[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Hey there, nice looking guide. Couple questions:

1) Do you think this is still potent for farming currency when the new league has already been going on 2 weeks?

2) If we have a 5L bow and our empower is only lvl 1, what do?

3) I feel like I'm really slow when mapping. Do you use neversinks MF filter? Do you customize it at all? Even with that filter on, how do you determine what you pick up and what you skip?

THanks!

"

broseidon07 님이 작성:

Hey there, nice looking guide. Couple questions:

1) Do you think this is still potent for farming currency when the new league has already been going on 2 weeks?

2) If we have a 5L bow and our empower is only lvl 1, what do?

3) I feel like I'm really slow when mapping. Do you use neversinks MF filter? Do you customize it at all? Even with that filter on, how do you determine what you pick up and what you skip?

THanks!

1) I typically run this build for at least four weeks of a league. Longer, if I'm enjoying the league. Works well the entire three months, because it's always generating consistent currency that isn't anywhere near as dependent on the economic up or downturns a league goes through.

2) Level your Empower elsewhere. CA - VM - RD - Conc - Pierce/Slower Projectiles (Pierce if Drillneck, SP if not).

EDIT: From the FAQ:

"

First, Slower Proj is your last damage link, before the upgrade to Empower.

However, Empower "4" trumps Slower Proj.

In quotes, because you'll need a raw Empower 4 in a +2 bow, but an Empower 3 in a +3 bow, due to it becoming Empower 4 from the +1 all gems.

Once you have Ascended however, and drop the AoE gem, it's all about the dps. Remember that clear speed is effective IIQ. The faster you can kill shit, the more loot you'll drop. Therefore, in the 5L setup, it's more beneficial to run dps-centric rather than running IIR as your fifth link, because the more things you drop, the more chances you're giving your existing IIR to roll.

3) I use my own. In the video section, there's an inventory and stash management video that covers some of how I go about making my decisions, but it essentially comes down to i) Picking up only one 2h'er per trip, making an exception for bows/staves for their +3 potential ii) grab literally everything else, prioritizing what I'm missing for chaos recipe parts and chrome vends over rares, unless I'm low on alts/jews/fuse and I want to farm those up. Alts are usually 18-20:1c, while chromes are 12:1. Chromes are not only worth more, but you can accumulate more per item slot space than you will alts.

3b) If I'm tired of doing lots of vendor trips and don't feel the pressure of alt-farming, I'll just pick up T1-2 bases. Hubris Circlet, Vaal Regalias, Slink Gloves / Boots, Praetor Crowns, etc.

I see what the guy meant now... took me a few minutes to figure it out when I returned as well... cause this is my first league with Uber Labs in them... still need to do that so I can respec them 3 dex nodes between Scion start and 2nd Jewel node...

Also... I feel stupid for missing Pierce + Drillneck being better than Slower Projectiles pre-Empower... I take it the tooltip misses this, tho... cause my DPS dropped from 8700 to 8400... which I think is the difference between 28% projectile dmg on lvl 18 Slower Projectiles and 23% on my 10% lvl 18 Pierce (ignoring the 50% Pierce -> 50% dmg)

My scrolls have been steadily growing mostly from selling stacks of 40 transmutes when I can and picking up all wisdom/portal after breaches... I keep my stones for chisel recipes so they dont help... I have about 450 scrolls at the moment

My pickup strategy pretty much transitions from pickup everything to focus on 3x1s and 2x2s as I finish getting 20/300 or 40/260 (I try to go Ventor's eventually... they seem even cheaper now than 3 leagues ago when I did it... them and 6Ls I've been eye-ing)... if I find Zana or anything else that indicates this is going to be a heavy loot map I get more selective as well... I found I was jumping the gun a little in my first T1 30/15% maps to be skipping much yet with my 15/180

"

Piros 님이 작성:

I see what the guy meant now... took me a few minutes to figure it out when I returned as well...

Yeah, but a) you figured it, b) even if you didn't, you wouldn't pop up in this thread all antagonistic like he did. The tone of his post was basically, "Oh hey, I didn't pay attention, so f*** you and your shitty guide."

