PoE 3.25 Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder Build

The Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder is one of the least popular builds in PoE 3.25. However, if you are looking for something that uses some pretty interesting mechanics, then you need to hear this: the build is actually fine.

While the Poisonberry Tincture has returned, it got rebalanced in a way that prevents it from being used on ranged weapons. That is unless you are using the new Warden ascendancy class.

With that said, should you play this build? Absolutely! We think that this brings something refreshing to the table. So, if you are tired of using melee skills, then read further. This is our updated build guide for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League!

Basics

This build utilizes the Transfigured Gem, Caustic Arrow of Poison. Unlike the base version which causes you to fire an arrow that spreads caustic ground, the new one relies on poison damage that affects targets directly. Because of this, Caustic Arrow of Poison has higher damage effectiveness compared to its original counterpart.

In Patch 3.25, GGG brought back Tinctures to the game. However, they made significant changes to them; one of which is that they can only be applied to melee weapons. Sure, you can buy Forbidden Jewels (Seasoned Hunter) to gain the ability to use Tinctures on ranged weapons, but that is not accessible to most people, especially given the popularity of the new Warden ascendancy class.

Fortunately, you can address your chance to poison enemies on hit by using Herald of Agony, the Snakebite unique gloves, and some jewels. The Snakebite's unique effect can only be utilized to great effect when paired with Ralakesh’s Impatience and stacking Frenzy Charges as high as you possibly can. More on the gear interactions in the appropriate sections of the build guide.

The Transfigured Gem also got a slight damage buff in the Settlers of Kalguur expansion. More specifically, its effectiveness of base and added damage has increased from 70% to 91%. This might look miniscule on the surface, but because of how poisons can stack easily when fired by totems, this seemingly small boost in damage really adds up.

In this version of the build, you will no longer use a tri-element bow. This is because Storm Rain of the Conduit has been removed from the build entirely. Instead, you'll be using the Darkscorn to deal stupendous amounts of poison damage to the enemy.

To ensure that the monsters you'll encounter are poisoned, you will link Caustic Arrow of Poison with Ballista Totem Support. This enables you to drop a few totems that will fire the arrows for you.

Now, why is this needed? Remember that you do not have the Poisonberry Tincture anymore. Totems are just reliable in the sense that they fire arrows much faster than you do, causing enemies to be poisoned in mere seconds as a result.

Another noteworthy change in our version of the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder in PoE 3.25 is that it no longer uses the Scourge Arrow of Menace. Instead, the skill is replaced with an Arcanist Brand that applies a couple of curses on the main target.

Now, if you want to improve the damage of the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder, you should look for these modifiers on your gear:

• Added Chaos Damage
• % Increased Chaos Damage
• % Chance to Poison
• % Increased/More Damage with Ailments
• % Increased Duration of Ailments
• % More Damage with Poison
• % Damage Over Time Multiplier
• % Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
• Poisons You Inflict Deal Damage % Faster

If you want to try this build out for yourself, we have updated the POB to account for the changes that were implemented in the current league.

Playstyle

The Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder's playstyle is still largely the same as before, except that you do not utilize the Scourge Arrow of Menace anymore. That is because you are going to use the Arcanist Brand to apply Temporal Chains and Despair, which will aid your totems in killing monsters more effectively.

Ascendancy

Builds in Path of Exile that capitalize on chaos damage almost always pick either the Occultist or Pathfinder. In this case, you are going to choose the latter. The reason why Pathfinder is great for Caustic Arrow of Poison is that this ascendancy class maximizes poisons to eliminate enemies effectively.

Start by taking Nature's Reprisal as your first notable ascendancy passive. This grants you the ability to inflict the "Withered" debuff on enemies, causing them to take more chaos damage.

After that, you will take Master Toxicist. This node is like Ignite Proliferation except for poison. Essentially, when you kill a poisoned monster, nearby enemies are poisoned as well. Besides that, poisons that you inflict during any flask effect have a 20% chance of dealing 100% more damage!

