Toxic Growth
Pathfinder Build

Updated for Path of Exile 2 Early Access

The Best Crafty Guides by Odealo

The freshly reworked Toxic Growth quickly became the strongest Skill for the Poison Bow Archetype. It creates Toxic Pustules that detonate after some time. You can inflict Poison on them with your other Skills, causing them to detonate instantly, dealing up to 300% more Damage. This Skill creates 10 Pustules with each use. Obviously, not every one of them will hit the target, but most of them will do. You will very easily reach the maximum amount of Poison Stack limit on your Enemies without needing to compromise your Damage with Multishot Support, investing into Attack Speed, or using a weaker Bow with Additional Arrow modifiers. 

To detonate Pustules, you can use any other Physical Bow Attack. We recommend Poisonburst Arrow. It deals a solid amount of Damage, and has great AoE coverage thanks to Fork and splashing explosions. The Poison applied by this Skill lasts significantly longer. It is not as strong as the Toxic Growth, but it will be able to take down fast or teleporting Enemies that run out of Pustule explosions. The Vine Arrow also helps with that, it slows down Enemies and inflicts some extra Damage if you poison it. 

The Plague Bearer is another great Skill to supplement your Clear Speed. It stores a portion of your Poison Damage, which can be released on demand. It is usually your strongest-hitting ability. Lastly, you should use the Stormcaller Arrow with a dedicated Weapon Set to inflict powerful Shocks. 

The Pathfinder Ascendency is very important for this Build. It doubles your maximum Poison limit, at a negligible cost of lowering their Duration. Additionally, your Poisons will spread to nearby Enemies upon killing their target, significantly improving your Clear Speed. It also makes you immune to Slow effects, and Attacking won't slow down your Movement as much. 

Your defense is based on Evasion and maximum Life. You can decide to supplement it with Energy Shield, or commit more to additional Deflection Rate. Both options are very good. 

You can also check our other Path of Exile 2 builds right over here Odealo's Crafty Guides - Full List

1. Gameplay

Use Poisonburst Arrow and Plague Bearer to clear packs of Enemies. Against stronger foes, use Toxic Growth and detonate it with Poisonburst. If that's not enough, use Despair to lower their Chaos Resistance and Stormcaller Arrow to inflict powerful Shock. 

2. Build's PROS & CONS

3. Leveling tips

You can start using the main combo quite early. Due to very limited Poison Stacks in the early game, the popular Lightning Arrow and Lightning Rod combo will probably be better and easier to scale with leveling gear. Try to upgrade your Bow, Rings, and Gloves every few levels. Flat Added Damage on them is insanely important during the Campaign and can easily double your Damage every time you do an upgrade. 

4. Final Skill Tree, Ascendancy Points, and Pantheon

Final Skill Tree:

Click on the image to open the Passive Tree preview in a new window, or use the Path of Building (PoB) tool.

Ascendancy points:

Preferably in this order:

1. Contagious Contamination
2. Overwhelming Toxicity
3. Relentless Pursuit
4. Running Assault

5. Final Gems links

[DPS] Toxic Growth setup Weapon Set 2
	Toxic Growth - creates exploding Pustules that Poison Enemies. Use other Skills to detonate them faster.
	Deadly Poison II
	Concentrated Area
	Long Fuse II
	Atakaali's Lust
	Rigwald's Ferocity

[DPS] Poisonburst Arrow setup Weapon Set 2
	Poisonburst Arrow - explodes upon hitting a target. Both the initial Hit and explosion can inflict Poison, which lasts significantly longer.
	Deadly Poison II
	Fork
	Bursting Plague
	Overreach
	Heft

[UTILITY] Vine Arrow setup Weapon Set 2
	Vine Arrow - creates a Plant that deals a small portion of the Poison as extra Damage, but also significantly Slows down Enemies.
	Magnified Area I
	Slow Potency
	Prolonged Duration II
	Rapid Attacks II

[DPS] Plague Bearer setup Weapon Set 2
	Plague Bearer - stores portion of your Poison Damage to fuel a powerful Nova that always Poisons on Hit.
	Magnified Effect I
	Chaos Mastery
	Astral Projection
	Bursting Plague
	Deadly Poison II

