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

Welcome back Mr. build author :)

I'd be interested in discussing cluster jewels for a moment.
The way I've gone about it in the past was pretty much "don't bother with it, it's just not worth it". I really liked Delirium league and cluster jewels are a really cool mechanic, and it kinda saddens me that I've been ignoring it for the most part, because it didn't seem to add much power to the build.

Roughly speaking, the general tradeoff goes like this: firstly, cluster jewels must beat the regular passive tree, and secondly, their impact must be noticeable enough to justify the time and currency invested into rolling them.

The general direction of GGG in going about cluster jewels after Delirium ended, was nerfing the shit out of them by making the good stuff exceptionally rare, thus requiring absurd amounts of currency to get the good notables combined. Which was pretty much a middle finger in the face of SSF players, which is the main reason I didn't really bother with cluster jewels in the first place.

Making things worse, Delirium is getting even more nerfs this patch. The Atlas nodes in Lex Ejoris are getting nerfed in numbers, and so are the Wicked pall and Exposure Therapy notables.

On top of that, freeing up enough passive points for the cluster jewels almost always means sacrificng life nodes from the regular tree. Which feels even more punishing from a HC SSF point of view. So my gut instinct is telling me that the way it works is you have to invest silly amounts of currency to squeeze out a nearly unnoticable micro advantage over the regular tree. And only if you play SC trade. Jeez the more I'm writing about it, the more obvious it's becoming that the outcome of the discussion can only be "lulz still dogshit, don't bother with clusters".

Idk what to say about SSF because you get so little control over what drops that 1c items could be impossible to get.

For example large chaos clusters not only need to be 8 passives but actually should be LOW level to exclude unwanted passives which only roll on high lvl jewels. So optimal is lvl 50-67. But how do you even target farm that on SSF?

After that it's not so bad, that leaves only 4 prefixes out of which only 1 is meh, any combo of the other 3 is ok as long as you get double prefix. Which can be done with harvest "reforge with chaos modifier / chaos is more common", chaos orb spam, alt regal, etc.

Then for suffix you can either use harvest "reforge while keep prefixes" or you can augment caster or attack on suffix, there's high chance to get unholy grace over attack speed due to higher ranks of attack speed suffix being cut off by ilvl of the jewel.

It's also not an influenced item which means augment harvest works.

Getting correct bases is a bottleneck though.

One saving grace of clusters is that "reforge while keeping prefixes" can be used to reroll them until you get suffixes which help to fit in stats that are cumbersome to get somewhere else. That usually means chaos resist, strength or intellect, and maybe elemental resist too.

Hi, are there any SSF specific tips? Like a certain card that’s useful to farm early on or use as a crafting base, maybe something else.

Also, is it worth farming tabula?

Better to farm the Imperial Legacy for 6l bow you will need anyways.

Cluster jewels / SSF in general: I started last league not pathing to any jewel sockets, and threw a bunch of jewels [normal and cluster] in a tab and rerolled them with Harvest [mostly chaos or life reforges] when I got the chance. When I eventually got particularly good jewels I adjusted my tree, but it wasn't a big focus. Much later I used Harvest annuls/augments to turn jewels with 3 good mods into 4 good mods. You can also use non-X to X on jewels and try to get lucky e.g. removing a useless mod for life, chaos, or ele [cold/fire/light resist] mod. With medium clusters with 4 mods already, non-ele to ele will always change a suffix to a resistance mod.

This league with Harvest nerfs I'll probably do something similar with other gear too, getting a bunch of influenced bases for each gear slot and roll them when I have the chance [likely harvest + essences in haewark]. It's going to be too hard to just have one base and slowly upgrade it over time.

I think in SSF the order of my upgrades last league was something like
1) random gear with +2 essence bow [6 link through Imperial Legacy cards as MrPluszu mentions]
2) improving life/resists [mostly rares from Rituals]
3) +3 bow; lvl 21 CA
4) get first few dmg mods on other gear [whatever I could roll out of glove multi / helm -9 resist / amulet +gem level / quiver multi]
5) slowly farm/upgrade everything else: Kintsugi chest, Atziri boots + enchant, lvl 3/4 empower, +2 Catarina craft and endgame bow, jewels, better and better harvest gear...

"

DankawSL wrote:

I'm totally fine.

Good to hear, and thanks as always for the work you've put into the guide.

"

Viktranka wrote:

poedb links

Cool - also just checked and both quiver dot multi mods are 'with Attack skills' rather than the confusing 'with attacks' wording in the patch notes - so clearly should work with CA. They also now have the attack mod, which might have a small impact on e.g. fossil crafting chances.

The glove base might be worth it - not too difficult to hit enough evasion to be capped with flasks.

"

MrPluszu wrote:

Happy that author is alive. :D

"

NiteskyEU wrote:

Welcome back Mr. build author :)

"

manehi wrote:

Good to hear, and thanks as always for the work you've put into the guide.

Thanks guys. I didn't really expect such warm welcome after 2 months of absence.

"

Viktranka wrote:

Spoiler

Kinda irritating chaos leech is back as chaos prefix so getting +2 amulet is gonna be really more of a gamble than a craft...

