Scourge League
beloved reader, due to real-life commitments ( a job, chiefly ), I have not been able to edit this scout in its entirety for this league ’ s patch. however, I did update the Path of Building, meaning that other than some little tweaks for things that might have changed, using the PoB below the construct will be fully functional .
Please excuse me for the lack of time, and for not being able to update the steer entirely. here ’ s the update Path of Building for this build that you should follow. Do note that this Path of Building is the only one you should be following, and not the other ones mentioned in this guide.
Introduction
This 
Scourge Arrow Pathfinder is a character that would fit in the Bow – Ranger Archetype, so far doesn ’ thymine truly feel like a standard Archer/Ranger. Scourge Arrow has a very specific playstyle and since you ’ re chiefly dealing Poison damage and about no on-hit damage, you ’ re not going to feel like you ’ rhenium playing a standard Bow character. however, these types of builds can be extremely fun to play and a nice change of pace from builds you might have already played .
Through getting a 100 % Chance to Poison and scaling only Poison and Chaos Damage, you are getting about 6 to 8 Million Boss DPS out of this build. It will be using properly pieces of gear but nothing impossible to acquire even for newer players who want to push this construct to the higher levels. Should you be scared about gear that costs more than a copulate 
Chaos Orb randomness, worry not as we ’ ll be providing a very basic version excessively that is very easy to gear and that is Solo-Self Found viable.
even at Solo-Self Found levels of equipment this build can achieve estimable damage while being incredibly tanky. Most people wouldn ’ t expect a Ranger construct to ever be able to tank most of the incoming hits in the crippled but this build decidedly does. It relies on Pathfinder mechanics in combination with Evasion & Dodge to have absurd amounts of prolong and anti-one shot mechanics. Through playing this build up you will for sure be surprised as to how strong a Ranger human body can actually get on the defenses separate !
The main advantages of Scourge Arrow, a relatively fresh skill that has in truth gotten a fortune of aid to be an enabler for Poison builds as of 3.9 Metamorph League, are the stages the skill has and the multiplier it provides. Through scaling Poisons off of the stages we can get in truth high wrong numbers even though we ’ re a Poison build. besides, since Scourge Arrow has so many mechanics that synergize with the mechanics of Poison, we get to Poison multiple times with a unmarried channel of Scourge Arrow. This means we can guarantee high amounts of Poisons on all enemies and bang-up uptime. Due to the Pathfinder Ascendancy we besides get to proliferate our Poisons, which makes our net even better .
Build Summary
This Scourge Arrow guide truly gets going after it completes all of Labs and gets a adequate measure of gear. however, it ’ s very playable on starter gearing as it doesn ’ t require any pieces or rolls to make the build function. On day 1 gear ( even Solo-Self Found ) one could easily get 2 million DPS and around 5.5K Life with a short ton of extra layers of department of defense. While upgrading gear will decidedly feel nice since you ’ re normally in the rub as your Poisons take time to kill your enemies, this type of build up should easily get you to early loss maps and get you to some currency to get the upgrades you need/want .
Besides running Scourge Arrow, there are a couple of early things you ’ ll be doing to amplify your Poisons. For starters, you ’ ll be running a 
Malevolence Aura to give you more wrong over Time and Poison Duration ! early than that, you ’ re running a medium-leveled 
preciseness to cap your prospect to hit. You truly don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate want to worry about your hit probability and Precision is a big way to guarantee that. last, we ’ re running a 
Herald of Agony linked to some utility supports for the Chance to Poison and the “ more Poison Damage ” multiplier .
Since you ’ rhenium playing a Chaos Damage-based build, as all Poison Damage is Chaos Damage, we want to somehow paroxysm in a 
Wither apparatus. even though present some people opt for some crazy shenanigans to guarantee more uptime on Wither stacks, we feel like having them on a button and up on a boss should be more than convenient enough. We don ’ thyroxine feel like it ’ s a necessity to have them up on white monsters throughout a map. This is why you should be running a Wither linked to 
Spell Totem Support, 
Multiple Totems Support, and a 
Faster Casting Support. This guarantees you the fastest Wither stacking on bosses ( or whenever you put the Totem down ) .
