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

Just starting off playing this build and noticed that in the leveling guide it says to get toxic rain to pair with caustic arrow for extra damage on bosses. Wouldn't Herald of Agony be a better choice since it buffs the damage while also activating the pet which further adds damage? Is toxic rain that much better damage?

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landingsupport wrote:

Just starting off playing this build and noticed that in the leveling guide it says to get toxic rain to pair with caustic arrow for extra damage on bosses. Wouldn't Herald of Agony be a better choice since it buffs the damage while also activating the pet which further adds damage? Is toxic rain that much better damage?

Try it for yourself.

You can use all 3, toxic rain from lvl 12 and hoa from lvl 16.

My experience with HOA while levelling? Can't keep any virulence stacks, pet doesn't do much and constantly despawns due to lack of virulence.

It doesn't buff anything really because neither caustic arrow nor toxic rain classifies as poison.

Since you don't aim for stacking chance to poison, you can't really build any virulence reliably.

You wanna level with HoA you can try rain of arrows + lesser poison + poison support or something, but then it's a completely different build.

Also poison builds rely on having weapon up to date. Meanwhile caustic arrow I levelled on the same bow from lvl 7 to act9 or so. It's basically like a spell, you don't care about weapon damage. And that's the amazing part of levelling with it.

Toxic rain pods also behave in a similar manner so you can use exactly the same gear.

You wanna add random stuff to the levelling process, try toxic rain with balista support or even siege ballista + added chaos (it probably won't do much but often mobs will attack it instead of you meanwhile HOA pet is unattackable so can't "tank" for you).

Personally I think if you don't have a tabula (it's a league starter for example) 4-link CA and 4-link Toxic Rain is the best setup for levelling, CA for stuff that dies instantly, and TR to keep spamming when mobs don't die from 1 CA (until you have to refresh CA puddle).

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Viktranka wrote:

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landingsupport wrote:

Try it for yourself.

You can use all 3, toxic rain from lvl 12 and hoa from lvl 16.

My experience with HOA while levelling? Can't keep any virulence stacks, pet doesn't do much and constantly despawns due to lack of virulence.

It doesn't buff anything really because neither caustic arrow nor toxic rain classifies as poison.

Since you don't aim for stacking chance to poison, you can't really build any virulence reliably.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I just assumed it was all poison based. I will follow the guide since clearly he knows what he is talking about! Lol

I can use bane+despair instead curse on hit+despair+frenzy?

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MaklayBayBay wrote:

I can use bane+despair instead curse on hit+despair+frenzy?

You can, you'll just miss 12% damage from having 3 frenzy charges up, unless you use another way to obtain frenzy charges.

DankawSL, in some of your builds, one of your support gems for the wither totem is "faster casting" instead of "multiple totems". Is this a valid alternative? It will work better given the colour of my sockets on my gear at the moment.

Hey I'm about to redistribute some points I put in damage nodes which I definetely do not need anymore. My main question though, in the passive tree (lvl 93) you selected to also take 'Master of the Arena' node. Is this purely for the STR points of Life regen?

Sorry if it has been asked before, just quite a few pages to skim through, been loving the build.

EDIT:
Nevermind I'm dumb, probably the only part of the FAQ I missed was talking about this, again thanks for the build and info even when I am clumsy in reading through it

Crafting end-game bow

QOUTE:
"Step 3: If you have any prefix, craft "Suffixes cannot be changed" and scour the bow to remove prefixes
Step 4: Craft "Cannot roll attack mods"
Step 5: Slam the bow with exalted orb for guaranteed +1 Socketed Gems
Step 6: Craft following mods in this order:
* Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers
* +2 to Level of Socketed Support Gems
* 33-40% Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier "

One question, maybe stupid. If after step 5 - I will slam one more exalt - isn`t it give one more prefix for + to bow gems/all gems?
Isn`t it will be more profitable than + support gems? We will not craft multicraft, so minus 1 exalt on crafting? Or there is something I don`t understand?

Thank you in advance.

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THATISDNA wrote:

Crafting end-game bow

QOUTE:
"Step 3: If you have any prefix, craft "Suffixes cannot be changed" and scour the bow to remove prefixes
Step 4: Craft "Cannot roll attack mods"
Step 5: Slam the bow with exalted orb for guaranteed +1 Socketed Gems
Step 6: Craft following mods in this order:
* Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers
* +2 to Level of Socketed Support Gems
* 33-40% Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier "

One question, maybe stupid. If after step 5 - I will slam one more exalt - isn`t it give one more prefix for + to bow gems/all gems?
Isn`t it will be more profitable than + support gems? We will not craft multicraft, so minus 1 exalt on crafting? Or there is something I don`t understand?

Thank you in advance.

+1/+2 to socketed bow gems has an attack tag, so you can't block everything else and get that. You could get lucky and slam it, but the chances aren't in your favour.

You can see here https://poedb.tw/us/mod.php?cn=Bow the mods you could slam, and the weight that have (higher weight means a higher chance to hit)

Also, pob is telling me this bow (after +2 to support gems craft)


is better than my current bow,


It seems +2 to support is better than the chaos dot multi craft (I'll be getting additional arrow with damage and life on quiver)

Edit: Whoops, can't craft +2 support if you have +2 to bow gems

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lapen wrote:

+1/+2 to socketed bow gems has an attack tag, so you can't block everything else and get that. You could get lucky and slam it, but the chances aren't in your favour.

Thank you. I missed that attack tag.