Zare - A Path of Chaos

[MonTy]

Hi All!

With some extra time on my hands I've been thinking of what first brought me to the LL and kept me entertained through the years. I remember reading MongoJerry's accounts of various characters with restrictions on them, and being glued to updates. While I do not have the writing prowess of MongoJerry, I would like to start writing about some Path of Exile characters I have planned.

I've played a lot of Path of Exile through the years, from Beta to almost every league since. I've played mostly Hardcore and as soon as SSF leagues were introduced, I ventured forth. I'm now taking this a step further and starting characters on fresh accounts - meaning no extra progress or stash tabs. Before posting this I've had a few 90+ characters played this way, so I'm confident I can pick up the torch with new SSFHC accounts.

My first character posting on here will be a Ranger -> Pathfinder ascendancy. She'll be focusing on Toxic Rain with Herald of Agony backing up the damage. She'll be relying on Chaos DOT, Poison DOT, Evasion, and high HP. The obvious uniques to look out for are Quill Rain and Darkscorn- both are obtainable in SSF.

The challenges of this build will be getting into maps. Start will be slow. Lack of STR/INT, life, res, evasion, and clear speed. However, once I get to 70+, I do expect the build to take off. All of the Pathfinder offenses, defenses, DOT damage nodes, evasion, and life from the tree should kick in.

Full Skill Tree is linked here.

Toxic Rain Links
(2)Lesser Poison, (3)Mirage Archer, (4)Added Chaos, (5)Unbound Ailments

Herald of Agony Links
(2)Wither, (3)Vicious Projectiles, (4)Damage on Full Life, (5)Minion Damage

Utility 4L - 1
Dash, Blink Arrow, Second Wind, Decoy Totem

Utility 4L - 2
CWDT, Steelskin, Inc. Duration, Vaal Grace

Utility 4L - 3
Frenzy, Curse on Hit, Despair, Greater Volley

[MonTy]

Got up early this morning before work to play at least two acts. Really enjoying the slower gameplay of untwinked ssfhc runs. Directly prior to trying this character, I played in a Delirium softcore private league. While it was great playing with friends, the go-fast gameplay just seemed to blur everything together. I'm really enjoying basic item drops that I would never even pick-up if I was playing in a SC league with friends.

Speaking of items, I had some really great early drops for my Toxic Rain character. Hyrri's Bite really helps out with INT/STR and attack speed. The Delirium Reward that drops uniques provides access to these early uniques that usually don't drop as often. I also had a +1 gems rare Short Bow that also has +% attack speed, and since Toxic Rain focuses more on the gem damage and barely any on base bow damage, I think I'll be using this for a while.

The character is also super tanky for early on. 1100 HP and 85 all res for end of Act 2 is way above the curve. Damage is very good thanks to Herald of Agony. Decided to use Pierce on it for now, to help with clear speed. I'm able to full clear zones with Delirium up- so I'm just hoping to find some four links in Act 3 to boost the damage even more. For the next few levels I'll focus a bit less on life and pick up the poison/damage nodes near the ranger start.

Here's my Path of Building for start of A3: https://pastebin.com/YnvFd5rF - Skill tree here - and my account profile is here. Note that new accounts don't let you play in SSF league, so it's just based on honor system.

[Frag]

Good to see you still about, Monty, and thanks for doing this - looking forward to updates.

[MonTy]

Good to see you still about, Monty, and thanks for doing this - looking forward to updates. :)

Hey Frag!

So great to hear from you, I hope all is well. Perhaps we will all band up for another Diablo play through with D4 (or PoE2!) ? :)

My Toxic Rain Pathfinder is going really well! I'm about to do cruel lab at level 57 and it will be a huge damage boost. Pretty insane how strong that node is. 40% chance to deal 100% more damage with poisons during flask effects [yay Enduring flasks], my Agony Cawler's Virulence lasts 50% longer, and more chaos damage.

However, I am feeling a bit squishy at nearly 3K life for 57. The problem is my evasion is not quite high enough, so I need an extra cushion of HP until I get there with evasion gear. Thankfully the gear I have is quite good for a fresh account self-found. Lots of high HP gear with double or triple res, and enough stats on gear to satisfy my STR/Int requirements. Notable gear upgrades is finding another +1 bow with 1.75 attack speed and 90 life chest with triple 25+ res. Nothing amazing, but it's all stuff that allows my character to not go splat :)

The character is definitely a bit tricky to play in HC and without a Quill Rain it won't be a great clear speed build. Toxic Rain drops chaos damage over time spores on the ground, that once stacked up do tons of poison and chaos DOT. It also slows enemies, which is much needed since this skill has ramp up of damage. Bosses are dropping in 2-3 seconds which is great, but so are normal packs, which is not so great. You get in the habit of firing a few stacks and running past, but then have to double back for loot a lot of the times. However, I did want to play a slower play style build, so I'm getting my wish. It's actually not too bad with the Delirium league since you have to double back for loot most of the time anyway.

