Questions & Answers

Although the guide should cover most topics and issues that arise, some frequently asked questions are answered below:

The guide differs in the following aspect from other beginner guides:

1. You don’t need to use any third-party software to follow the guide. This includes Path of Building, which is the standard tool for sharing builds. However, I hold the (likely unpopular) opinion that a guide aimed at new players, while simultaneously requiring Path of Building, misses its goal from the outset. Introducing new players to such a complex tool and expecting its use before they have even played the game cannot be considered beginner-friendly, in my opinion. Therefore, all information of the guide – e.g. the passive skill tree including the recommended progression path – is web-based and easily accessible.

2. Due to a checklist format, you can follow the guide step by step while receiving all the information precisely when it’s relevant. Simultaneously, each step includes all the crucial facts necessary for a pleasant gaming experience. This pertains to the game settings and the campaign as well as the endgame.

3. A detailed guide to all endgame items and their acquisition, including an in-depth explanation of the crafting process, enables you to experience the game in its full richness right from your first playthrough.

But in the end, player feedback matters the most, so check out the guide reviews from people who already used the guide.

Unless something completely unexpected happens, I expect that the build will be viable in the upcoming league, yes! Will it be a top notch meta build? Probably not. But that’s not what the build wants to be anyway. It’s exclusively about introducing new players to the game as pleasantly as possible. And for that you de facto don’t need a meta build (don’t let reddit tell you otherwise!).

In regards to 3.22:

The 3.22 patch notes do not include any changes that affect this build making it as viable as before. In consequence, it remains a very great league starter which can do all content.

However, the build still peaks at around 4-5 million DPS (unless you invest an unreasonbale amount of currency) making it not the best option when it comes to kill Uber bosses. So if your goal is to kill Uber bosses – which is absolutely unreasonable for new players, in my opinion – you should play another build.

Other than that, the build is still ideal for new and casual players. It offers solid damage, strong survivability, is easy to equip, and is not too complex. So … I can still recommend this build with a clear conscience to anyone who wants to explore the world of Path of Exile ;)

Edit: In 3.21, taunted Enemies were not receiving the 10% less damage penalty when dealing damage to a target other than the one that taunted them. This being fixed increases the survivability of the build a bit.

Yes, the build can beat all bosses in the game. But that does not necessarily mean that you are able to do it when using this build. It depends on your skill, your experience, your gear and whatnot.

That being said, there are builds that certainly have an easier time defeating the really hard bosses (Uber Bosses) than Toxic Rain Champion. So if your goal is to comfortably kill all Uber bosses, I don’t recommend using this build. But: Wanting to kill Uber Bosses with your very first Path of Exile character is completely unreasonable – at least in my opinion.

Path of Exile is a game with unlimited possibilities and in many cases there is no right or wrong. How a build is designed in terms of passive skill tree, gems, and items usually depends on what it is supposed to do. In this case, it’s a Toxic Rain Champion build, which should make it easier for new players to get into the game and experience as much of the game content as possible. Accordingly, the build is designed to give a new player a pleasant first game experience. This means, for example, that much more emphasis is placed on survivability and usability than on damage. Furthermore, the build has been and will be constantly updated and adapted based on feedback from new players.

The key of having enough mana to spam your Toxic Rain skill is an Enduring Mana Flask since it’s provides the following effect: ‚Flask effect is not removed when Unreserved Mana is Filled‘.

What does that mean? Normally – if you would use a normal Mana Flask – the process of recovering mana would stop as soon as you would hit your maximum mana available to you (for example 50). By using an Enduring Mana Flask the process of recovering mana does not stop and lasts as long as the flask effect is active giving you mana recovery for its whole duration – which ultimately enables you to spam your skills.

Additionally, the passive skill tree provides a lot of mana flask related notes so you don’t run out of flask charges.

For more details regading the usage and acquistion of an Enduring mana Flask, check the respective task.

By the way: Once you have your endgame setup, you can pretty much spam both your skills and Mana Flask without running out of Mana Flask charges – like in this example.

The reason why you swap to Toxic Rain at level 33 and not earlier is because if you start as a Champion, you will have access to skill points which scale well with Toxic Rain damage pretty late (around level 33). On top of that, the Steel skills provide way more damage at the earlier stages of the game. Furthermore, you are able to farm The Docks right before/when you hit level 33 to ensure you comfortably get your full Toxic Rain 3-link or 4-link setup.

A Thicket Bow is the best base when it comes to bows due to the fact that it has the highest Attack Speed (1.5) by default which is very beneficial to the build’s damage.