Then, you are going to select Nature's Adrenaline for the third notable ascendancy passive. This allows you to gain three flask charges every few seconds. Nature's Adrenaline is huge because you can get almost permanent uptime for all of your flasks.

The last two ascendancy points should be allocated to the "Flask Effect and Charges Gained" nodes that connect to Nature's Boon and Master Distiller. This is just to ensure that your flasks provide buffs at increased strength and that you gain a considerable amount of flask charges when attacking enemies.

This build is essentially a Frenzy Charge stacker. However, in case you do not know, the Raider has completely been removed in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur. Thankfully, you can still gain +1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges by purchasing the Forbidden Flesh and Forbidden Flame jewels with the new "Avidity" ascendancy node as the matching modifier. This is a new notable ascendancy passive skill exclusive to the Deadeye in Patch 3.25.

Gear

The equipment for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League remains largely the same as in the previous expansion. We still won’t recommend this as a league starter because of the gear you will be using, though. Anyway, please refer to our dedicated crafting guide to learn how to craft some of them yourself.

Weapon

As mentioned earlier in the build guide, you are now going to use the Darkscorn unique bow as opposed to a self-crafted tri-element bow. The Darkscorn has a few notable effects that work really well for the build.

First, it converts 25% of your physical damage to chaos damage, which is awesome for both the Caustic Arrow of Poison and the Scourge Arrow of Menace.

Second, 25% of the physical damage that you take is taken as chaos damage, thus bolstering your defensive capabilities.

Third, you have a 20% chance for your poisons to deal 300% more damage! This works nicely with the Pathfinder's Master Toxicist ascendancy node.

Quiver

For the quiver that you are going to use for the build, grab an ilvl 86+ Vile Arrow Quiver and use Harvest Reforge Attack until you get life, accuracy, added physical damage, damage over time multiplier with attack skills, and accuracy.

In the endgame, you could craft a quiver with a couple of damage over time mods for maximum damage. The process of creating one is a bit lengthy, but you can find the full instructions on how to craft the Chaos DoT Quiver in our crafting guide.

Body Armor

Because this build is now a Frenzy Charge stacker, the best armor you can use is The Restless Ward. This armor basically increases your evasion rating by a lot. But more importantly, it increases your movement speed for every Frenzy Charge that you have.

The Restless Ward is pretty inexpensive, so you may want to corrupt it with Vaal Orbs for a chance of obtaining either the "+1 to Level of Socketed Gems" or "+2 to Level of Socketed Projectile Gems" corrupted implicit mods.

A good alternative to The Restless Ward is The Covenant. This is a unique body armor in PoE that is best known for that level 29 Added Chaos Damage Support. The life cost when casting your skills shouldn't be a problem because the Pathfinder enhances the effect of Life Flasks for improved survivability.

Helmet

The Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder in Patch 3.25 is played as a totem build, where your ballistae totems will do all of the dirty work for you. Having said that, Wilma's Requital is a must because it grants the Ancestral Bond keystone passive.

For the uninitiated, the Ancestral Bond keystone allows you to summon one additional ballista totem at the cost of not being able to deal damage with skills yourself. This is okay considering that the totems attack much faster than you do.

Gloves

Snakebite is pretty much non-negotiable on this build. These gloves have a unique effect that significantly boosts your chance to apply poisons at maximum Frenzy Charges. In Path of Exile, totems do count as "hitting enemies" yourself, which means that they can inflict poisons on monsters for you.

Aside from that, Snakebite grants other bonuses per Frenzy Charge, including increased attack speed, accuracy, and damage over time multiplier for poison.

Boots

Ralakesh's Impatience is the quintessential boots to wear for any charge-stacking builds in PoE. Thanks to these boots, Snakebite's unique effect is always active. If you have enough PoE currency, purchase a pair from the trade website that has the "+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges" corrupted implicit mod.

