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

I like the work that's gone into the guide, especially the crafting section, that helps a lot. I do have 2 questions though: 1) Why Raider over Pathfinder? I get that Raider's good now, but couldn't you accomplish the same thing and get extra conversion/AOE with pathfinder.

2) Not sure about other people b/c I'm not that skilled, but I'm not sure that having a life flask as the sole recover mechanism is that viable. Is there a reason not to go eternal youth? To me it seems that if you're not getting hit very often, Eternal youth offers a very sold recover mechanism considering life regen seems poor and there's no leech.

3) Why not use withering step? The elusive buffer synergizes pretty well and seems like it could be useful in a pinch.

Don't mean to criticize, I'm just wondering about it since they seem pretty useful.

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WickedMurderer a écrit :

Spoiler

Why we use dread banner with generosity? They don't give us anything... Or it work on "nearby enemies have x less accuracy"? Does anyone tested it? Does it work on bosses?


"Banners can be supported by Generosity to have them apply to your minions and party members with enhanced effect, but they won't apply to you any more, even when placed. Supporting them with Increased Duration will also increase the length of the special banner buff effect and the time they remain when placed."

Ooops, i had a feeling i missed someone last time. Viktranka answered this already tho. I would not put something like that in a guide without testing.

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DarkKaine a écrit :

Spoiler

I'm loving this build. I have always played the Scion version with IIQ/IIR but I'm loving the additional damage this build provides.
Just one thing, I keep crashing to desktop randomly while playing along with many other people.
Is there anyone else experiencing this? Since this is my only character this league I can't verify if it's caused by something in this build or if this is a bug somewhere else.

It's been years since Scion was the best for CA. For speedy MF i would say Deadeye (was better before changes) or Raider are most suitable for that.

Crashing is likely related to new texture streaming. Many people are having troubles this league. Partying with others should multiply the problems you might encounter tbh.

PoE is usually very stable for me so i can't relate, this league too except for yesterday when i crashed during Blighted maps multiple times within an hour.

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Viktranka a écrit :

Spoiler

Yes. You never plant it. It's basically an extra evasion aura that costs only 10% of your mana contrary to grace which costs 50% (lol). And yes, Danka tested it when he put it in the build. Sadly in this game we can't see debuffs on mobs so counting stuff like wither or lowered accuracy on mobs is annoying to test.

Just use common sense tbh, large best is chaos w/ 8 passives and any notables that give 30-35% inc chaos damage, the despair one is fine too, don't use the one with hindered mobs because it's too conditional and tbh nobody ever confirmed 100% whether wither totems count as "hindered by YOU".

How do you count this? Does normal mob take more damage than what's defined in POB (as a normal mob not boss ofc)?

Also thanks for the explanation about endurance charges and basalt flask (tbh I forgot it exists, somehow I dislike the 40/60 charge flasks).

It's easier to test when your enemy is a player, or in rare cases even you yourself (self-reflected bleed on myself for testing once). PvP might not be popular but it's still very useful.

Considering -6% chaos res belt enchantment on belt works with totems, so should "hindered by you" work. Still not the notable you're looking for but at least it does increase single target dps.

Wither and Despair are multipliers. Against same enemy with same chaos res, they'll always increase damage by the same amount. It used to be 300%/200%/160% of tooltip dps against normal/boss/shaper dps. Now damage changed a little bit with increased effect of curses against bosses so it's slightly higher. Of course adding extra resistance reduction will affect damage against an enemy. That's why i always used tooltip, plus PoB wasn't as widespread back when i made this guide.

I don't like those flasks either and avoid them if i can. They're still an option and i actually considered using 4 utility flasks + Hybrid (for Hardened Scars) since my hp recovery/regen was extremely good on my harvest character. Plus with this amount of damage mitigation my hp would barely move in the first place.

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Slicer9875 a écrit :

Spoiler

I like the work that's gone into the guide, especially the crafting section, that helps a lot. I do have 2 questions though: 1) Why Raider over Pathfinder? I get that Raider's good now, but couldn't you accomplish the same thing and get extra conversion/AOE with pathfinder.

2) Not sure about other people b/c I'm not that skilled, but I'm not sure that having a life flask as the sole recover mechanism is that viable. Is there a reason not to go eternal youth? To me it seems that if you're not getting hit very often, Eternal youth offers a very sold recover mechanism considering life regen seems poor and there's no leech.

3) Why not use withering step? The elusive buffer synergizes pretty well and seems like it could be useful in a pinch.

Don't mean to criticize, I'm just wondering about it since they seem pretty useful.

Question #1 was asked few times recently. What Pathfinder offers is flask charge recovery and a little bit of damage and AoE. Conversion doesn't do anything for degen oriented build. Raider on the other hand is faster, lots of QoL and is nearly immortal. You think PF can really compare to that?

If you don't get hit, you don't need a lot of recovery. Build has 6,6% life regen and you can invest more into it if you want. Medium cluster jewels offer 1% life recovery on kill too which you can stack. Recovery is not an issue. Eternal Youth is too far from where i want to path and going there means you should probably pick up rest of life cluser. Not enough passive points. Not necessary.

Withering Step breaks after you cast any skill, making it useless in nearly all cases. I also mentioned multiple times i absolutely hate Elusive as a mechanic. It's only reliable if you're an Assassin, really.

