Conc's Toxic Rain Occultist 3.6 League Start

[Concillian]

As mentioned in the other thread, I'll be starting a Toxic Rain Occultist this league. I thought I'd summarize some of the Toxic Rain mechanics and reasonaing behind the build here for others to learn from.

I ran a Toxic Rain Raider last league, it was my first league start, and it was very easy to gear up. This league I wanted to refine Toxic Rain a bit more now that I have more knowledge about the skill and try it out in a different way... with energy shield and Chaos Innoculation and mitigation instead of Life and evasion and dodge.

I have always been known for long posts... I will cover this in multiple posts:

• Toxic Rain Mechanics (this post)
  
• Occultist passive tree & leveling strategy
  
• Gearing -- Leveling and early mapping
  
• Gearing --- looking towards the endgame
  

Toxic Rain Mechanics

Toxic Rain mechanics are a study all in themselves. The skill shoots 5 projectiles by default. If you draw a circle around your cursor when you fire the bow, these projectiles will land at a random location within that circle. When they land, they do pinpoint projectile damage and turn into a pod that does chaos DOT damage in an area around them. When that duration timer completes, the pod explodes and does poison damage.

So we have:

• An initial hit where the pod lands (tiny hitbox, totally unreliable to scale this damage)
  
• The pod DOT damage (what most TR builds scale, including this one). This DOT affect also applies a small movement speed reduction. Both the DOT and movement speed reduction stack per pod
  
• The explosion poison damage (usually not scaled, but some builds use the sheer quantity of poison applications to fuel Herald of Agony Virulence stacks)
  

In addition to this we have the circular area in which the pods land. This area is scaled by increasing the number of projectiles you fire, but rather importantly, NOT scaled by %increased area of effect stats. If you do not increase the number of projectiles you fire, then the pods will always be contained in the same diameter circle.
We also have the area of the DOT from each individual pod. This area is scaled by increased area of effect, but not by the number of projectiles you fire. So by increasing area of effect, we are able to increase the diameter of the DOT without increasing the spread of the pods, which will increase the average number of pods that apply damage at the target location per shot, while also slightly increasing how far out the DOT extends to the fringes.

As a result of all of this, if we are scaling the chaos DOT damage, we get scaling from many sources:

• Gem levels. Gem levels are the main source of damage.
  
• % Increased attack speed, which allows us to shoot more projectiles in a given amount of time
  
• % increased damage (chaos, DOT, projectile and area of effect damage applies at full value)
  
• % increased non-ailment chaos over time damage multiplier (from here on referred to as Chaos Multi)
  
• % area of effect, which allows for more pods to overlap their DOT effect
  
• % increased duration which allows more pods to be on the ground if you can afford to stand still and fire. Initial DOT duration is 1 second before the pods explode, so every % increased duration is an additional 0.01 seconds
  

Part of what makes Toxic Rain so good is that with so many different sources of scaling, we can get a little bit of all of them and not hit diminishing returns too hard.

I prioritize ATTACK SPEED above all else, because the playstyle of a "bow caster" like this one, is one where you fire 1-4 times, then move, then fire, then move. Faster attack rate results in the ability to move when you want to, and really smooths out the play. In order to support high attack speeds, we need significant mana regen or -x mana to skills, as the DOT is not spell damage nor attack damage, so we can't leech. mana on hit applies, but accuracy is abysmal. As a result mana regen goes hand in hand with attack speed.

Next most important is Area of Effect. 0% increased area of effect results in roughly 2.5 of the 5 pods overlapping their damage per shot on average. As you add area of effect, you increase the average pods per shot applying damage. The translation is not exact, but approximately 7% MORE damage per 10% increased AoE, making AoE nodes VERY efficient compared to typical damage nodes on the tree. It's just low enough that we won't quite get better boss DPS out of an increased AoE support gem in our ideal 6L, but it's still quite good. Mapping, it's very doable to use increased AoE, as it's a good balance of single target DPS and coverage. Somewhere about 30-45% increased AoE it starts feeling a step function improved DPS, as we stop getting shots with only 2 overlaps and all our shots start having 3 pods doing their damage to the single target.

Those two are almost like we have specific requirements. We really want to get to ~40% increased AoE and 3 attacks per second as soon as we can. If you plan out a different Toxic Rain build, just consider these your bar to make the build feel good. This is somewhat subjective, but my feelings based on last league.

Of course we get whatever gem levels we can. level multiple Toxic Rain gems so you can then get 20% quality on them (which increases AoE 10%) and then when they're 20% quality and level 20 again, we use a vaal orb for the 1 in 8 chance of turning into a level 21 gem with 20% quality.

From there we start scaling our Chaos multi wherever we can. We get a lot of %increased damage through the tree and elsewhere, and choas mutli will typically scale our damage better than increased damage.

Increasing the number of projectiles, as long as you have a reasonable amount of %increased AoE will improve single target DPS. Get this if you can preserve other stats, but realistically, the Dying Sun flask is about the only way to do this and not hurt other scaling. Dying Sun is huge DPS gain because it also increases area of effect... roughly a 1.25 multiplier on single target damage, and is also more coverage for better clear in maps... a great flask if you can afford it.

As a result of all of this we will be supporting Toxic Rain with this priority:
1) Empower lvl 4 to add +3 gem levels to our main skill (obviously expensive and only gonna happen quite late game)
2) Mirage Archer -- we are spending a lot of time not attacking, and this gives us ~40% damage while we are running around, and most importantly helping to slow the stuff attacking us so we can better position ourselves
3) Damage on Full Life -- If we have taken Chaos Innoculation this is a no brainer huge more damage. Obviously we don't use it before we take CI.
4) Swift Affliction -- This helps to frontload our DOT damage.
5) Void Manipulation -- next best damage adder without a penalty.
6) Area of Effect -- For mapping we use this in place of void manipulation
7) Efficacy -- If we need a support prior to CI & empower.