Amulet

The Replica Badge of the Brotherhood has become the best amulet for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder. The reason why this is the case is that it makes your maximum Endurance Charges equal to your maximum Frenzy Charges, thus making you incredibly tanky.

This is even more so with the adjustment to Endurance Charges in Patch 3.25. In case you do not know, a single Endurance Charge now grants a 4% elemental damage reduction rather than a measly +4% to all elemental resistances. This is in addition to a 4% physical damage reduction per Endurance Charge!

If you are struggling to satisfy the attribute requirements of your gear, then The Eternal Struggle is not bad at all. Just make sure to obtain one that has "+% to Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier" as one of its implicit modifiers.

Do not forget to anoint the amulet with Whispers of Doom (3x Golden Oils) to give you the power to apply one additional curse.

Rings

For the rings, we highly recommend that you get two synthesized rings that have the "+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges" implicit modifier. Use the Essence of Delirium (Damage Over Time Multiplier) until you get life, INT, and elemental resistance.

Leave a prefix open so that you can put "Non-Channeling Skills Have -7 to Total Mana Cost" from the Crafting Bench. Don't forget to use Fertile Catalysts as well.

Belt

Olesya's Delight grants the ability to gain some Affliction Charges. These special charges amplify the damage of the poisons you inflict upon your enemies.

Do not worry about the belt's downsides because they are addressed by Ralakesh’s Impatience. This means that your Frenzy Charges are still there even though you will not see them on your buff bar at the top-left corner of the screen.

Flasks

• Quicksilver Flask
• Jade Flask
• Bismuth Flask
• Replica Sorrow of the Divine
• Divine Life Flask/Progenesis

Your main flasks for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder are the Jade Flask for a boost in evasion, the Bismuth Flask for additional elemental resistances, and the Quicksilver Flask for increased movement speed.

The Divine Life Flask is a pretty useful flask to improve your survivability. This is even more so if you wear The Covenant since this body armor makes your skills cost life per cast as well.

Replica Sorrow of the Divine grants Eldritch Battery, which is a keystone passive that protects your mana instead of life. This is helpful if you are struggling to sustain your mana and you do not want to use a Mana Flask just to top it up.

Later down the line, you could get a Progenesis unique flask for that pseudo-Petrified Blood effect. This unique flask costs a lot of PoE Currency, so be prepared to spend if you are going to buy this one.

Flask Mods

• 55% Chance to Avoid Being Shocked (of Bog Moss)
• 60% Increased Evasion Rating (of the Impala)
• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
• Corrupted Blood Immunity (Divine Life Flask)

Jewels

Purchase a Watcher's Eye with "% of Damage Taken from Mana Before Life While Affected by Clarity" and "% Increased Life Recovery from Flasks While Affected by Vitality." These mods are useful in dealing with The Covenant's life cost of skills.

If survivability is not an issue, you can grab a Watcher's Eye with "+% to Damage Over Time Multiplier While Affected by Malevolence" instead.

Passive skill points for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder are all very important, so much so that you might not have enough to get the most useful passives through normal means.

To ensure that you have enough points to allocate on the tree, you should get your hands on the Thread of Hope, specifically one that only affects passives in a Very Large Ring. Insert that into the jewel socket above "Fervour" so that you can acquire the following notable passives:

• Heart of Oak
• 8% Increased Maximum Life
• 20% Chance to Avoid Being Stunned
• Regenerate 2% of Life per Second if You've Used a Life Flask in the Past 10 Seconds
• Careful Conservationist
• 10% Reduced Flask Charges Used
• Flasks Applied to You Have a 5% Increased Effect
• 20% Increased Flask Charges Gained if You've Dealt a Critical Strike Recently
• Hunter’s Gambit
• +10% to Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
• 10% Increased Skill Effect Duration
• 25% Increased Damage Over Time with Bow Skills
• Revenge of the Hunted
• 18% Increased Evasion Ration
• 10% Increased Maximum Life
• +10% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage While on Full Life
• Replenishing Remedies
• 15% Increased Flask Charges Gained
• Life Flasks Gain 2 Charges Every 3 Seconds
• Mana Flasks Gain 2 Charges Every 3 Seconds

The Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder can gain good benefits from Large Cluster and Medium Cluster Jewels.

