Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder - Path of Exile 3.24

Do you like to use Scourge Arrow in Path of Exile? If you liked this attack skill gem before the 3.23 Affliction League, then you will definitely love it even more today, especially with the introduction of the new Transfigured Gem, Scourge Arrow of Menace.

This thing can melt enemies with potent poisons that are further enhanced with the choice of ascendancy class for this build. Although it is not a league starter, the items that this build uses are relatively affordable and accessible even in the first week of a new league.

So, if you are interested in playing a build that relies on deadly poisons to kill enemies, then we advise that you read this article to completion. This is our ultimate build guide for the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder in Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction League!

Basics

The star of the show is the new Transfigured Gem, Scourge Arrow of Menace. The main difference between the transfigured version and the original attack skill gem is that it is not a channeling skill. This allows for a more active playstyle. On top of that, you can complement it by adding a couple of Manaforged Arrows setups.

This Transfigured Gem got a slight nerf in Patch 3.24, where each Spore Pod now only fires four thorn arrows instead of five. Not to worry because the mechanics of this build have changed dramatically in the Necropolis League compared to the previous league.

You see, Grinding Gear Games has removed the Wildwood Ascendancies from the game, which means that you no longer have access to the Poisonberry Tincture. Hence, you will use a bunch of different items to make the build work. Chief among them is Wilma's Requital - a unique helmet that lets you summon one more totem at the cost of forgoing the ability to damage enemies yourself.

For the rings, you will now use the Circle of Nostalgia rather than the Precursor's Emblem. This is to provide your totems with a much higher chance to inflict poisons on hit. All of the new mandatory items will be discussed in the appropriate sections of the build guide.

Now, the gem itself converts 60% of your physical damage to chaos damage, but you want to increase that to get the most out of it. Hence, you will use the Darkscorn unique bow. This bow contains some pretty good modifiers that complement the build really well – all without having to dabble into crafting.

You still do need to craft your quiver, though. Do not worry, we have a comprehensive crafting guide, which is your ultimate resource for all things crafting in Path of Exile.

In addition, the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder is a Frenzy Charge stacker, so you can greatly improve the damage of this build by stacking as many Frenzy Charges as you can. This is where things could get expensive, but the good news is that you can deem the “Frenzy Charge” items as upgrades, meaning, you can get them later down the line.

Despite the relatively low amount of HP, this build is deceptively tanky, particularly when you are able to get the Progenesis. Because of the choice of ascendancy class, you need to use a Divine Life Flask to keep things going as well.

Another thing to note here is the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder can also be built as a Magic Find character. If you are looking for an MF character that utilizes poison to great effect, then this is one of the top contenders for sure!

If you want to improve the damage of the build, look for the following modifiers on your gear:

• Added Physical Damage
• Increased Physical Damage
• Increased Chaos Damage
• + to Damage Over Time Multiplier
• + to Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
• Increased Attack Speed
• +1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges

Playstyle

While you can certainly use Scourge Arrow of Menace yourself, this build primarily uses Ballista Totems to deal insane amounts of damage.

So, when you enter a new map, search for juicy packs of monsters and drop five ballistae to do the job for you.

Even though you cannot deal damage yourself, you can use Frenzy on your foes to apply your hex curses.

Ascendancy

This build is only possible thanks to the notable passive skills that are available in the Pathfinder tree.

Master Toxicist is responsible for killing enemies effectively. This notable ascendancy passive skill enhances the poisons you inflict to become more damaging than ever. How does it do that? Well, they have a 20% chance of dealing 100% more damage if you are under the effects of any flask. This is the reason why you need to use a Divine Life Flask every five or six seconds just to avail of this node’s effect.

Nature’s Reprisal complements the previous node very well. This notable passive skill increases the effect of the “Wither” debuff by 50%. If you are new to PoE, Wither is a debuff that causes affected enemies to take more chaos damage. Having said that, poisons in this game inflict chaos damage, so it just makes sense to have the ability to inflict Wither, don’t you think?

Nature’s Adrenaline gives you three flask charges every few seconds. This allows you to have your flasks ready at all times. Thanks to this node, you will always have enough charges to use any of your flasks to keep Master Toxicist active.

Master Surgeon just ensures that the life recovery effect of your Life Flask is active even if your HP pool is already filled. With this notable ascendancy passive skill, you can use the Divine Life Flask even if you are at 100% health.

While not mandatory, you can get the Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh jewels and have the “Way of the Poacher” as the matching modifier for that “+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges.”

Gear

Most of the items for the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder are relatively affordable, so you can try this build out after the first week of a new league. Although most of the pieces of gear are unique, you need to craft a few items to maximize the potential of this build.

