Good day, do you have a moment? I'd like to talk about our Lord and Savior Caustic Arrow.

There are three ways to build it:

1) The Attack Route: You primarily use CA for the AoE explosions (GMP overlap), the caustic ground is a minor thing. You play it pretty much like Tornado Shot , just Chaos. Though, considering how much % damage over time is on each bow node, the DoT will probably still do okay. The main difference will be the gems you link.

2) The DoT Route: Classical CA, you shoot once and keep running, leaving gasping and dying enemies behind you. Bonus points for now being able to Poison/Decay in an AoE with the explosions in addition to the Caustic Ground.

3) The Hybrid Route: You're a greedy bastard, you go for both. Albeit I doubt the skill tree will differentiate to much from either of the above builds, just cherry picking the best nodes of both worlds.

Of course, all three will change in appearance depending if you go Occultist, Trickster, or Pathfinder (or some other ascendancy).

But here and now, I'm here to talk about Route 3 as a Pathfinder:

This build is all about double (quadruple sometimes) dipping, (which isn't an actual thing anymore, its more like 'how many damage types can I buff with one Gem/Passive Node?).

Bow Passives were changed in the upcoming patch. You now have things like Avatar of the Hunt: 24% Increased Physical Damage with Bows. 3% increase movement speed. 24% increased Damage of Time with Bow Skills.

Let’s make a list shall we?

It buffs the initial Explosion Damage.
It buffs the Caustic Ground
It buffs Poison (If you grab that, I do)
It buffs Decay (If you grab that, I do).

You get increases to your x4 damage sources from 1 single node.

Which is absolutely insane, and a big reason I choose to go route 3.

In Comparison, something like Growth & Decay only buffs 3/4 of these damage sources (though that cluster has a nice 2% regen)

Tree for Path of Building (YOU MUST IMPORT TREE NOT IMPORT BUILD! It's at the bottom of Path of Building): http://poeurl.com/b3d2

This is what I’ve currently come up with for a tree after a bit of thinking. It’s not final, but I think it seems pretty good. I only generally plan out to lvl 88-92, if you go higher, you get get a few more fancy tricks, or maybe do acrobatics instead of Iron Reflexes.

Summary of main points if I did my math correct:
201% Increased Life.
60% chance to poison on hit (+20% from Herald, +20% from bow (hopefully) so 100% chance)
Iron Reflexes (Saves me 4 points and less RNG is always better IMO)
Point Blank
+2 to Peirce
259% total increased physical damage with bows (which is converted to chaos)

The DoT damage stats get messy:
60% increased Damage with Poison
80% increased Chaos Damage With Attack Skills.
80% increased Chaos Damage.
227% increased DoT with Bow skills
47% increased DoT

Generalized:
20% increased damage
35% increased Projectile Damage

So total?
-The initial AoE explosion gets 474% increased damage.
-Poison gets 514% increased damage (Not counting Projectile’s 35%)
-The Caustic Ground gets 489% increased Damage (Counting projectile damage, but not poison).
-Decay gets 454% increased damage (Not counting Projectiles 35%)

There is also the 10% More chaos damage with attack skills from Pathfinder, and that poisons have a 40% chance to do 100% MORE damage when I have a flask up.

That, is an absurd amount of damage increase across 4 different sources.

Links:

Caustic Arrow - Viscous Projectiles - Decay - Void Manipulation - Swift Affliction - Efficacy/Conc Effect/Withering Touch.

The last Gem slot is open for debate. Efficacy effects the dot portion of the skill (Caustic Ground, Decay, Poison. Conc effect only does the AoE damage/Caustic Ground, and not Decay or Poison, while also reducing AoE Size (which largely negates the Ascendancy AoE). Withering Touch mainly buffs the hit, but withering something increases all damage you deal, I believe Wither has less duration because of Swift Affliction (and you could simply do withering totem). It's honestly a hard call, I'll have to toy with it.

You can also go for the generic Damage on Full Life, but if you're not on full life, its a wasted slot. Slower Projectiles/Peirce I don't believe buffs Decay.

Why not GMP? If this was just an attack based version, then hell yeah, I'd go GMP for overlapping explosions. But its not, and GMP will absolutely gut the DoT damage you deal, as well as Decay.

I choose Grace as my aura, for the bonus armor it gives with IR.

Herald of Agony: We don't fully know what kind of damage the Crawler deals, I assume it's a mix of physical and chaos, or it could be pure chaos. Zigg's video said its skills are both projectiles, so...

HoA (25% mana reserved) - Minion Damage (30%) - Viscous Projectiles/Void Manipulation (39%) - Lesser Poison (42%) - Blind (42%)

So both Grace and HoA should leave me with 8% of my mana left. I'm hoping with the mana portions of the flask nodes, and the 4% mana leech, that it will be enough, requires testing to truly see.