Start by getting two Large Cluster Jewels (Chaos Damage) — one with 12 passive skills and another with eight.

On the 12-passive Large Cluster Jewel, use Harvest Reforge Life until you get chaos resistance, fire resistance, and maximum life. Make sure that this cluster jewel has an item level of 84+ for that "35% Increased Effect" of small passive skills.

For the 8-passive Large Cluster Jewel, use Harvest Reforge Chaos until you get these notable passive skills:

• Wicked Pall
• 30% Increased Chaos Damage
• 5% Increased Skill Effect Duration
• Unwaveringly Evil
• 30% Increased Chaos Damage
• Chaos Skills Ignore Interruption from Stuns
• Unspeakable Gifts
• Enemies You Kill Have a 10% Chance to Explode, Dealing a Quarter of Their Maximum Life as Chaos Damage

How about the Medium Cluster Jewel? Get one with totem damage as the crafting base and use the Orb of Alteration spamming method to get Sleepless Sentries and Snaring Spirits.

The build now uses a Lethal Pride as well. And no, it is not for its double damage nodes. Rather, you are using it primarily for the "20% Increased Totem Damage" nodes. Use the POB's "Find Timeless Jewel" feature to help you search for the right Lethal Pride on the trade website.

Remember the "% Chance to Avoid Being Shocked" flask mod mentioned earlier? Well, the mod is needed because you are going to put the Stormshroud in one of your jewel sockets. This unique jewel allows you to achieve full elemental ailment immunity, as long as you have 100% Shock avoidance.

Lastly, purchase the Unnatural Instinct unique Viridian Jewel from the trade website and place it in the slot that is near the Avatar of the Hunt notable passive skill. By doing so, you get the effects of some juicy nodes, including DEX, damage with bows, damage over time with bow skills, and increased evasion.

Gems

The gems that you will use for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder synergize really well with each other. However, it is worth noting that there is little to no room for flexibility on this build. This means that whatever gems are indicated here are pretty much what you are going to roll with.

Body Armor

• Caustic Arrow of Poison
• Ballista Totem Support
• Awakened Void Manipulation
• Awakened Deadly Ailments
• Awakened Unbound Ailments
• Awakened Added Chaos Damage/Greater Volley Support

Caustic Arrow of Poison is linked with Ballista Totem Support. This allows you to drop several ballistae totems on the ground that will attack the enemies using the said skill gem.

Awakened Void Manipulation and Awakened Added Chaos Damage provide a significant boost to chaos damage. Both of these support gems raise the level of Caustic Arrow of Poison as well.

Take note that if you are wearing The Covenant for your body armor, you should replace Added Chaos Damage Support with Greater Volley Support. This allows your totems to fire four additional projectiles.

Awakened Unbound Ailments just make the poisons you inflict upon your enemies become more damaging; leaving them with very little chance to survive. This is further amplified by Awakened Deadly Ailments.

Weapon

• Arcanist Brand
• Temporal Chains
• Despair
• Enhance Support
• Clarity
• Vitality

If you have seen our build guide for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder prior to Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur, you know that this used to be populated with gems that support the Scourge Arrow of Menace. However, the Patch 3.25 version of this build no longer uses that. Instead, it utilizes the Arcanist Brand link to Temporal Chains and Despair.

Temporal Chains basically reduce the action speed of enemies that are affected by this curse spell. Despair, on the other hand, reduces the chaos resistance of your enemies by a considerable amount. You can apply both curses by using the Arcanist Brand. Do not forget to anoint Whispers of Doom on your amulet to raise the curse limit to two.

