[3.9] [Updated] Caustic Arrow CI Trickster - Very tanky, fast mapper, safe playstyle

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Viktranka wrote:

Hey! Cool you're updating this guide, I was following your scourge arrow poison pf build and it's super detailed, hoping for something similar here.

Few questions:
- what do you think of using vertex / atziri's splendor as they're high evasion / es items, would they be good for this build?

- is utmost intellect worth it over 3 small es nodes? it should be?

- any other good corruptions on soul strike possible? I don't know how to get list of possible corruptions and a lot of the ones I've seen were crap (like point blank)

- do you plan to make an anointment section? anything else you'd consider a good alternative to avatar of the hunt? I was wondering dirty techniques just for the multi (it's not poison restricted), or amplify for both damage and aoe size. Or even faith & steel for the extra ES / ES recharge.

- any suggestions which catalysts are best to use?

- thoughts on aspect of the spider instead of flesh & stone? why did you drop it, is it worse? even after f&s nerf in blight? it's only for the ranged attack reduction right? the blind is the same thing we get from stibnite flask already

- is there any way to speed up the delay on arrow nova support? is it just a factor of attack speed? projectile speed?

- how much QoL is the deshret / maraketh jewel?

- btw if you used +2 to support gems instead of +2 to bow gems and awakened gems (ofc expensive setup) does that mean we could get lvl 7 awakened gems in the setup?

- what mods would you aim for except the 4 must haves (chaos multi, dot multi and +3 gems), that leaves 2 extra slots (1 if multimodded), anything good to craft on it left?

- what would you think about using "thread of hope" awakener jewel on the slot above acro with correct radius should be able to pick phase acro, Hunter's Gambit (skipping 3 travelling points that mostly give poison etc.) and maybe Silent Steps, makes any sense?

These are my thoughts after I rerolled from ranger (too expensive and squishy this league) into CA Occultist and ending up with similar build as your trickster one. Watcher's eyes prices are absolutely disgusting after atlas changes but otherwise it's a pretty cheap build.

Yeah I was kind of frustrated of chaos damage constantly killing me so that is probs the biggest reason I decided to finally update this build (and also that CA CI trickster is one of my favorite builds as its so smooth). I am planning to add most of stuff the SA poison guide has after I will flesh them out.

For your questions:

1. Eber's is just way too much damage to pass imo, but for defense I guess vertex is nice. I dont really like splendour as the ES from it is average at best, at that point I would use Carcass or Restless Ward (or Beast Fur for occu)
2. Utmost Intellect - Yeah, it is better than 3 small ES nodes, but only after you get enough intelligence. Its def good cluster to take later
3. Only +1 arrow, there is nothing else that is really useful (and after arrow nova addition to the game I dont think its worth going for anymore, before it was big boost to clear but not anymore)
4. Avatar is nice specifically for trickster because it provides evasion, some damage and of course movement speed. I like Aspect of the Stone, and Faith and Steel a lot too. I am current annointing Silent Steps because it is insane together with Flesh & Stone. I will most likely add annointment section as well later.
5. For catalysts, probably defensive ones for belt and rings
6. The perma blind when mapping is really nice and as I said above I am currently using it together with Silent Steps what is huge defensive boost. Aspect of Spider is def an option if you need more damage (I was planning to add this to end game optimization later). And Aspect slow is very nice too ofc. Its mostly just preference
7. Attack speed for fire delay and projectile speed for payload arrow landing speed afaik
8. Its suprisingly big difference with how much dodge and eva I am getting. It is also big boost for 2nd and 3rd ghost shroud if I am getting hit multiple times in row. And also it is solving dex requirements of the build because it adds shitton of dex to small nodes
9. Yeah I think so, with awakened gems it would be probably pretty strong (and with corrupted lvl 6 awakened gems, they would be lvl 8 :d)
10. Inc chaos damage for small damage boost, but I would craft attack speed because that is big qol
11. Damn, I totally forgot about Thread of Hope, that is amazing idea and def worth it for phase acro, that is huge.

EDIT:

Switched to Thread of Hope on my char, its really nice:

Small build update

Thanks to discussion above I decided to add Thread of Hope with pjhase Acrobatics to the build, main post is already updated with new pastebin

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thedeathbeam wrote:

Eber's is just way too much damage to pass imo

What does the void gaze do? And what's the range of it?

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Viktranka wrote:

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thedeathbeam wrote:

Eber's is just way too much damage to pass imo

What does the void gaze do? And what's the range of it?

Small cone before you that applies -20 chaos res debuff for 10 seconds to everything it hits.

Any tips on getting higher dps while still have 10k+ es? Got about 200ex when I reroll.

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majtyftw wrote:

Any tips on getting higher dps while still have 10k+ es? Got about 200ex when I reroll.

+5 bow, +1 to chaos skill gems ammy, chaos multi on gloves shoud probably double the DPS. You can for example check this guy, bow and amulet similar to that would be good: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Kirbek/Shaumi?i=1&search=skill%3DCaustic-Arrow%26sort%3Ddps

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majtyftw wrote:

Any tips on getting higher dps while still have 10k+ es? Got about 200ex when I reroll.

I'd also add: awakened gems (vicious proj, void manipulation, swift affliction), some pog watcher's eye with both 22% dot multi w/ malevolence and 18% mana as es w/ clarity (don't even wanna pricecheck something like that...), most pog amulet would be +1 to chaos gems / +1 to dex gems / chaos multi (requires hunter amulet base and super rare to exist).

About ES: getting crusader rings with % increased ES on top of flat ES would be best.

You can also get chaos multi & dot multi quiver, but soul strike is so much QoL it's hard to drop.

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thedeathbeam wrote:

You can for example check this guy, bow and amulet similar to that would be good: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Kirbek/Shaumi?i=1&search=skill%3DCaustic-Arrow%26sort%3Ddps

His gems make me so jelly...

Added new gameplay vid:

Acid Caverns Lvl 85

This one is actually with decent bow (before I had pretty shitty +1/chaos multi one) so you can really see the difference in single target

Crafted some ok items, all content very easy atm so prob wont upgrade anymore.

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thedeathbeam wrote:

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majtyftw wrote:

Any tips on getting higher dps while still have 10k+ es? Got about 200ex when I reroll.

+5 bow, +1 to chaos skill gems ammy, chaos multi on gloves shoud probably double the DPS. You can for example check this guy, bow and amulet similar to that would be good: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Kirbek/Shaumi?i=1&search=skill%3DCaustic-Arrow%26sort%3Ddps

Small build update:

- Dropped Blast Radius and changed pathing to path from top
- Grabbed some extra energy shield nodes, Utmost Intellect and Piercing Shots with saved points
- Dropped Voidwalker boots for Sin Trek as we no longer need the extra pierce

We can now comfortably reach 10K ES what is super nice :)