[3.18] 💀 Critical Agony Scourge Arrow Assasin💀 | Deceivingly Tanky | Huge Poison DPS

Offense (take note, POB dps is different at 3 different enemy life threshold, due to ascendancy:)
- Full life
- Not full life / low life
- Low life

POB posted is at Lowlife, which is when the DPS is the strongest




Defense (POB does not shows for the following:)
- Reduced damage taken if there 2 / more rare/unique enemies (from Ascendancy - Opportunistic)

POB link for my Scourge League char:

(LATEST 3.16) https://pastebin.com/PGaUPQCw
(LATEST 3.16 - Luxury version) https://pastebin.com/Jx9z78p3

Changes in Luxury version:

Pros
+ Excellent clearing speed
+ Very good single target capability, theoretically. Actual DPS highly dependent on player skills.
+ Decently tanky, even more so for a ranged character
+ Cheap to start
+ DOT build but has less 'ramping up' like most chaos DOT build does, mapping dps less reliant on wither building up stacks.
+ 'True' sniping skill that can employ off-screening tactics.
+ Resistant to a lot of negative map mods (leech, reflect, etc.)

Cons
- Some jewels are expensive for endgame (Unnatural Instinct, Transcendence Spirit) early on. Highly important for accuracy though.
- Dependent on mana flasks
- Highly skill dependent, DPS is as low/high as how good the player plays it.
- Scourge Arrow playstyle needs some time to get used to. Difficult to use indoors / tight passageway, works better in open maps.
- Channeling skills require player to stand still, which can kill you a lot of time. Players need to use their judgement when to shoot / continue channeling.
- Defensive layer needs decent gear to come online (high rolls of chaos res)
- Still susceptible to one shots (evasion build)
- Slow movement speed (still thinking of how to work around this)

1. Scourge Arrow + Mirage Archer (CLEARING & BOSSING)

Unlike most chaos DOT builds (barring Arrow Nova + Caustic Arrow), Scourge Arrow + Mirage Archer is a very good combo for map clears. The poison prolif. of Pathfinder's ascendancy is oddly enough not as critical for the clearing capability of the skill, which allows us to use Assassin.

Mirage Archer follows your character and periodically shoots Scourge Arrow upon reaching maximum charge & in the enemy's direction, which will be crucial during bossing. Distance is far less of a concern for the build (whereby most bow builds would take Point Blank for extra damage), so safe playstyle can be adopted by shooting at enemies offscreen, which Mirage Archer will help with tracking the target.

Achieved through: Scourge Arrow + Mirage Archer



2. Front-loaded DOT DPS (CLEARING)

Most Chaos DOT build needs to 'ramp up' their damage when meeting a monster packs, usually because of wither. Wither stacks up to 15 per monster, and there is currently no possible way to instantly max the wither stacks on an enemy in a short period of time, which seriously dampens chaos DOT builds, unlike elemental exposure. Toxic Rain on the other hand usually has increased skill effect duration to maximize its DPS, which unfortunately also increases the time before the pods explode and deal damage, which again slows the clearing capability.

This build uses Scourge Arrow channeling, which has the modifier of '150% more damage with hits & ailments per stage', which is delivered semi-automatically at maximum stage (5 stage) via Mirage Archer once fully channeled (player only need to hit once on enemies beforehand to generate MA clone. Aside from that, double cluster notable Eternal Suffering allows player to guarantee Wither stacks up to 5 with hits, and Poison mastery 'Poison you inflict on non-Poisoned enemies deal 300% increased Damage' ramps its up even further for the first arrow shot, which is the strongest arrow besides the thorn arrows.

