[3.11] Brittleknee’s Caustic Arrow CI Trickster - Farm Awakener Comfortably! Video Overview Included

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Ber0ende เขียน:

I'm thinking about replacing the ensnaring + MA setup for some single target 6 link, but I'm not sure what. Any suggestions?

People use tons of different stuff, from frenzy to essence drain to toxic rain ballista totems, but generally something more utility oriented than pure damage oriented because slotting another skill in chest will not get gem level bonuses from bow, so you won't get crazy damage out of it.

Hey, awesome build, what cassia enchant u use on amu, budged/endgame version, ty.

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leohero923 เขียน:

Hi @brittleknee,

Thank you so much for the build.

Could you please add craft section to the build, especially for CA bow at early (little investment), mid (more investment) and late game (crafting when have a lot of currency)?

Sure, I'll round that out tonight!

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Ber0ende เขียน:

I'm using this build as my league starter and so far it's awesome for clearing, and not as a slow "bosser" as I was fearing. The only real difficulty is things like Cassia and Blighted Maps, since there is no real way of nuking if needed.

I'm thinking about replacing the ensnaring + MA setup for some single target 6 link, but I'm not sure what. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the great guide.

The thing with blight maps/towers is that you'll want to pick towers that augment your build's natural weaknesses. This build's weakness, as you've correctly identified, is time. So your towers should focus on giving you more of it.

Lv. 3 Stun + Lv. 3 Empower (do not upgrade either to 4, they need to overlap to produce the lock-down stuns) + Lv. 4 Meteor (with stun anoint on ring) + Lv. 4 Ice Cage are my setups. You can add some of the minions stuff in, too but focusing on strategically placing those four towers at opportune choke points usually makes blighted maps fairly straighforward.

You can drop Ensnarrow for Frenzy and Mirage Archer for Cull. Try that for a bit. If there are still problems then I'll try to think on it further. Maybe Blight or something, I don't know. Getting a Dot build to "nuke" isn't really feasible.

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foma1234 เขียน:

Hey, awesome build, what cassia enchant u use on amu, budged/endgame version, ty.

Budget would be what you need as far as attributes, or things like Cloth and Chain to help with resistances.

Non-CI Mid-range would be Avatar of the Hunt.

For End-Game/CI its always Sovereignty, as you need the mana reserve reduction to fit all of your Auras.

Anyone done the math on which cluster jewel notables are the best?

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Ber0ende เขียน:

I'm using this build as my league starter and so far it's awesome for clearing, and not as a slow "bosser" as I was fearing. The only real difficulty is things like Cassia and Blighted Maps, since there is no real way of nuking if needed.

I'm thinking about replacing the ensnaring + MA setup for some single target 6 link, but I'm not sure what. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the great guide.

The thing with blight maps/towers is that you'll want to pick towers that augment your build's natural weaknesses. This build's weakness, as you've correctly identified, is time. So your towers should focus on giving you more of it.

Lv. 3 Stun + Lv. 3 Empower (do not upgrade either to 4, they need to overlap to produce the lock-down stuns) + Lv. 4 Meteor (with stun anoint on ring) + Lv. 4 Ice Cage are my setups. You can add some of the minions stuff in, too but focusing on strategically placing those four towers at opportune choke points usually makes blighted maps fairly straighforward.

You can drop Ensnarrow for Frenzy and Mirage Archer for Cull. Try that for a bit. If there are still problems then I'll try to think on it further. Maybe Blight or something, I don't know. Getting a Dot build to "nuke" isn't really feasible.
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"nuking" was maybe the incorrect term, there is no nuking with this build. I just feel like there should be an alternative setup for the 6-link chest piece, with more reliable and consistent damage. Probably something with Ballista totem support or something. Just some setup that helps a bit with the single target.

