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

Good news is that my tooth no longer hurts (much) since yesterday so i can finally function again. I played a lot yesterday and got to maps. I got some troubles in scourge survivability around acts 2-3 until i picked up Grace. There's also 2 dangerous monster types, one zaps you with a version of Arc (instant, targetted lightning spell damage) and it very dangerous without resistances. The other monster is the one who uses Maligaro-like skill with 5 projectiles that deal heavy damage and the monster tracks you EXTREMELY well making it hard to dodge.

Overall Scourge mechanic is pretty cool, but rewards are... not so good. So far i only see it as a way to make some corrupted items usable, cheesing with new orbs and for unique items. Maybe map corruptions will make it better.

I have couple of important points about new gear mods and few others.
* Dexterity gear can roll Spell Suppression, up to 20-22%. This allows to fairly easily reach 75% Spell Dodge cap if you want, or ditch some notables/clusters.

* #% reduced Extra Damage Taken from Crits modifier found on influenced belts is gone! It was incredibly powerful, but i didn't expect them to just remove it. Well, with this mod and 50% from Spell Suppression cluster you could have 80% against spells, making crits not a problem.

* 5-8% chance to Evade Attacks survived on Watcher's Eye! Back to being a chase item like it used to be in 3.2. It allows A LOT of freedom and makes it trivial to cap evade chance especially when going for cluster jewel setups. Grace's place as a core aura has been sealed.

* DoT multipliers on bow got nerfed! Especially crafted mod got hit hard. From 35% to only 20%. Generic one found as a suffix went down from 35% to 28%. So overall end game should have similar values of DoT Multiplier from gear as before. It should be noted that with lower DoT damage on bows, +2 arrows seem to be quite tempting again! This would mean you can run Concentrated Effect without worries too!

* Changes to base flask duration are AMAZING. I feel them already, and sustain feels the same as back in 3.14 before the nerfs. It's just that there's much more time to get charges, and it saves our wrists too.

* Spell Suppression works wonderfully. I only just "capped" it and felt the difference right away.

That's my key points so far. I also want to mention i used +1 chaos gems mastery during levelling and it's certainly powerful and easy to sustain thanks for shadow area (2% hp + 40 life on kill). However it's very annoying against bosses and can't recommend that long term... so far.

I'll do few maps and start doing some work on the guide.

"

MrShika13 wrote:

Spoiler

https://pastebin.com/xHHC92T0
Here's my 'wannabe' endgame setup with 2 clusters for this league, replacing Kintsugi with just a rare hunter armour with high life, haven't go in-depth about items tho, just have some gears replaced with the endgame version, lemme know about ur thoughts and correct me if I'm wrong at any point on the tree
Edit: the tree is still based on Dankwa's tree and CA for the expensive setup is lvl 22 because they haven't update the new value of awakened void manipulation lvl 5 yet

I looked at the tree you posted it two days ago and overall i'd probably go to outer edges of the tree if possible... but then we also didn't know about gear mod changes so i personally ditched the idea for now. Now that we know full extent of mods i think i might give end game tree a try. Probably 1 cluster tho, two usually equals to giving up life and having below 6k is a death sentence imo.

"

PapaSmurfbk wrote:

why use EE on the tree? just wondering . i love the build

There's a good chance you mistaken it for Crystal Skin mastery OR allocated it by accident, it frequently happens when i use official browser passive tree.

"

DankawSL wrote:

"

MrShika13 wrote:

Spoiler

https://pastebin.com/xHHC92T0
Here's my 'wannabe' endgame setup with 2 clusters for this league, replacing Kintsugi with just a rare hunter armour with high life, haven't go in-depth about items tho, just have some gears replaced with the endgame version, lemme know about ur thoughts and correct me if I'm wrong at any point on the tree
Edit: the tree is still based on Dankwa's tree and CA for the expensive setup is lvl 22 because they haven't update the new value of awakened void manipulation lvl 5 yet

I looked at the tree you posted it two days ago and overall i'd probably go to outer edges of the tree if possible... but then we also didn't know about gear mod changes so i personally ditched the idea for now. Now that we know full extent of mods i think i might give end game tree a try. Probably 1 cluster tho, two usually equals to giving up life and having below 6k is a death sentence imo.