Absent from this list:
Vicious Projectiles -- Less attack speed makes this quite a poor choice. Theoretical DPS has this one between Efficacy and Area of Effect. I will always take the attack speed, and would use Efficacy before I used Vicious Projectiles unless socket colors force my hand.
Concentrated Effect -- Looks great in PoB, but realistically almost all of the DOT DPS increase is lost in reducing the pod overlap, making this an AWFUL support for Toxic Rain. Do not ever even consider Concentrated Effect.
Lesser or Greater Multiple Projectiles -- These do significantly increase coverage for mapping, but lower our single target damage. If you are wanting to clear as efficiently as possible, these are an option, but they will significantly lower single target damage, and it will be a recognizable DPS loss for map bosses, syndicate and incursion architects.

After that short novella, hopefully you understand Toxic Rain mechanics, and this will help to understand the decisions you see in the next posts.

[Concillian]

Occultist passive tree & leveling strategy

The Occultist is a good choice for Toxic Rain because of how much Chaos damage & multi is nearby. 3.6 added some increased AoE nodes as well and Energy shield is a good match to the toxic rain playstyle (get hit, run away and avoid damage while your ES recharges)

I am leveling under the assumption that I will switch to CI early. Perhaps as early as Act 6, hopefully by Act 8, and latest Act 10.

The build is depending on auras of Discipline + Clarity + Purity of Elements to make league start gearing very easy. The tree & ascendancy provides us with LOTS of offense, way more than my raider had last league, and I don't anticipate needing an offensive aura. I may choose to drop some tree damage for a defensive curse if necessary, but I don't think it will be necessary.

1st and 2nd Ascendancy are the energy shield & recharge specific ones that help us get our energy shield up and running: Wicked Ward ---> Vile Bastion

3rd & 4th ascendancy are large DPS boosts: Void Beacon ---> Withering Presence

I think there is a good argument for going the curse route of Profane Bloom --> Malediction, but for this character I'm not choosing that route. You could easily go this route with some different reservation skills and gearing. Exploding curses are GREAT for map clear, but you'll find that Toxic Rain is pretty good on it's own.

Toxic Rain is not offered to Witch as a reward, nor is it available for purchase until Act 3 library. I plan to get around this by running a range to level 12 / Nessa quest and then stashing the gem for my Witch to use. This is an unfortunate way of doing things, but I think I'm fast enough at act 1 that this should only be ~30 minutes of diversion.

Before level 12 you can use Blight, but Freezing pulse & frost bomb are easier to use while moving through Act 1 quickly, in my opinion. You won't be picking up any chaos damage before you get level 12, so it doesn't really matter what gem you choose to use before level 12.

On the tree, path out of witch via energy shield, and head for the big +30 DEX node so you can start using a good selection of bows. Also take the +30 STR node, just so we can use whatever gear we come across. We'll be short on STR and will likely need to keep this node even in endgame gear.

Continue in the same direction towards the Chaos Damage cluster with 'Atrophy'. Get there through the Life / ES nodes, as we will be hybrid life & ES for a while.

With Atrophy, come back and get the AoE nodes near the center of witch to unlock efficiency in your damage (Blast Radius), and head for the Increased attack speed notable outside shadow: Coordination, taking more hybrid life / ES and some increased AoE along the way.

At this point the tree looks like this ~ level 30-35:

Now grab the DPS nodes 'Growth and Decay & the hybrid ES & life nodes 'Melding' that we pathed by already. Now we get attack speed near Scion, 'Harrier'. Get the jewel socket if you have some attack speed to put there, skip it if you don't have a decent jewel. Should have the first ascendancy about then, and damage should be feeling okay, so we go back to defense and utility -- 'Arcane Will' and 'Foresight' are both 2 pointers near the starting point.

[https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-p...HH5N_6z]So here we are at level 50ish[/url]:

Now we travel up near CI & get the flat ES nodes. We're here so we can switch first couple zones of Act 8 where there is a lot of chaos damage and Doedre Darktongue, a heavy, heavy Chaos damage boss. refund CI after Doedre. Then travel down at Trickster for more damage and ES with 'Void Barrier' & 'Method to the Madness' DPS nodes. You'll welcome those DEX and STR nodes too. We get some aura bonuses from 'Influence'... at this point I was running Purity of Elements, Discipline and a low level Clarity, all of which make it super easy to gear as we go, you can choose a specific Purity if you are lacking in one particular resist type, or ended up with a lot of gear with one particular resist type on it. It doesn't hurt to level multiple purity aura gems if you have spare skill gem slots, so you can use whatever you need that fits your gear options.

Then we atart pathing up therough the middle of Witch through the gem slot in the direction of 'Corruption' and 'Unnatural Calm'

This should put us at ~entering Blood Aqueducts or so.

Now actually get those points, take whichever you feel you need, defense or damage first. Now we re-adjust the tree over by the wheel outside of trickster to make some more efficient ES nodes easier to get. It takes a couple points in travel nodes, then some refunding to make the pathing slightly different. This is in prep for getting some full ES gear and switching over to CI. When switching, refund some slightly less efficient hybrid life / ES nodes for some slightly more efficient nodes that also give small other bonses (Evasion scaling and ES & mana regen). Start taking jewel slots with DEX traveling to make gearing even easier & jewels will give us more attack speed, which will smooth out the feel of everything in addition to adding DPS.

