Level 96 Toxic Rain Pathfinder^3.22

Notes

> 3.22 CHANGES <
Literally nothing changes for this build in 3.22 based on the patch notes. Tattoos might be useful, just be careful they don't break your 39% AoE target.
If you have a tattoo that replaces a 30 dex node with +1 dex gems spending 2 or 3 points for it may very well be worth it.

> FAQ <
How much area of effect do we want?
You want EXACTLY 39% area of effect, since Pathfinder doesn't give 30% area of effect anymore, this effectively means you have to get all of the 39% aoe somewhere this patch.
To reach this we grab the Bow mastery for 20%, craft gloves for 9% and get quality on TR for the last 10%. Some other options are amulet(8-10%) and helmet(8-10%).

What if I have more arrows?
Short answer: nobody knows! Or the people who do know aren't that public about it at least. The 39% number is specifically for no extra arrows, so just try to not add arrows.
If you figure out what the AoE thresholds are for additional arrows it's probably worth it to get an extra arrow or two. Who knows, someone might post info about it this league.

I have big mana issues, what do I do?
If you have big mana or ES issues there's a couple of choices

1. Use an Enduring mana flask. You can drop your silver flask to fit it.
2. Use lifetap, our life flask should sustain this, but you can pick up Excess Sustenance if you have life sustain issues
3. Get some more -mana cost. Even when running EB a -7 mana cost craft on a ring can matter a lot
4. If running EB: make sure you have the "regen es when a rare is nearby" craft on your belt, and make sure you get as much energy shield as possible

I can't cast my Malevolence Divine Blessing, why?
You can only use Malevolence once you're Eldritch Battery or you get enough reduced mana cost.
When EB you also need enough energy shield to cast it.
To get enough energy shield you can either:
- Reduce the cost of Malevolence by using a lower level Divine Blessing
- Get more energy shield on gear
- Use Divergent Inspiration and/or Divine Blessing
- Get more "reduced mana cost of skills" on jewellery, jewels or your flask mod 

Why not ... ascendancy?
There's a lot of ascendancies that are valid for Toxic Rain, but we have to pick one. Some comparisons:
Champion: less damage, more tankyness, less sustain
Raider: better for Heist, faster, way less tanky
Trickster: really good sustain, lower phys mitigation early on, tankier vs spells
Occultist: more of a Caustic Arrow ascendancy imo, lacks speed and defenses

I don't have an Empower, but the endgame bow has +2 support gems, what now?
Just keep using a regular +3 if you don't have one.There is technically a step in between, but it's simply not worth the divines you'd need to craft it.

Why no cluster jewel setup for hardcore?
I'm not a big fan of including cluster jewel setups in starter builds. I included an option for a cluster tree for Softcore that you could try to fiddle with and see if
you can make it work to your liking in hardcore, but it's going to be rough.

I don't have Empower, what are my options?
The first and easiest options is to use Damage on full Life, and taking the Life mastery that makes your full life threshold 90%.
Another option would be to run lifetap, see the "I have big mana issues" section of this FAQ for how to do that. 

How can I get my costs to 0 endgame?
The most important mod here is the mod on your flask that gives you reduced cost of skills. Get the rest on your jewellery and jewel(s).
If you want to switch early it's not too bad to annoint Dreamer, this gives you some nice reduced mana cost which might just bring you to 0 cost everywhere.
You can also use a Militant Faith with reduced cost of skills per Devotion in the Supreme Ego socket, make sure it doesn't replace any notables though.

I see someone use an Eternal Life Flask, and they told me it's better, why do you use a Divine Life Flask?
The duration of Eternal Life Flask is much shorter, which means you have to spam it a lot more, so I didn't want to recommend it. If you want to use it you're free to.

> LEVELING <
Starting out in act 1 you'll use Caustic Arrow and Puncture.
Use puncture on bosses(pretty much just Brutus) and Caustic Arrow to clear, try to hit level 12 before Merveil as this will make that fight much easier

After we hit 12 level with Toxic Rain + Caustic Arrow, make sure to press Withering Step on bosses.
Use your Caustic Arrow every few seconds on bosses and spam your Toxic Rain.
Blink Arrow doesn't share a cooldown with Withering Step, try to abuse this by holding off using dashes on bosses as much as you can. 