Pros & Cons
Pros
+ Really satisfactory individual target on a budget
+ Very hard-core feasible as it is incredibly tanky
+ reasonably good pass rush
+ Immune to map mods ( at gamey gear levels ; in basic gear it is about immune )
+ Permanent Flask uptime – you can about spam a much as you want
+ With the right items it becomes the tankiest texas ranger build always
Cons
– Relies on Damage over Time to kill monsters, then can fill clunky
– Being a Pathfinder, most of our build focuses on Flasks which you have to keep up
– Scourge Arrow needs some time to get used to as it is an awkward skill at first
– Getting a truly high-end Rare Bow might be identical expensive
Echoes of the Atlas Expansion Updates
even though Pathfinder underwent a becoming lump of changes in the Echoes of the Atlas Patch Notes, the build basically remains wholly unaltered. Where we lost some damage in one side of the Ascendancy, we gained some elsewhere. early than that about nothing has changed for Pathfinder that impacts us any .
Since none of the Skill Gems or items the build used changed, it ’ second reasonably safe to say that the build up will perform at its pre-Ritual levels, which mean it still is incredibly tanky while dishing out multiple millions of DPS and is very suited for anyone who wants to play a Bow character that feels strong all about .
Playstyle, Mechanics, Strengths
The mechanics behind this human body are reasonably simple. We ’ re trying to apply a lot of Poisons on a monster to ramp up the damage we deal them. Since there are no limits to the come of Poisons a monster can have, Scourge Arrow lends itself very well to fulfill this function. If set up correctly, we can apply a set of Poisons through one impart of Scourge Arrow .
This is where the first important automobile mechanic of our builds comes into fun. You need to find at least a one source of Additional Arrows. The reason why is if you don ’ t have any of these, Scourge Arrow will fire one arrow which will create its pods in a straight line between your character and your cursor. Since the projectiles fire in a Nova around the Pods you create there ’ s a certain angle they ’ five hundred need to fire in in order to hit their Single Target enemy. The 3rd pod in a rowing will miss your enemy regularly. If you have 1 Additional Arrow, Scourge Arrow starts shooting 2 Projectiles in a V-Shape, meaning that all 6 of the Pods should be hitting your enemy .
fortunately for us, there are a lot of sources of Additional Arrows available. Whether we want to use a 
Dying Sun or an extra arrow on a submit or a Quiver is wholly up to you. ampere farseeing as you know that you actually want to find one ( or more ) of these modifiers, you ’ rhenium fortunate .
future up I ’ d like to talk about defenses. First of all you ’ re going to anoint Aspect of Stone. This replaces a once identical powerful Hardened Scars anoint. To further make up for that, the human body picks up crystal Skin as an extra layer of defense so it balances out its extenuation versus Elemental and Physical Damage .
future up, since you ’ rhenium scale Flask impression through Pathfinder, flasks like 
Basalt Flask, 
Quartz Flask, or 
Hallowed Hybrid Flask will greatly be increased in potency. This construct packs quite a punch when it comes to Life recovery and hit extenuation. When built correctly and on a reasonable budget, we can achieve an effective Health Pool of around 100.000 versus Elemental Damage and Chaos Damage, and 35.000 versus Physical Damage. Do note that there is a distribute less incoming Physical damage than there is elemental price in the plot. These numbers make us obscenely tanky flatly !
As for playstyle, you actually good want to channel 5 stages of Scourge Arrow to make maximum use of the “ More damage per stagecoach ” machinist before you release. A individual release/channel should clear and entire screen through Poisons and proliferates, due to Pathfinder ’ s Nature Reprisal. On bosses, hear to make certain as many Pods as potential have at least the hypothesis to hit one of their arrows. differently, your price will feel very sub-optimal. This is chiefly relevant before you get sources of Additional Arrow ( randomness ) .
Passive Skill Tree, PoB, and Gem Links
You can find an optimize way of Building here. Every build up I release will use the community fork of Path of Building, which is maintained and updated in a much more regular fashion than the original one. You can find PoB ’ second Fork, by LocalIdentity, here .
If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, we besides have a PoePlanner ; for you. Do notice that PoE Planner does not support Cluster Jewels and some specific unique jewels and it is highly recommended you install Path of Building to follow builds most optimally .