Weapon

The main weapon that makes the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder effective without all of the complicated crafting is the Darkscorn. This unique bow brings all of the goods, including attack speed, added physical damage, percent physical damage, and some accuracy rating.

However, what makes this the ideal weapon for the build is that it converts 25% of your physical damage to chaos damage. When you include that with the 60% innate conversion from the Transfigured Gem, then you will have 85% physical-to-chaos damage conversion simply by using this bow.

What’s more, the Darkscorn has a similar effect to Master Toxicist, albeit instead of 100% more damage with poisons, you deal 300%!

That is not only the noteworthy thing about this bow because it also grants 25% of physical damage from hits taken as chaos damage, which helps improve your survivability!

For the Magic Find version of the build, you can swap the Darkscorn with a tri-element bow that is made for Chaos DoT. Refer to our ultimate crafting guide for all of the information that you need.

Quiver

Since you are using a bow, you will need a suitable quiver as well. For the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder, the quiver you need is a crafted Broadhead Arrow Quiver (Attack Speed) or Penetrating Arrow Quiver (Pierce) with two damage over time multiplier suffixes, life, attack speed, and increased damage with bow attacks.

The process of crafting the quiver is lengthy. But do not fret, we have got you covered! Read our ultimate crafting guide to learn how to craft this amazing endgame quiver!

Body Armor

The Covenant is an amazing body armor that you can wear for the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder. That is mainly because it grants you the effect of a level 29 Added Chaos Damage Support, giving you loads of chaos damage just by socketing your main attack skill gem into the body armor itself!

For the MF version, you replace The Covenant with Greed's Embrace for that increased item quantity and item rarity.

Helmet

In the previous iteration of the build, you have the freedom to wear a self-crafted helmet to improve your spell suppression and whatnot. However, since GGG has removed the Wildwood Ascendancies, therefore losing access to the Poisonberry Tincture, you now have to rely on Ballista Totems to do the dirty work.

That is the reason why you are going to wear Wilma's Requital. This grants you the effect of Ancestral Bond - a keystone passive that lets you summon one more totem in exchange for not being able to deal damage yourself.

Along with the "Watchtowers" notable passive skill, you have the ability to put down five Ballista Totems at a time! Imagine the screen being bombarded with thorn arrows from the many Spore Pods your ballistae can create!

Take note that if you are going to buy this from the trade website, get one that has the corrupted implicit mod: "Socketed Skill Gems Get a 90% Cost & Reservation Multiplier". The reason why this is important is that you will socket your main aura gems into the helmet.

Gloves

Since the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder stacks as many Frenzy Charges as it can, there are no better gloves for the build than the Snakebite.

Snakebite has a unique effect where your attacks have a 60% chance to poison enemies while you are at maximum Frenzy Charges. The good news is that you always avail of this effect because of the boots you are going to wear. More on this in a bit.

Since you are essentially playing a Frenzy Charge stacker, these gloves improve the effect of Frenzy Charges as well. More specifically, you gain 2% increased attack speed, 6% increased accuracy, and plus 5% to damage over time multiplier for poison per Frenzy Charge.

Boots

Ralakesh’s Impatience is a staple among “stacker” builds in Path of Exile. That is because when you wear these boots, you “count” as having the maximum number of Endurance/Frenzy/Power Charges. This might not reflect in your buff bar, but if your Frenzy Charge limit is, say, 10 charges, you will gain 40% increased damage and attack speed just by equipping these unique Riveted Boots!

Remember Snakebite? It has this unique effect where you have a 60% chance to poison enemies while you are at maximum Frenzy Charges. Well, due to Ralakesh’s Impatience, you always gain this effect so long as you do not remove the said boots!

Even though these boots no longer have a movement speed mod in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, they are still the best-in-slot for this build.

Amulet

For the amulet, get The Eternal Struggle with the "+% to Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier" Searing Exarch implicit modifier. The Eater of Worlds mod can be anything, but if you can get your hands on this amulet with "% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills", then that is even better!

If you are going to go for the Magic Find variant of this build, you can wear the Defiance of Destiny to bolster your chances of survival. Alternatively, wear the Eyes of the Greatwolf, specifically with "% Increased Quantity of Items Found" as one of the modifiers.

Do not forget to anoint the amulet with Whispers of Doom (3x Golden Oils) so that you can apply an additional curse.