Really pisses me off when people point blame for their own ignorance.

"

Also... I feel stupid for missing Pierce + Drillneck being better than Slower Projectiles pre-Empower.

You weren't the only one. That whole post in the FAQ started because somebody asked a question way-back when, on when to switch to Empower, so I investigated more thoroughly to get an accurate differential, substituting various gems in to figure it out. For at least a short while, I was using Pierce anyway.

Tooltip will reflect it, but you also have to remember that Pierce + Drillneck is not just pre-Empower, but pre-Piercing shots. If you take Piercing Shots, especially the north road, you'll hit 90% Pierce chance once you grab Deadeye, meaning the maximum Pierce chance -> Projectile damage increase you can get from the gem is only 10%. Hence, Slower Proj beats it.

"

My scrolls have been steadily growing mostly from selling stacks of 40 transmutes when I can and picking up all wisdom/portal after breaches... I keep my stones for chisel recipes so they dont help... I have about 450 scrolls at the moment

Chisel recipe imho is a waste of a time. MF or no MF. Takes five recipes to make a chaos, and that's a lot of downtime you're spending in your hideout to organize it each time. Better off just blowing an alc on an amulet to finish off a chaos recipe. Alcs are basically 1:1 chisel.

So, five recipes to make a chaos, or one alc and one recipe to make 4/5's of a chaos. Then go buy five chisels with that chaos, if you need chisels. And who knows, that alc could turn into a sellable amulet, getting you even more chisels.

(Ratio's actually 4.2:1 right now, but you get the point).

"

if I find Zana or anything else that indicates this is going to be a heavy loot map I get more selective as well

That's one of those things that I barely touched on in the video, if at all. Been a year, can't remember, but it's really important. If your first few packs are pinatas, you gotta immediately cut back on what you're picking up if you want to get an efficient six portals of loot out.

Same goes for if you're running even tri-boss blue twinned maps. I'd routinely do museums back when they were T3s, and would almost always burn six portals just on the boss loot.

This is one of those things you only really learn properly by experience, though. Glad you've picked up on it.

Yeah... chisels aren't as valuable as they were before Atlas changes... used to be more like 3:1 chisel... Alch has been like 4:1 for awhile now...I don't think they've been 2.5:1 or so since 1.2

Sometimes I get set into my old ways and dont drop them when they become less valuable/important...

That explains the pierce thing... oh well... only out a few chaos... hopefully I can resell... I did my first 3 Labs awhile ago... around the time I got the Drillneck...

EDIT: I think personalizing your item filter is another thing you can do to improve clearspeed... once you know what you plan on looting, hiding everything you have no intention of picking up means every time an item drops its worth picking up.

For me, that means eventually getting rid of every flask... I dont much care for flasks once I have my main 5 flasks and 2 copies of all the utility flasks should I want to use one or craft one later... I don't care about white bases outside of the very few I want to alch... I'm not much of a chancer... and I don't need any magic items dropping outside of jewels... and I don't need non-quality gems dropping unless they are rare/vaal ones

That clears up a lot of screen space... less time trying to click the right loot box after a kill...

Alright, so.

Chrono asked me the other day to post my thoughts on MF vs non-MF.

We're about 10 days or so into the league now, and the TL;DR here is unless you're pushing red maps and/or willing to do gated content (Shaper, (Uber) Atziri, Uber Izaro, etc), MF has the advantage.

******

In a cross comparison, and accounting for the fact that I lost at least a day of farming rerolling out of Blade Flurry

* ~10 days with MF, I typically have about 15ex in the bank and have spent ~12ex
* Net total wealth, on average, after 10 days: 25-35ex

* ~10 days without MF, I currently have 2ex in the bank, and have spent ~20ex
* Expected average wealth over numerous leagues: 18-20ex

Some important notes here, I've been super lucky with my drops, as I posted in a random brag spoiler a few posts back, whereas even with MF I typically don't have three 1-2ex drops come my way in the span of four hours of play. So, those drops are an aberration no matter what.

