The Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder build is a versatile and powerful build that combines the damage over time effect of Toxic Rain with the additional damage output of Ballista Totems. This build excels at dealing both single-target and area-of-effect damage while providing good survivability and utility.
The build is fast, fun, and effective at clearing maps and bosses. It has a long-range playstyle that provides innate safety. It also has good survivability thanks to dodge, evasion, and life leech. The build is relatively easy to start with and can scale well with investment.
In this article, I will provide a detailed guide on how to play Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder in PoE 3.22, including the skill tree, gems, gear, flasks, jewels, and pantheon choices. I will also explain the main mechanics and playstyle of the build, as well as some tips and tricks to optimize your performance.
Skill Tree
The skill tree for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder is focused on maximizing chaos damage over time, attack speed, projectile damage, and life. The build also takes some nodes for elemental damage, penetration, and flask effect. The build uses a Thicket Bow as the weapon of choice, as it has high attack speed and projectile speed.
The build starts as a Ranger and progresses through the following keystones and notables:
• Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics: These nodes grant dodge chance for attacks and spells, which is a great defensive layer for evasion-based builds.
• Arrow Dancing: This node increases your chance to evade projectile attacks while decreasing your chance to evade melee attacks. This is useful for ranged builds that can kite melee enemies easily.
• Bow Mastery: This node grants increased damage with bows and converts all increases to projectile damage into increases to damage. This is a huge damage boost for the build, as it scales both Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
• Nature's Reprisal: This is the first ascendancy node for Pathfinder, which grants increased chaos damage over time and area of effect. It also causes your chaos skills to spread their damage over time effects to nearby enemies when they expire or are destroyed. This means you can create a chain reaction of spore pods that deal massive damage.
• Master Alchemist: This is the second ascendancy node for Pathfinder, which grants increased elemental damage and penetration. It also grants immunity to elemental ailments during flask effect and removes elemental ailments when you use a flask. This means you can ignore freeze, shock, ignite, and scorch effects that can hinder your movement or damage output.
• Veteran Bowyer: This is the third ascendancy node for Pathfinder, which grants increased flask charges gained and effect. It also causes your flasks to apply to your nearby allies and grants 10% of physical damage as extra damage of a random element. This means you can share your powerful flasks with your party members and deal more damage with elemental conversion.
• Nature's Boon: This is the fourth ascendancy node for Pathfinder, which grants reduced flask charges used and increased flask duration. It also grants 8% reduced elemental damage taken while using a flask and 20% chance for flasks to not consume charges. This means you can use your flasks more often and for longer periods of time.
Gems
The main skill gems for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder are:
• Toxic Rain: This is your main skill for clearing maps and bossing. It fires arrows that create spore pods that deal chaos damage over time and slow enemies. It has high base damage and area of effect, and can stack multiple times on the same enemy.
• Ballista Totem Support: This is your main support gem for Toxic Rain. It allows you to summon totems that use your bow skills. You can have up to three totems at a time, which means you can triple your Toxic Rain output.
• Blink Arrow: This is your main movement skill. It fires an arrow that teleports you to its location and leaves behind a clone that can distract enemies.
• Withering Step: This is your secondary movement skill. It makes you elusive for a short duration, which grants increased movement speed and chance to avoid attacks. It also applies to nearby enemies when you use it or lose elusive, which reduces their chaos resistance.
• Malevolence: This is an aura that grants increased skill effect duration and chaos damage over time multiplier. It helps you deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
• Despair: This is a curse that reduces the chaos resistance, and damage over time taken by enemies. It also grants increased chaos damage taken by cursed enemies. It helps you deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
The support gems for Toxic Rain are:
• Mirage Archer Support: This support gem grants a Mirage Archer that uses your skill after you use it. It also grants increased attack speed and projectile speed. It helps you clear faster and deal more damage.
• Void Manipulation Support: This support gem grants increased chaos damage, which scales well with Toxic Rain's base damage.
• Efficacy Support: This support gem grants increased damage over time, skill effect duration, and cast speed. It helps you deal more damage and create more spore pods with Toxic Rain.
• Vicious Projectiles Support: This support gem grants increased projectile damage and physical damage over time, but reduces projectile speed. It also grants more projectile damage and physical damage over time multiplier. It helps you deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
• Damage on Full Life Support: This support gem grants increased damage while on full life. It also grants more damage while on full life. It helps you deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem, as you can easily stay on full life with life leech.