Rings

As mentioned earlier in the build guide, you will no longer use two Precursor Emblems (Two-Stone Ring) for the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder. Instead, you will replace them with a couple of Circle of Nostalgia rings with these unique modifiers:

• % Increased Chaos Damage While Affected by Herald of Agony
• Herald of Agony Has % Increased Buff Effect

The reason why Circle of Nostalgia is needed for the build is so that your totems have a much higher chance of inflicting poisons. This change is to rectify the removal of the Poisonberry Tincture in Patch 3.24.

If you have the PoE currency, buy the Circle of Nostalgia with the "+1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges" and & "% Increased Damage with Ailments" synthesized implicit modifiers.

Ventor's Gamble is the one that you should equip for the Magic Find version of the build. Just get a couple of these rings that provide you with positive elemental resistances, increased rarity, and increased item quantity.

Belt

With this build, you are dealing poison/chaos damage to kill the enemy. That is why you should use items that improve poison damage. One of the items that you can wear is Olesya’s Delight. This has a unique effect where all of your Frenzy Charges are converted to Affliction Charges. What do these special charges do, you ask?

For every Affliction Charge, you deal 8% “more” damage with ailments. If you are unaware, the “more damage” multipliers in Path of Exile are calculated multiplicatively, so they are actually better than “increased damage” mods.

Do not be deterred by the conversion because this is addressed by Ralakesh’s Impatience. This means that even if Olesya’s Delight converts your Frenzy Charges to Affliction Charges, you will still enjoy the effects of Frenzy Charges because of the said unique boots.

Flasks

• Bismuth Flask
• Quicksilver Flask
• Eternal Life Flask
• Replica Sorrow of the Divine
• Progenesis

Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder uses quite a lot of unique items, which makes it a bit challenging to cap your elemental resistances. For this reason, you are going to use the Topaz Flask, Ruby Flask, or Sapphire Flask depending on which elemental resistance you still need to cap to 75%.

The Eternal Life Flask is included just as a means of sustaining the effect of Master Toxicist. Use this every five or six seconds so that the “more damage with poisons” multiplier from the said notable ascendancy passive skill is always up.

The Taste of Hate not only gives you a boost in cold resistance, but it also grants extra cold damage based on a portion of your physical damage. In other words, this provides you with a one-two punch of offense and defense.

The Quicksilver Flask aids in enhancing your mobility. We feel that this is the better choice of flask to use considering that your Ballista Totems will do the heavy lifting anyway; whether you are mapping or fighting bosses in PoE.

Progenesis works in tandem with Petrified Blood, making you virtually unkillable. When this flask is active, 25% of the life you would have lost after taking damage is spread over a four-second span instead of being applied immediately. This gives you more than enough time to use your Divine Life Flask to save yourself from dying.

Now, Progenesis is a bit expensive. If you do not have enough PoE currency to get one, you can use the Amethyst Flask in the meantime.

You might have noticed the inclusion of the Replica Sorrow of the Divine in this build's flask setup. Well, there is actually a pretty good reason why. You see, GGG has implemented a bunch of changes to mana reservation and mana cost of skills in the 3.24 Necropolis League.

To put it simply, you might have a hard time sustaining mana because of the many skills you have to use to maximize the build's potential. Having said that, Replica Sorrow of the Divine grants you the effect of Eldritch Battery when the flask is used. This keystone passive spends your energy shield before your actual mana. Because of this, you have the freedom to use whatever skill you need without worrying about mana at all!

Flask Mods

• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
• 25% Reduced Mana Cost of Skills (Bench-craft)
• Corrupted Blood Immunity (on Life Flask)

Jewels

The good news is that there are no mandatory gems for the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder. However, this does not mean that you shouldn’t use any jewels because there are certainly some that can elevate this build to new heights!

Start by getting a Watcher’s Eye with the duo of “+% to Damage Over Time Multiplier” and “Damaging Ailments You Inflict Deal Damage % Faster” while affected by Malevolence.

To improve your survivability, one of the things that you should get sorted out is your elemental ailment immunity. If you already have 100% spell suppression, you can use Ancestral Vision to give you a 50% boost to your chance to avoid elemental ailments.

If you do not have a high enough spell suppression, you can opt for the Stormshroud instead. Just make sure that you have the flask mod "55% Chance to Avoid Being Shocked" along with a 25% increased flask effect prefix to ensure full elemental ailment immunity.

Thread of Hope is a unique jewel that enables you to get some notable passive skills without being connected to the tree. That said, acquire one that affects a Large Ring so that you can allocate points to the following passives:

• 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 Rating
  • 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

• Heart of Oak

  • 8% Increased Maximum Life
  • 20% Chance to Avoid Being Stunned
  • Regenerates 2% of Life per Second if You've Used a Life Flask in the Past 10 Seconds

Unnatural Instinct is another jewel you can obtain to get the effects of some nodes without spending a ton of passive skill points. You will insert this into the jewel socket that is near the Elemental Equilibrium keystone passive to gain increased attack damage, increased damage with bows, increased attack speed with bows, and a small chance to gain the “Phasing” buff.

