[3.7] Toxic Rain DoT Mines | Budget/SSF Bosser

Toxic Rain has a unique area DoT in the sense that each individual pod can stack with separate attacks, and can even overlap with pods from the same attack with AoE scaling. Note that by default there is no overlapping with Toxic Rain; the arrows are displaced perfectly away from each other, but the arrow placement does not change when we increase AoE, so the DoT starts to overlap.

We only need a moderate amount of AoE scaling to get acceptable overlapping such that the target in the center of your pods is getting degenerated from all adjacent pods; note that bosses usually have a larger hitbox so they generally come in contact with most pod AoEs even with minimal scaling.

This mechanic has been touched on before with Quill Rain to achieve very high APS on a self-attack bow build to stack the pods, before the unique was nerfed from 'Less Weapon Damage' to 'Less Damage'. Mines are even better than pre-nerf quill rain builds since weapon APS is completely ignored and the base mine laying speed gives us some great opportunities to reach high attack rates (and makes crafting a bow very easy).

In addition to this, mine damage and mine support gems actually double dip and scale both hit and DoT DPS from Toxic Rain. While there's probably some build opportunities here to abuse, we still only focus on the DoT. Remote Mine Support itself also contains a 49% more multiplier, so we're not even losing out on any comparable support gems by using mines in the first place.

Mines also get a 'place an additional mine' mod on shaper helms, and the Saboteur ascendancy gives some excellent regeneration, 100% blind, and ailment immunity.

Additionally, since we are chaos, we can stack up on non-ailment chaos multiplier stats and use a wither totem setup to effectively double our DPS against a single target. We can also go even further with skill effect duration, which makes our pods last longer and allows us to stack them up for longer.

The final piece of the build is gem scaling, since Toxic Rain's DoT component has some insane exponential gem scaling. An empower setup with a +3 bow is all you need to clear all content due to this.

The first thing you will need is a 6L bow. This is only required once you hit maps, but it is still very easy to obtain (ie. Imperial Legacy divination card, trading). The base does not matter since we don't attack, nor do we use the weapon damage: it only needs to be linked and above or equal to ilvl 64 (non shaper/elder).

Once you have the base, we can use a few fossil crafting combinations to lock gem level prefix mods. I use the same combination as the old guide (which is generally the cheapest): metallic, corroded, and jagged fossils. It takes about 5 attempts on average to hit the +1 all/+2 bow mods, and will always leave at least one open prefix.

The last thing you need to do is craft '+#% to Non-Ailment Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier", although rank 3 can be difficult to unlock early on. Either use a trustworthy crafting service or just craft lower levels until you unveil the craft.

This bow is all you need to deal ludicrous damage, and will cost on average about 40c to make. It is not required until maps, and can be made in SSF with minimal farming.

The next thing you want to look for is a 'place an additional mine' shaper helmet. This is a considerable damage boost and lets us drop minefield in favour of empower. Just focus on getting life and the shaper mod since we will have room for resists on other gear. SSF players can just alt-spam an evasion base.

At this point, with a level 3 empower, you should be able to down Shaper/Elder easily and clear red-tier maps granted you are fully ascended. Your life pool, however, will be somewhat lacking and will require you to play passively to avoid being killed (especially with some dangerous Legion mechanics).

The last big core item is a Kaom's Heart, which instead leaves us with a hefty life pool and allows us to clear the rest of the game's content (Uber Elder, Uber Atziri, 5-Way Legion).

Note that this build requires some intricate mana cost balancing, so we will need eleron's mana cost craft on both of our rings (t2) to help (or Xopec's mod), along with some 'reduced mana cost of skills' on jewels/passive nodes.

You want to start with explosive trap for early leveling, while beelining on the passive tree to Volatile Mines. You can take a shortcut to this node and respec later since this node is essentially required to use any sort of mines.

Once you have Volatile Mines, you can swap straight to Toxic Rain with Remote Mine Support. You then want to grab Clever Consutrction, then the Hunter's Gambit wheel and Method to the Madness wheel for some early damage. After this, you can work around filling out the passive tree in almost any order -- although you should grab at least one wheel of skill effect duration fairly early.

Your leveling gear isn't important. A 4-link bow (stats irrelevant) is enough to start, with Toxic Rain, Remote Mine Support, Minefield Support, and Trap and Mine Damage Support or Vicious Projectiles Support.

Primary attack:

Without a +1 mine helm: Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Minefield - Vicious Projectiles - Trap and Mine Damage - Void Manipulation

With a +1 mine helm Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Empower - Vicious Projectiles - Trap and Mine Damage - Void Manipulation

With a +1 mine helm and +3 VP bow Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Empower - Vicious Projectiles - Trap and Mine Damage - Swift Affliction

Other links:

Primary aura links: Malevolence - Despair - Blasphemy - Enlighten (only level 2/3 needed)

Defensive links: Cast when Damage Taken - Steelskin

Wither stacking totems: Wither - Spell totem - Multi totem

Flame Dash, Phase Run, Clarity (level sparingly, ie. level 4-7)

There are multiple options for continuing to scale this build. Mine laying speed is a particularly important stat that can be crafted onto bows, helmets, and amulets, and can be rolled on jewels. Be sure to get a substantial amount of this stat since it massively contributes to how smooth this build is to play.

A +3 Vicious Projectiles elder bow is another substantial upgrade, or you can use a fossil crafted +5 bow (adding faceted fossil to the aforementioned combination to add delve-specific gem suffix modifiers). The VP bow, however, outperforms a +5 bow.

You can also get a Watcher's Eye with non-ailment chaos multi while using malevolence, and -10 to mana cost of skills while using clarity. This provides a hefty damage boost and simplifies our mana problems.

Your quiver should have 'fire an additional arrow', which gives us an extra pod, along with a Dying Sun flask. You can also try to get the +1 arrow enchant for toxic rain on your helmet, but do not sacrifice 'place an additional mine' for this mod.

You can also get elder gloves with non-ailment chaos multi, and you can use the new Lethal Pride jewels to try to stack up a bunch of strength to help with the stat requirements on Kaom's Heart (while providing a hefty life bonus).

One option for additional defences is to get a chaos Impresence amulet to avoid the mana reservation from despair, which allows you to run Grace instead. However, I don't think this is necessary on softcore considering you have to sacrifice your amulet slot for this, and the build has enough defences without Grace.

Flasks:



Weapon swap for HotGM:

Double HP Uber Elder carry: https://streamable.com/19t9h