More data about the Passive Skill Tree, angstrom well as all the Gem Links can be found on our consecrated foliate .
Passive Skill Tree, PoB & Gem Links
Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Powers
Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.
Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon page
Gear Summary / TL;DR
A lot of this is explained more in depth in the Gear Page, however we will provide you with a basic theme of what gear you ’ rhenium looking for in this abruptly compendious .
Gear, Jewels and Flasks breakdown page
Our recommendation :
Item Slot
Item Name
Head
A Rare (Ideally) 
Lion Pelt with high Life, “Nearby Enemies have -#% to Chaos Resistance” and Ailment Duration while Focused Bench-craft
Amulet
A Rare 
Agate Amulet with high Life, Resistances & Crafted Added Chaos Damage to Attacks
Chest
A Rare (ideally) 
Assassin’s Garb with very high Life, some Resistances and “#% of Physical Damage taken as Fire Damage”
Gloves
The Embalmer with “Curses Enemies with level # Despair on hit” Corruption
Boots
A Rare pair of (ideally) 
Slink Boots or Two-Toned Boots with Movement Speed, Life, & Resistances
Belt
A Rare 
Leather Belt with high Resistances & Life
Rings
One 
Circle of Nostalgia and a Rare Two-Stone Ring with Intelligence, Resistances and high Life (and optionally a “Channelling skills have -3 to Total Mana Cost” mod)
Weapon
Darkscorn
Quiver
A Rare Quiver with “Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier” (Hunter), “Bow Attacks fire an additional Arrow” (Shaper), “High Life and a 5% Frenzy Charge on Critical Strike” Bench-craft
Questions & Support
I made it a habit to check all comments in my guides on a daily footing. obviously, there might be occurrences where getting a reply might take longer but I actually do try to get back to you adenine soon as possible. I prefer you making remarks, suggestions or asking questions that way as it allows others to read through the comments, providing them with a likely answer to their question, without having to wait for me again. If I have somehow missed your question, you can try reaching me on our Discord .
If you enjoy my capacity to such an extent that you ’ d like to support me and my work, I have a Patreon you can check out. At no point should you feel pressured to contribute, but if you do, your support means more to me than you will ever imagine .
Leveling
Since we are very adamant about trying to give you a leveling experience that lies as close to your endgame playstyle as possible, we will be providing you a manner to level up with the Poison-Based 
Toxic Rain / Scourge Arrow. If you are looking for the most optimum direction to level a character to maps, we refer you to the follow guides .
- Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
- Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
- Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.
You can level the character with its touch skill since horizontal surface 28, and until then you can use skills like 
Caustic Arrow and Toxic Rain .
Getting to Brutus & Merveil
For starters, create a Ranger in whichever league you want to start. You will want to start out by buying two 
Iron Ring south and a 
agrestic girdle from the seller if you can afford them. ideally, you besides want to find a 3-Linked token with 3 green sockets. We can link caustic Arrow to 
Pierce Support and 
Lesser Poison Support there .
once you get all of this set up, go complete the Mud Flats & Kill Hailrake. acerb Arrow should feel sanely herculean at this degree of the game .
From there on, you ’ ll be able to pick up your foremost 
Quicksilver Flask and a 
Dash from your quest rewards .
After killing Brutus, you ’ ll be changing your links to the following to deal more damage :
Changes at Level 12
After we ’ ve killed Merveil, we will try to have the necessary links and currency to get ourselves the following links :
electric potential 4, 5, and 6-Links would be : 
Mirage Archer Support, 
Deadly Ailments Support, and 
unbound Ailments Support .
Make certain to drop your Wither totem for Boss fights .
additionally, you need to use 
Summon Skitterbots and Herald of Agony to supplement our damage until level 28. 
Blood Rage is very courteous as it grants Attack Speed & Frenzy Charges but besides degens your Life which can be annoying to deal with .