On the other hand there's a new atlas ring base with chaos damage implicit, so at least that's something.

I'm still curious what was that 3rd secret build guide though.

I'm positive that chaos leech lacking "chaos" tag was a mistake by dev. When i made amulet crafting guide i definitely accounted for it and in 3.13 i think i noticed it's gone. Not like it really matters anymore, harvest crafting influenced items is no longer possible like it used to be.

From HC perspective... that ring is a not really worth it until very late game. Vermillion Ring exist and combined with Fertile catalysts gives tons of effective life. Crafting them is much easier too (just use harvest). I would only consider Iolite ring crafting with Envy essence (31-34% chaos damage suffix) and new chaos damage catalyst for up to 67% chaos damage. Not gonna lie, that's A LOT. Something to work towards for sure, especially for softcore players i can see it very appealing.

My third guide is the Blight one. New Teal Oils look awesome for showcase, i look forward to test them out. I would have 3rd build guide if GGG didn't kill it in Delirium. Reverse Knockback RoA totem Champion was hilarious and strong too.

"

Viktranka wrote:

Spoiler

New atlas crafting bases:

https://poedb.tw/us/Iolite_Ring
Chaos damage ring


https://poedb.tw/us/Apothecarys_Gloves
Dot gloves, sadly bad base for us


https://poedb.tw/us/Blessed_Boots
Chaos res boots, not sure if better than two-toned


New chaos mod catalyst:
https://poedb.tw/us/Noxious_Catalyst
Could be good for amulet?

Iolite Ring i covered above.

Apothecary's Gloves are... not terrible. Highest evasion pieces are body armours (of course) and helmets which can reach up to 1k evasion. Boots and Gloves aren't piority for evasion since their potential isn't as high. I'd say those gloves are something to consider if you crafted insane Lion Pelt. To note, it's ES base which means much harder crafting process.

Blessed Boots are a big no. Primary reason is ES base which makes boot crafting significantly harder. Boots don't have many prefixes, but they're very important (Life + MS) and adding Mana with their 10 or something affixes is not worth the hassle. Other than that they're similar in power to Two-toned's.

Catalyst only worth on rings imo.

"

NiteskyEU wrote:

Spoiler

I'd be interested in discussing cluster jewels for a moment.
The way I've gone about it in the past was pretty much "don't bother with it, it's just not worth it". I really liked Delirium league and cluster jewels are a really cool mechanic, and it kinda saddens me that I've been ignoring it for the most part, because it didn't seem to add much power to the build.

Roughly speaking, the general tradeoff goes like this: firstly, cluster jewels must beat the regular passive tree, and secondly, their impact must be noticeable enough to justify the time and currency invested into rolling them.

The general direction of GGG in going about cluster jewels after Delirium ended, was nerfing the shit out of them by making the good stuff exceptionally rare, thus requiring absurd amounts of currency to get the good notables combined. Which was pretty much a middle finger in the face of SSF players, which is the main reason I didn't really bother with cluster jewels in the first place.

Making things worse, Delirium is getting even more nerfs this patch. The Atlas nodes in Lex Ejoris are getting nerfed in numbers, and so are the Wicked pall and Exposure Therapy notables.

On top of that, freeing up enough passive points for the cluster jewels almost always means sacrificng life nodes from the regular tree. Which feels even more punishing from a HC SSF point of view. So my gut instinct is telling me that the way it works is you have to invest silly amounts of currency to squeeze out a nearly unnoticable micro advantage over the regular tree. And only if you play SC trade. Jeez the more I'm writing about it, the more obvious it's becoming that the outcome of the discussion can only be "lulz still dogshit, don't bother with clusters".

Cluster jewels are absolutely worth it once you roll them correctly AND have good normal jewels. In trade this is not really a problem, in SSF it's long term goal. When you finally get all cluster jewels done and have good jewels, you end up having the same life and ~20% more damage (budget gear).

Manehi's advice on how to progress in SSF is great. I pretty much do the same thing except #4, i save crafting for last.

"

DankawSL wrote:

Boots and Gloves aren't piority for evasion since their potential isn't as high. I'd say those gloves are something to consider if you crafted insane Lion Pelt. To note, it's ES base which means much harder crafting process.

I think Atziri's Step are one of the best options for this build, especially if you can get good corruption and enchantment.

"

k4n3 wrote:

Spoiler

I think Atziri's Step are one of the best options for this build, especially if you can get good corruption and enchantment.

Oh that's for sure, i do recommend them after all. They're the cheap option. I meant if you wanted to craft boots like this:

Buuuuuuut it's no longer possible realistically.

I wonder if this is true: https://youtu.be/WRazRZfaK6I
We'll see soon.
TLDR: Datamined Ultimatum debuffs have options where mobs apply a debuff "on hit" and supposedly make you fail the encounter after 7 stacks. If this conclusion is true (wording on the mod is a bit unclear), AND evading an attack prevents the debuff to land on you, this will be a great option for farming ultimatums. :P

If thats true aspect of the spider might be good for it too, if it works on the shade.