Anyway, around 15ex that I've earned has come from normal sales and currency conversion, while the other 5ex has come from a Catalyst, Lion's Roar, Rumi's Concoction, couple Xoph drops.

Which brings me to the other important note:

I was running some gated content to get those items worth selling. Two Xoph runs alone netted me basically 2ex.


The conclusion here is basically this:

* Without running gated content, and simply behaving like a normal, competent player trying to push the Atlas normally, you will likely earn ~1ex more per day MFing than you will running a reasonable clear speed build like T-Shot poison.
* With running gated content, whether it's Breachlords, Atziri, Uber Atziri, Uber Izaro, Shaper, etc., you stand to make more money than MFing (presuming you're aware of the economic swings and when certain runs become less valuable), particularly if you're willing to run a service for those runs.
* If you're not willing to do the gated content, either because of a lack of skill or you find it boring as fuck (like me), you at the very least, in order to even try to keep pace with MF, need to be running T13+ maps in order to be selling your T9+ map drops to make up for the lack of recipes and sheer amount of cracks at the RNG wheel. Which, I'm not currently doing with my build, and I'm still at least 5ex behind where I normally am as an MFer.


In short, my recommendation is this: if you hate repeating the gated content ad nauseam and don't feel like being the victim of RNG murdering your map sustain, MF still has a place, to the tune of approximately a 15-20% greater efficiency of generating wealth than a clear speed build, as a normal exclusively mapping player.

There's likely a threshold where if you're clearing fast enough, dps equates with MF, but that requires a serious investment, knowledge, and skill in order to be able to pull off.

Also, loot pinatas are fun.

I've started exploring the Atlas of Worlds (t1-5 anyway) instead of just running my T1s... and I gotta say... for the most part I like the changes...

Did Vaal Temple get the old Museum bosses?... they seemed the same, only one at a time now... they seem to have made the bosses easier in general... more in their own rooms, etc... some just seem to have gotten rotated... wasnt Graveyard changed to pop you back out near the Arena instead of back at the start?... Oasis just seems like Arid Lake / Mud Flats with some grass... Phantasmagoria... I much prefer Doedre here than the old chaos spitting spider... I cleared the place waiting to die at the end the whole time then it was easy... I thought Tidal Island getting a little indoor connecting tunnel was funny (saw this with Zana)

Only thing I didn't like was the Shaper possessions... I didn't fully understand why some people in old reddit posts said they alt-f4'd the first time they encountered Shaper until my 2nd encounter... the game literally froze for like 20+ seconds... the first time I encountered him I realized my movement was blocked, but game was still playing and Mirror Arrow movement worked... the whole game froze the 2nd time in Arid Lake

I dont think I've ever played efficiently enough to make the crazy money some people seem to with this build... i get distracted too much... but I like the money i do make... I also probably vendor things I could sell, because I have a hard time telling what to keep other than the obviously good pieces with 100+ resist, HP, IIR/Movement...

Ser, do you mind sharing your loot filter? If not, do you think the MF version of neversink's will suffice for MF nubs?

"

Piros 님이 작성:

because I have a hard time telling what to keep other than the obviously good pieces with 100+ resist, HP, IIR/Movement...

That just comes with experience.

"

Ser, do you mind sharing your loot filter? If not, do you think the MF version of neversink's will suffice for MF nubs?

Eh, it's pretty custom, and totally not organized for easy consumption.

I guess I can post it? But I'm not on my gaming comp right now so it'll have to wait.

Re: Neversinks, I haven't used anybody else's filter, so I'm not sure. When I open his up in notepad it's just a jumble, not really sorted so I can't even analyze it to tell you. Might be done in Notepad++ or something, I dunno.

Dude's on top of his stuff though so it might work fine? Sorry I'm not more help here.

I use Filtration to modify Neversink's filter... but Filtration seems buggy at the moment... first it was hanging when I closed it... now its switching some of the blocks I hide back to show and vice versa when I open the script to modify it... so when I go to make changes, I have to recheck my gem/jewelry blocks are correct before I resave.