Clarity and Vitality are just auras that help you with mana and HP recovery, respectively. Both of these auras need not be linked to the aforementioned gems, which is why you only need a Darkscorn Bow with four-linked sockets.

Helmet

• Petrified Blood
• Grace
• Herald of Agony
• Enlighten (lvl 4)

Herald of Agony is important for this build because it grants a 20% chance to inflict poison on hit. Since the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder is an evasion-based character, activating Grace makes sense. Petrified also helps improve survivability by making sure that you do not die immediately after receiving a lethal hit. A level 4 Enlighten support gem is necessary to activate all of these auras. 

Gloves

• Steelskin
• Automation
• More Duration Support
• Dash/Frostblink/Flame Dash

Steelskin is a guard skill that absorbs a considerable amount of damage for a brief period. It is automatically activated thanks to the aptly named Automation Support.

Now, in case you are wondering why we did not put Cast When Damage Taken Support here, it is because it requires you to take huge amounts of damage before Steelskin kicks in. Besides that, you have to limit the level of Steelskin only to a certain extent if you want CWDT to activate it more consistently.

With Automation Support, you can freely level Steelskin to the max, provided that you have enough STR to satisfy its attribute requirement.

Because Steelskin only lasts for 1.5 seconds, you should link it to More Duration Support. This is the newly renamed "Increased Duration Support" from the previous leagues, by the way. However, it is worth noting that it is not only the name that got changed; this gem now greatly increases the duration of the skill that it supports.

The last gem slot is for your preferred travel skill. You can choose between Dash, Frostblink, or Flame Dash, whichever you like.

Boots

• Malevolence
• Summon Flame Golem/Raise Spectre
• Meat Shield Support
• Guardian's Blessing

By default, Malevolence requires 50% of your mana to activate. With the auras mentioned earlier, you might not have enough left in the tank to enable Malevolence through normal means, which is why you are going to use Guardian's Blessing.

The said support gem allows you to activate Malevolence so long as a minion, such as the Flame Golem, is alive. Meat Shield Support forces the Flame Golem to take on a more defensive approach, while also receiving less damage from incoming attacks.

Now, a viable alternative to the Flame Golem is the Dark Marionette. The Dark Marionette is one of the itemized corpses in Patch 3.25 that has the ability to revive itself shortly after death. Summon this minion by using Raise Spectre after right-clicking on its corpse.

Tattoos

• Tattoo of the Tawhoa Shaman
• 5% Chance to Poison on Hit
• Tattoo of the Arohongui Shaman
• 5% Increased Effect of Herald Buffs on You
• Tattoo of the Tawhoa Warrior
• 5% Increased Chaos Damage
• Tattoo of the Ramako Fleetfoot
• 2% Increased Movement Speed
• Tattoo of the Tasalio Tideshifter
• 10% Chance to Avoid Being Stunned

Passive Tree

POB

Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder

Final Thoughts

The Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder is still an awesome build in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League. This version of the build is played differently compared to the previous league.

Instead of manually firing Caustic Arrow of Poison, you will drop ballista totems on the ground and have them use the skill gem for you. Furthermore, you are now going to use the Arcanist Brand to apply a couple of curses, making the enemy much easier to kill.

The bulk of the damage of this build still revolves around the poisons you inflict. The Pathfinder is the perfect ascendancy class for this as it amplifies poison damage immensely compared to the other classes in the game.

We hope that you have enjoyed our comprehensive build guide for the Caustic Arrow of Poison Pathfinder in Patch 3.25! Be sure to bookmark this guide for future reference.

With all of that said, good luck on your adventures in Wraeclast, Exile!

PROS

+Utilizes poison to make quick work of the enemy

+Fun and easy to play

+See enemies die from poisons inflicted by your ballista totems

+Encourages a more active playstyle

CONS

-Some pieces of gear are expensive

-No longer a league starter