Achieved through: Scourge Arrow mechanics + double Eternal Suffering cluster notable + Poison mastery



3. Crit Poison (BOSSING & CLEARING)

In a typical DOT builds, players ramps up those damages via flat damage, which is typically scaled via skill gem levels. Because Scourge Arrow does not scale as much via gem levels vs Toxic Rain / Caustic Arrow or ignite/cold DOT, the build scales the poison damage via crits which is very accessible via the shadow passive trees & Ascendancy. This heavy crit investments allows some mechanics to be consistently triggered as a result (e.g. Elusive on crit, flask charges on crit, Unholy might on crit, +DOT to ailments on crit, culling on crits, more poison damage on crits, etc.)


The build uses the extremely cheap Ungil's Harmony to achieve the high crit chance, with near 0 downside, including Assasins's Ascendancies Toxic Delivery for flat crit chance per poison & Ambush and Assasinates for more crit chance based on enemy's life, which essentially allows the build to hit 100% crit chance when enemy is on Full life and Low life.


Achieved through : Ungil's Harmony + Toxic Delivery & Ambush and Assasinate Ascendancy

1. Evasion + Elusive + Spell Suppression

This build is able to achieve a very high avoidance due to high dodge chance and evasion. This is achieved through a number of ways:

65-75+% Evasion chance:
1500 rating from Hyrri's Ire unique armour and mastery
1500 rating from Jade Flask
2700+ rating & more modifier from Grace
Blind on hit from Abyss Jewel

10% Spell suppression chance:
10% from Quartz flask
90%% from Skill Tree + Magebane

Elusive (15% damage avoidace) from Elusive boots

Achieved through: Grace + Jade Flask + Elusive boots + Abyss Jewel + Skill Tree



2. Massive instant Life Recovery on Kill

The build's capability of instant recovery on kill is stacked so much that it's typically healing upwards of 5% per monster kill, which at 4000 life is equal to 200 per monster, which upon the clear speed of the build becomes very consistent source of recovery. Do note that these life recovery sources are actually instant, which makes it similar like Vaal Pact leeching in that sense.

Achieved through: Passive notable Hired Killer + Blood Drinker + Noxious Strike Ascendancy



3. Damage Mitigation (inc. via Chaos Conversion)

Although all the aforementioned avoidance are nice, what is important to the build is to survive the occasional one shots. This build mitigates that with the following:

26% less + 45% less (for physical) from CWDT Immortal Call + Auto end. charge generation (cluster notable Enduring Composure)
20% reduced from Opportunistic (only during mapping where 2 or more rares/uniques)

Additionally, the build converts alot of the damage taken as chaos, which in turns is mitiageted by the capped, 80% chaos res obtained from Timeless Jewel keystone, Divine Flesh from Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel (Xibaqua).

20% less phys damage taken (from Darkscorn's 25% phys taken as chaos = 5% chaos damage taken (at 80% chaos res)),
22.5% elemental damage taken, vs standard 25% at normal res capped (from Divine Flesh's 50% elemental damage taken as chaos = 10% chaos damage taken, vs standard resistance capped of 50% becoming 12.5% damage taken)

CWDT+Immmortal call setup is your typical CWDT setup, however we utilize the cluster notable Enduring Composure to get a consistent endurance charge in hectic situation where we may get hit atleast once every 4 sec, which allows us to get maximum endurance charge permanently.

It is important to note that you should only use Darkscorn when you can get more than 0% chaos res and Divine Flesh when you can get more than 75% chaos res on the build, otherwise you would actually increase the damage taken from such sources.

Achieved through : CWDT + Immortal Call + Enduring Composure cluster jewel + Opportunistic ascendancy + Darkscorn + Divine Flesh notable from Glorious Vanity (Xibaqua)



4. Pathfinder-lite flasks uptime

With the recent changes to the passive tree, charges gain on flasks have become more accessible to builds outside of using Pathfinder in the right side of the tree. This allows the build to use mana flasks consistently in the endgame and utility flasks to recharge during boss encounters. Besides that, utility flasks prefix are also buffed for charge generation, which charge generation during bossing, either via Flagellant (gain charge when hit) or Surgeon (chance to gain charge on crit) mods.

