensive purposes. Strength for easier gearing and that little bit of life you get.


And if I had to take a shot at why MotA is better than the node you brought up it would be while that one gives you a constant 8% more damage (The AoE and Proj. Speed aren't lacking at all in this build so those bits are pretty worthless) the added up-time of your Damage at Full Life that MotA provides would probably end up coming out to much higher numbers in the end as long as you aren't constantly dropping HP by getting hit by avoidable stuff.

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ZariiX wrote:

To those using arrow nova. What do you swap out in the setup for it? Also how is the damage of it compared to what the guide lists.

Personally I've been switching out Void Manip. I think there might be reason to possible do Vicious Projectiles instead but I'm not sure. As for damage and clear power it's pretty good and it's a no-brainer for general clearing/delve whenever you get access to at least one of you "Adds an additional Arrow" pieces of gear.

Has anyone tried running Toxic Rain + Ballista Totem Support + Multiple Totems Support + WIthering Touch Support instead of the current Wither spell totems setup? The ballistas seem to be placed quicker than spell totems and hopefully shooting out 5 sets of toxic rain with withering touch should get wither applied relatively quickly and kept at max stacks?

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selvyr wrote:

Has anyone tried running Toxic Rain + Ballista Totem Support + Multiple Totems Support + WIthering Touch Support instead of the current Wither spell totems setup? The ballistas seem to be placed quicker than spell totems and hopefully shooting out 5 sets of toxic rain with withering touch should get wither applied relatively quickly and kept at max stacks?

Sounds like a great idea and I will give it a quick try! Also this setup is much easier than the OP setup in terms of coloring on dex gears.

Does X% increased Chaos Damage work for Caustic Arrow? I can put it on my rings.

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imatty wrote:

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SkyNameko wrote:

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How does this build handle the new buff to Boss HP's? CA always sort of had crap single target id imagine CA on the new bosses HP is like watching a flea suck an elephant down?

For me it's ok for now. But Endgame boss fat as duck. So. i'd assume this build wont handle it.

bruh vortex can do this, CA is higher dmg overall.

EDIT. ok they can't xD

I've been doing all the endgame content easily with this build. Got 26 watchstone Sirus to around 40% easily before I kept dying to mechanics. The build has great damage but is very expensive to get there.

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Jouchebag wrote:

I've been doing all the endgame content easily with this build. Got 26 watchstone Sirus to around 40% easily before I kept dying to mechanics. The build has great damage but is very expensive to get there.

I like that, makes it fun to game and gradualy going further and stronger.

Well true that it's expensive, feeling pathetic about not being able to make +3 bow because I really like the build but as Jouchebag said it's hard to get great damage without significant investments...

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stredeK__ wrote:

Well true that it's expensive, feeling pathetic about not being able to make +3 bow because I really like the build but as Jouchebag said it's hard to get great damage without significant investments...

Getting a +3 bow shouldn't be hard with the provided fossil method in this guide.

There's so many questions after a single day. I'm not gonna answer to them individually since some of them were already answered. I want to make something clear:

This build does NOT focus on damage. It focuses on SAFETY.

That was always the idea of the build and it doesn't change. That's why Raider and not any other ascendancy. I'm a hardcore player, and this is my build to survive anything thrown at me.

Until this league where bosses had their life pools tripled if not more, CA had more than enough damage to dispatch any boss within seconds on budget. However the change to life pool doesn't only affect this build, but EVERY build.

That doesn't mean CA can't deal high damage, because it has more potential damage than ever before. It simply takes more investment to get there. That being said DoT and bow builds are now extremely popular so prices jumped up, especially when it comes to Corroded fossils. That price is actually ridiculous. (currently) Average fossil crafting cost should be on pair with classic method, which is... dumb, just dumb.

And if you guys believe this build can't kill something, you're incorrect. You can kill anything with any amount of damage, as long as you can stay alive. Unless there is a timer that prevents you from dragging out the fight of course.