Items:

The Bow: There's a few different ways your bow could be built, but if it doesn't have both +2 to bow gems and 150% increase physical damage, than you might as well go full attack or full dot builds. The final roll could go either way, +1 to bow gems, a hybrid damage roll, or if you are really lucky, getting an Elder Bow with Viscous Projectiles as a free support, then you can slot another support gem into your links and really go crazy. I *think* the elder roll is both a high damage roll + the free support, could be wrong.

So yeah, the Ideal Bow:

+2 to bow gems
Viscous Projectiles Elder roll
Either +1 to Bow Gems, or a hybrid roll for more damage.

The Quiver: Is as always, Drillneck. It adds an absurd amount of damage, and gives some life. Just aim a little behind bosses to make sure you actually pierce them.

Chest: Cherrubim's Maleficence, it gives life, almost 3000 armor with IR, it gives chaos damage, what's not to love? (aside from no resists). If you need more than the life/resists it provides, just go buy a 120+ life chest with some resists.

The Belt: If you are a rich bastard, get yourself a Headhunter. If you are semi-rich, get the belt cards and work your way towards The Retch.

Otherwise, get a normal belt with life/resists.

Or maybe Immortal Flesh, which IMO is an underrated belt if you can find the resists you need on the rest of your gear.

The rest of your equipment is standard stuff, maybe Rampage Gloves, idk.

Flasks: Of course you want Witchfire Brew.

Dying Sun is now *very* nice for the build, or at least the AoE initial explosion since it gives more arrows, but that can be expensive to get.

Atziri's Promise isn't bad for the AoE explosion either with the extra damage and chaos leech.
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And... I think that's all, or as much of a thought as I've given to it. Been trying to decide to go Minions or Caustic Arrow to start, I figured Caustic Arrow, because if all else fails, just get a +2 bow even if it's otherwise garbage and you clear just fine.

Let me know what you think.

Overall your idea and tree looks promising. Similiar to others.
Going Pathfinder and focusing on dot should be the save way to go.

Your Skill Tree link is not completed anymore. If you have a PoB link that would be nice =)

What do you think about https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Impresence_(Chaos) ?

"

Klarbauter wrote:

Your Skill Tree link is not completed anymore. If you have a PoB link that would be nice =)

When you on the skill tree page on pob, you click on import at the bottom then enter the passive tree link

"

Klarbauter wrote:

Overall your idea and tree looks promising. Similiar to others.
Going Pathfinder and focusing on dot should be the save way to go.

Your Skill Tree link is not completed anymore. If you have a PoB link that would be nice =)

What do you think about https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Impresence_(Chaos) ?

I think I fixed the link. Just click import tree and punch that in.

As for Impresence... it's not bad, but it kind of feels redundent with Witchfire Brew. The increased damage and stats are nice, its a solid option to be sure, but if you need a rare amulet with three resists, that might be the better option at the cost of the damage.

Sounds good to me. Any thoughts on SSF viability? Seems like it should be okay as long as I'm willing to be patient on crafting that perfect bow (hopefully as simple as a set of The Porcupine plus a Shrieking Essence of Dread, or maybe some new Delve currency). Not much else in terms of required gear, and I can farm my own Atziri's Promise and (eventually) Dying Sun.

I know I want to play this or Scourge Arrow or Toxic Rain - I'll probably try all three and see what I like best/what fits best with the gear I drop.

pob tree don't work

The tree does work. Don't go to the import build screen, where you would put in a pastebin link. Go to the tree screen, and click on the little "import tree" button at the bottom.

"

Klarbauter wrote:

Overall your idea and tree looks promising. Similiar to others.
Going Pathfinder and focusing on dot should be the save way to go.

Your Skill Tree link is not completed anymore. If you have a PoB link that would be nice =)

What do you think about https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Impresence_(Chaos) ?

Impresence seems to balance out DoT losses from GMP. Also 100% reserved mana reservation for despair will allow for both Herald of Agony and blasphemy/despair auras without wiping out mana.

Got a feeling Impresence (chaos) will be high demand and expensive.

Try to find 3 point somewhere and pick dirty technique imo.
Point blank work with Ca?
I change few node what do you think?
http://poeurl.com/b24I

"

epokz wrote:

Try to find 3 point somewhere and pick dirty technique imo.
Point blank work with Ca?
I change few node what do you think?
http://poeurl.com/b24I

You lost roughly 20% life, which is a big chunk, and Profane Chemistry's 50% increased life from flasks, which is great for Seething flasks. Life is the name of the game, especially as we go deeper into delve.
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Dirty Techniques isn't a bad cluster, the bleed is pointless, but, 60% to chaos damage with attack skills, and then another 25% on top of it for poison (plus duration) isn't bad.

Maybe if I drop Trickery and a Jewel Node, then I could fit it, but let's compare:

Assuming we get life on a jewel, lets say... 5% life, 10% to all damage, and 10% to chaos damage..., then 20% from trickery:

It's 40% to all damage and 5% life VS 60% to chaos and 25% to poison (plus duration). The jewel could also be better if you land a great 4 roll, but that's high RNG.

I suppose its as simple as an extra 100 life VS a bit more damage, well, and getting a jewel you need to begin with. So Dirty Technique would be better for SSF.