Should also be picking up the 3rd ascendancy in this timeframe (Vile Bastion)

So we look like this ~75-80ish as we are preparing for maps

From here on out, our primary framework is pretty much done, we get jewels and pick up some minor other nodes. You can get less jewels and more ES if you like, or less jewels and slide over to Fatal Toxins for more DOT DPS, there are several routes to go. Play it based on how the attack speed & mana regen feels how many jewels you get, but at least the jewels that take DEX and attack speed traveling.

Here is one possible level 91 tree (7 jewels, alternately you can do 6 jewels and get Fatal Toxins, for example)

You probably don't need the +30 DEX anymore, and can refund that. You WILL need the +30 STR and even more on your gear or jewels.

[Concillian]

Gearing -- Leveling and early mapping

Gearing here is quite easy. Our auras, ascendancy, skill gem, and passive tree are doing the heavy lifting for the build. ALL we need on our gear to start with is resists and a little bit of mana & STR. Get ES where we can get it, but the bulk of it coming from Ascendancy and aura is why this works as a league starter you won't need too much.

The first area of concern is bow, which is also really easy. Get an ilvl 64 or higher Grove Bow or Short bow (speed matters, DPS does not). Use Alteration orbs on it until you roll +2 bow skills. Use this until red maps. I'm serious, that's all you need... well you do want it to be 5L so you don't have to be using Tabula Rasa. I traded for a 5L white bow for 1 alch last league. Scour a rare or magic bow if that's what you find available, use a white bow, whatever. If you don't have alterations, but have chaos, find an essence that gives +2 bows, but this will be more expensive than rolling it with alts (will take ~100 alts or so to get +2 bow skills.)

This build has lots of DPS in the tree. A 6L magic +2 bow skills with increased attack speed bow is almost as much shaper DPS as my Raider killed Uber Elder with last league WITHOUT empower level 4, WITHOUT multi-modding, just a blue bow. Roll this with alts and regal to make it rare, then craft 33-40% Chaos Multi on it and you're set unless you want to kick it up a notch. Even if you do want to kick it up a notch, this will be a necessary stepping stone along the way, and it's quite inexpensive (maybe 3-400 alts to get IAS with +2 bow skills, 1 regal and 4 chaos for the craft).

Boots need as much movement speed as possible. We have auras providing us with resists so we can use blue boots if we need to. Can upgrade boots at the vendor for Quicksilver Flask + Orb of Augmentation + boots with a speed roll ---> magic boots with the next higher speed roll (so 25% move speed boots get upgraded to 30%, etc...). Your ultimate goal is 35% move speed, but this requires a very high ilvl base. Move speed is your best defense. Early gearing the Rainbowstride unique is difficult to beat with a rare, but I did get a rare that was more resists, same move speed, less ES.

Uniques to look out for:
Memory Vault (helmet) -- this provides mitigation for the build and turns +mana stats into +armor as well as mana and regen and Energy shield. This is an Elder Guardian drop, so will be reasonably rare. May take some time for trade prices to come down.
Bated Breath (belt) -- Lots of Energy shield and lots of energy shield regen (should be 1 alch to 1c very early on, this is a very common drop, I had two drop for me in story mode.)
Soul Strike (quiver) -- One of 2 energy shield quivers. This one provides some base +Dex that we'll need, increased attack speed, and very importantly, faster start of energy shield regen, most any ES based bow build will use this, so it will be one of the more expensive items in this list.
Incandescent Heart (body armor) -- This is our tankiness. When you take CI and convert 25% of elemental damage taken to chaos damage, well you ignore 25% of elemental damage taken, effectively raising max resists to 81.5%. Also gives some baseline armor. A high-ish STR requirement, but if we want to use the damage on full life support, we will already meet the STR requirement.

You're looking for gear that will allow you to use these uniques while maintaining max resists and having as much ES as you can. It should be possible with quite inexpensive gear (they were ~5-10c at most each when I acquired them, less than a week into Synthesis league, a very heavy ES league.).

With all these uniques, you're looking at ~1500 armor from the helm and the ability to start ES regen in 1second, and your energy shield regen rate is about 1/2 your max energy shield PER SECOND. This gives you good recovery... something my raider was sorely lacking last league.

[Concillian]

Gearing --- looking towards the endgame

Again we start with bow, as this is the most significant source of damage. The bow in the previous section is good, but if you want to take it to the next level, multi-modding is the most reliable method of obtaining a bow.

Step 1) run prophecies while you level & map to run through the 4 quest lines that lead to the Pale Council. I forget all the names, but it's like Paguemaw I / II / III / IV / V and three others. I think you need to get about to T9 maps to complete them all. I haven't looked at the atlas changes with this in mind, but it doesn't happen right away, it's something to work towards. If you just take Prophecies as you're doing maps, you'll get to the ends of the questlines before you naturally progress to that tier of maps. No need to rush it, just take prophecies as you do normal mapping.... many add monsters and additional drops to maps, so it helps you obtain gear and currency as well.

This step gets you the crafting recipes necessary. Each of the end of the 4 quest lines result in a meta craft like "cannot roll attack modifiers" or "prefixes cannot be changed" You need to defeat the pale council, which I had no difficulty with last league, and when you do, the recipe available is "Can have multiple crafted modifiers"

Step 2) Acquire currency the cheapest multi-modded bow option is 3 exalts at the crafting bench. Do enough maps and exalts will drop. Or trade or farm delves, whatever you do to make currency, you'll need at least 3 exalts for a bow like this.

Option 1 -- No Empower gem> This is ~90+% the DPS level of Option 2, and doesn't require an Empower gem.

