Everseen's Level 100 Hardcore Poisonburst Pathfinder

Welcome to my Build Guide for the Level 100 Poisonburst Pathfinder for Hardcore. This build can do all content with enough investment and is extremely comfortable in a hardcore scenario. I played this build in 0.4 to be the first Ranger to Level 100 for the season in the HCSSF Fate of the Vaal League.

LEVELING:

I would personally do grenades to level since it's efficiency and power is unmatched currently. That's how I leveled the build at least and then I swapped at maps to the Poison setup.

Follow GuyThatDies Mercenary Guide for all of the Skill/Support Gems as well as the gearing process. Use the Skill tree that I supply instead because obviously we will have a different start location.

https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/8bf106da-d9ad-4ce6-8428-c3dcd05e3523/builds/52260557-bc07-49cb-b156-7fc41b6d6d21

Alternatively you can chance a Slivertongue from Zealot Bow and use this by level 39 and start playing poison from there.

IMPORTANT TECH:

Bursting Plague is extremely effective against Temple Monsters since they have tons of Effectiveness which means more Health. Bursting Plague gets a lot of damage scaling from the enemies maximum health which makes this build really good for temple farming.

The Clear on the Build only requires 2 things. Herald of Blood and Herald of Plague and socketing at minimum Bleed III, Bursting Plague, and Poison III in Herald of Blood. Herald of Blood will explode when killing a bleeding enemy, which will then inflict bursting plague because it has 60% chance to poison. Bleed III is socketed in Herald of Blood to make sure our Bursting Plague has 100% chance to Bleed. Once the Bleed/Poison are applied the chaining is infinite and thanks to Herald of Plague it will proliferate.

THIS BUILD REQUIRES AS MUCH PHYSICAL DAMAGE AS YOU CAN GET

I'm using Cadiro's Gambit and its mainly for the chaining arrow which will help inflict a massive amount of poisons on multiple targets. This is simply a clearing quiver. I'm unsure if the rarity arrow is actually applicable as well because I believe it would have to kill a target with a hit. We are a damage over time build so that's likely not to happen. Regardless, I like it so I used it.

Headhunter is probably the Best in Slot item for this build. It massively increases your damage and for temple farming it is insanely comfortable.

Convalescence is used because the build lacks recovery, simply use this when you sustain lots of little hits that prevent your energy shield recovery.

Sustainable Practices is the most underrated Pathfinder Ascendancy node, I use this primarily while mapping since the completed build doesn't require the extra damage from Overwhelming Toxicity. Sustainable Practices gives you a ton of extra elemental damage reduction which makes 6-8 mod maps super comfortable with multiple extra damage mods. I always swap to Overwhelming Toxicity while bossing though as well as wearing a Ryslatha's Coil and socketing Heft into Toxic Growth for tons of more maximum physical damage.

Toxic Growth is an interesting skill where each pustule will have an independent damage roll, using Ryslatha's Coil and Heft on it will definitely give you a huge damage range, but since we hit so many times per second we can almost guarantee that we will be hitting our max hit very often.
In addition, Ambush support on Gas Arrow is believed to work synergistically with Toxic Growth by inflicting more damage to the pustules because they are technically on "Full Health". We also get benefits for our damage on Toxic Growth by using Low Tolerance. On the initial hit we will get more poison buildup.

Damage as Extra Chaos is a really good way to get extra damage on the build. You can achieve this through the Fenumus' Rune of Agony in a bow and Heart of the Well. Getting these will improve your overall poison damage but also scale the chaos damage over time that you inflict with Vine Arrow.

Acrimony is very useful on rares that regenerate life, on a tanky rare you should always have a Vine Arrow on it anyways so this helps a lot with overall damage.

SOLVING MANA ISSUES:

This build definitely has mana issues unless you have 1 modifier for physical damage leeched as mana on your rings or gloves. Toxic Growth will give you tons of mana leech with only 1 modifier. Try to get a Mana Flask with increased amount recovered as well as increased maximum charges to spam your mana flask as much as you can while doing Toxic Growth for single target if you don't have a leech modifier. You can path to Conservative Casting and or Efficient Casting to also get better management for mana, but at the cost of damage.

Damage Rotation is as follows:

For Clear simply just shoot Poisonburst Arrow into an enemy, Fork will cause it to hit multiple enemies. This will start the Bleeding process. Once the target dies they will explode from Herald of Blood triggering another bleed and poison with Bursting Plague and with Herald of Plague it will proliferate and will result in great clear.

Use Vine Arrow on any rares or monsters that are starting to swarm you. It will slow them while you do Toxic Growth to kill them.

For Single Target, use Barrage and then Gas Arrow to leave a lot more gas than not pressing Barrage. Use Vine Arrow to slow the boss as well as do more damage, Use Stormcaller Arrow to inflict your shock and then keep spamming Toxic Growth and every 2-3 casts of this use Poisonburst Arrow to get an additional poison. Once you see the gas start to fade simply do the rotation again.