Poison Gas Arrow Pathfinder
" First of all, I apologize as English is not my native language, and I am writing through a translator. Additionally, many game mechanics are still confusing for me, and they really mess with my mind, so I might be wrong in some areas! But I am curious about the following: you mentioned using a 460 DPS bow, and I don't understand the logic of this when using Plaguefinger. Based on its description, all damage is converted into Poison, which, as I understand it, makes it much easier—and significantly cheaper—to stack a lot of flat elemental damage from sources like the bow, quiver, and rings, and then layer a large amount of percentage elemental damage from bow sockets and its prefix on top. A 460 DPS bow with extra arrows and skill levels—honestly, I don't even want to think about how much that costs. And when you plug something like that into PoB, the DPS doesn’t really change much compared to what I currently have, but at a much cheaper price point. Although, maybe I’m missing something or misunderstanding here. Currently, my damage looks like this: MHPD 8-30k (Scattershot + Primal Armament + Deadly Poison + Elemental Focus + Bursting Plague) MHPD 11-42k (Scattershot + Primal Armament + Deadly Poison + Elemental Focus + Concentrated Effect) MHPD 14-53k (Comorbidity + Primal Armament + Deadly Poison + Elemental Focus + Concentrated Effect). I still don’t fully understand what’s better—three arrows with "higher" DPS or five arrows with "less." There's still room for improvement, and many things can be upgraded or adjusted, but in general, I agree with you—it’s just not worth it given how much it all costs. It clears almost any map (except Burning Ground—doable, but not ideal). However, on some pinnacle bosses at maximum difficulty, questions arise. They can be killed, but not as smoothly as I'd like... |
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hi guys
im stuck with gas arrow and pathfinder here a link to my current setup (include jewels) https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/4urd905b tooltip says that gas arrow has 10272 dmg. if check details, for the poison cloud it says 14726 per second (9463 average per use) character currently 89 lvl and have 609 life, 5460 ES, 732 mana. 0 armour/evasion/block, 100 spirit I succeeded in getting through the fourth floor of the sekhema trial and kill Zarokh. but I had to dance around him for about 15 minutes before the poison finished him off (thanks to alchemists boon, without it my flasks would have been empty at the beginning of the fight). so the question is, how do i increase my damage? better bow with flat physic dmage? the best bow on the market has about twice the DPS of mine, but it cost an mirror and its nonsense swap jewels? with which mods? something else will do a good damage scaling? or this skill (and char class so-so)? and i need to play some meta-build? |
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" So a few things. Plaguefinger can be cheaper depending on your bow, but at the top end if you're trying to maximize, the rest of your gear is much more expensive because of what you described. When you go for plague, you stack triple flat dmg mods on rings/quiver while still needing to get res/mana regen/etc, so every affix needs to be exactly what you want since there's no room to buy anything else. Then I use ingenuity belt to increase all those rolls significantly. You could save a lot on a bow for sure, but at the very high end high ele dmg bow are 100s of divs just the same. You could buy a mid range for much cheaper though, I agree. I only brought that up because in the testing i've done, using snake bite with 2 high phys roll rings and quiver instead is a significant damage decrease that is actually still less dps even with the +2 additional stacks of poison you get. I was saying even my 460 DPS/490 top end dmg pure phys dmg bow doesn't change that, so elemental damage + plaguefinger is always higher DPS in the testing I've done. my current setup uses the alternate route of using Hands of Wisdom + Original Sin ring to convert the ele damage to chaos and gain the lightning dmg from HoWA to also convert to chaos. It comes out to similar DPS, but still the best version to me because of the attack speed making the gameplay a lot smoother. In all 3 scenarios(pure phys, plague, howa/original sin) my damage has never gone above ~30k, and was significantly less in the pure phys version. Your post didn't sound like you were using the elemental version so I was questioning how your damage could be anywhere close to mine without it. The reality is poison is essentially a dead build because of the issues above. Which makes Pathfinder a dead ascendancy without throwing concotions, and even concontions have a multitude of issues outside of shattering where you can abuse marks + heralds to help with your clear speed but that comes with poor defensives due to needing to invest so much into your crit/herald dmg to do that, and on high pinnacle bosses flask management becomes a significant issue. Your point about the DPS doesn't change much was exactly the point I was making on wanting to see your skill tree. Even if I sacrificed significant defensives there aren't any damage nodes I could take to make a big impact anyway. The biggest problem is that because poison only takes 20% of your dmg, anything you do to try and scale that doesn't amount to much, even if you had an unlimited budget. Last edited by suchacrisis#2704 on Jan 25, 2025, 12:17:13 PM