• Use the blue bow you had before ilvl 64 or higher Grove bow or Short bow.
  
• Alt until you just have +2 bow skills. If you get lucky you get it with a high roll increased attack speed suffix, but with NO SUFFIX works fine. You do not want a junk suffix, NO suffix or a good increased attack speed roll.
  
• Regal and annul and hit +2 bow skills and then scour and repeat until you hit a different mod. Here your goal is to end up with the same bow you rolled with alts, but it will be rare, so it can take 6 modifiers
  
• Craft "Can have multiple crafted modifiers" this costs 2 exalts at the crafting bench
  
• Craft 'Cannot Roll Attack Modifiers' (1 exalt at crafting bench)
  
• Craft increased attack speed suffix
  
• Craft 36-40% Chaos Multi prefix
  
• Use Leo 3 stars in research to exalt slam, or use an exalt yourself. The result will always be +1 all gems, we have blocked all other prefixes.
  

There's your endgame bow. If you're anal, you can bench scour and re-craft it without the 'Cannot Roll attack modifiers' suffix and replace it with a damage suffix, but that costs 2 more exalts, and it doesn't give a whole lot of extra damage, because there aren't any really strong DPS suffixes other than increased attack speed.

Option 2 -- Empower Gem> This option requires a level 4 Empower gem to even be good at all, if that's not in your budget, don't consider this option.

It also requires a recipe that drops as an unveiled mod that in Synthesis, luckily does not only come from the Syndicate Mastermind anymore. It still may take a while to get the right veiled mods to unlock it. Option 1 is plenty good if you don't get this unveiled by the time you're ready.

Once you get the recipe it's super simple to craft though.

• Roll your bow with alts as in Option 1, but this time you're looking for +1 all gems prefix, not +2 bow skills. Again either with no suffix or a good attack speed roll.
  
• As per option 1, Regal and Annul and hit the mod you rolled with alts so you have to scour and roll it with alts again. (repeat until you annul the mod you regaled, and leave the mod you actually want)
  
• Craft 'Can have Multiple Crafted Modifiers'
  
• Craft '+2 support gems' which is the mastermind unveiled mod
  
• Craft +36-40% Chaos Multi, your Increased attack speed and final suffix
  

In addition to your bow you are looking to do a few other things to squeeze the most out of your gear.

Keep an eye on trade for a Watcher's Eye jewel that has x% of physical damage taken as <element> when using <purity aura>
There are a lot of these, and they went pretty cheap last year. You can also find them with -x mana to skills when using Clarity aura, which is HUGE for your mana regen. A jewel with BOTH was ~50c last league, and it helps you get tanky and fuel your attack speed.

Look for rings with +mana AND -x mana to skills in one mod. They come from incursion temples. Again huge for mana regen. You probably need some STR on one ring. You craft Elereon's unveiled mod (-x mana to skills), but ideally you want to leave a suffix open to be able to craft a different unveiled mod, +1 MINIMUM FRENZY CHARGE, which gives you a permanent frenzy charge. The craft costs 1 exalt to put it on, but man permanent frenzy charges are great.

The amulet Impresence was quite inexpensive last league, but it may be more this league if we have a bunch of chaos casters. This is the best source for our Depair curse since we don't have to pay much mana for it (we do have to reserve some despite what the amulet says due to the memory valut helmet).

Gloves you are looking for rares with increased attack speed and, if possible, Chaos Multi. It will be a lot easier / cheaper to get them without Chaos Multi, but ideal is with.

Boots are hard, because every other ES user is also going to be going for high move speed & resists and ES. The build should be fine without any +ES on your boots, but you do wat the fastest boots you can get, and even regular 35% move speed with any resists won't be all that cheap. You should be able to find something that's 30% and has some resists without too much hassle. If you can't get what you want, and have some currency, you can multimod craft these for 2 exalts plus change. Like the bow, roll +35% movement speed with alts, regal & annul to isolate, then craft can have multiple crafted modifiers, +ES, +%ES and 2 resists, or some DEX / STR if you still need it.

As far as the league mechanics, we can use this on our crafted items to get good implicits. The boots that had the onslaught implicit really look juicy, as there's not really a good way for us to get onslaught otherwise, and it's a nice boost. I assume that won't be very easy to obtain, but I'm hoping it might be possible to make crafted boots with that implicit. That's 20% move speed, so then all you need are resists and an open prefix to craft move speed so they end up overall faster than +35% move speed boots.

[Concillian]

Last night I got to maps and have the following comments on the build (and will make the appropriate changes to the above descriptions)

1) I definitely rushed switching to CI. I knew I was pushing it, but wanted to make Doedre easy, but in doing so, I was pretty squshy through the last 2 acts. Will adjust guide to give the option of switching CI for the chaos portion of the story... later act 7 with all the chaos annihilators through Doedre, then refund the point for the extra life buffer.

2) With CI coming later, I think it makes sense to take a damage bonus first ascendancy instead of the ES bonus. Damage felt just slightly lacking until like mid 50s or so. Just slightly, and the first damage ascendancy is -20% chaos resist to enemies, which is a pretty big damage boost, I think that might make leveling feel a bit better.

3) overall damage is good, the character is slower than my raider and less able to play how I like playing TR until you're geared for maps. I like playing TR by running in, flasking (including the all-important phasing flask) standing in front of or in the middle of a pack, shoot TR once on your head, or at the pack, then run out & either shoot again if there is a yellow, or if one was slightly out of the AoE or move on to the next pack if they'll all die in the one application. The raider was fast enough to do this and very rarely get hit. The occultist attack speed is a little low for that, which slows overall clearing quite a bit.