The support gems for Ballista Totem are:
• Vicious Projectiles Support: This support gem grants increased projectile damage and physical damage over time, but reduces projectile speed. It also grants more projectile damage and physical damage over time multiplier. It helps you deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
• Focused Ballista Support: This support gem grants increased ballista totem placement speed and attack speed. It also grants more ballista totem damage against marked enemies. It helps you summon your totems faster and deal more damage to bosses and tough enemies.
• Withering Touch Support: This support gem grants increased chaos damage and applies wither to enemies on hit. Wither reduces the chaos resistance of enemies by 6% per stack, up to 15 stacks. It helps you deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
• Multiple Totems Support: This support gem allows you to summon two additional totems, up to a maximum of three. It also grants increased totem life and resistance. It helps you triple your Toxic Rain output.
The other skill gems for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder are:
• Exsanguinate + Reap + Chain Support + Life Gain on Hit Support + Cast when Damage Taken Support: This is a utility setup that deals physical damage and creates blood tendrils that chain to nearby enemies. It also grants life gain on hit and triggers when you take a certain amount of damage. You can use this setup to leech life, apply bleed, and deal some extra damage.
• Haste + Grace + Determination + Defiance Banner + Enlighten Support: This is an aura setup that grants increased attack speed, movement speed, evasion rating, armour, and fortify effect. You can use this setup to boost your offense and defense.
• Cast when Damage Taken Support + Immortal Call + Increased Duration Support + Summon Stone Golem: This is a defensive setup that triggers Immortal Call when you take a certain amount of damage. Immortal Call grants you immunity to physical damage for a short duration, which can save you from lethal hits. Increased Duration Support extends the duration of Immortal Call and Summon Stone Golem, which grants you life regeneration and taunts enemies.
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Gear
The gear for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder is focused on increasing your chaos damage over time, attack speed, projectile speed, and life. You also want some elemental resistance, evasion rating, and dodge chance. The build uses a Thicket Bow as the weapon of choice, as it has high attack speed and projectile speed.
The recommended gear for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder are:
• Weapon: A rare Thicket Bow with high physical damage, attack speed, projectile speed, chaos damage over time multiplier, and +1 to level of all bow skill gems. You can craft it with the Essence of Dread or the Essence of Delirium for guaranteed chaos damage over time multiplier.
• Quiver: A rare Spiked Arrow Quiver with high life, critical strike chance, critical strike multiplier, chaos damage over time multiplier, and elemental resistance. You can craft it with the Prismatic Fossil for guaranteed elemental resistance.
• Helmet: A rare Lion Pelt with high life, evasion rating, elemental resistance, and nearby enemies have -9% to chaos resistance. You can craft it with the Aberrant Fossil for guaranteed chaos resistance reduction.
• Body Armour: A rare Assassin's Garb with high life, evasion rating, elemental resistance, attacks have +1 to maximum number of projectiles, and socketed gems are supported by level 1 Maim. You can craft it with the Shuddering Fossil and the Corroded Fossil for guaranteed projectile modifier.
• Gloves: A rare Gripped Gloves with high life, evasion rating, attack speed, chaos damage over time multiplier, and elemental resistance. You can craft them with the Prismatic Fossil for guaranteed elemental resistance.
• Boots: A rare Two-Toned Boots with high life, evasion rating, movement speed, elemental resistance, and dodge chance. You can craft them with the Prismatic Fossil for guaranteed elemental resistance.
• Belt: A rare Stygian Vise with high life, chaos damage over time multiplier, elemental resistance, flask duration, and flask effect. You can craft it with the Prismatic Fossil for guaranteed elemental resistance.
• Amulet: A rare Jade Amulet with high life, critical strike chance, critical strike multiplier, chaos damage over time multiplier, and elemental resistance. You can craft it with the Prismatic Fossil for guaranteed elemental resistance.
• Rings: Two rare Steel Rings with high life, accuracy rating, critical strike chance, critical strike multiplier, chaos damage over time multiplier, and elemental resistance. You can craft them with the Prismatic Fossil for guaranteed elemental resistance.
Flasks
The flasks for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder are:
• Diamond Flask: This flask grants increased critical strike chance during flask effect. It helps you deal more damage with critical strikes. You can roll it with the Chemist's prefix for reduced charges used and the Experimenter's suffix for increased duration.
• Quicksilver Flask: This flask grants increased movement speed during flask effect. It helps you move faster and dodge enemies.
• Silver Flask: This flask grants increased attack speed during flask effect. It helps you fire more projectiles and deal more damage.