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" Your pathing to the jewels on the NW section of the tree wastes 3 skill points. It'd be objectively better to path to jewels near NE part of tree. Additionally, your pathing to Stacking Toxins is wasting points as well. You can spend the same amount of points and get more magnitude instead of poison chance on hit. Gas Arrow always poisons. The pathing to the ES nodes up top takes up many passive points, and I personally don't think it's worth it just to become near invincible with Ghostshroud. Unless you are really hurting for gear progression. Maybe try ES or ES/EV hybrid nodes much closer, like Spectral Ward, Subterfuge Mask or the many branches near the ranger area. Then you can afford to spend passive points on efficient damage increase nodes like Killer Instinct, Serrated Edges, Style Bender or Staggering Palm. Your Jewels also leave a lot to be desired. I try to get at least >= 25% damage on each one. Whether its attack damage, bow damage, projectile damage, or magnitude of poison, it doesn't matter. The Jewel slot near the Leeching Toxins node is also an amazing spot to get value out of a time-lost Jewel. You have a great annoint, Heavy Ammunition, which is cheap and strong. Weapon is great as well. But for single target damage, a non-dual string may do more dps if it had significantly more max damage. For Support gems, I'd recommend ditching anything that's not a single target damage increase, like Magnified Effect. Dualstring + Contagious Contamination will more than cover your aoe needs. Of course, you can always swap support gems before/after boss fights. Ultimately, it's a poison build. You will always be waiting for the dot. The length of that wait will depend on your base physical hit damage. PoE 2 poison in a nutshell. Last edited by SomeSome#2539 on Jan 27, 2025, 12:11:30 PM
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" i agree about jewels socket. i see i can save 3 points i dont think that stacking poisoning is a bad choice. if i remove it, enemies will die a much-much more slowly " with 5k ES and Ghostshroud still feels a little squish. usually im running chaos trials and killing trial master Spectral Ward will be taken as soon as i take another level (+ saved points with a different jewel placement. or ill drop 1 jewel for now) " ill try to remove Crippling Toxins and take these nodes (in rotation) and compare the results " i know. i chose from those that i have in my stash. To understand if they affect my damage. And if so, how noticeably. " yes, you are absolutely right, there is 1 more notable in the radius " extra arrow creates extra poison cloud. easier to clear packs of mobs. but i will try bow with only one arrow. " it was mainly to make it easier to clear mob packs. i shot in that direction and the genocide began. but ill experiment with support gems. how will the damage change and how comfortable will it be for me to play very grateful for your tips and advice. thank you p.s. sorry for my englsih |
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" Last edited by Phillip_pirrup#4794 on Jan 28, 2025, 5:31:34 PM
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Hey, iam rly struggling atm. Iam Lvl 47 and stuck at act 3 normal. I just dont have enough dps. I dont know what to do. Any idea where i might have made a mistake in my gear?
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" Tough to speculate without seeing your gear, but it also helps if you're specific about Where and when you're struggling. Vs trash mobs? Rare packs? Minibosses? Area and act bosses? I'll also say that if you're struggling with harder targets you might need more tools than those outlined in this build. This build https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3714748 designed for Deadeye outlines a few of those; Toxic Growth for example shreds rare packs in a way that just gas arrow alone simply will not do. And if it's vs Act Bosses and Area Bosses, well, that's where snipe comes in. If you're a pathfinder the exact same build works, it's just that pathfinders will have an easier time vs softer targets with the crazy poison stacking (Contagion at that point spreads all 8 stacks you can build up to), and a harder time vs harder targets since your barrage / snipe combo is worse. Given poison already is exceptional vs soft targets it's my opinion Deadeye brings more to the table, but the point remains at 47 in normal mode the linked build was as smooth as butter, and without any crazy gear either. Might want to give it a look. |
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