A common response by new players to the statement above is that the Short Bow base provides as much Attack Speed as the Thicket Bow. While this is true, the problem with the Short Bow base is that it can drop with a low item level which prevents certain modifiers (most importantly +2 to Level of Socketed Bow Gems) from being available during the crafting process. Therefore, a Short Bow can be an alternative as long as you don’t have a Thicket Bow base and as long as you don’t want to use it to craft your endgame bow.

Without using Path of Building you have to figure it out manually. You can do so by adding all percentage values of increased Area of Effect you get from your gems, your passive skill tree and your gear.

If you have followed the guide closely, the following sources will most likely provide increased Area of Effect:

  • Toxic Rain skill gem: 0.5% increased Area of Effect per 1% quality
  • Bow Mastery on the passive skill tree: +20% increased Area of Effect
  • Items: 7-15% increased Area of Effect

To get the maximum damage out of (G) Toxic Rain, you need a total of 39% increased Area of Effect from all sources.

Note: A common mistake new players make is that they include both Toxic Rain skills (primary + secondary) in their calculation of the total amount of increased Area of Effect. However, this is wrong, because each skill has its own Area of Effect (based on the skill gem quality + all other sources of increased Area of Effect on your gear and passive skill tree) and it doesn’t add up. Additionally, increased Area of Effect on aura gems do not count for Toxic Rain.

Also note: When using Path of Building, you can find the Increased Area of Effect value in the ‚Calcs‘ section via ‚Skill type specific stats‘.

In general, the following modifiers help you to scale your overall damage:

  • +#% Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
  • +#% Chaos Damage Over Time
  • +#% Chaos Damage Over Time With Attack Skills (quivers only)
  • +#% Damage Over Time
  • +#% Chaos Damage
  • +#% increased Damage
  • +#% increased Area Damage
  • +#% increased Attack Speed with Bows
  • +#% increased Attack Speed
  • +#% increased Attack and Cast Speed

More details regarding damage scaling can be found in the endgame basics section.

Additionally, the he following modifiers help you to scale your survivability:

  • +#% Fire Resistance (75%+)
  • +#% Cold Resistance (75%+)
  • +#% Lightning Resistance (75%+)
  • +# to Maximum life
  • +#% increased Maximum Life
  • +#% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (100%)
  • +#% Chaos Resistance (75%+)
  • Prevent +#% of Suppressed Spell Damage
  • +#% increased armour
  • +#% increased Evasion Rating
  • +# to Evasion Rating

More details regarding survivability scaling can be found in the endgame basics section.

Yes, I can! Make sure to make your pathofexile.com account non-private and write a comment on the official PoE forum. But please make sure to check out all the information this website provides before reaching out. Most of the information you are looking for should already be there!

A common mistake new players do is that they think the following modifiers are good for the Toxic Rain Champion build:

  • Accuracy
  • Attack Damage
  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Critical Strike Damage
  • Poison Damage

But in fact, these modifiers  actually don’t influence the damage of the build at all since it’s a build which is set-up for Chaos Damage Over Time.

The recommended loot filters already are really strict and become more strict the more you progress through both the campaign and the endgame, but it’s impossible to set-up a filter that considers the progress of each and every player who uses this guide.

You can use NeverSink’s Filterblade to adjust the filter on-the-fly to your needs, if you feel comfortable doing so.

I’m convinced that having Path of Building (PoB) or other 3rd party tools as a requirement to follow a build guide, is not only very intimidating, but also daunting for new players. Therefore, this guide doesn’t require Path of Building in the first place – at all. Nevertheless, PoB is the default way to share builds which is why I also provide the respective PoB.

As a result, a frequently asked question is why the damage numbers of the provided PoB differs from the ones that players see when they’ve imported their own build. Most of the time, the reason for that is a wrong configuration of Path of Building. In order to configure Path of Building correctly, the following settings have to be made:

  1. Activate „Include in Full DPS“ for both your main and secondary skill. You can find the respective option on the top right side if you select the respective skill in the skills tab of PoB.
  2. Set ‚# of Overlapping Pods“ to 5. You can find the respective option in the configuration tab of PoB.
  3. Set ‚# of Withered Stacks‘ to 15. You can find the respective option in the configuration tab of PoB.
  4. Set boss difficulty to ‚Guardian/Pinnacle boss‘. You can find the respective option in the configuration tab of PoB.

There are a ton of content creators out there, who provide great build guides and it’s impossible to list them all, of course. That being said, there are quite some content creators / build guides I’ve used myself in the past and which I can recommend:

Note: Most (of these) builds require the use of ‚Path of Building‚.

As far as I know, there are versions of the build which work with Pathfinder and Trickster, but I can’t provide any more information on that. If you want to play Toxic Rain, but with other classes, you have to search for respective build guides by yourself or create your very own version.