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

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DankawSL wrote:

I can see it being useful in SSF early on before you get 6-link bow, that's why i hinted it's not useful in trade. I know that i would sometimes leave Despair unlinked and manually curse tough magic packs.

Isn't Asenath's helmet really hard to get in SSF because you'd need both the item and the prophecy for the upgrade? They added a div card for the prophecy this season, but no idea how rare it is.

Unlinked despair self cast doesn't sound like a bad idea especially in cases where you can't get Witchfire Brew (I don't think there's any way to target it in SSF).

But a 4-link curse seems like a waste of sockets especially after tons of extra good stuff was added. Something like enduring cry + urgent orders could be worth testing? Or do you think without being able to pick instant warcries they're worthless?

I can't praise this build enough as a league starter. I was able to fly through t1-10 maps with very few deaths on a shoestring budget.

That being said, I'm starting to have some trouble with red maps. I know the champion variant is a little slower, but my clear speed is pretty poor on t12+ maps and I struggle vs bosses. Any advice as to how I might better optimize this variant of the build? My current budget is about 3 ex. The character in question can be found in my profile under "SIXFIVETHREEFORTYRIPPED".

Thanks again.

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Martingale7 wrote:

I'm starting to have some trouble with red maps. I know the champion variant is a little slower, but my clear speed is pretty poor on t12+ maps and I struggle vs bosses. Any advice as to how I might better optimize this variant of the build?

If you play with arrow nova, you will have to gem swap for bosses. Arrow nova is a massive damage penalty in exchange for greatly increased aoe.

Also I'd recommend getting a lvl 3+ empower asap and replacing damage on full life. Pretty sure if you don't play a raider you won't have as much evasion / dodge so this gem loses a lot of its reliability.

I'd also recommend using multiple totems instead of increased duration if you only have a 3-link. Having 3 totems up speeds up how fast they apply the debuff.

Not sure why do you level spare CA gems in chest while you have empty slots in weapon swap, because of that you're socket starved and have 3-link totem, no cwdt setup, no second wind on dash, it's not mandatory per say but feels like an odd choice to me.

You didn't anoint the amulet.

You have no chaos multi on gloves / amulet / quiver.

You don't have a +1 to gems (dex / chaos) amulet either.

The silver flask affix is useless and champion is not immune to ele ailments contrary to raider, you could have grounding, curing, adrenaline, dousing, anything else on that flask. Plus I'm not a fan of silver flask, you could get onslaught conditionally from abyss jewel and tbh attack speed doesn't do much for CA (contrary to toxic rain for example) so I'd just use quartz or witchfire brew in that slot.

You should also try to unveil higher rank of chaos multi for bow, pretty sure max rank goes up to 40%.

At some point you'd have to craft the endgame bow, but it's a big jump in currency spending so I can understand leaving it for later.

Urgh, i know i said full harvest crafting process is going to be added but life had other plans. On top of that i found some info that could have positive impact on crafting cost so again - i'm postponing process for now. I bought my own hunter amulet to finally get to the crafting process. Hopefully i won't die along the way to T4 seed boss that i'm about to harvest. I hope to still kill final harvest boss before competition ends, i have only 4:30 hour left and it seemed easy enough to kill (watched YT video of it).

EDIT: nope, not dead. T4 seed done but holy crap it was awful. Vivid T4 seed is invulnerable half of the time, sometimes "roots you" with vines while also preventing blinking before doing his... slam attack or something? Once you can finally attack it it falls down quickly tho.

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Viktranka wrote:

Spoiler

Isn't Asenath's helmet really hard to get in SSF because you'd need both the item and the prophecy for the upgrade? They added a div card for the prophecy this season, but no idea how rare it is.

Unlinked despair self cast doesn't sound like a bad idea especially in cases where you can't get Witchfire Brew (I don't think there's any way to target it in SSF).

But a 4-link curse seems like a waste of sockets especially after tons of extra good stuff was added. Something like enduring cry + urgent orders could be worth testing? Or do you think without being able to pick instant warcries they're worthless?

I completely forgot you have to upgrade it. Well, i guess it has almost no use at all then. You are correct it's a waste of space since Frenzy+CoH actually serves 3 purposes at once (cursing, damage boost, onslaught proc).