If you can't run straight into packs, you get nailed by ranged a lot more (they shoot where you WERE if you can run into & through packs, so you auto dodge most ranged attacks) so the whole process gets slowed quite a bit. Once geared for maps, I was able to re-adopt this playstyle, as tankiness went way up, move speed improved with better boots, and attack speed is coming up as I'm opening up jewel slots.

Here's where my character ended up after getting a couple drops in T1 maps and trading to get the baseline uniques & filling in the resists with 1-3c rares (uniques were ~25c rares were either what I had on hand or 1-3c each. Boots and one of the rings were crazy good drops at the time.) : https://pastebin.com/csXsxJ2m

I knew bow jewels without life would be cheap, but was surprised to see just how many jewels were available with 2 GOOD stats and 1 or 2 also useful stats there were available for 1-3c this early into the league. The rare gem I have now was 2c... 2 of the best stats for the build (Attack speed and chaos multi), STR to help hit our needed ~120, and a little mana regen that isn't strictly necessary at this point, but still useful. I think the jewel slots making use of otherwise pretty worthless items are a good portion of what really makes the build work well gearing into higher tier maps. I only planned on getting attack speed out of them, but it looks like I'll be able to get not only good attack speed, but other useful stats out of the jewel slots.

also included a 2nd tree for where I'm headed for level 91 (mostly adding jewels)

[Concillian]

Synthesis looks to have added an implicit +1 bow gems as a possibility to get.

It looks like to get this you need 3 bows in the Synthesizer that combined have +6 bow gems, then the Synthesizer needs to pick the +bow gems mod to make the implicit.

My theory is that we can synthesize this mod in the following way:

1) buy three bows of the base you want (Grove Bow or Short Bow) that have exactly 1 Fractured mod.... that mod must be a suffix. It can be any affix that is a suffix. The synthesizer will take the ilvl of the highest ilvl bow for the new bow, so one of the bows needs to be ilvl 64 or higher.

2) use alts to roll +2 bow gems on all of them. This takes somewhere on the order of 100 alts each. Not a ton. I've rolled this probably 6 or 8 times now... last bow I rolled took ~50, worst ever was something like 150-180.

3) regal all three of them.

Now you have 3 bows with 3 mods each, and one of those mods on each bow is +2 bow gems. Assuming the synthesizer picks randomly, it will hit +2 bow gems 1 in 3 times and give the +1 bow gems implicit.

I need to test it out, but it seems reasonable enough to achieve. The base bows are 1 alch - 4c each and the alts to roll your prefix & the regals are like ~10c of value each (but I'll just use what I pick up while playing.) That makes this on the order of ~40c worth of value to make an attempt, but if you're successful you get an extra level to Toxic Rain gem, which is about 10% more damage, so a substantial boost to damage.

[Chadvoluted]

I saw a bow for sale that had

+1 Socketed Gems Implicit
And then the following Explicits:

+2 Bows
+1 Gems
+1 Dex Gems.

Couple that bow with Empower, and you could be sitting at 29 with a 21/20 corrupted gem. I'm blown away with how crazy the modifiers are for TR at that level.

[Concillian]

I saw a bow for sale that had

+1 Socketed Gems Implicit
And then the following Explicits:

+2 Bows
+1 Gems
+1 Dex Gems.

Couple that bow with Empower, and you could be sitting at 29 with a 21/20 corrupted gem. I'm blown away with how crazy the modifiers are for TR at that level.

Yeah, there are three +gems implicits that work now:

+1 socketed gems (from +1 socketed gems affix)
+1 bow gems (from +2 bow gems affix)
+1 support gems (from the unveiled +2 support gems craft, but the craft is 1 ex each bow to craft it... if you can manage to unveil enough to get it.)

The +DEX and +STR gems mods are from faceted fossils, which are rare fossils and so it's like 2+ exalts per attempt.

Theoretically it's possible to have at least +8 gems on a bow, but +4 is like ~4 ex in total, and going any higher than that starts getting exponentially more expensive. And +4 on a 21/20 with empower is PLENTY of damage. Occultist will definitely have more DPS than my Raider did. It just won't have the move speed.

Currently need more regals, I have 2 bows prepped and 2 more that need regals... At one point I was low on alts and augs, so I stopped buying bases... That was a mistake. People have caught on, so the supply of single fractured suffix bows has dried up. Instead of before when I could get them for like 3c or less, it's looking like 10c+ per base now. I mean I have a lot more currency now than before, but was hoping I could continue with cheap bows. Livesearching hasn't found me one <10-15c in 2 days during the time I have been playing... the larger issue though is people just aren't putting up bases at all. Played like 4-5 hours list night and only saw maybe one an hour on average at any price.

[Concillian]

Here's what I realized last night about these bows.... they can be made with generic +skills right? So they can be used with ANY cast spell and pump gem levels and be used with the same quiver I'm using for Toxic Rain as a pseudo-shield. And since the +1 gems applies generically, it's effectively a +2, since you get +1 to the skill gem and +1 to the empower... All of the sudden for like 4-5 exalts plus the empower and the corrupted level 21 main gem, you're rocking a level 30 gem anything... Divine Ire or Bane or Winter Orb or whatever.

I had kinda wondered why the quiver was hanging up there in price, I mean there couldn't be that many Energy Shield bow builds right? Well they aren't really "bow builds", they're caster builds that just happen to have a bow.

[Concillian]

Made my bow yesterday. Well probably what will be it's final form, even if it isn't in "best" form. I had the implicit for a while, but took a while to get quality on the bow so I could 6 link it easier (only took ~300 or so fusings, maybe 400), and then made a partial to just use while I got the rest of the recipes together to seriously spend time rolling / regal / annuling the affixes.