For twink leveling gear there's not that much outside of the usual suspects: +1/+2 tabula, goldrim, Wanderlust and Thrillsteel.
Another notable option is Hyrri's Bite, which actually has a recipe, vendor the following things together:
- a NORMAL rarity Sharktooth Arrow Quiver
- a rare onyx amulet
- a Rain of Arrows gem with at least 1% quality(it's definitely worth to use an early GCP you might find on this!)
- an Orb of Chance 

> CRAFTING <
Steelmage has a great video on how he crafted his gear last league, much of this still applies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kaj0pZxNrIo

Farming Porcupine
Early on you'll want to farm a set of The Porcupine divination card. You can do this in the following maps:
- Courtyard
- Orchard
- Terrace

Best endgame bow(+1, +2 support gems, chaos damage over time, attack speed, chaos dot mult)
1. Alteration roll a Hunter Thicket Bow(ilvl 78+) for T1 attack speed
2. Regal
3. Annul until you have only the attack speed left, if you miss start over
4. Craft "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers"(2 divines) and "Cannot roll Attack Modifiers"(1 divine)
5. Slam 2 exalts(closing eyes is optional), this will guarantee +1 socketed gems and chaos damage over time
6. Remove crafted mods
7. Craft "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers"(2 divines), "Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier" and "+2 to Level of Socketed Support Gems"(2 exalts)
8. Done!

+2 amulet Method 1(Requires Sacred Lifeforce)
1. Alteration roll an amulet for +1 to all skills(~2000 alterations)
2. Augment + Regal
3. Hope you hit a suffix, if you don't you're gonna want to use a Bestiary beast to move a prefix to suffix, and hope the +1 all skills doesn't get removed
4. Craft "Prefixes Cannot be Changed"(2 divines)
5. You should now have an amulet with 3 suffixes(including the crafted mod) and 1 prefix(+1 all skills)
6. Use the Harvest mod  "Add a new Chaos modifier and remove another random modifier from a non-Influenced item"
7. Now you have an amulet with 2 suffixes, and +2.
8. Craft Prefixes cannot be Changed(2 divines) and scour
9. You could just craft a prefix to block now, exalt slam and then multimod and call the amulet finished. If you want to invest a bit more at a slight risk you can continue with these steps:
10. Craft "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers"(2 divines), "Prefixes cannot be Changed"(2 divines) and any prefix(life for example)
11. Use the Harvest mod "Reforge a Rare item with random modifiers, including a Chaos modifier"
12. This will ALWAYS roll Chaos Res, and USUALLY roll only 1 suffix. If the chaos res is low or you rolled 2 suffixes you can go again from step 8.
13. If you rolled chaos res as the only suffix, you now multimod to finish up the amulet. If you rolled 3 suffixes you just craft life and call it a day.

+2 amulet Method 2(Requires more divines than method 1, no Sacred Lifeforce though)
1. Alteration roll an amulet for +1 to all skills(~2000 alterations)
2. Regal
3. Hope you hit a suffix, if you don't you're gonna want to use a Bestiary beast to move a prefix to suffix, and hope the +1 all skills doesn't get removed. YOU WANT A RARE WITH +1 all gems AND 1 SUFFIX NOW
4. Craft Multimod(2 divines), Prefixes Cannot be Changed(2 divines) and Suffixes Cannot be Changed(2 divines)
5. You should now have an amulet with 3 suffixes and 2 prefixes(including crafted mods)
6. Use the Harvest mod  "Reforge a Rare item with random modifiers, including a Chaos modifier"
7. Now you have an amulet with 1 suffix, and +2 to chaos gems once you remove crafted mods.
8. Craft Prefixes cannot be Changed(2 divines) and scour
9. You could just craft a prefix to block now, exalt slam and then multimod and call the amulet finished. If you want to invest a bit more at a slight risk you can continue with these steps:
10. Craft "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers"(2 divines), "Prefixes cannot be Changed"(2 divines) and any prefix(life for example)
11. Use the Harvest mod "Reforge a Rare item with random modifiers, including a Chaos modifier"
12. This will ALWAYS roll Chaos Res, and USUALLY roll only 1 suffix. If the chaos res is low or you rolled 2 suffixes you can go again from step 8.
13. If you rolled chaos res as the only suffix, you now multimod to finish up the amulet. If you rolled 3 suffixes you just craft life and call it a day.

Best Endgame Quiver(can be really expensive, both in Harvest juice and raw divines)
1. Get an ilvl 86 Hunter Broadhead Quiver(you can use Harvest to swap a Shaper or Elder influenced one to Hunter pretty easily)
2. Spam the Harvest mod "Reforge a Rare item with random modifiers, including a Chaos modifier" until you hit both normal dot mult AND chaos dot mult of a tier you're satisfied with.
3. Make it so the 2 dot mult mods are the only 2 suffixes. You can do this with annuls, if you remove one of the dot mults you have to restart(can you see why this is going to be expensive yet?)
4. Make sure there are no prefixes. The easiest way to do this is to craft suffixes cannot be changed and scour. If no prefixes are attack mods you can also craft cannot roll attack mods and annul(and recraft it if the cannot roll attack mods craft gets removed). Cannot roll attack mods and scour DOES NOT WORK!
5. Craft cannot roll attack mods
6. Slam an exalt, this is guaranteed to hit 1 of 3 mods: life, damage with bow skills or movement speed.
7. If the tier of the mod you just slammed is good enough for you, go back to step 6 again and repeat until prefixes are full. If you don't like the tier you'll have to go back to step 4.
8. Finish the quiver off with an attack speed craft