• Witchfire Brew: This is a unique flask that grants increased evasion rating and damage over time during flask effect. It also creates a smoke cloud that blinds enemies and curses them with Despair on hit. It helps you evade and blind more attacks and deal more damage with Toxic Rain and Ballista Totem.
• Dying Sun: This is a unique flask that grants additional projectiles and area of effect during flask effect. It also reduces fire damage taken. It helps you clear faster and survive better.
You can roll your flasks with the Alchemist's prefix for increased effect and the of Heat, of Warding, of Staunching, or of Grounding suffixes for immunity to freeze, curses, bleeding, or shock respectively. You can also use the Beastcrafting recipe to add the Adrenaline suffix to your Quicksilver Flask for more movement speed.
Jewels
The jewels for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder are:
• Watcher's Eye: This is a unique jewel that grants powerful bonuses based on the auras you are using. For this build, you want to look for the following mods: increased damage over time while affected by Malevolence, increased attack speed while affected by Haste, or increased movement speed while affected by Grace.
• Thread of Hope: This is a unique jewel that grants a large passive skill tree ring with reduced attribute requirements and reduced effect. You can use it to allocate some useful nodes that are otherwise out of reach, such as Growth and Decay, Method to the Madness, or Entropy.
• Rare Jewels: You can use rare jewels with high life, critical strike chance, critical strike multiplier, projectile damage, and chaos damage over time multiplier. You can craft them with the Aberrant Fossil for guaranteed chaos damage.
Pantheon
The pantheon choices for Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder are:
• Major God: Soul of Lunaris. This god grants increased movement speed, physical damage reduction, and dodge chance based on the number of nearby enemies. It also grants immunity to chained projectiles and additional projectiles from nearby enemies. It helps you avoid and mitigate damage from multiple enemies.
• Minor God: Soul of Garukhan. This god grants increased evasion rating, movement speed, and chance to avoid projectiles if you have not been hit recently. It helps you evade and dodge more attacks and move faster.
Playstyle
The playstyle of Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder is simple and straightforward. You use Toxic Rain to clear maps and bossing. You use Ballista Totem Support to summon totems that use Toxic Rain as well. You use Blink Arrow and Withering Step to move around and dodge enemies. You use Malevolence and Despair as your aura and curse to boost your damage output. You use Exsanguinate + Reap + Chain Support + Life Gain on Hit Support + Cast when Damage Taken Support to leech life, apply bleed, and deal some extra damage. You use Haste + Grace + Determination + Defiance Banner + Enlighten Support as your aura setup to boost your offense and defense. You use Cast when Damage Taken Support + Immortal Call + Increased Duration Support + Summon Stone Golem to trigger Immortal Call when you take damage and summon a Stone Golem for life regeneration and taunting.
You want to keep your distance from enemies and take advantage of Bow Mastery and Veteran Bowyer for more damage. You want to aim your Toxic Rain at the center of packs or behind enemies for maximum area of effect and spore pod creation. You want to place your Ballista Totems near bosses or tough enemies and let them do their work while you kite them. You want to use your flasks wisely and keep them up as much as possible for more damage and survivability.
Tips and Tricks
Here are some tips and tricks to optimize your performance with Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder:
• You can use an Orb of Storms + Power Charge On Critical Support + Increased Critical Strikes Support setup to generate Power Charges, which increase your critical strike chance and damage.
• You can use a Portal Gem in your weapon swap to create portals without using Portal Scrolls.
• You can use a Quill Rain in your weapon swap to trigger Elemental Equilibrium with a low level Toxic Rain + Greater Multiple Projectiles Support + Chain Support setup. This will lower the enemies' elemental resistance by 25%, which will boost your main Toxic Rain's damage.
• You can use an Anomalous Quality Toxic Rain for more area of effect or a Divergent Quality Toxic Rain for more projectile speed.
• You can use an Anomalous Quality Ballista Totem Support for more totem life or a Divergent Quality Ballista Totem Support for more totem placement speed.
• You can use an Anomalous Quality Blink Arrow for more clone duration or a Divergent Quality Blink Arrow for more clone life.
• You can use an Anomalous Quality Withering Step for more cooldown recovery speed or a Divergent Quality Withering Step for more wither effect.
• You can use an Anomalous Quality Malevolence for more skill effect duration or a Divergent Quality Malevolence for more damage over time multiplier.
• You can use an Anomalous Quality Despair for more curse effect or a Divergent Quality Despair for more chaos damage taken by cursed enemies.
I hope this guide has helped you understand how to play Toxic Rain Ballista Pathfinder in PoE 3.22. If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know. Have fun and good luck!
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