This Gas Arrow Build uses the Ranger’s Pathfinder Ascendancy to clear dense packs and bosses, utilizing powerful Poison Damage Over Time.
Table of contents
Build Overview
This build’s main Skill is Gas Arrow, which we sadly do not get until Level 22, but once we do it’s capable of easily melting everything in our way. Of course, this also relies on maintaining a decent Bow if our damage keeps up, which is the build’s only struggle.
We’ll use Vine Arrow, Effigy Totem, and Toxic Growth to supplement our damage and give us some much-needed utility. Vine Arrow will provide plenty of Crowd Control through Slows and Dark Effigy will provide us with Wither to boost our damage. Toxic Growth is our way of quickly getting damage out, should we need something to be defeated quickly to move on.
Defensively, starting from the Ranger’s starting area gives us easy access to plenty of Evasion. We would only need to change our defenses if we’re leveling a class that doesn’t have as much access to early Evasion. We’ll want to stick to Pure Evasion gear, or at the very least Evasion and Energy Shield gear to keep our Evasion high.
While this build is written with Pathfinder in mind, it can be played on other Classes or Ascendancies.
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PaSSIVE tREE
Playstyle
Unless it’s a first character, the playstyle of the build mainly consists of running pack to pack, firing off a Gas Arrow, and Plague Nova if Magic, and moving on. Of course, we’ll need to double back if anything particularly valuable drops, but that’s what do for most packs of monsters. Very simple and easy to execute
When it comes to Bosses and tanky Rares, we’ll want to get them Cursed with Despair, setup our Dark Effigy, and then a few Gas Arrows to get our Poisons going and stacking of Plague. Then we use Toxic Growth until we need to refresh our Curse, Gas Arrow, Dark Effigy, or the enemy succumbs to our Poison
Skills
Below are the Skills we use for the build, including their Support Gem Links.
Gas Arrow
Gas Arrow is a very consistent and easy way to poison large groups and quickly stack up to our Poison Limit for incredibly high DPS. This allows it to very easily melt anything in our way
Scattershot allows us to fire off additional Arrows, which not only increases the AoE of our Damage, but allows it to stack its poisons faster with overlapping AoEs.
Comorbidity allows us to apply an additional Poison. Each stack of poison we’re able to build lets our damage ramp up higher and higher. Each stack is effectively adding 100% additional damage, which gets insane with Passive Points and the Pathfinder Ascendancy.
Deadly Poison reduces our Hit Damage, but increases the potency of each of our Poison Stacks. It cannot be understated just how big of bonus this is, especially when we’re doubling our Poison Stack Limit with Pathfinder.
Bursting Plague adds yet another Damage over Time on top of our Poisons called Plague. This is another Chaos DoT that stacks based on our poisons, dealing up to 10% of an enemy’s Life per second.
Toxic Growth
Toxic Growth is our secondary DPS skill, firing off explosive pods that absorb our Poison Damage. This makes them explode almost instantly while doubling its damage. Quality is great to add here, if possible as this adds additional projectiles and by extension damage.
Concentrated Effect is the most important link for this skill. Not only will it increase the damage of the skill, but it also ensures the projectiles we fire land closer together making it more potent for single-target damage, where we need it the most.
Martial Tempo is a nice quality of life for this skill. While we can’t shorten the fixed duration added by the skill, any bit of speed we can get for it will make it feel smoother to use overall.
Vine Arrow
Vine Arrow is a huge Crowd Control tool for us, applying a fairly strong Slow to keep enemies away from us as well as inside our Gas Arrow. It will also echo a bit of our Poison damage on top of its own damage when placed on top of a Gas Arrow.
Magnified Effect is the only link we need here. Increasing the range at which Vine Arrow can do its thing.
Encumbrance is an optional second link, increasing the potency of the Slow it provides. It will bump the slow from 40% up to 46%, which isn’t entirely noticeable, but can be helpful.
Dark Effigy
Dark Effigy is a great addition to any Chaos DoT build. This adds some supplemental damage and allows us to easily wither one or multiple foes.
Withering Touch is mandatory here, as this Withering effect is the main reason we use Dark Effigy. It’s a massive damage boost, so don’t skip it.
Arcane Tempo allows the Dark Effigy to cast faster, and by extension, stack Wither faster. It’s not entirely necessary, but letting Wither stack faster is a huge boon.
Ancestral Urgency is entirely optional, as using it would also demand the use of another Lesser Jeweler Orb. However, the Totem Placement Speed keeps it from locking us in place longer than necessary and gets it firing off sooner into its duration as well.