Achieved through : Replenishing Remedies notable + Flask master (utility flask gain charge) + Flagellant/Surgoen flasks.

Ascendancy:


1. Noxious Strike (poison chance)
2. Toxic Delivery (going crit poison)
3. Ambush & Assasinate (DPS)
4. Opportunistic (DPS)

Bandits :
Eramir (2 passive points)

Pantheon :
Soul of Brine King (Freeze immunity, reduced chill and stun mitigation)
Soul of Ryslatha / Yugul (life flasks, or Yugul for reduced curse effectiveness during cursed maps)

3.16 gears:



Recommended (notable) gears progression:
p.s. early progression only applicable if levelling using Scourge Arrow, otherwise use a guide for Toxic Rain/Caustic Arrow/Poisonous Concoction




Bow:
High phys bows>Darkscorn



Quiver:
Drillneck > Rare quiver with +add arrow & DOT multi


Helmet:
(Evasion) Any rare helmet > Rare Helmet with SA extra pod enchant + open suffix to craft 'inc. duration of ailment when focus'


Body Armour:
5L rare > 5L Dendrobate > 6L Dendrobate


Gloves:
(Evasion) Rares > Embalmer gloves with Despair on hit corruption


Boots:
(Evasion) Rares > Elusive Boots


Belt:
Rare > Stygian Vise


Rings:
Shavronnes Revelation + Rare > Rare resists rings with attributes


Amulet:
Ungil's Harmony


Jewels:
- Transcendent Spirit <<<<IMPORTANT
- Unnatural Instinct
- Glorious Vanity (Xibaqua) <<<<IMPORTANT
- Large cluster with Overwhelming Malice
- 2x Medium cluster jewel with Eternal Suffering mod
- Small cluster jewel w. Enduring Composure
- Abyss jewel with life + T1 accuracy rating + blind on hit <<<<IMPORTANT

Transcendent Spirit + Abyss jewel with accuracy required for build's accuracy, path into accuracy nodes before you get them.



Flasks:
1.Bleed life flask
2.Enduring Mana flask <<<<IMPORTANT
3.Quartz Flask (attack speed)
4.Quicksilver Flask (reduced curse effect)
5.Jade Flask (evasion rating)

- Transition to awakened gem later during endgame.

Main Skill (Scourge Arrow):


Wither Totem


Dash


Utility 1: Frenzy & Power charge generation


Utility 2: CWDT Immortal Call + Utility spell


Utility 3: Vaal Blight + Vaal Haste


Aura

Recommend levelling early on as Caustic Arrow/Toxic Rain, or even Poisonous Concoction (not sure on this, never tried it). Minimum to transition to Scourge Arrow after getting Ungil's Harmony, added chaos damage support gem from act 3 library & Drillneck with high phys bows, but honestly you can choose whenever to transition to Scourge Arrow even after reaching maps. To each their own.

Q:No Plaguebearer?
A:Plaguebearer is counterproductive for this build because it wants to maximize the first hit poison damage as much as possible (Plaguebearer reduces poison damage while incubating) and has too little AOE while infecting considering the build wants to maintain distance as much as possible.

Q:No Aspect of the Spider?
A:Aspect of the Spider also need a few ticks to build up to maximum stacks, and is also AOE-reliant (although the radius is quite big anyway). We can replace Embalmer's glove with Fenumus Weave for Aspect of the Spider and switch off Herald of Agony at equal reservation, but honestly the DPS increase is not that much, and you lose the Chaos res from Embalmer. The hinder effect of spiderweb is quite good, but unfortunately same reasoning as initially above and alot of dangerous enemies cannot be slowed below standard movement speed. Cluster jewel can also provide that desired hinder effect via Touch of Cruelty.

All in all despair on hit Fenumus Weave can be abit expensive vs Embalmer, but not at much added benefits. Entirely up to the player though on which to use.