Rolling +1 socketed gems takes a lot of alts. It's way less likely to hit than +2 bow gems. I think +2 bow gems is either 4 or 5x more likely to hit than +1 socketed. As a result, synthing the implicit alone was painful, and when rolling for the final bow, it took a lot of alts to get +1 socketed alone without a suffix. I got it twice and I regaled and the annul hit the +1 socketed affix twice... =/ So on my third attempt I managed to hit +2 bow gems and 14% increased attack speed together. I had a final annul and this time it hit the good 1 in 3 and removed the regaled mod!. 1 divine brought the 14% attack speed to 16%! So that was a huge bonus. I don't have to spend an exalt to craft 11-13% increased attack speed. Took well over 1k alts to do all that, maybe as many as 1200, not sure exactly.

So I went the route of +2 bow gems instead of rolling +1 socketed and crafting +2 support gems because I got that sweet attack speed suffix. Actually, it ended up quite well, because I was going to have to use a service to get +2 support gems on it, as there's no way I'm doing Mastermind enough to get +2 support gems. I crafted the multimod and currently have it open prefix for the +1 slam. I have Leo @ 3 stars in Research and just need to complete the intel to get the inexpensive slam to get +1 socketed gems onto it.

I could then bench scour it and re-do the multimod to get another suffix, but I'm not sure it's worth that, there are a lot of other good gear slots I can use 3 exalts on (currently have 4 more in the stash). I'll probably just leave the 'cannot roll attack mods' craft on there. I synthed up a set of ilvl86 sorcerer boots with 8% move speed implicit that I may roll up with 35% move speed and multimod for some ES, or I may get a T1/T1 +ES / +%ES amulet and prefixes cannot be changed, scour and multimod for AoE /AoE damage, +1 min endurance charge and +1 minimum frenzy charge. I got a few ideas, gotta figure out what all I want to do.

As far as the build goes, it felt a bit rough in yellow maps when the attack speed and ES were lower. Partly because I wasn't completely convinced I needed CWDT + Immortal Call... Boy was that dumb. As soon as I put that in it has felt WAY better. Between that, and being able to bump up my ES a bit, and getting the bow 6L... now the build feels GOOD. It felt good with the bow before (just the +1 implicit, +2 bow gems, no attack speed and crafted chaos multi), but now with the 16% attack speed... yesterday I was breezing through the T11/12 maps I have access to now very quick. Building up some pool of T13s slowly.

Given how I was feeling on damage taken being pretty good, I ended up using malevolence instead of trying to sandwich in multiple purity auras and using a x% phys as <element> watcher's eye, so I moved a couple reservation points into an 8th jewel socket. It just doesn't feel necessary to go with the Watcher's eye for that. With the raider and a life / evasion build, it always felt on the edge of getting one shot. With 8k ES and 30% phys mit and incandescent heart helping on the elemental damage, I feel plenty tanky enough. Especially with the occultist ES recharge and regen bonuses. I don't have to have any regen flasks and it feels way better than the life build of TR felt before. I can run all utility flasks and have ways of killing off curses and ailments. This ES version of the build is definitely superior to the raider at this point, but the raider felt smoother at white map gearing. There's enough tankiness that I could easily swap out memory vault for a higher ES helm if I can manage to get one with +1 arrow that isn't outrageously expensive. There's multiple hubris on trade for ~30-50c that I could use as crafting bases, but I have to decide if crafting that is the right way to spend the exalts I have... I can probably do boots and helm OR amulet, as the amulet would be a lot of exalts (5...eek)

Overall the build has kinda passed to the point where it feels ridiculously good. I mean I guess it should given how much it took to get that bow crafted. Feels good to play a build where several slots have been ID'ed or crafted by me (bow, belt, one ring, quiver and amulet right now.)
Here's where the build sits right now...

https://pastebin.com/gQEUsxpa

leveling my empower to 3 and it can replace something, likely swift affliction as increased AoE has felt REALLY good, also levling Vaal blight so I can choose if I want to do that, or keep bane to apply despair, or switch to impresence amulet and use blasphemy with despair... all those are pretty small things overall, despair is only really useful on bosses, all the other stuff dies quick enough (at T12 maps so far.) If I can get up to closer to 9k ES, I may consider swapping memory vault for a +1 arrow for TR hubris.

[MonTy]

Grats on the bow! Sounds like the build really came together, after your hard work crafting. Some of my most memorable moments in POE has been self-crafting. Although it takes a lot to get there, it does feel sweet.

I don't blame you for keeping Inc. AOE - really helps with clear speed and just overall keeping enemies in the dot damage. How close are you to level 3 empower?

[Concillian]

I don't blame you for keeping Inc. AOE - really helps with clear speed and just overall keeping enemies in the dot damage. How close are you to level 3 empower?

For Toxic Rain, AoE is not JUST about keeping enemies in the DOT area. It is a single target damage increase as well.

Because some pods "miss" by landing too far away from the target for their DOT to affect the center, increased AoE increases the average number of DOTs that stack on a single target. I may go through the math and demonstrate exactly how much at some point, but 50% increased AoE can be felt in terms of single target DPS. I'd estimate the 50% increase AoE support to be approximately equivalent to a ~20-25% more damage multiplier for single target in addition to the benefit of keeping things in the AoE for mapping. Less single target increase than a pure damage support, but still a good balance for mapping.