Since Poison deals Chaos Damage over Time, Despair is a natural fit here. We’ll only need the Debuff this provides against Bosses or Chaos Resistant enemies. It’s important that this gem is as low level as possible, this reduces its mana cost and still provides a strong enough effect to use.
Despair
Heightened Curse is the only mandatory link here. This helps to ensure that We’re removing any Chaos REsistance a monster has by bumping the base level curse from 33% to 41% Chaos Resistance Reduction.
Cursed Ground is an optional link for bosses who don’t move often and enables us to setup more of our utility. This makes it so we can more easily setup before a boss and start dealing heavy damage right away.
Wind Dancer
Wind Dancer gives us a huge boost of Evasion and we retain it so long as we don’t get hit. Quality is very important for this skill, as 20% quality means an additional stack on the multiplicative bonus this provides.
Blind is an optional link here, but the shockwave that Wind Dancer creates will blind enemies nearby, giving us an easier time Evading damage while the Buff starts stacking again.
Plague Bearer
Plague Bearer is a great source of a powerful poison in an AoE. Utilizing Gas Arrow to quickly build its charge allows it to be used often. We’ll want to let this build up and use it to help clear packs.
Clarity is an optional link here for better Mana Regeneration. This will mean less Mana issues overall, but we typically only have mana issues when it comes to bosses as Despair is incredibly expensive without extra Mana.
Lightning Arrow
Lightning Arrow fills the role as our DPS skill until we’re able to get Gas Arrow. It works fantastic with very little investment and can scale well with flat damage from gear.
Pierce is mandatory for this skill, as it will send off multiple chains as it passes through enemies giving it great AoE
Martial Tempo is a great DPS increase as well as a quality-of-life boost by shortening our attack animation.
Passive Tree
Below is the Passive Tree we use for this Skill.
We’ll start by making the quick dash to Blur for the Movement Speed, pathing through Honed Instincts and Combat Alchemy. Honed Instinct provides us with some early projectile damage to get Lightning Arrow going and contribute to Gas Arrow later. Combat Alchemy boosts our Flasks as our skills can be quite mana-hungry.
Next, we’ll head down to Escape Velocity and Freedom of Movement to start building up our Evasion. Escape Velocity also comes with some move Movement Speed helping to get us through the early game even faster.
Now we’ll start preparing for the swap to Gas Arrow; this means getting every Poison Notable we can. We’ll start with Stacking Toxins and Lasting Toxins. Stacking Toxins will bring our Posion limit to 3, accounting for Comorbidity on Gas Arrow. Lasting Toxins Increase Poison Duration
Next, we’ll go back near the start of the tree and grab Crippling Toxins. This gives us a ton of Poison Magnitude for very little points. Then we’ll zip up to Leeching Toxins for much the same reason. Leeching Toxins also comes with the benefit of recovering 3% of Life when we defeat Poisoned Enemies.
Now we’ll head up to the all-important Poison Cluster containing Escalating Toxins and Building Toxins. This cluster has so much Poison Magnitude for us as well as another Limit increase. By this point we’ll have also likely completed the first two Trials of Ascension, meaning we’ll be up to a total of 8 Poisons as a Pathfinder.
Now we’ll move down to quickly grab the best Evasion node on the Passive Tree, Beastial Skin, as well as Enhanced Reflexes. Beastial Skin will double the Evasion granted by our Body Armour, which at this point in the game is likely to be well over 1,000 with even half-decent rolls.
Next, we’ll head down to Wasting, which not only increases our Poison Duration and Magnitude thanks to the leading nodes, but will also increase Toxic Growth’s damage as well.
Then, we’re on to Careful Consideration, another very powerful Evasion node. This grants 100% increased Evasion as long as we haven’t been hit recently, but has the drawback of instead reducing Evasion by 30% if we do get hit. It’s very worth the few points it costs.
Now, with our Evasion stacked up, we can grab some more nearby passive for more damage. We’ll start from Blur and grab Careful Aim and Heavy Ammunition. This gives us a pretty solid Projectile Damage Bonus for just 8 points. Then we can grab Maiming Strike for more Attack Damage and a bit of Movement Speed.
Finally, we can round off our damage spree with the Master Fletching Cluster. Like pretty much all Bow builds, our Quiver plays a huge role for us, so getting more power from that is always welcome. We take it near the end because it’ll take a good quiver to really see any benefit here.
We also opt for to grab Wither Away for Increased Effect of Wither as well as a final bit to round out the build. Withering enemies that geat near us is a nice bonus for mapping as well, where we’d rather not place Dark Effigy too often. It’s also far less taxing on our gear compared to trying to fit Withering Presence into the build.
