[3.4] The Plague Archer - Assassin Crit/Poison based Toxic Rain!

Looking forward to this build, after I heard about the new content I was hoping someone would make a build like this! Keep up the good work! Looking forward to seeing the progression and trying it myself!

Hey do you think that a pathfinder version would work too ? I was wondering since we can get 100% more dmg poison it could be better, what do you think ?

For everyone casually jumping on, I'd highly recommend reading the critiques regarding this build on https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/9bnv3i/34_the_plague_archer_assassin_critpoison_based/. All of them I generally agree with, and I can't understand the low accuracy nor lack of Quill Rain. Personally, there are many other good Poison bow Assassin guides out there that will do well in 3.4. Changing one skill to Toxic Rain for the hype without really understanding poison stacking mechanics does not bode well for the future of this build.

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Grattton wrote:

Hey do you think that a pathfinder version would work too ? I was wondering since we can get 100% more dmg poison it could be better, what do you think ?

Yea It might be better.

"

j_alter wrote:

For everyone casually jumping on, I'd highly recommend reading the critiques regarding this build on https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/9bnv3i/34_the_plague_archer_assassin_critpoison_based/. All of them I generally agree with, and I can't understand the low accuracy nor lack of Quill Rain. Personally, there are many other good Poison bow Assassin guides out there that will do well in 3.4. Changing one skill to Toxic Rain for the hype without really understanding poison stacking mechanics does not bode well for the future of this build.

You like many others are just scared to try new things. Just go back to arc traps and leave the innovators alone to have fun and experiment. Poison is just added synergized multiplier of the build. The build is based around Toxic rain skill not poison.

If you have problems with the build throw suggestions out that will help and grow the build. There is someone giving advice on the reddit link you provided here is what he has to offer.

"In its current state, I would deemed Lioneye's Glare mandatory for your build for the accuracy problem and the sweet "Far shot", consider faster projectiles gem, maybe less duration to get the benefice of the pods explosion and increases atk speed. This way, you're gonna hit far more often, stacking a lot more poison and increasing DPS and HoA effectiveness.
To apply curses (despair), why not take a frenzy / curse on hit / despair / GMP ? or if you don't wanna go charges : split arrows / curse on hit / despair / mirage archer ?

For the tree, I would sacrifice a little bit of attack damage to take the sweet Art of the Gladiator and its 12% atk speed. I would remove the 6 point giving you life in the upper part of the shadow tree (with written in blood) to take Golem's blood on the gladiator part of the tree. Same amount of life for 1 less point. I think you also have too much leech on your tree and too little health (you can get 174% inc. hp if you take the hp nodes on the gladiator part of the tree. I would remove the upper part of the bow wheel (leading to heavy draw) and the nodes after aspect of the eagle, to get fury bolt, sniper and Bravery.
Less hard-hitting damage but arrows would hit quicker because when you need to leech life, you don't wanna wait those extra millisec for arrows to fall down. This should give you more accuracy too and allow for more choice in your bow selection in the late stages of the game. (the tree I would use)

I would go Grace (use this huge amount of Dex you have) + Arctic Armour or maybe HoA if I am able to manage those virulence stack. (if you do, you can use the crawler to apply curses on hit by the way)

A spell totem to apply wither with faster casting and increase duration should help a lot for both defense (hinder) and attack (withering stacks)
For chest, Cherrubim's Maleficence for added damage and some sweet life/evasion/leech seems to fit your build nicely. I wouldn't choose anything else. "

Hey weallgotissues!

First of all thank you for being pretty much the only one who made an attempt of creating a Toxic Rain build. I really want to give it a try myself, dont really care if its not going to be that strong or requires bunch of respec or testing different items.

100% for testing new stuff, rather than just follow routine.

Something that I would try to avoid however is to roll a new class.

So I wanted to ask did you made a proper comparison between different Ascendancies?

Assassin obviously make sense here. However what about some other options?

Pathfinder looks very interesting with 3.4 changes + provides flask bonuses.

Another one to be considered could be Champion, much tankier (which might profit deep in Delve) and still has a damage bonus from taunted enemies.

Or maybe even Occultist for 3 curses also for deep Delve minions?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

"

DeaconRL wrote:

Hey weallgotissues!

First of all thank you for being pretty much the only one who made an attempt of creating a Toxic Rain build. I really want to give it a try myself, dont really care if its not going to be that strong or requires bunch of respec or testing different items.

100% for testing new stuff, rather than just follow routine.

Something that I would try to avoid however is to roll a new class.

So I wanted to ask did you made a proper comparison between different Ascendancies?

Assassin obviously make sense here. However what about some other options?

Pathfinder looks very interesting with 3.4 changes + provides flask bonuses.

Another one to be considered could be Champion, much tankier (which might profit deep in Delve) and still has a damage bonus from taunted enemies.

Or maybe even Occultist for 3 curses also for deep Delve minions?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Hiya! Yes the changes to pathfinder are pretty awesome. I have a friend who is playing that while I play assassin. The Poison proliferation it provides interest me.

There are so many options here and it might depend on what you want to focus on.

For example
You could give up leech and focus more on poison and depend on flask making pathfinder amazing.
You could make a CI variant with curses and go Occultist.
I'm not a huge fan of Champion but you're not wrong. That extra tankiness could pay off.

I suppose the reason I chose assassin over pathfinder is I wanted Herald of agony crawler and poison to be an added really well synergized damage bonus to a the toxic rain skill instead of 100% focus on poisons.

Sorry if this has been replied already. Why do you go with Deadly Draw instead of Heavy Draw?

Heavy Draw will give you 69% Phys Damage, 69% DOT and 25% chance of causing bleeding.

Deadly Draw gives you 42% Phys Damage, 42% DOT and 21% increased attack speed.

Do you consider the attack speed superior to all the other benefits?

"

Sorry if this has been replied already. Why do you go with Deadly Draw instead of Heavy Draw?

Heavy Draw will give you 69% Phys Damage, 69% DOT and 25% chance of causing bleeding.

Deadly Draw gives you 42% Phys Damage, 42% DOT and 21% increased attack speed.

Do you consider the attack speed superior to all the other benefits?

I think it will depend a lot on how the Toxic rain skill interacts with things. If there is enough speed then grab more damage but without enough IAS you will suffer in applying poisons, clear speed, possibly the leech aspect, may even be in more danger because it takes longer to attack.

You could always sacrifice some life (If you're playing softcore) or crit nodes for heavy draw.

Been playing Toxic rain more than CA so far.

Am going to keep testing with ranger/PF but might end up re-rolling to assassin for crit.

Really hope that less duration lowers the pod times. if not maybe a helm enchant.

Not sure what the real DPS of the skill is as i dont think POB is calculating it correctly?

Some questions, why not use Lioneye's Fall and only 1 jewel socket. May be so tree with vaal pact or with out vaal pact better, or I something don't know) I'm really interested this build, you can get a detailed answer?