Ah yes, about that, my motto in the previous leagues was "if you don't die, I'll die" (typycal trade league player) so no wonder I would rightaway opt for 2 clusters tree and unallocate some life/eva nodes xD.
Btw, currently at awakened lv4 right now, haven't experience much death, just some one-shot from the scourge monsters that Dankwa mentioned above (it was at around 140 stack of corruption debuff anyway). Overall, the build is doing great, spell suppression is working pretty well but running yellow maps on a 5l setup is a bit pain in the ass when it comes to rare mobs with influences, and I have some trouble getting my str capped too since our default tree didn't provide much, but that's all the problem (or problems I've encountered so far)
One thing I haven't tried out is complete setting up the automatic flask system, since I'm out of alts and flasks now need a high lvl base if you want some juicy mods (lvl82+ would be the best, I assume). Last league I didn't have any trouble sustain flask charges (thanks to overflowing chalice), but with the extended duration of flask base and the power of switching between dimensions I think we won't have any trouble sustaining flask charges even without overflowing chalice (and not while bossing, ofc). So hype, really looking forward to it!

EDIT
Finally done Sirus 8 today, it took me exactly 20 minutes on my 6l +3 setup ;-;
Btw, I tried out the full auto flask setup a few days ago and it was a huge blast! 100% keyboard friendly, you just have to get in map and clear mobs.

Here's my setup, Forbidden Taste so I won't get one-shot, and it was really effective. What're your thoughts about it?

Ehhhh, as usual everything takes me longer than i anticipate. I hit 90 today and so far scourge was... fairly tame for me. I try not to go above 100 stacks now in yellows/early reds since i could use more life and proper flask setup. Speaking of defences:

Wind Dancer is currently bugged and is being triggered by spells (as well as attacks).

I tested it but i didn't hit enough times to see if everything triggers, there's still a chance only one out of two 20% less/more damage taken mods works properly. Still, it's a massive hit for the build and it heavily contributes to lower survivability.

I also tested this flask mod:


It doesn't seem to care about any flask recovery increases (like ~100% more recovery on low life or passive tree). Only total flask recovery number (4666 in this case). Flask Recovery rate i forgot to check and i'm running low on regrets atm so i'll test it next time. Still, i hoped it actually scales well but here we are...

I'll definitely work tomorrow on the guide, i only did minor adjustments in the meanwhile. I also want to post results of a project for another game that i've been sitting on for 4 weeks because of real life and a bit of laziness when i could work.

"

MrShika13 wrote:

Spoiler

Ah yes, about that, my motto in the previous leagues was "if you don't die, I'll die" (typycal trade league player) so no wonder I would rightaway opt for 2 clusters tree and unallocate some life/eva nodes xD.
Btw, currently at awakened lv4 right now, haven't experience much death, just some one-shot from the scourge monsters that Dankwa mentioned above (it was at around 140 stack of corruption debuff anyway). Overall, the build is doing great, spell suppression is working pretty well but running yellow maps on a 5l setup is a bit pain in the ass when it comes to rare mobs with influences, and I have some trouble getting my str capped too since our default tree didn't provide much, but that's all the problem (or problems I've encountered so far)
One thing I haven't tried out is complete setting up the automatic flask system, since I'm out of alts and flasks now need a high lvl base if you want some juicy mods (lvl82+ would be the best, I assume). Last league I didn't have any trouble sustain flask charges (thanks to overflowing chalice), but with the extended duration of flask base and the power of switching between dimensions I think we won't have any trouble sustaining flask charges even without overflowing chalice (and not while bossing, ofc). So hype, really looking forward to it!

