[3.16][HC][ON BREAK] Caustic Arrow Raider, DoT Focused | Tanky | 6k+ Health | All Content | In-depth
" " Totally missed that. Interesting. | |
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Small tip for people who might be struggling with damage in ultimatums this league is that Anomalous Withering step (Or the normal one if you're in SSF) is great for applying wither consistently and significantly helps clearing out the high end ultimatums. It's also a great cooldown for the survival ones as it has good dodge/spell dodge uptime to close that gap up to 75%.
Anomalous Withering step - Enhance - Increased Duration - Second Wind It can directly replace the totem setup and is a lot more consistent to apply than with totems even for bosses. With a 6 second duration and a 2-3 second CD you can also keep it at 14 stacks even if you only apply 7 wither stacks with it at a time. with a level 4 enhance and anomalous withering step it'll apply 10-11 wither stacks with 6 second duration on a 2-3s cooldown that you can spam while running in circles. Taking this a step further though I didn't like not using the 6 sockets in the chest more efficiently (I don't like the curse on hit setup) so in Ritual league I struggled to figure out what the most effective use was. I ended up using: Anomalous Withering step (additional wither stacks) Anomalous Enduring cry (warcry speed) Divergent or anomalous Smoke Mine (increased attack speed or increased duration) Duration support Enhance support Second Wind I would not recommend enduring cry without it being the anomalous version, the 44% quality is what makes it bearable to cast as a separate source of healing. An alternative can be using steelskin though as it benefits from all 3 supports as well. I like Smoke Mine for the zooming, but it can be replaced as well. As a separate thing I noticed that getting stunned was a real issue in Ultimatums so I'm aiming at getting 80% chance to Avoid being Stunned if you've Killed recently enchant on boots instead of the spell avoidance one. Because Atziri's steps are fairly easy to get I'll try and land the spell dodge corruption on them to cover for not having the spell dodge enchant anymore. It's been a great league start for me overall though. Just got setup for Harvest and while Harvest feels scuffed, it is still incredibly powerful for a lot of the stuff we need. Last edited by Posid on Apr 26, 2021, 5:06:01 AM
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"Yep it's pretty good and easier solution than 50% to avoid stun flask (requires unveiling cinderswallows that are usually expensive af) or crafting enough implicits on jewels / clusters with stun avoidance (would be fine if harvest wasn't nerfed by 90% in the amount of crafts...) With heart of Oak and enchant you'll be 100% capped for stuns as long as you kill things. Tbh after seeing Ultimatum I'm back to this build, because it's cheap and tanky meanwhile my planned build required a lot of gear to get together before it would stop being squishy... Perma phasing is a godsend in ultimatums really. Unfortunately I don't think I can try the weapon swap fortify setup because stopping in ultimatums looks like certain death (I once died just for trying to drop a decoy totem, would have probably lived if I kept running). Last edited by Viktranka on Apr 26, 2021, 7:37:58 AM
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Posid, do you considered your change (replacing the totem setup for the withering step) is all in all better in general? I mean not only for Ultimatum content. Guess so as you spoke aboute feeling better on bosses, too, but not sure.
