Scourge Arrow Occultist [3.15]

This build was designed with the general game in mind. It is a jack of all trades but master of none. It does map well, but with super juiced maps you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed and dead. It can absolutely boss but it does not have the DPS to ignore mechanics nor the ability to face tank them. I would call this build a mid-range build where we have decent DPS when we stack poisons/wither stacks/doom stacks and we do have the defensive layers to generally feel comfortable. To get the build going is not all that expensive but when it is time to scale to endgame we start looking at some rather high end gear and crafts. I have not even fully scaled the build though and Sirus/shaper/Elder all feel fine.

https://pastebin.com/QLNE7Yt9
Note: The damage on this build is deceptive due to the way that PoB looks at scourge arrow. We are higher than the listed ‘Full DPS’.

Channel Scourge Arrow, shotgun with the pods, drop Ballista Totems so they can do the same, self-cast Despair, curse on hit Temporal Chains to set up Chaos pop explosions from Profane Bloom. Overall stack and scale Poisons.

Evasion
Dodge/Spell Dodge
Physical Damage from hits Taken as Chaos Damage from Darkscorn and Hunter Influenced Body Armour
Elemental Damage taken as Chaos Damage from Divine Flesh (Glorious Vanity Xibaqua)
Temporal Chains on Hit From glove Corruption
Malediction
Infused Channeling: Chaos Damage reduction
Elusive
Cast When Damage Taken Immortal Call, Stone Golem, Phase Run
Capped Resistances including 81% Chaos
Life and Life Leech
Movement Speed

Darkscorn, Assassin Bow
Gloves Corrupted with ‘Curse Enemies with Temporal Chains on Hit’
Helm Enchant: Scourge Arrow creates an Additional Spore at Maximum Stages
Timeless Jewel: Glorious Vanity Xibaqua (more on this later)

Hunter Influenced Body Armour with ‘Physical Damage from hits taken as Chaos Damage’
Hunter and Warlord Influenced Broadhead Quiver with both ‘+#% to Chaos Damage over time multiplier with Attack skills’ and ‘Bow Attacks fir an additional arrow’
Gear with good life, resists, Chaos Damage over time multiplier, poison damage, poison duration, poisons deal damage faster, flat physical damage, flat chaos damage, increased chaos and physical damage.
Divergent Added Chaos Damage Support Gem with at least 15% quality
Coralito’s Signature and Atziri’s Promise
No flat Elemental Damage
Divine Life Flask of Staunching, Quartz Flask of Heat, Jade Flask of Warding or some combination.

This is a timeless jewel from legion. It drops from the Vaal general. We need it so say, ‘Bathed in the blood of X sacrificed in the name of Xibaqua’. The important part of this jewel is ‘Xibaqua’. Xibaqua gives us the ‘Divince Flesh’ Keystone node which increases our maximum Chaos Resistance and converts 50% of Elemental Damage taken to Chaos Damage. We do not really care about the number in front of sacrificed as we are not looking for any of the minor or notable nodes from this jewel. If you happen to get some Chaos Damage on travel nodes then awesome, if not oh well.

Scourge Arrow- Channeled attack primary damage.
Chance to Poison Support- chance to poison and damage.
Deadly Ailments Support- damage.
Unboud Ailments Support- damage.
Divergent Added Chaos Damage Support- This one is important. Scourge arrow converts 60% Physical Damage to Chaos Damage, Darkscorn another 25%, this gem with at least 15 quality puts us at 100% conversion and therefore reflect immune so long as none of you gear gives you any elemental damage.
Infused Channeling Support- attack speed and damage but more importantly 8% less chaos damage taken.

Scourge arrow-is there an echo in here?
Chance to Poison Support- chance to poison and damage.
Deadly Ailments Support- damage.
Unbound Ailments Support- damage.
Added Chaos Damage Support- we don’t care about 100% conversion on this one.
Ballista Totem Support- these little guys make this build what it is. Drop three, they full channel, and put out 24 poisons real quick.