EDIT
Finally done Sirus 8 today, it took me exactly 20 minutes on my 6l +3 setup ;-;
Btw, I tried out the full auto flask setup a few days ago and it was a huge blast! 100% keyboard friendly, you just have to get in map and clear mobs.

Here's my setup, Forbidden Taste so I won't get one-shot, and it was really effective. What're your thoughts about it?

You posted high damage setups before that i definitely wouldn't approve, i already expect them from you at this point. Nothing wrong with that though, just not my style.

Flask sustain is heavily tied to how many mobs you encounter and how fast you are. Last league i recall having minor downtime on flasks before i died. Now sustain is a breeze, plus it feels to me like monster density actually increased. Maybe it's just my imagination.

My recorded Sirus 8 run on complete SSF setup took me 10 mins and i already thought it's really long. 20 minutes is... not so good. But these are realities of current game, trash mobs die but end game bosses have insane hp in comparison... and last 2 patches nerfed our damage.

This Forbidden Taste setup was mentioned before and while i certainly see it's appeal, i don't exactly like it since it requires heavy chaos res investment which might be troublesome without trade. Now we also don't have regen to easily counteract the degen. I also had no idea the degen was tripled in Expedition league... that's quite big nerf.

I'm kinda pissed they stealth nerfed the bow dot mods in half and when reddit found it they made a patch note "oops we forgot to mention it, but it's nerfed". Supposedly quivers can roll higher? But it's harder to craft a good quiver than a good bow...

There's also a generic dot multi on amulet, but that makes it even harder to get all the good stuff on amulet, it was already hard before.

so if you had to choose between another arrow or chaos dot multi on a quiver , which is better?

"

PapaSmurfbk wrote:

so if you had to choose between another arrow or chaos dot multi on a quiver , which is better?

I just started PoE after a long break and I wanted to try a DoT build and this build caught my attention. I'm still early in the game but if I had to choose between additional arrow and DoT multiplier, I would choose DoT.
This build main problem is map bosses not clear speed. I feel a DoT multiplier will help towards a more rounded build.

"

PapaSmurfbk wrote:

so if you had to choose between another arrow or chaos dot multi on a quiver , which is better?

Since GGG supposedly upped the dot values on the quivers but lowered them on bows, +arrow on bows is less tradeoff than +arrow on quiver. Out of the two, you should consider getting extra arrow on the bow probably after the rebalance of mods.

ty , i was lucky to get one with both on it for cheap. the stats arent great but the stats arent great

Ehhhh, i ended up busy last time so i only ended up doing some research in PoB without updating the guide. This is what i ended up with:

https://pastebin.com/mCQwQ1Ea

Overall end game seems... quite strong if you can actually make the necessary gear. Cluster jewels are worth investing this time around. Single cluster jewel setup you can fit in fairly easily, but you still need to make small cuts depending on your gear.

Double cluster jewel setup is strong and you don't even compromise anything compared to last time. However gear necessary to make it worth is... hard to get to say the least. Expensive gear in PoB doesn't reflect it at all because the gear required is simply unrealistic for every single person who relies on guides. I might make another PoB with ideal setup for fun.

I'll take a small break and then go back to work, on guide this time (and not PoB).

"

PapaSmurfbk wrote:

so if you had to choose between another arrow or chaos dot multi on a quiver , which is better?

Chaos DoT for sure now. After nerfs to DoT multi on bows and buffs on quivers, extra arrows on bow are simply default choice and even desired one. Build has low accuracy and you can quite often have an unlucky streak when attacking monsters, which can be mitigated with +2 arrows on a bow (on top of effective AoE increase). I think evasion changes also applied to monsters, so it's harder to hit them now? I recall having ~80% in previous leagues, and now it shows ~70% on my older PoBs.

do you think "heart of darkness" would be a better anointment than "corruption"?