Poison Gas Arrow Pathfinder Build Guide
Poison your enemies with massive clouds of gas with this smooth Pathfinder build. Poison clouds give you the luxury of moving around while damage is done for you. Outside of Rare and Unique enemies, just press one button as you glide through maps.
Poison Gas Arrow applies a number of stacks of poison on enemies, and Pathfinder enables up to 10 stacks with very little investment. Gear is cheap and doesn't require any complex mechanics to get the build feeling great.
Evasion and Ghost Dance synergize to allow you to avoid most incoming damage, but then recover large chunks of Energy Shield when you actually get hit.
Note: You do not need resistances/attributes on any specific item, just get the required total resistances amongst all gear combined. You need to cap your Resistances at 75% unless otherwise specified in the guide!
Path of Exile 2 is currently in early access, this means rapid development including frequent changes to builds as there are balance fixes and we learn more. Pin this page to be notified of any updates.
This guide assumes you are at least level 68 and have completed Act 3 Cruel, to learn more about the leveling process check out our Poison Gas Arrow Pathfinder Leveling Guide.
Skills
- Gas Arrow creates gas clouds that leave a ticking poison on enemies. Multiple clouds from additional arrows can overlap and put multiple poisons on the same enemy.
- Vine Arrow is your utility, drop it on a boss to add damage and regeneration of Life, Mana and Rage.
- Dark Effigy puts Wither on enemies, making them take large amounts of extra Chaos damage.
- Despair is your damage curse, providing massive increased Chaos damage taken by enemies.
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Skill Rotation
- While mapping, drop Gas Arrow on enemy packs and in chokepoints. The gas clouds last a while so they are effective at keeping enemies from surrounding you.
- When you meet a challenging Rare or Unique enemy, hit them with Gas Arrow and then drop a Dark Effigy and Despair on them. At that point you can use Gas Arrow again or drop Vine Arrow for more bonuses.
- The key on bosses is to stay at 10 poison stacks (or whatever your maximum is at the time) and then spend the rest of the time dodging and keeping your other debuffs on the enemy.
- Momentum gives you a substantial bonus for moving while attacking. There is both an audio and visual cue for the successful proc of this support, so test it in your hideout!
- Staying Close to your Vine Arrow pods will provide you Life, Mana and Rage regeneration. This can be useful to preload on bosses for Rage stacks if the boss has a significant spawning time.
- Use Plague Bearer for a huge poison on single targets or to clear out whole screens.
Skill Leveling Priority
Passives
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Ascendancy
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- Contagious Contamination spread your poisons, improving clear significantly.
- Overwhelming Toxicity doubles the number of poisons you can have on a single enemy. This is the strongest poison node in the game, allowing for significantly more damage.
- Traveller's Wisdom is a straightforward 6 additional points on your passive tree.
- Running Assault allows for more speed during attacks, greatly smoothing out gameplay and allowing active dodging while you attack.
Gearing
Offensive Scaling
- Gas Arrow is Poison damage, which is scaled by your hit. It is crucial to understand that the hit generates the poison, and then damage modifiers to the hit afterwards to not scale your damage. For example, a Poison hit based off of physical damage does NOT benefit from increases to Chaos damage, despite Poison dealing Chaos Damage Over Time.
- Gas Arrow is scaled by +# to Level of all Projectile Skills.
- Sources of #% increased damage: #% Attack Damage, #% Global Physical Damage, #% increased Damage
- Poison is also scaled by Poison Magnitude.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances
- Evasion to avoid all damage from hits, and when you have at least 12-14k Evasion Rating, enabling Acrobatics to avoid damage from ALL hits.
- +# to Energy Shield to provide additional effective health pool, as well as enabling recovery via Ghost Dance
- +# to Maximum Life.
- Movement speed is a great defensive layer, as it helps you manually avoid incoming projectiles and area of effect damage.
- If you are still struggling check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Here's how you should gear your Poison Gas Arrow Pathfinder. Sorted mostly in order of importance
Weapons
- #% to Physical Damage
- #+ to Physical Damage
- + to Level of Projectile Gems
- Bow Attacks fire # Additional Arrows
Body Armour
Helmet
Quiver
Gloves
Boots
Rings
Amulet
Belt
Jewels
Atlas Passives
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- This build is great for things like Expedition, where you can preload your Gas Arrows before enemies spawn. When they spawn in, they die quickly and their poisons proliferate to the next pack.
- This build can do all map modifiers, but when you have a lot of % increased Map Modifier Effect, having 96%+ reduced recovery of Life and Energy Shield can be challenging.
- This build has good boss damage, so targeting boss maps can provide significant rewards.
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
Should I use those gloves that make my elemental damage poison?
The Plaguefinger gloves are a powerful item but come at a cost: item affixes. Early on, it is challenging to acquire gear that has all the resistances, life and evasion you need to feel strong in the endgame, while also getting prefixes with large amounts of elemental damage. The Snakebite gloves provide 25% more damage with no extra cost.
I struggle with my attributes, what should I do?
I keep dying! Is there any way to solve my defense?
What bonuses should I choose from relics in Act 2 and venom drought in Act 3?
Video
Summary
- Gas Arrow is a long duration poison skill that allows you to get damage out while you move and evade. Make the most of this by never standing in one place! You are further rewarded for moving and attacking by using Momentum.
- Close off chokepoints in dangerous events like Expedition or Breach by dropping gas clouds around you. This will prevent you from getting swarmed.
- Never stop moving!
- Use your Curse and utility on bosses while you move around and manually dodge dangerous enemies. Let your poisons do the work for you.
- Evasion and Energy Shield allow you to utilize Ghost Dance and Acrobatics for damage avoidance and mitigation
- Use Plague Bearer for a huge poison on single targets or to clear out whole screens.