Withering Step-movement speed, elusive, withered stacks. I keep this on my left click except in fights where I need more flame dashes.
Flame Dash-great movement ability but shares a CD with withering step.
Second Wind Support-reduced CD and an extra charge of Flame Dash which really means you have Withering Step and 3 Flame Dashes.
Lifetap Support-we are tight on mana and the flask buff is great. Only want this leveled to 9.

Immortal Call- defensive I like this about level 15.
Summon Stone Golem- life regen level 15.
Enlighten Support- triggered spells cost mana now.
Cast When Damage Taken Support- works with all 3 of these if you keep them at 15 and this at at least 13 (stay with 13).

Herald of Agony- it is lonely out there take a scorpion with you.
Precision- increased accuracy and crit chance. While leveling you don’t always need to level this, make sure you have Mana.
Malevolence-more damage and duration for poisons.
Despair- Good old self cast curse. Does what it does. Use it on bosses.

Get to endgame however suits you. Essence Drain/Contagion would probably be best until you hit 62 when you can equip Darkscorn and switch to Scourge Arrow. If you would rather be a bow build the entire time, I suggest burning arrow until you can get toxic rain and level with those. Switch to Scourge Arrow when you feel comfortable, but it only becomes good with Darkscorn, Temporal Chains on hit, and Profane Bloom.

ALWAYS do your best to cap your Elemental Resistances. Once you equip Darkscorn you need to start also making sure you Chaos Resistance is not being neglected. When you equip Glorious Vanity you need to cap your Chaos Resistance which is helped by your Uber Lab granting Withering Presence.

Malediction>>Profane Bloom>>Void Beacon>>Withering Presence

Arakaali and Shakari are recommended and what I use but there is an argument for Brine King.

The quiver is an interesting craft. We need either a Broadhead Arrow Quiver ilvl 80 with Hunter influence and ‘+#% to Chaos Damage over time multiplier with Attack Skills’ OR a Broadhead Quiver ilvl 80 with Warlord Influence and ‘Bow Attacks fire an additional arrow’. Then we need and quiver of the other influence and with the other mod and an awakener orb. With this we can sacrifice the other quiver to add it’s influence and mod to the Broadhead Arrow Quiver. If these are the only influence mods on the quivers then we guarantee both on the final product. In my case I had a Rare Hunter’s Broadhead quiver with the chaos damage on it and made a Magic quiver (I don’t remember what type) with Warlord’s and the additional arrow being the only mod on it. I sacrificed the Magic Quiver onto my Rare Quiver and got my final product which I am now working to Multi-mod.

A 6 link Hunter’s Assassin’s Garb can be quite expensive. My workaround for this was to use a Hunter’s Exalted orb on an ilvl 83 6 link Assassin’s Garb with only a single prefix open. Needs to be at least ilvl 83 for the Physical damage from hits taken as Chaos Damage Teir 1.

The gloves important part is the corruption. If you can craft a good set of gloves with attack speed and damage etc. and corrupt them correctly then more power to you. I recommend starting with The Embalmer Carnal Mitts with the corruption on it. They are solid if not great and it is an easy workaround. Get the corruption the gloves matter less. Also, don’t put your auras on your gloves as they link Vile Toxins to the skills socketed. This will increase the reservation of Herald of Agony.

With the increased mana costs and mana cost of triggered spells I added some mana nodes losing a little bit of attack speed. With this the is a potential that attack speed as a stat on gear has gained value. Poison support has been changed and is no longer best in that gem slot so we are switching to what used to be lesser poison support and is now Chance to Poison support. In this PoB it is still named "lesser poison Support" just understand that it has a new name. Still not sure if crafting a bow will be better than Darkscorn for Min/Max at endgame but for now Darkscorn should still suffice. I will play with this later. I have NO Idea how the Flasks are gonna work out at this time just know that Atziri's Promise was nerfed and Coralito's Signature was changed (should be better) and we still want to try and get bleed immunity from flasks though curse and freeze may now need to be looked at.

PoB Updated 7/23/21