[3.8] WIP Toxic Rain Pathfinder League Starter, 297% MS 5.9k life All Content + Great mapper/delver
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Hi, thanks for the build!
I have a couple of questions if you don't mind. 1- I notice that you're using Swift Affliction in your toxic rain links. Based on what I've read here, it sounds like it may not be the best option due to the reduced duration. What are your thoughts on this? 2- On the passive tree, you pass right next to a duration cluster (Exceptional Performance) but you do not take it. Based on that same thread, it seems that duration greatly increases TR damage due to overlapping DOTs. Thoughts? |
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"44% more damage is more damage. You could use damage on full life but that depends if you trust yourself to stay at full health and dodge everything. Personally I'm not a fan of stacking crazy amounts of increased duration, the biggest QoL issue of toxic rain is the ramp up, extending the duration in most cases means you just keep dropping pods long after the boss is dead. Increased aoe is a different story, because that actually speeds up the killing process thanks to multiple pods hitting the same spot. I wish blast radius wasn't so far on the tree because currently it's not feasible to path there without losses somewhere else. Carcass Jack helps in that aspect too. Now increased aoe and increased duration gems have no damage multipliers on them, so despite their utility effects are good, I wouldn't sacrifice a gem slot for a non-damage multiplier gem. For Exceptional Performance, if you like it, I'd probably skip some jewels from the original POB and just pick that, jewels are extremely overrated for this spec imo, you can only get 4% chaos multiplier from them, except watcher's eye which can get 22% (and that one is worth it). 6 sockets is kinda overkill and skipping a few will give you leeway to pick some other points if you'd like to make alterations. Especially the one below Constitution and one above Blood Drinker can be skipped to save 6 points total. You'd have to path to Blood Drinker from next to Hunter's Gambit instead of pathing between Coordination and Method to the Madness, but unless you're dying to get that 10 str, it's overall more efficient. Revenge of the Hunted is probably another cluster I'd consider picking instead of a 3-pointer jewel. |
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Great insight, thank you! I appreciate the detailed response!
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Absolutely loving this build. I made some changes to the tree based on suggestions here and it helped a little. Only issue I'm having is dying quite a bit on T16 maps. Right now I'm running an Elder'd City square with 4 sextants and while for some I can go through without dying (it gets sketchy quite a bit), the 8 mod maps usually can be a handful and I'll die 2-3 times usually before clearing the map. I have 5192 life which I know is low. Any suggestions?
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" 1. Get rid of these crit nodes next to heartseeker. Chaos Dots don't crit. Poison builds may use crit, chaos dot ones be it essence drain, caustic arrow or toxic rain don't. Or at least the pod part we care about with all the +gem level scaling. 2. Using "Alchemist Jade Flask of Reflexes" and / or Quartz Flask will add a bit to your evasion / dodge and reduce (but not completely elliminate) the number of random 1-shots in mapping, but will have to come at a damage loss. For example on my character I decided to sacrifice "Nature's Adrenaline" (20% attack speed) for "Master Alchemist" (immunity to shock, ignite and freeze / chill). That allowed me to run anti-curse and +evasion flask but it's a trade off that doesn't come without a cost. Sacrificing Master Toxicist instead of Nature's Adrenaline could be an option too when damage is high enough and movement speed and ailment immunity would be more valuable overall. Otherwise it's mostly about constantly moving out of harm's way (don't let mobs come to melee, use toxic rain's innate slow, dodge projectiles that are shot at direction not namelocked to you), keeping your jade + stibnite up (you should use them to the max as pathfinder) and accepting that sometimes you'll just die to unlucky 1 shot. Using basalt flask together with flesh & stone in stone form is also a way to reduce probability of getting 1 shot. Swapping stone golem for chaos golem could make sense too, evasion characters mostly die to 1-shots and life regen doesn't help as much on them as on let's say Juggernauts that can outregen a lot of hits (thanks to armor / endurance charges nothing should 1 shot them). 3. Your cast when damage taken doesn't work. It can only support spells lvl 38 and your Steelskin is lvl 58 (requirement not gem level). Either you use it manually and save a gem slot, or you have to use low lvl Steelskin. 