After my disappointment with my attempt at my own build using a Cast on Critical Strike bow Ascendant, I decided to take a closer look at the real core of what I was going after: a use of Asenath’s Chant. Asenath’s Chant, while rare, is a pretty cool item and I noticed it was used on a bunch of Toxic Rain builds. As I now have two of these, I decided to give this build a 2nd try.
With a Pathfinder Toxic Rain build, you employ Asenath’s Chant by doing a combination of Essence Drain and Contagion for a little more map clear. There are a lot of variants on how the 3rd and 4th links are used. Commonly, I’ve seen Efficacy being shared here. But the last link can be done in a few ways.
The way I’m using it is with Soulrend. Since I have around 700 ES, I figured that Soulrend is something that can help with ES regeneration. Essence Drain does help a bit with facetanking in getting a little life regeneration back. So the combination allows for a little more survivability.
Another option I’ve seen is using Culling Strike which is interesting because it helps finish off bosses faster. The area clear with the help of Essence Drain and Contagion is quite good but rare mobs and uniques are where things fall off for this build.
The last option is to put a Despair gem here. Since I use a Witchfire Brew, I get Despair as an aura. So for now, I use that in place of the Despair gem. But it is a possibility since you can then try to outrange bosses.
Now, the main thing I’m really missing in this mix is a Maloney’s Mechanism. Like Asenath’s Chant, Maloney’s Mechanism provides a trigger attack with bow skills. So some builds end up putting the Despair here with Frenzy and a Curse on Hit support gem (I think it’s called Hextouch Support). In turn, you can use another flask in place of the Witchfire Brew.
Personally, I like the Witchfire Brew since it adds to your damage over time. The other setup that I’m far more fond of here is Frenzy with Culling Strike and Power Charge or Onslaught support. Onslaught is an interesting choice here because you’re effectively getting a perma-Onslaught setup. Right now, I get Onslaught on kill from an Abyssal jewel placed in my Tombfist gauntlets so again this would open up more potential.
There’s some other things missing from this build that I’m doing including the new replica Conqueror’s Efficiency, which reduces the cost of mana for skills by -9 and a Thread of Hope that can handle a very large ring to get a few notables around the Scion starting point.
However, right now, the build feels decent. It’s a lot more tanky than the Scion I was doing and the area clear is quite good. The only issue again is with bosses and getting chunked from time-to-time.
Of course, I don’t have full ascendancy here and I went with Master Toxicist rather than Master Alchemist. I think the reason most take Master Alchemist is to become immune to Elemental Ailments as well as being able to shock, freeze and ignite. The only real thing of value I see there is the shock and Ailment immunity. Nature’s Adrenaline would be another thing to really boost my damage up as the increased attack speed would be huge for Toxic Rain.
The last thing that I’m really missing is an insane +3 bow. Most people in the league are getting a synthesized bow with a damage of time modifier. That’s one thing that would be pretty hard to obtain for me along with the replica Conqueror’s Efficiency and I honestly have no desire to play the league at this point.
That said, I started to think about resurrecting my Scion from Delirium. I haven’t checked her aura stacking situation but I read it’s still quite viable. Mostly, the key here is to remove most of the heralds and stick with the other auras. Then use cluster jewels to boost up ones non-curse auras effect along with -1 mana reservation reduction jewels.
While I do have parts of that, I think the cluster jewels are the big items to get along with the mana reservation reduction jewels. I did manage to score a Ring of Blades with the mana reservation implicit. So I was thinking about switching over from Spark.
Also, in Delirium league, I managed to get an Ethereal Knives enchantment for an Alpha Howl during Uber Lab. It’s a really good one so I could make use of that here. Again, I would need to fiddle with the character to see how to make all this work again.
Either way, I still need to see what I have available to come close to being able to execute this build. I have the basic gear but might need to put some effort into getting the cluster jewels and mana reservation into place. I really miss this build and hope I can get mine working again.
Beyond all this, I haven’t really decided what else I want to do. I might take another look at my Freezing Pulse totem guy just for kicks. Also, I could give Shrapnel Ballista another try. I saw a Hierophant version posted to reddit recently. Not sure if that’s the play but it is a possibility.
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