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" Thanks for the write-up on Withering Step; it was interesting to see how you've implemented it. Just wanted to check on how you are using WS though... are you just popping it whenever and instantly applying wither stacks to everything in range? Or just sticking it to left-click (i.e. moving) and it's just casting whenever it's up? Since you can't fire CA while it's up or you'll lose the buff you'd also not really gain any of the Elusive effect as you need to keep firing CA to increase ground coverage and it only lasts 2.5 sec~, so it basically just acts as an instant wither applier? I can definitely see the appeal for Ultimatum's though even if it just for the wither stacks as you are constantly around monsters, and casting a totem is dicey - and it'll likely get instantly destroyed anyway. Also, have you tried Withering Step with CWDT? Or do you think you'd just not get hit enough for it to proc more than just pressing it when it's off of cooldown? | |
" I wasn't planning on it after the nerfs tbh. I didn't read the vigil nerfs too carefully so I'm not sure exactly how hard it's nerfed but they removed the ridiculous duration scaling from vigilant strike though and that's where a lot of the scaling for duration came from with the weapon swap. Edit: Just tested it. The vigil effectively does nothing now and a weapon I used for swapping last league now gives you a 33s fortify instead of 65 seconds (in my setup with 90% increased duration with 4x legacy wicked pall, malevolence etc. realistically you would be more likely to have 40-50% duration) " It depends on your preference and playstyle I guess. And a quick preface, this isn't my build guide so this is basically just my opinion. I never liked the totem and there might be pros to it in certain niche cases, but overall I think it's worse. The investment for Withering step for SSF would only be 3 gems instead of 4 as well, so you can get it to work with less links. For the anomalous variant then enhance makes sense and it's 4 links as well. As for some of the pros and cons: Totem cons: Totems can be targeted with boss abilities which make them more unreliable than always knowing you are being targeted. It could mean dodging into mechanics. Totems are hard to keep alive in busy encounters giving you less uptime Totems have a long cast time without totem placement speed making it a larger "investment" every time you stop to cast it. Totem pros: If they don't die you have a higher uptime on bosses You can apply wither without being close to the boss Withering step pros: It's an instant skill and there is no investment or delay when applying it to an enemy. This makes it easier to apply while mapping instead of just for bosses if you run into beefy beyond bosses and the likes It's a defensive skill assuming you're not dodge capped Gives runspeed Withering step cons: Requires you to be close to the boss or run through it to apply wither. playstyle can offset this though, I prefer to not be too far away from bosses because I want to see what they're doing, for bosses like the Atoll one though it's a clear downside. For others this might be a dealbreaker though. You can argue that it's too hard to apply in a fight like "The Feared", but I'd argue that it's just as impossible to maintain a wither totem in that fight. Without anomalous Witherstep + Enhance lvl 4, you're only applying 6-7 wither stacks per application which you can do every 2.5 seconds, that's less than you'd get with totem. Overall though I do definitely think that the endgame for this build benefits far more from applying it with withering step than the totem, but for early game the totem might make more sense. With the endgame setup of +1 dex gems and anomalous witheringstep with lvl 4 enhance you apply 11 wither stacks instantly and that number is high enough to justify only needing to apply it every 6 seconds or so. For most fights where you need it (Uber atziri, Uber Elder, Maven, Sirus etc.) You are going to be close enough to the boss anyway for it not to be an issue having to get close. " Yeah the sole purpose of WS is to apply Wither, so the faster you remove it the faster it comes off cooldown. Some niche cases pop up where it's nice to keep it on for a second or 2 for the dodge or for running. I have it assigned to a button and only use it when I intend to apply wither. So basically any time I expect for CA to not melt the pack within 2 seconds. So for a 70% increased life and chaos res map I'd probably apply it to all rares. But in regular gameplay it's beyond bosses, map bosses, harvest plots, big bosses etc. The second use is for when I'm zooming through a map without killing if I have to backtrack or something. I'd use smoke mine to get the movement speed buff, wait out the 2.5 second cooldown and then use WS. For a build like ED/Contagion I can see why this isn't the meta, but for a highly mobile build like raider I don't understand why this isn't the meta of applying wither. With a cooldown a little over 2s and a duration of over 6s (20% extra duration is normal from passives, 74% from support gem, another 20% from malevolence). Applying 2 instances of 7 withers shouldn't be an issue during most boss fights, but getting it to 11 per application still feels nice. I originally replaced the totem with it towards the end of Ritual league, and it was so nice for QoL. No longer needing to consider whether the totem was worth it, half the time killing the mob before the totem even starts casting etc. Since it's an instant ability on a very low CD it's kind of brainless and doesn't take much consideration, it's an easy swap so I'd recommend just trying it out and see how it feels compared to the totem. As for CWDT then I wouldn't like it, it's an instant ability to begin with so there's not much purpose to it and because it gets removed after your next attack you kind of want to use it with intent. That said all of this is assuming that the wither applications stack, but based on the wording on WS I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be. Last edited by Posid on Apr 26, 2021, 9:51:30 AM