4. You could pick more life from tree. 146% is on the low side. Easiest way is to pick from Scion's area (around Constitution), but again something has to give. You defo get 2 points from the crit nodes, after that you could sacrifice a jewel, freedom of movement wheel or master fletcher wheel. You can also save 1 point by pathing to Growth and Decay on the regen side instead of damage. But it's up to you if you want to trade off or no. That 1 point next to Resourcefulness is also quite pointless, you're way overcapped on resistances so I'd imagine you'd get more from picking the extra point behind Revenge of the Hunted if you want evasion and life node. 5. Your gloves are first candidate for replacement. They don't have chaos multi. They have tons of resists you mostly don't need (except fire). You could get something with life + strength (allowing you to unspec Prowess and get a point) + chaos multi if you can find one. They're also energy shield base which is not very useful. The jewel "Cataclysm Wound" is also weak - no life%, no chaos multi. Personally I would swap it with "Spirit Prism" and completely unspec these 3 points above Sentinel, they're basically worthless as you're over resist cap. Btw if anyone says about capping for ele weakness, just use anti-curse flask, pathfinders have close to 100% flask uptime. Crafting a spare Quicksilver of Warding and swapping it for maps with curses like Temp Chains / Ele Weakness and then back to Adrenaline on no curse maps would probably be my first pick. The abyssal jewel you have in the belt - "Enthralling Stare" is also pretty worthless for this spec. Since you already have chance to gain onslaught on quiver getting gem with one isn't as useful, but you could get some defensive stats on it or maybe something with attack speed? I don't remember all mods but all the "adds x to y to bow attacks" type of gems won't do much, pods don't scale from initial hit unfortunately. Crit is also useless. That are my ideas. Anything beyond that point would have to come at severe alterations to the build. For example I played toxic rain in legion and was indeed tired of constantly dying to monolith mobs so I respecced iron reflexes and tanked everything with vaal molten shell. This comes at a compromise of not using queen of the forest (I seriously don't think it'll work together), so losing the movement speed from it, and changing the pathing on the tree (I skipped the whole side with Acrobatics and picked Perfect Form as a way to preserve Phase Acrobatics). Another option is to play more defensive oriented class - like Trickster, Raider or Champion. But I think that's beyond the scope of advice anyone is looking for. Last edited by Viktranka#3883 on Oct 8, 2019, 9:37:49 PM
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" Thank you so very , very much. That was extremly in depth and will help out enormously. I know my gloves are garbage. Forgot about those useless crit nodes as well. Thanks again! |
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Forgot about it, but I think there's a mod with chance to blind on abyss jewels, you could consider that as another layer of defense. However the chance isn't a lot (6% max) and afaik only initial arrow counts as a hit, pods don't.
Stibnite / Flesh & Stone give blind but only in close range unfortunately. |
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Took this build down to Delve depth 500 and got a 2:20 Uber Elder kill. This is probably the second strongest build I've played behind Cold DoT Occultist. Here are some notes I made along the way:
1. An elder +1 Vicious Proj bow is worth the hassle to craft. I sold my original multimodded bow to afford the beasts and the crafts. 2. Malevolence DoT multi Watcher's Eye isn't necessary, but it makes bossing much safer because you can kill/phase bosses in fewer attacks (more time dodging). 3. Manually casting level 20 Steelskin provides much more defense than a CWDT setup if you pay attention to enemies (use it against porcupines, bosses, and delve rares). 4. Getting attack speed is great because it gives you more time to dodge. 5. Sporeguard and Carcass Jack are decent mapping alternatives for QoTF. Sporeguard provides some corpse destruction, crowd control, and an anointment (I took Harrier; Discipline and Training, and Dirty Techniques are the best options imo). Carcass Jack gives you A LOT of damage because you get more overlap with the pod explosions. Thanks for the guide! Last edited by GreenWaltz#1411 on Oct 16, 2019, 8:09:31 PM
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"I'd say Heavy Draw is quite cheap and decent option thanks to 12% increased area of effect and 20% damage over time, no multiplier sadly but it's one of the very few nodes that provide aoe increase, and it gives more than amplify, blast radius or lethal assault (last one is easy to spec into though), all the other sources of increased aoe are for melee, spells, traps etc. stuff that doesn't apply to this build. |
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Hey GreenWaltz,
Thanks for taking the time to write your comments on the build. I'm glad you liked it. Obviously, this is not a perfect build, and its also my first time writing a guide. I did not play much this season but I plan on starting over on the next. I will take some time before then to write an updated version based on all the great comments I've received in the guide so far. If you don't mind, could you write a quick crafting guide for the +1 vicious projectile bow? I'd be interested in trying that next league. I'm a bit humbled by all you guys though, it seems that you accomplished much more with the build than I could (only killed UE once, not deathless either, with my endgame gear and maybe depth 240 in delve before I got bored). |
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