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

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Viktranka wrote:

League reveal said the crafted veiled mods will be weaker than they're now... I wonder will that screw up the bow crafting. :(

I could see them nerfing the dot multi craft a bit. Not sure they'd nerf the support gems craft since that would restrict the top version of the mod to only appearing on Catarina drops. If not nerfed, sounds like it'll be quicker to farm on SSF. Will have to see.

New delirium essence is 10 dot multi on amulet which is pretty nice.

In terms of dealing with the league mechanic, I'm pretty hopeful for the build, as long as there are enough options that reward survivability over just dps.

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manehi wrote:

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Viktranka wrote:

League reveal said the crafted veiled mods will be weaker than they're now... I wonder will that screw up the bow crafting. :(

I could see them nerfing the dot multi craft a bit.

That would be reasonable, let's say you can only craft 35% but 40% is only unveiled on items, or there's a new rank 45% that is only innately on items (maybe Aisling add veiled mod would be more useful?), but you can't nerf veiled mods that are binary in nature like +1 endurance / frenzy / power charge, hits can't be evaded, etc. and nerfing +2 support gems to only exist on unveiled items and not be craftable wrecks builds like CA or essence drain which already have low damage ceiling while not affecting any more powerful builds that scale through other means (crit multi, phys as ele and so forth).

After the manifesto I guess my pathfinder idea goes down the drain. Divine Flesh Raider here we go again. xd

Yep, the nerfs targeting TR PF also means Raider will keep being better for this build.

Crab = still 25% mana, F&S = now 35% (mostly used by PF to up your evade)
Hardened scars = nerfed hard unless you use petrified blood or something, again mostly used by PF
Chainbreaker = now gives skills rage cost, again mostly used by PF in combo with free mana flask
(Oh yea, and toxic rain itself got nerfed, so idk if it will be worth it, I was using CA + TR ballistas in Ritual).

We'll see tomorrow the patch notes, I don't think Raider or CA will be nerfed, I'm mostly worried about bow crafting if the +2 support gems veiled mod is nerfed / not craftable.

I might just chill next league and take break from playing CA type of builds (did it in Delirium, Harvest and Ritual). Especially since I'm indifferent about the pyramid portal so probably won't push for 36.

Anyway Raider served me well this league, did Sirus 9, all invitations except Feared - and mostly because I chickened out of Feared and just hired a boss killer to do it, I could have tried but didn't wanna fail and have to rewitness everything, same with Maven, at 3,5ex a pop for writ I didn't feel like burning them to learn the fight. I still feel like I went further than in any previous league.

Oh yea, and it seems we're up for another Wicked Pall nerf (they said duration and aoe clusters, the second ones mostly used by TR like broadside, but Wicked Pall was a staple in every chaos build).

Seems like most of the nerfs targeting TR was avoided. Will still have to see the full patch notes to be sure, but I'm hopefully optimistic. The biggest risk I guess is the bow crafting, but I don't imagine that they will nerf +2 support gem craft in a league where they're trying to get people to run Catharina.

sources of fortify got nerfed and Flesh and Stone as well which probably sucks a bit for hardcore players. There is some leeway though so I imagine Flesh and stone can still be fit in. I used weapon swap for 75 seconds fortitude to level to 100, but unfortunately that won't be possible anymore.

Not too worried about cluster jewel nerfs as CA didn't rely on them too heavily to start with.

I think this build is going to be strong for Ultimatums. While yes we'll be stuck in a small circle, the build can actually tank most mechanics just fine and only has issues with big spell hits.

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Posid wrote:

sources of fortify got nerfed

Heh, I guess your sword swap with vigilant strike won't give 1min of fortify anymore with nerf to vigil jewel. Do you think it's still worth it? I saw you swapped it out in the end.

!

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Viktranka wrote:

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Posid wrote:

sources of fortify got nerfed

Heh, I guess your sword swap with vigilant strike won't give 1min of fortify anymore with nerf to vigil jewel. Do you think it's still worth it? I saw you swapped it out in the end.

Yeah after I got 100 I tried a different approach and cared less about dying, so maintaining fortify was just more of a hassle. Getting to 100 without cheesing 5ways or breachstones was a lot harder than I expected as I mostly did all map mods which was why I opted for trying out fortify with some fort effect. Even with fortify I had 2 random deaths from 99-100 and both were from running back into stygian revenants while zooming.

The current setup is the full yolo damage setup. Still evasion capped and good dodge etc. rarely die and do bosses deathless a majority of the time. However that's with 5.6m on Caustic arrow and with it being very easy to keep up 15 stacks of wither because I'm applying it with withering step. The clearing setup is at 1.5-2.2m DPS with arrow nova which is way more than you realistically need. I wanted to see how far I could scale it and it's pretty hard to get further than that. Or rather, it's pretty easy but it doesn't feel like it's worth it for the survivability trade off. There were a few items I never finished, the quiver and the chest mainly, but the rest is pretty hard to improve.

It's my favorite build by far. Had slightly less than 100 deaths when I hit 100 which was definitely a best for me. 1 death during campaign and then I think I had sub 5 deaths by the time I got to red maps. Most of my deaths were from things just after getting a level which I know I shouldn't have been attempting anyway.

I'll be league starting this in Ultimatum and it'll be fun to see what's possible without harvest.

Had a look at patch notes...

positives:
- new catalyst that boosts chaos [and phys] damage mods on jewellery/belts
[revealed before notes, but also new ring base type with 25% inc chaos dmg implicit - with catalysts and essence of envy can get (25+34)*1.2=70% inc dmg per ring]
- delirium essence now gives generic 10 dot multi on amulets
- slightly better uptime on vaal blight

negatives:
- harvest nerfs in general
- crafted chaos dot multi on bow nerfed 40% -> 35% [support gems mod unchanged]
- exposure therapy on medium clusters 10% -> 8% dot multi [brush with death unchanged]
- wicked pall 35% -> 30% inc damage; and 10% -> 5% inc duration
- "Fixed a bug where various "Chaos Damage Leeched as Life" modifiers were missing the Chaos tag." which means that +2 gems on amulet would not be a guaranteed craft even with the multimod pref and suff can't be changed + reforge with chaos harvest method.

Overall I'd still be very happy to go with this build. Had more than enough damage to clear all the content for me this league.

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Quivers can no longer roll the "Global Critical Strike Chance", "Global Critical Strike Multiplier" or "Global Damage over Time Multiplier" modifiers. Instead, they can now roll "Critical Strike Chance with Bows", "Critical Strike Multiplier with Bows" and "Damage over Time Multiplier with Attacks" modifiers. Existing items cannot obtain the newer modifiers through Divine Orbs.
Hunter-influenced Quivers can no longer roll the Global Physical, Fire or Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier modifiers. Instead, they can now roll Physical, Fire or Chaos Damage over Time with Attack Skills modifiers. Existing items will be updated to the newer versions.

So, can CA be counted as 'attack'?