I thought about warcries but i noticed they now have longer cooldown and since they're not instant... eh, i think it's not worth. I might play around with it later to see how it feels to use.

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Martingale7 wrote:

Spoiler

I can't praise this build enough as a league starter. I was able to fly through t1-10 maps with very few deaths on a shoestring budget.

That being said, I'm starting to have some trouble with red maps. I know the champion variant is a little slower, but my clear speed is pretty poor on t12+ maps and I struggle vs bosses. Any advice as to how I might better optimize this variant of the build? My current budget is about 3 ex. The character in question can be found in my profile under "SIXFIVETHREEFORTYRIPPED".

Thanks again.

Reminder that i don't do gear checks.

Does #% chaos dmg influence our caustic arrow? I dont know where the problem is but i lack dmg. I had almost 300k per dot but i changed my tree completely to yours, then changed eq, bought empower lvl3, got chaos dmg in belt and in amulet, i have caustic duration enchant and yet i have only 270k per dot at 89lvl, what do i do wrong?

Just wanted to say thanks for this guide!

Thoroughly enjoying it and doing t16s no problem. My boss damage is weak (taking longer and longer to kill the elderslayers), but I'm thinking that will be alleviated once I get enough saved up to get an Empower 3 or 4 and the 1 all/2 support bow.

Only thing I've played that was as cheap to progress and survive was the broken archmage brand templar last league and this build is way more fun, IMO.

Thank you!

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konradwe wrote:

Does #% chaos dmg influence our caustic arrow? I dont know where the problem is but i lack dmg. I had almost 300k per dot but i changed my tree completely to yours, then changed eq, bought empower lvl3, got chaos dmg in belt and in amulet, i have caustic duration enchant and yet i have only 270k per dot at 89lvl, what do i do wrong?

To up your damage you need the following:
- lvl 21 caustic arrow gem
- amulet with +1 to chaos or dexterity gems (or both) and preferably chaos damage over time multiplier (all 3 of them is hard to get unless GGG buffs the harvest augment option appearing more often, chaos seeds are already rare as they are)
- gloves / quiver with chaos damage over time multiplier (hunter influence mod)
- get higher level support gems (one of them for example you have at lvl 8 atm), awakened gems is the goal but it's pretty early in the league, they usually drop in price over time
- anoint the amulet
- cluster jewels will be a good option to look at after the patch (I expect it by thursday / friday)

And yes, increased chaos damage works! Added chaos damage to attacks doesn't. Also projectile damage works (like the one on your amulet), projectile attack damage doesn't (like the one on "sol nail" ring). Sad but true.

Thanks for the build! As a new player, your build helped me a lot.

Just want to ask about banner (dread banner). Should we place it or just keep activated as aura?

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LithicTRG wrote:

Just want to ask about banner (dread banner). Should we place it or just keep activated as aura?

If you follow the setup suggested to link dread banner with generosity, then you don't place it at all, because it's only meant to affect mobs (to reduce their accuracy basically boosting your evasion) and not you. It's basically an aura you put and leave as it is.

July 1st, 2020
Crafting Section:
* Added Harvest Crafting Method for End Game Bow.
* Fixed a big mistake in one sentence in End Game Bow crafting commentary.

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Nope, no amulet harvest crafting today. I found a way to craft T1 DoT multi and +# arrow bow reliably which is cheaper than any other method. It's simple enough that i quickly written it instead. I'm still unsure if seed can augment mods that are higher than seed level (so in this case ilvl 86 mod which is +2 arrows), but it reliably adds +1 arrow.


How does it even happen? For some reason, for a long time now +1 arrow doesn't count as an attack mod for metacrafting purposes (Cannot roll Attack mods), but it counts as an attack for fossil/harvest crafting purposes. It's the only mod like that on bows, so harvest slamming attack mod guarantees you'll get extra arrow. On top of everything - it's cheaper than other methods on average due to lower alteration cost and consistent 6ex cost to craft instead of 6-8ex.


Soon GGG will buff harvest crafting, so i would advice to wait with spending all your attack and chaos seeds. Gives me more time to reasonably finish rest of crafting methods.

I'm going back to grinding lvl 100.