That leaves just Acrobatics to cover as far as our Notable and Keystones go. Acrobatics makes Evasion much more powerful, allowing us to avoid AoE hits, which otherwise always hit us. This is very much an endgame thing, as we’ll need around 20,000 Evasion Rating to even make it worth considering. This sounds like a lot, and it is, but thankfully we have Wind Dancer to help push us over that line.
Jewels are the final part of the Passive Tree to cover. These offer a wide variety of stats that can benefit us.
For Prefixes Ailment Magnitude, Poison Magnitude, and Evasion Rating are what we’d want the most, but Damage with Bows or Chaos Damage are fine settles.
For Suffixes, we want Poison Duration alongside Attack Speed or Attack Speed with Bows. Getting at least one or two with Mana gained on Kill is also nice to help offset our mana costs while mapping.
Gear and Stat Priorities
This section lists and explains the recommended stats for our gear, and any Uniques we recommend. Click or tap on an item to read the recommendations for it. The items with a lither border are uniques and are at explained at the top of the segment right below this grid.
Our Bow of Choice here is a Dualstring Bow. In order of Importance, the Affixes we’d want on a “perfect” Bow would be: Level of Projectile Skills, flat and percent Increased Physical Damage, and Bow Attacks fire 2 Additional Arrows.
This gives us the most potential for damage, as Poison scales from our Physical Damage. The Additional Arrows also increase our AoE, allowing for more overlapping Gas Arrows which stacks our Poison faster. Between Scattershot, the inherent affix for a Dualstring Bow, and this Suffix, we’ll be firing 6 Gas Arrows or Vine Arrows at once, or adding 6 pods to Toxic Growth.
Our Quiver of choice is a Primed Quiver for the inherent Attack Speed. As for Affixes, the most important ones we want are Level to Projectile Skills, Increased Damage with Bow Skills, Physical Damage to Attacks, and Attack Speed. Dexterity and Projectile Speed are also great, but not super necessary.
While leveling initially, Goldrim is the ideal Helmet to use. It grants a ton of Elemental Resitances, and really takes the pressure off getting them across the rest of our gear.
When we’re looking to upgrade it, We’ll want a high Evasion base like an Expert Hunter Hood. We’ll want high Evasion rolls, alongside Elemental or Chaos Resistances, Maximum Life, and rarity if we can fit it.
Foxshade is an extremely powerful Leveling Body Armour for this build, especially since we’re leaning into Evasion. Despite its lack of REsistances and Life, it can easily carry us to the Endgame due to it’s Unique Affixes.
When we replace it, we’ll want a high Evasion base. We’ll be looking for High Evasion rolls and Maximum Life for Prefixes. For Suffixes, we’ll want primarily Resistances as there’s not much else we need from it. Strength can also be nice for the added Maximum Life it’d provide.
For Gloves, we’ll similarly want a high Evasion base. As Prefixes, we’ll want Maximum Life and Physical Damage to Attacks. Suffixes are once again mainly Resistances. Rarity is a nice option if we can fit it without sacrificing too much.
Belt is the typical Maximum Life, Strength, and Resistance on a Utility Belt for the bit of instant recovery from Flasks. We can try for additional Charm slots too, but Charms aren’t super impactful at the current moment.
Ingenuity is still THE chase unique for this slot. We get far more value from Rings than we do our Belt anyways. But it’s also a very late game upgrade.
Wanderlust is one of the best Leveling Uniques for our Boots Slot. 20% Movement Speed combined with immunity to Slows is incredibly good.
When upgrading from Wanderlust, we’ll want a high Evasion base. We’ll be aiming for 30% Movement Speed at a bare minimum. Evasion, Maximum Life, Resistances, and Rarity are all good here to fill out the Affixes.
For our Rings, just about any base will do, but a Breach, Gold, or Amethyst Ring would be preferred. Our Ideal prefixes here are Maximum Life and Physical Damage to Attacks, Evasion and Mana can also be nice as a third. For Suffixes, We’ll primarily want Resistances yet again, Rarity and Strength are also fairly nice here, as well as Intelligence to level Dark Effigy or Despair.
While Leveling both Revered Resin or Surefooted Sigil can be great options if we have them. Revered Resin is nice for the Maximum Life and Life Flask Charges, while Surefooted Sigil is all about the speed and Evasion it offers.
When replacing these, the base doesn’t particularly matter. We’ll be looking to pick up more Evasion, Levels to projectile Skills, as well as more Life and Resistances. Rarity is optional, but also good to have if we can fit it while still being capped on resistance.
For annointments, Sharpened Claw is a very cheap annoint, being the combination of Ire, Greed, Greed. Currently, this provides 25% Attack Damage, but this is likely to change once Claws are added as weapons in the future. For less budget options, Deteriorate or Lasting Trauma can be much stronger options.
