Zare hit a few important milestones in her recent journey. She was able to hit a total of 6k life which is making mapping feel a lot more comfortable, and as such, is now bee-lining to Phase Acrobatics. I think dodge is an incredibly powerful mechanic in POE if you have the life cushion behind it. While I have equipped a quiver with flat life to reach 6K, I do sorely miss the life gain on hit from the unique quiver I had. Each pod from Toxic Rain hits on the third phase of the skill, so it quickly refilled my life total.
Speaking of phases, Toxic Rain is a really interesting bow skill as it has three main phases. The first phase is the actual arrow hit. We don't focus on too much physical scaring, so this damage hit is negligible. The second phase of the skill is a short chaos damage over time effect. It also slows the enemy to remain in the DOT area of effect. We scale this 2nd phase with our passive tree nodes that specifically scale bow damage over time, and chaos damage. The third phase of the skill causes the pod to explode, dealing area damage that can scale with weapon damage, and more notably, poisons. Poison can be our main source of damage as it gets scaled by physical damage, damage over time, attack speed, and chaos damage.
You can focus on the 2nd phase chaos DOT of this skill, and go for high attack speed and +gem levels, since each pod can stack. But since we're the Pathfinder Ascendancy that has a lot of synergy with Herald of Agony and poison, I'm focusing on the second and third phase. I found a Reach of the Council unique bow which has fast attack speed and decent physical damage, so it's a good starter bow for maps. I'm still hoping to find Darkscorn or a better Rare, but it's a good start and felt better than a +1 gem level bow with higher attack speed that had low physical damage.
Zare was able to six socket and five link her Incursion life chest piece rather quickly, so Herald of Agony (HOA) is supplying a ton of damage now, and is great for clear speed and single target. While I'd like to think Zare is doing the brunt of the work, honest truth is her chaos buddy is doing at least half.
I'm glad I was able to make some decent progress with Zare and not go splat, too soon. The delirium league mechanic can be very dangerous, so I stopped it at phase 3 or 4 until I hit a higher life pool. Playing on a fresh account and no extra or special stash tabs is its own challenge, but I also hoard a lot less stuff knowing this is the only character I'm playing on this account. Definitely having a lot of fun so far- thanks for reading.
Here's the current Path of Building at lvl 82: https://pastebin.com/Smc54XEx
Speaking of phases, Toxic Rain is a really interesting bow skill as it has three main phases. The first phase is the actual arrow hit. We don't focus on too much physical scaring, so this damage hit is negligible. The second phase of the skill is a short chaos damage over time effect. It also slows the enemy to remain in the DOT area of effect. We scale this 2nd phase with our passive tree nodes that specifically scale bow damage over time, and chaos damage. The third phase of the skill causes the pod to explode, dealing area damage that can scale with weapon damage, and more notably, poisons. Poison can be our main source of damage as it gets scaled by physical damage, damage over time, attack speed, and chaos damage.
You can focus on the 2nd phase chaos DOT of this skill, and go for high attack speed and +gem levels, since each pod can stack. But since we're the Pathfinder Ascendancy that has a lot of synergy with Herald of Agony and poison, I'm focusing on the second and third phase. I found a Reach of the Council unique bow which has fast attack speed and decent physical damage, so it's a good starter bow for maps. I'm still hoping to find Darkscorn or a better Rare, but it's a good start and felt better than a +1 gem level bow with higher attack speed that had low physical damage.
Zare was able to six socket and five link her Incursion life chest piece rather quickly, so Herald of Agony (HOA) is supplying a ton of damage now, and is great for clear speed and single target. While I'd like to think Zare is doing the brunt of the work, honest truth is her chaos buddy is doing at least half.
I'm glad I was able to make some decent progress with Zare and not go splat, too soon. The delirium league mechanic can be very dangerous, so I stopped it at phase 3 or 4 until I hit a higher life pool. Playing on a fresh account and no extra or special stash tabs is its own challenge, but I also hoard a lot less stuff knowing this is the only character I'm playing on this account. Definitely having a lot of fun so far- thanks for reading.
Here's the current Path of Building at lvl 82: https://pastebin.com/Smc54XEx