I ended up buying a corrupted level 3 empower, as I realized they were selling for only 5c each... so I bought 3. One for Flame dash, as I added arcane surge to flame dash, and this let me bump up the arcane surge another level due to the added mana cost, and one for Bane / Despair for boss damage, though enhance does more for that, I haven't been able to 6 link my chest yet (only tried 3-400 fusings)

I still leveled my own, but I just finished it this weekend with the help of Tora in research (Tora 3star in research is over 200 million gem XP, and the quality of the gem increases that XP too, so it's a good chunk each time you get her 3 stars in research.)

So now I took out inc AoE and am using lvl 3 empower. I Leo 3 star slammed the bow and this weekend I crafted my boots up. I was waiting until I had another annul to try, so I was using 43% move speed magic boots for a while. Turns out the regal hit T1 lightning resist, so I ended up not using the annul. Had to buy slightly different gloves for cold resist that cost less than selling the annul (Annul prices are INSANE this league.) So now DPS is up quite a bit (less AoE, but single target ~+50% more than last pastebin) and ES is quickly approaching 8500. Character feels very strong. I did my first T15 map lastnight, had no issues at all. Only deaths since getting the bow and ~8k ES have been to me not reacting properly to corrupted blood or something equally dumb (atziri AoE reflect issues, for example).

I found a well rolled vixen's entrapment, and I want to test how adding Temporal Chains to Bane in addition to Despair feels on guardians. It may be worth re-doing the tree (4 points) or using Vixen's entrapment to apply an additional curse. I suspect it is worth it to trade off some DPS / attack speed to get the extra slow, as DPS doesn't appear to be a significant issue, but I want to get to guardians to test that out. None of it really matters on maps. Even map bosses die very quick.

[Concillian]

Did Red Elder lastnight, and decided to record it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZxW2e-LVSw

It includes the whole map (T13 crimson temple,) which was pretty slow due to temp chains, but you can check it out if you're curious how I play the build. Elder part starts around 6:00. Those portals are big and get lots of DOT overlaps, they just melt. Laugh with/at me as I completely brainfart the Zana bubble.

[Chadvoluted]

Damn that death man, Nice to see how the build plays though.

Do you think that it would have to be CI? I'm terrified of trying to play CI after my first (admittedly long time ago) time playing.

[Concillian]

Damn that death man, Nice to see how the build plays though.

Do you think that it would have to be CI? I'm terrified of trying to play CI after my first (admittedly long time ago) time playing.

CI is definitely core for using Incandescent Heart. That item is simply bad without being CI. Replace that and the build works without CI, but you may want an item that doesn't let Chaos damage bypass ES, because life is very low, obviously, and any map with Chaos Annihilators will make you very dead very fast with current build's life total and no item that lets ES work against chaos damage. Replace the damage on full life support with something else, too.

This build makes it so easy to get "enough" ES that I don't think you really need to be scared of CI. I don't know how it was in the past, but it takes like 5ex to buy a chest on par with Incandescent Heart for elemental damage (800-850ish ES), though the build should be pretty workable with a lower ES Vaal Regalia.

The Incandescent Heart and Memory Vault were kinda core to the concept of being able to get a solid amount of ES without having to compete with 70+% of the league players being ES and wanting the same gear. I didn't have to try to craft a Vaal Regalia to get a 750+ or 900 ES vaal regalia, and I could focus all that crafting attention on the bow. These items are kinda flying under the radar.

With all of that in mind, it can be made to work without CI, but I think it would be quite significantly more difficult / expensive to pull off having enough tankiness without CI.

It was an experiment for me being my first ES build and it was wildly successful in that aspect. Life based Toxic Rain has to dedicate so much to +life to get resilient to one shotting, and I'm sure I could do it better now that I have more experience, but I had issues with health sustain in boss fights as well. The ES/CI build this league eliminated ALL of those issues. I kinda lucked out that it also happened to be a league with +1 implicit bows being a thing, as that process was interesting and added a ton to the damage (literally 25% more damage from having that one implicit)

[Concillian]

I've progressed into the endgame of the endgame and have a couple more videos for you.

First my favorite map for this build, T15 Wastepools. This map is beyond ideal for the build, with a layout that works well with a medium sized floor targeted AoE and a boss that is practically impossible to die to with chaos immunity. This particular map is an 8 mod corrupted map with 5 sextants, and Zana gives us a T16 map as a bonus. Relevant mods are mostly just 25% extra health and 25% chaos resistance, meaning rare monsters take about 3/4 of a second to die instead of 1/2 a second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boAymWiX9_4

Quickly covering map mods & mapping rare monsters as another bonus for Toxic Rain. There are only 2 relevant map mods that are problematic other than damage mods: no regen mod and all hits cause ignite. together this is quite bad, and you need flasks to compensate. No regen can be managed well enough by turning off Malevolence and using a mana flask.

Toxic rain & Mirage archer together are incredible for not having to worry about any particular rare type of monster. Proximity shield monsters are triggered by the proximity of the pods, not you. Beyond maps are often completely irrelevant as the pods are still on the ground and kill whatever comes out. Similarly any kind of monster that spawns another monster on death is irrelevant because the pods are just going to kill the newly spawned monsters. Boxes and essence mobs can be 'prepped' with pods on the ground prior to triggering, making them trivial as well. The only annoying type of monster is one that runs away, and the only types of those in the game are Tormented Spirits, which are not at all scary. I keep Bane as my other skill to kill these, kill pots faster than waiting for pod explosions, and to apply curses to bosses.