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" I tried both last league and agree with basically all of this - I liked WS a lot, and went with Anom WS - Enhance - Inc Dur - Vaal Grace - Vaal Blight - Despair in my 6L for a while. I didn't find it obviously stronger than the totem setup in terms of consistent dps [at least with how I usually move in boss fights], but once you have enough damage that the focus is on zooming around, WS feels smoother for me. I did actually like totems vs the Feared in particular - it's not that difficult to keep them alive long enough to make a difference even against the AOE spam. Against Maven and other endgame bosses I had good success with both setups - I agree with the recommendation to try both and see how it feels. For SSF it might make sense to plan around the totem setup at least at the beginning. Last edited by manehi on Apr 26, 2021, 10:31:33 AM
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"From what I know they stack, but they don't refresh. So kinda like poison stacks, but unlike frenzy charges (which stack and reset duration to max). So the downside is you have to be applying it on cd and invest in +wither charges (alt qual, helm enchant, enhance) and constantly sit on bosses' ass. For a range skill that's a bit of a downside. I saw the setup with helm enchant in the nearby Torstein's pestilent strike build but that's a melee skill so you already glue yourself to the target anyway. Another issue is it shares cd with smoke mine / dash but doesn't jump over gaps, ledges, rivers etc. It's also not a blink just a speedup so not optimal for dodging boss' lazors and slams. And blink arrow is a bit slow. So you can deplete your mobility skill charges and then be stuck in some crap like the delirium slow circle or some nasty detonate dead. It completely personal preference, TarkeCat made a video few leagues ago worshipping withering step but I think he forgot the fact duration doesn't refresh, he behaved as if putting second application extended the first one, which would indeed make it praise worthy but afaik this isn't how wither stacks work. Another build I've seen it on used successfully is Occultist Death Aura + CA build that got semi-popular after Death's Oath buff. But again, Death Aura is a melee range skill (smaller than RF) and Occultist also provides passive wither so it gets better average stacks uptime anyway. Totem advantage is 1: it's ranged 2: you don't have to worry so much about timing and positioning 3: if the bosses are killing the totem, they aren't killing you (esp. if you spec into Lunaris upgrades where bosses cannot chain from totem to you). But yeah, across leagues I've seen a lot of people not quality their totem supports and it makes placing it very slow and clunky. There's also another wither setup that was used by WolfieNA in his scourge arrow build and adapted by Remi in his Toxic Rain Pathfinder (I don't think it would be used now on the Deadeye version, as it would ruin the dps of TR). That was Blast Rain + Mirage Archer + GMP + withering touch + increased duration + faster attacks or LMP (if I remember well from the top of my head). The idea is mirage will keep bombarding the boss with BR / withering touch while you shoot your other stuff, and BR focuses on one impact point contrary to RoA that spreads around. The downside of this setup is withering touch is only 25% chance to wither so without crazy attack speed the average stacks will be probably low, and it also removes your ability to use mirage archer elsewhere (mostly problem for toxic rain, not really for CA). Also in multi-boss fights it will not be very efficient to wither all of them. Last season I had withering touch on TR totems but that was 5 totems shooting simultaneously so I imagine the uptime should have been pretty ok. I wish there was a good way to track debuffs and stacks on mobs so we could have some conclusion of uptime and average stacks each method provides. | |
" I just tested it, WS definitely refreshes the wither duration (or rather I don't think it actually refreshed the original duration, I think it just applies new wither instances with full duration). The duration is also 6 seconds, so you don't really have to sit on the boss at all, no more than you want to because of the helmet enchant where nearby enemies have -9% chaos res. The only way to test if stacks are increased with second application would be to go pvp and then it's fairly easy to figure out, but my guess is it will basically just be tracking all stacks of wither where if you're applying 7 stacks at a time it'll track 7 stacks with a timer and then when you apply 7 stacks more you'll have 14 stacks total where 7 of them has 1 duration and the other 7 stacks has a different duration. Much like how all bleed stacks are tracked individually for duration/damage (and in my experience that's how most buffs that stack on yourself works as well, take something like headhunter stacks all being tracked individually for duration). The smoke mine / WS sharing cooldown is basically a non issue because of the short 2 second cooldown with second wind. since the build has duration anyway the smoke mine duration is 8+ seconds so it doesn't have to be refreshed that often. Last edited by Posid on Apr 26, 2021, 1:33:14 PM
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"I mean if you apply 7 stacks for 6 seconds and then 4 seconds later another 7 stacks for 6 seconds you will have 14 stacks for 2 more seconds and then the first 7 stacks are gonna expire after and you'll be left with 7 stacks from the second cast. -9 chaos res helmet has like 60 unit radius which is nearly screen wide size, it's not really that small. https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Distance |