Swapping to Scourge Arrow
While you could swap to Scourge Arrow at degree 28, I ’ five hundred recommend you wait until you can get an 
Added Chaos Damage Support in your links, and until you have at least a 4-Link to go with. typically, this will put you around level 31. Your entire frame-up should look something like this ( the 5th and 6th gems in the main connect are actually a lavishness should you somehow have the links to accommodate them ) :
ultimately, the following 4 gems should be used wherever possible ( they do not need to be linked ) :
Leveling Trees
We ’ ve created a Passive Skill Tree. for +- Level 60 for you to follow. In shell you like a Path of Building good, here it is. It is hush using our endgame gear setup though, so don ’ metric ton worry if your actual numbers are lower while leveling up .
Useful Leveling Unique Items
As you begin a new character, there are a couple of items that can make your level procedure a fortune drum sander. 
Tabula Rasa allows you to have a 6-Linked skill equally early as you are able to use specific defend gems. 
Wanderlust gives a adequate sum of movement amphetamine, which will make your level that much more efficient and a 
Goldrim provides a fortune of Elemental Resistances which help a great deal during the grading .
If you are a new player ( or if this is your foremost character for the league ), note that obtaining these items will be very difficult, if not impossible. They are rare drops, which you can otherwise only acquire if you have saved up currentness, so do not focus on them excessively much, and alternatively just look for items that match the affix priorities listed in the Gearing part .
faq
The build has Little Upfront Damage; Since you Cannot Rely Mainly on Leech, Where Does the Sustain Come From?
Combining Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics with an Alchemist ’ mho Quartz Flask and Pathfinder ’ s Flask Effect will give us about 57 % Dodge and 47 % Spell Dodge. On crown of that, you have a decent amount of Evasion and a Less find to get hit when it matters through Wind Dancer. This effectively makes us have a 83 % casual to not get hit by either Melee or Projectile Attacks and a 47 % chance to not get hit by Spells or Spell Projectiles .
Afterwards, you have ghastly extenuation through Aspect of Stone & Crystal Skin and a permanent 6 % Reduced Elemental Damage Taken ( Pathfinder ) and 8 % Less Chaos Damage Taken ( inculcate Channeling ). following, you ’ re converting a becoming ball of incoming forcible damage to be better mitigated to Chaos ( through Darkscorn ) and Fire ( Body Armour ) Damage which results in an overall very high effective HP pool for all types of incoming damage. last, you ’ re permanently keeping up your Hallowed Hybrid Flask which grants you about 2500 Life per second through Flask Effect scaling .
Why Would I Choose to play a Poison Build? It is Generally Slower Than Most Instant Damage Builds.
As mentioned before, Poison actually has to be something you want to play. It has its upsides, for indisputable, chiefly that it is capable of scaling very well on a fair gearing budget and sanely few nodes in the Passive Skill Tree. There ’ s very little pathing going on, which allows us to build a draw more defensive character in general. As indicate before, this credibly is the tankiest Ranger build you ’ ll ever play .
My mana feels kind of annoying on bosses cause I run out of Flask Charges
If you ’ ra playing a bunch of bosses, and you feel like you are not getting adequate uptime out of this flask ( you should only lose a identical minor total of Flask Charges per second though due to Nature ’ s Boon ), you will need to find extra sources of mana. other than -mana crafts on rings and amulet, establish mana scaling from leveling there in truth international relations and security network ’ triiodothyronine a great deal you could do though. In this case, you ’ vitamin d be looking to get a thorax firearm with -15 mana cost. other than that, if that is out of stove, you could swap out your 
Cinderswallow Urn for a 
The Overflowing Chalice to grant you more uptime on your Enduring Mana Flask.
Conclusion
The Scourge Arrow Poison Pathfinder excels at dealing massive Single Target damage which it proliferates to clear stallion screens. It relies on stacking Poisons on enemies and watch them try to resist as they inevitably go down. Whilst putting out very respectable DPS numbers, it is among the most tanky characters in Path of Exile. It can clear all message and excels at most of it. Whether you want to go Delve, Map, or kill some Uber Elders, this character does it all and will make you feel felicitous about yourself all day every day .
It is viable in both league-starting and Solo-Self Found environments, as it scales up with gearing but is very playable on random Rare pieces. The hardest piece to acquire as a Solo-Self Found musician ( or person who generally doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate generate a set of currentness in a deal league ) will be a bow. other than that, all of your items are superintendent brassy and even if you go for brassy alternatives, the downswings in your damage won ’ thyroxine be as impactful .
Changelog