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DankawSL a écrit :

Wither and Despair are multipliers. Against same enemy with same chaos res, they'll always increase damage by the same amount. It used to be 300%/200%/160% of tooltip dps against normal/boss/shaper dps. Now damage changed a little bit with increased effect of curses against bosses so it's slightly higher. Of course adding extra resistance reduction will affect damage against an enemy. That's why i always used tooltip, plus PoB wasn't as widespread back when i made this guide.

Ah ok, you mean with wither and despair but on normal mob, I kinda always disabled wither on normal mobs but didn't disable despair in POB even though half the time I had it automated and half the time self-cast so it wasn't 100% truthful (I would only hand cast it on fat rares). Bosses have baseline chaos res and reduced curse effectiveness though, so I kinda trusted POB to count that for me instead of manually deducting the penalties (POB says 30% base chaos res and 66% less effect of curses).

I'm wondering how good that makes misery everlasting as a node, on one hand it only gives 1/3 of in on a boss (8.3%) on the other hand despair gives both damage increase and lowers mob resist and usually POB tells me this node is worth even on bosses in comparison to flat 30% inc chaos damage.

It was added in harvest and pops on chaos large jewels (and medium curse jewels).

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Slicer9875 a écrit :

Is there a reason not to go eternal youth? To me it seems that if you're not getting hit very often, Eternal youth offers a very sold recover mechanism considering life regen seems poor and there's no leech.

Recharge however has multiple downsides, I played CI Occultist a couple of times and recharge basically required me to run wicked ward, faster start of es recharge rings, essence surge on tree and vaal discipline (and once I ran soul strike too but it's a big dps loss).

Also degens fuck you up (had to run aberrath pantheon and anti-ignite flask), and eternal youth means you are not immune to chaos degens contrary to CI build, you would be immune to ignite from raider passive, you can get somewhat immune to bleed, I'm not sure if vaal discipline would work... it should I think? But it takes another gem slot.

But this is a lot of work really... And if you don't have faster start of recharge 2 seconds delay is probably enough for you to die before you recharge.

If you're running out of life flask I'd say use Ryslatha pantheon and if it's not enough sacrifice 1 medium cluster for flask cluster with mender's wellspring, that also lets you use a different affix on life flask like poison removal.

The other notable can be brewed for potency, peak vigour, special reserve or even distilled perfection - these are all useful in one way or another.

It is a sacrifice, but I think smaller one than dealing with recharge stuff.

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Viktranka a écrit :

Spoiler

Ah ok, you mean with wither and despair but on normal mob, I kinda always disabled wither on normal mobs but didn't disable despair in POB even though half the time I had it automated and half the time self-cast so it wasn't 100% truthful (I would only hand cast it on fat rares). Bosses have baseline chaos res and reduced curse effectiveness though, so I kinda trusted POB to count that for me instead of manually deducting the penalties (POB says 30% base chaos res and 66% less effect of curses).

I'm wondering how good that makes misery everlasting as a node, on one hand it only gives 1/3 of in on a boss (8.3%) on the other hand despair gives both damage increase and lowers mob resist and usually POB tells me this node is worth even on bosses in comparison to flat 30% inc chaos damage.

It was added in harvest and pops on chaos large jewels (and medium curse jewels).

Yep, that's what i meant. PoB was always set up in a way so it's easy to see both tooltip and check boss damage if you want to. Penalties are fine iirc. PoB in general works well, unless it's bleed damage (it's a disaster).

Misery Everlasting indeed should give slightly more damage than Wicked Pall/Unwaveringly Evil... assuming enemy is cursed. There are 2 modifiers which can lower your damage output significantly. That's #% less curse effect and hexproof. I'll always take damage which is always available over conditional slight damage increase like that. Skill duration effect is tempting but... nope, staying with my original choice.

Thanks for the guide! Really helpful. Not had much time at leaguestart now comfortably SSF into medium red maps now.

Are any of the CA mtx options a bit more visible on the ground? I lose track of it sometimes depending on tileset, not a huge gameplay issue but might be nice to upgrade.

(Edit - I know I can see mtx videos, would appreciate anyone's experiences)

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manehi a écrit :

Spoiler

Thanks for the guide! Really helpful. Not had much time at leaguestart now comfortably SSF into medium red maps now.

Are any of the CA mtx options a bit more visible on the ground? I lose track of it sometimes depending on tileset, not a huge gameplay issue but might be nice to upgrade.

(Edit - I know I can see mtx videos, would appreciate anyone's experiences)

IMO base CA effect is fairly accurate. Not flashy but visible, but then again many people are annoyed by "green on green" visuals in Catarina fight which i find very easy to distinguish so...

There are only 2 mtxs you can purchase. Celestial CA is the only cosmetic mtx i ever purchased and while it's cool and probably slightly more visible than base CA, it has a weakness. AoE looks smaller than it is in reality, which is caused by effect sometimes expanding to the edges.

Tentacle CA mtx or however it's called is terrible imo. It's so visible it's disturbing. Good part about it is that it shows skill's AoE absolutely the best (IIRC).

How does the 3.13 version of this build compare to previous versions?

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subliminaldelta a écrit :

How does the 3.13 version of this build compare to previous versions?

Raider got buffed. CA is the same.

I actually play with tentacle even having the celestial because it gives you very cleary where the caustic arrow are.

On another note I tried another character and my God are other characters slow as hell. I took the permanent onslaught as granted. Game is ruined.

How trustful/relevant is the DPS number the skill displays ingame(dince this is a DoT build?

Finally got the 6-link bow and fossiled it to +2 (no luck with +3 yet) and the DPS went down from 7K (Lioneye's bow) to 2.5k.