I have been testing with Unspeakable Gifts and so far it feels quite solid to improve the clear/one-shot against the rare and the big delirium mobs, the sound they used it's way too similar to an explosion that would kill you and not the enemies, consequently it takes some time to get used to, but I already like the 10% as it feels way more than 10%... it feels like 20 to 25%, so I crafted other 2 to get to 30% and with other 11 levels (by lvl90... should take 2 more days) I will be able to get them to explore more constantly
I have to admit that I wanted to play a bow herald of ice build, with that shattering explosion satisfaction... and I already bought all the components for it to reroll, but I opted for this bow build because I could go CI and having that one shot feeling with a cool explosion that doesn't require any cosmetic, it's a huge plus for me... gonna see how it goes with red maps, but so far I'm living it... might be a problem to get 7k+ es tho, with 3 yewels taken by the clusters

Im pretty new to bow, only tried mathils glad puncture last league but didnt invest much in that guy before i was tired of the league.

My question is for lvling, why not recommend to find a high phys bow as my 100dps phys bow does about 2x the dot dmg my quill rain does with the % phys to chaos convertion SA does, does speed outscale the big hit dmg later on?

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Ixpha เขียน:

Im pretty new to bow, only tried mathils glad puncture last league but didnt invest much in that guy before i was tired of the league.

My question is for lvling, why not recommend to find a high phys bow as my 100dps phys bow does about 2x the dot dmg my quill rain does with the % phys to chaos convertion SA does, does speed outscale the big hit dmg later on?

I wouldn't bother with quill rain on skills that don't scale with attack speed. So the only ones I'd buy quill rain for levelling would be toxic rain and explosive arrow. It has -30% damage penalty so no wonder you get more damage with another bow.

On the other hand caustic arrow can be levelled with a grey bow and it completely doesn't matter, it has no scaling with weapon damage only with gem levels and dot damage / chaos damage. Basically like essence drain.

Scourge arrow is another story, this one scales with weapon damage and you need to keep updating your weapon same as elemental bow builds (ice shot, lightning arrow, etc.)

Best levelling unique is silverbranch / silverbough if you can get it linked, because it provides buff to gem levels. If it's a league start, you can level with any bow it doesn't matter.

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Viktranka เขียน:

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Ixpha เขียน:

Im pretty new to bow, only tried mathils glad puncture last league but didnt invest much in that guy before i was tired of the league.

My question is for lvling, why not recommend to find a high phys bow as my 100dps phys bow does about 2x the dot dmg my quill rain does with the % phys to chaos convertion SA does, does speed outscale the big hit dmg later on?

I wouldn't bother with quill rain on skills that don't scale with attack speed. So the only ones I'd buy quill rain for levelling would be toxic rain and explosive arrow. It has -30% damage penalty so no wonder you get more damage with another bow.

On the other hand caustic arrow can be levelled with a grey bow and it completely doesn't matter, it has no scaling with weapon damage only with gem levels and dot damage / chaos damage. Basically like essence drain.

Scourge arrow is another story, this one scales with weapon damage and you need to keep updating your weapon same as elemental bow builds (ice shot, lightning arrow, etc.)

Best levelling unique is silverbranch / silverbough if you can get it linked, because it provides buff to gem levels. If it's a league start, you can level with any bow it doesn't matter.

aha thanks, im using a silverbranch now actually, ive had that for some time xD

The conversion text on the SA skill is confusing me, i always thought that ment the total phys dmg was converted into chaos damage, so in my head, getting more phys dmg in weapon ment more converted...

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Ixpha เขียน:

The conversion text on the SA skill is confusing me, i always thought that ment the total phys dmg was converted into chaos damage, so in my head, getting more phys dmg in weapon ment more converted...

The important damage part is the puddle on the ground which is completely separate from arrow damage, the arrow damage is converted from physical to chaos and scales with weapon damage but in the big picture this arrow is only a tool to carry the payload, it can even miss and still drop the puddle, so nobody really cares about it.

What matters is the other line that says "Deals X Base Chaos Damage per second" and this damage is tied to gem level not initial shot damage if any.