Next up we have an Uber Elder. This video is my 2nd Uber Elder of the league. Both had several silly deaths as I learn the fight better. The incredible DPS helps over last season where I 6 deathed and bricked several sets before finally getting a kill on my last portal with Mirage Archer as I lay dead with no way to loot, as it was the last portal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqACpbYOTKc

What I was trying to do this attempt was to just run in a circle clockwise to avoid some issues I had on the last attempt where I would turn around and into Shaper Balls. You can see me do just this on my first death... Previous attempt had several of these. The other two deaths were just not thinking properly about the Elder moves. I clearly mis-time the nova hit on the 2nd death, and the third I was just not familiar enough with the slam animation to know I needed to flame dash away. I need to be better with applying curses more consistently and also avoiding the avoidable deaths. I should be able to squeeze one or two more of these fights into the league if I choose to.

I made a conscious effort to focus less on DPS this attempt and let my Mirage Archer do much of the damage. I succeeded here for the most part, you see me standing still and constant firing very little. I'm not dodging most of the time so much as just move-fire-move-fire on autopilot, which is part of what got me dead to the nova.

Pastebin for the Uber Elder attempt: (mapping I didn't have the Watcher's Eye yet and I think it was Empower 3, not 4 too)
https://pastebin.com/gq44jWZC

Theoretical DPS is approximately:
Pod DOT DPS * attack speed * duration * pod overlaps * wither debuff factor * (1+mirage archer factor)
This works out to 58k * 4.04 * 1.57 * ~3.8-3.9 * 1.06 for 1 stack * (1+0.4*0.93) = about 2 million shaper DPS. You never actually reach this however, as it requires standing still and firing at a target for 1.57 seconds SOLID after casting bane on the target to apply Despair. This makes the 500k+ that JUST mirage archer is doing for 4 seconds after you fire a very significant chunk of actual damage you are doing. I wouldn't be surprised if it's responsible for over half the damage done to Shaper and Elder in that fight.

The only really significant upgrade remaining requires a pretty significant re-work of chest + helm + belt to get an overall defensive boost, but it would require maybe 2-3 dozen exalts to get a really significant enough ES upgrade to make up for the loss of the armor and Incandescent Heart's elemental damage reduction for a CI build. I'd need to get to approximately 12k ES to have enough that it would be a benefit for both physical and elemental damage. I can multi-mod the belt for a little extra damage and / or flask bonuses or ES recharge bonus, but overall that would be pretty small. Have plenty of currency (12-15 exalts worth), just nothing really to spend it on other than really small upgrades, so the character is essentially done in this regard. Will be Leo slamming the ring that has an open prefix soon. I might change it's +1 minimum charge from frenzy to endurance, but don't know if that really will matter.

[MonTy]

I've progressed into the endgame...

Wow, rare mobs were instantly dying in the map and the shaper DPS seems really good. I've yet to do shaper and I'm unsure of all the mechanics, but it seems so intense and chaotic. I think your mirage archer comment is really true in this fight- good call on that.

Well done though, it seems like you've really completed the character! Are you planning anything for next league? I'd really love to give melee a go again, especially with the reworks, but I probably have to take the league off.

[Concillian]

Wow, rare mobs were instantly dying in the map and the shaper DPS seems really good. I've yet to do shaper and I'm unsure of all the mechanics, but it seems so intense and chaotic. I think your mirage archer comment is really true in this fight- good call on that.

Yeah, DPS is what I'd call plenty. To some, you can never have enough DPS, but this build feels like it's "enough" DPS. Keep in mind that the T15 map is +25% health and +25% chaos resist, so those are "beefy" rares dying instantly.

Shaper alone is considerably easier. I did die once to a mis-timed flame dash on a shaper slam, but overall it's MUCH less hectic than the uber elder / shaper fight together. I tried 6 sets last league with my melee Wild / Mortal strike build and failed 6 times. It's much tougher for melee unless you have multiple upon multiple layers of defense. It's about learning the fight mechanics. I wish it were easier to do kinda back to back fights of uber, but it takes about 10 maps minimum in-between attempts and you need to have quite a collection of T16s as you need to do each guardian map twice.

Guardians aren't too bad. Hydra is really easy. You can tank 1-2 of the water balls in a row, so there's a lot of leeway. Phoenix is similar, just avoid the large AoE slam and focus the adds and mirage archer will chip away at him. Minotaur and Chimera both require more knowledge of their moveset, but once you know what to do, it's not too difficult. Chimera seemed the larger defensive gear check, but I also did maps for Chimera were 2 DPS mods (crit + extra damage as element) so I was kinda asking for a rough fight. You need to save quicksilver flask for his smoke phase to get him out ASAP, as you can't regen ES fast enough, but if you're running you avoid more of the attacks.

Are you planning anything for next league? I'd really love to give melee a go again, especially with the reworks, but I probably have to take the league off.

I'd love to do something next league, but I need to take the league off. My wrist, elbow and shoulder all have various degrees of repetitive stress injury symptoms. It goes back and forth as I compensate for the pain in one joint another flares. I need to not be playing a fast action game to let my arm heal and I may re-visit in the future, or I may need to not come back to PoE if I can't figure a way to play while keeping my arm healthy at the same time. But I can't try with it in the state it's in. I need to give it time off to heal.

[Chadvoluted]

Thought of you again this morning as I logged over to start the process of cleaning up my stash to make the migration easier. Guy was in trade looking mirror service for his bow, and I was blown away.

Thankfully, he has it "for sale" in a tab, so I was able to poe.trade it.

6L - Bring the chromes, and he'll chrome it the way you want it.

Implicit:
+1 Socketed
+1 Bow
--------------------
+1 Socketed
+2 Bow Gems
Socketed Skills deal 20% more damage
Multi Mod
13% ATK Speed
22% ATK Speed when a rare / unique monster is nearby.

He too, was running a TR build.