A single Large Cluster Jewel and a couple of Medium Cluster Jewels are great additions to the build. On the Large Cluster Jewel (Chaos Damage), use Harvest Reforge Chaos from the Horticrafting Station until you get these notable passive skills:

• Unwaveringly Evil
  • 30% Increased Chaos Damage
  • Chaos Skills Ignore Interruption from Stuns
• Wicked Pall
  • 30% Increased Chaos Damage
  • 5% Increased Skill Effect Duration
• Unholy Grace
  • 30% Increased Chaos Damage
  • 10% Increased Attack/Cast Speed

Get two different Medium Cluster Jewels. One of them should have increased flask duration and the other must have increased damage over time.

On the flask effect duration Medium Cluster Jewel, use Harvest Reforge Caster to obtain Spiked Concoction and Brewed for Potency. For the other Medium Cluster Jewel, use Harvest Reforge Life until you acquire Flow of Life and Circling Oblivion.

If you are wondering what the passive skills on the Medium Cluster Jewels do, here is a rundown of their effects:

• Brewed for Potency
  • 24% Increased Damage Over Time
  • 10% Increased Flask Charges Gained
  • 20% Increased Life and Mana Recovery from Flasks
• Spiked Concoction
  • 5% Increased Attack/Cast Speed During any Flask Effect
  • Gain Alchemist’s Genius When You Use a Flask
• Ancestral Echo
  • 20% Increased Totem Placement Speed
  • 10% Increased Attack/Cast Speed if You've Summoned a Totem Recently
• Sleepless Sentries
  • 20% Increased Totem Duration
  • You Have Onslaught if You've Summoned a Totem Recently

The Lethal Pride is also a great addition to the build. This unique Timeless Jewel allows you to get bonuses to totem damage and totem placement speed. Moreover, it can provide you with other useful mods, such as double damage, additional STR, and increased maximum life.

Because you'll be utilizing Ballista Totems to attack the enemy, you have the option of adding Rain of Splinters as well. Although this unique jewel reduces your totem's damage by a considerable amount, this is compensated by the two additional projectiles they can fire at a time.

Gems

To maximize the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder's potential in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, some changes have been made to the gem setups for this build.

Body Armor

• Scourge Arrow of Menace
• Awakened Void Manipulation Support
• Awakened Unbound Ailments Support
• Awakened Greater Multiple Projectiles Support
• Awakened Deadly Ailments Support
• Awakened Vicious Projectiles Support

As you can see, this build now uses the Ballista Totem Support. This support gem allows you to summon several ballistae that will attack enemies using the Scourge Arrow of Menace.

The Covenant gives your totems a significant boost to chaos damage thanks to its unique effect. That is precisely the reason why you insert the Transfigured Gem into the body armor as opposed to the bow.

Anyway, to further increase your chaos damage, you will put Awakened Void Manipulation Support as well. At max level, this particular support gem raises the level of the Scourge Arrow of Menace by one.

Awakened Deadly Ailments is a support gem in Path of Exile that makes your poisons become even more potent. Awakened Unbound Ailments makes it so that poison duration on your enemies is increased by a considerable amount. Be sure to increase the quality of the gem to get even more damage for your poisons.

The transfigured version of Scourge Arrow only fires a single arrow, leaving behind a single Spore Pod in return. Luckily, it is possible to spawn more Spore Pods just by increasing the number of projectiles fired on every use of Scourge Arrow of Menace. Hence, the presence of Awakened Greater Multiple Projectiles in this setup.

If you do not have the PoE currency yet, the normal versions of the support gems mentioned here are fine. However, we do encourage you to get the Awakened Gems just so that you can get the most out of your Scourge Arrow of Menace.

Weapon

• Frenzy
• Despair
• Temporal Chains
• Awakened Hextouch Support
• Greater Multiple Projectiles
• Enhance Support (lvl 4)

Your Ballista Totems will do the heavy lifting, so your main role is just to weaken your enemies, making them so much easier for your ballistae to kill.

That said, you cast Frenzy on every monster you encounter so that they will be cursed with Despair and Temporal Chains. How is this possible, you ask? Well, that is thanks to the support gem - Awakened Hextouch Support.