I'm hoping to grab enough life nodes to get me into maps and continue pushing through. I'm really enjoying the decisions you have to make with pushing more damage or life, and running that fine line in hardcore.

Here's my update Path of Building for lvl 57: https://pastebin.com/L0TiY5WA

[MonTy]

Our agent of Chaos, Zare, was able to down Kitava and has moved onto maps, chasing the exiles bound there. Pre-maps her damage and clear speed did start to suffer, and required more patience than typical POE characters. Bosses like Kitava felt the easiest, as they stayed in place while my toxic rain pods stacked up. It's the large packs of fast attacking mobs that pose the real threat to her, firing before her damage can start stacking up. I'm finding the Agony Crawler to be just as much if not more damage than what I'm providing, so I may 5-link that skill first.

Here is her Path of Building pre-maps: https://pastebin.com/VygqXGz8

The chest piece found is aptly named as Miracle Hide, as it dropped at a great time of needing more life. The Incursion mod of flat 118+ life and percentage life of 9% is exactly what she needed to help survive. That chest-piece will probably stick around forever and will be my first item I try to 6 socket and 5 link.

Her current Path of Building at level 76 after running some maps, is here: https://pastebin.com/aV07G7sT

In low tier maps, clear speed is very lackluster. I'm often required to kite while mobs are snared in my chaos damage over time pods. Single target and bossing remain a high point of this build, so I'm going to try in work in ways to clear faster. If I get a 5-link, I may throw in piece support to my agony crawler. The play style is very engaging though, requiring me to kite and manually dodge, thanks to the Dash + Second wind support, which is incredible for getting around faster, and avoiding everything. It's going to be hard to play another character without dash + second wind, as the instant movement has been life saving. Previously I've used flame dash + faster casting, or Shield Charge + Faster attacks, but both of those movement setups pale in comparison for getting you out of immediate danger.

My life pool is less than I'd hope for at this stage. I have just about 5k life at a 174% life tree. Getting a new quiver would be a big boost as there's no life on the unique Hyrri's Bite. I just can't roll a quiver for the life of me. Hoping to find a decent life essence and just throw it on there, and craft attack speed.

I typically don't run incursions, but I found myself needing to run everything I could to try and get upgrades. I upgraded an item reward room to tier 3, and got three incursion life items! I was able to equip the ring and belt immediately that had high life + % life, while playing item Tetris to keep my resistances maxed. I'm wanting to get up to 6.5k life ASAP, and I don't feel like I can respec out of damage nodes as I'm pressed for damage, so I'm bee-lining to the Scion life wheel. It is so very tempting to get the new Cluster Jewel setup, as I'm positioned right there, but I haven't rolled any life jewels yet, only some tempting chaos damage ones.

Lastly, I'm really hoping to find a bow upgrade for Zare. While her current one does have +1 gems and high attack speed, it's just not quite enough for maps. I'm looking out for that quill rain, darkscorn, or rare +2 skills high attack speed bow. Hoping to make it to that life wheel before my luck runs out- she has had one near death when her life dropped to 1.5k from a lag burst, and then my screen completely froze. All of the potions were slammed and quit out of the game immediately. There must have been in a bug in the map, it wouldn't let me re-enter. Zare didn't want to, anyway

[MonTy]

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

[MonTy]

I hope everyone is well during these times. Work was a bit crazy and I got into Divinity 2, which was a blast. Haven't played too much of POE recently, but before I stopped, I got up to level 87 with Zare. I plan to continue soon, although, I'm expecting her journey to end soon. I'm making my way through red maps and the damage is not quite there. The build really needs Darkscorn or a better crafted rare- if I don't kill stuff quick enough, it'll kill me. If I were to play this build again, I'd focus on the chaos DOT instead of poison, and use Caustic Arrow combined with Toxic Rain instead of Herald of Agony.

This is actually my first Pathfinder character, and I love the quality of life. Having immunity to all elements while using a flask has to be one of the strongest nodes in the game. I was able to complete Uber Lab at 87 and got up to nearly 7k life, but as I said before, not being able to kill stuff quick enough is a real liability into red maps. I'd love to hit level 90 with this character, so I plan to make the push for it within the next week.

Cheers and stay safe!