By default, Frenzy only hits one enemy at a time. Therefore, it is imperative that you link the said skill gem to Greater Multiple Projectiles. This is so that you can fire several projectiles at once, thus enabling you to inflict curses on more enemies.

Helmet

• Herald of Agony
• Grace
• Petrified Blood
• Enlighten Support

Even though the Snakebite unique gloves provide your totems with a very high chance to inflict poisons, there are still instances that they might not apply the said damaging ailment on your foes. That is why you will activate Herald of Agony to guarantee that enemies get poisoned with every hit. This is achievable if you equip the two Circle of Nostalgia rings mentioned earlier as well.

Grace is an aura gem in PoE that gives you a huge amount of evasion when it's active. However, the evasion bonus you can gain from Grace is all converted to armor due to the "Iron Reflexes" keystone passive.

Petrified Blood greatly boosts your survivability. When you use this skill, it reserves a sizable portion of your HP. It does this because whenever you get hit by the enemy, the damage you receive will be lost over four seconds rather than in an instant.

Enlighten Support provides reservation efficiency so that even if all of the above-mentioned auras are active, you will have some mana left in your tank for your other skills. A level 3 Enlighten Support should suffice.

Gloves

• Despair
• Flame Dash
• Immortal Call (Lvl 1)
• Cast When Damage Taken Support (lvl 1)

Despair is a hex curse in Path of Exile that reduces the chaos resistance of affected enemies by 30% at gem level 20. Flame Dash is your main travel skill for this build.

Immortal Call makes you take 25% less elemental and physical damage from monsters. Link this to Cast When Damage Taken Support to automate the process of activation. Leave both of these gems to level one.

Boots

• Malevolence
• Divine Blessing Support
• Increased Duration Support

With Herald of Agony, Grace, and Petrified Blood already active, you do not have enough mana left to use another permanent aura. For this reason, you are going to link Malevolence to Divine Blessing Support. Doing so turns the once-permanent aura into a temporary buff that you can activate at any time. That being said, use it whenever you encounter more challenging monsters.

As the name implies, Increased Duration Support just makes it so that your Malevolence buff lasts longer.

If you have noticed, there are only three gems highlighted in this gem setup. Well, that is because you have the freedom to use any gem that you like for the last slot.

Tattoos

The Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder was hit hard by the removal of the secondary ascendancy classes in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. At least GGG has brought back the Tattoos from a couple of leagues ago to compensate for the loss of such a huge league mechanic. Anyway, which Tattoos should you use for this build? Here are the ones that we recommend:

• Tattoo of the Tawhoa Warrior

  • 5% Increased Chaos Damage

• Tattoo of the Arohongui Shaman

  • 5% Increased Effect of Herald Buffs on You

• Tattoo of the Ramako Scout

  • 6% Increased Evasion Rating

• Tattoo of the Ramako Fleetfoot

  • 2% Increased Movement Speed

• Tattoo of the Ramako Shaman

  • +2% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage

• Tattoo of the Ngamahu Woodcarver

  • 5% Increased Totem Life

• Tattoo of the Tawhoa Naturalist

  • 8% Increased Life Recovery from Flasks

• Tattoo of the Tasalio Tideshifter

  • 10% Chance to Avoid Being Stunned

Passive Tree

POB

Main Setup

Magic Find Variant

Final Thoughts

The Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder is great if you want a build in Path of Exile that utilizes poison damage to great effect. Although this is a damage over time build, you do not have to wait that long for your enemies to die. That is because your poisons become even more potent thanks to Master Toxicist and Darkscorn.

Sure, this build is not a league starter, but the items that you need for it to work are relatively affordable. So, you just have to save a bit of PoE currency and you can obtain the necessary pieces of gear in a week or so after a new league has begun.

This build can take on whatever content you want to do in PoE. It is not only a competent mapper but it also has enough damage to defeat even the uber bosses in the game.

Additionally, you can opt for the Magic Find variant of this character, which allows you to farm a ton of currency. What’s great about this is that you can use the Darkscorn bow even on the MF variant, though you do have the option of crafting a much better bow later down the line.

All in all, the Scourge Arrow of Menace Pathfinder will not disappoint, especially if you are the type of person who enjoys DoT builds in Path of Exile.

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

PROS

+Deals potent poisons to make quick work of the enemy

+Great mapping potential

+Able to defeat pinnacle bosses with relative ease

+Most of the items are not that expensive

+Deceptively tanky

+Can be built as a Magic Find character

+Still great in Patch 3.24

CONS

-Some upgrades cost a lot of currency

-A slight delay in damage due to the nature of DoT builds

-Not a “true” league starter

-Totem playstyle might not be your cup of tea