[UTILITY] Stormcaller Arrow setup Weapon Set 1
	Stormcaller Arrow - fires an Arrow that detonates with Lightning Damage after some time. Use it to inflict powerful and long-lasting Shocks.
	Shock
	Lightning Attunement
	Concentrated Area
	Elemental Armament II
	Lightning Penetration
[UTILITY] Despair setup Weapon Set 1
	Despair - an offensive Curse that lowers the Chaos Resistances of affected Enemies.
	Heightened Curse
	Focused Curse
	Rapid Casting II
	Efficiency II

[UTILITY] Wind Dancer setup
	Wind Dancer - an accumulating Buff that improves your Evasion Rating. Upon getting Hit, it releases an AoE Attack around you.
	Blind II
	Maim II
	Deadly Poison II
	Poison III
	Heavy Swing

[UTILITY] Withering Presence setup
	Withering Presence - inflict Withered Debuff on nearby Enemies. You can also use the Ghost Dance if you have decided on a hybrid ES/Evasion Setup.
	Prolonged Duration II
	Clarity I

6. Gear Setup

There are two useful Unique Items: Snakebite Gloves for additional Poison stacks, and Ryslatha's Coil for a boost to your Physical Damage. There are also two alternative routes: you can use the Plaguefinger Gloves for scaling with Elemental Damage, or Voltaxic Rift and focus on the Lightning Damage only. Usually, the default Physical variant is the best option. You will simply look for the highest possible Physical Damage on your Weapon and Rings. Gem Levels are also important. You will need a bit of Mana and Regeneration to sustain it, too. For defense, focus on Life, Evasion, and Resistances. You can opt for Deflection or Energy Shield as an additional layer. 

(Weapon) Rare Weapon - aim for the highest Physical Damage you can find, ideally paired with Gem Levels. The Attack Speed is not important, but it makes gameplay smoother. Use Runes to add extra Chaos Damage and increase the Poison Limit.

Min. requirements: 400+ DPS Optional affixes: +# to Level of all Projectile Skills

(Quiver) Rare Quiver - on the Quiver focus on increases to Damage, your Projectile Speed also affects it. Avoid Pierce, as it will make Stormcaller Arrow unusable.

Min. requirements: 40% increased Damage with Bow Skills +2 to Level of all Projectile Skills Optional affixes: Adds # to # Physical Damage to Attacks  Dexterity #% increased Projectile Speed

(Amulet) Rare Amulet - your Amulet is the last piece to get additional Gem Levels. You will also want the usual defensive modifiers, Attributes, or Mana.

Min. requirements: +60 to maximum Life +2 to Level of all Projectile Skills +50% total Resistance  Optional affixes: #% increased Mana Regeneration Rate +# to maximum Mana Attributes

(Ring) Rare Ring - those can add plenty of Physical Damage to your Attacks, but you will also need some Mana if you raise the Gem levels too much.

Min. requirements: +80 to maximum Life +50% total Resistance  Optional affixes: #% increased Mana Regeneration Rate Adds # Physical Damage to Attacks Leech #% of Physical Attack Damage as Mana

(Belt) Rare Belt - a great piece to pick up tons of Resistances and Life, allowing you to get more valuable modifiers on other Gear.

Min. requirements: +150 to maximum Life +100 to maximum Mana +50% total Elemental Resistance Optional affixes: +# Charm slots

(Belt) Ryslatha's Coil - greatly improves your potential maximum Damage. Only the 10 strongest Poisons will deal Damage at the same time, so the weakened Poisons will be discarded anyway.

(10-15)% reduced Charm Charges Used Has (1-3) Charm Slots +(80-100) to maximum Life (30-50)% increased Flask Life Recovery rate (30-40)% more maximum Physical Attack Damage (30-40)% less minimum Physical Attack Damage

(Helmet) Rare Helmet - a purely defensive piece, look for high Life, Evasion, and Resistances. If you decided on hybrid defense, use a purely ES Helmet instead, which considerably raises the Int requirements.

Min. requirements: +150 to maximum Life +50% total Elemental Resistance Gain Deflection Rating equal to 20% of Evasion Rating Optional affixes: Attributes Mana

(Body Armour) Rare Armour - you will always want to use a pure Evasion Body Armour, as some of them can lower your Movement Speed Penalty when using Skills.

Min. requirements: +1000 to Evasion Rating 15% reduced Movement Speed Penalty from using Skills while moving +150 to maximum Life Optional affixes: #% total Elemental Resistance Gain Deflection Rating equal to #% of Evasion Rating Attributes +# to Spirit

(Gloves) Snakebite - those Gloves grant tons of Damage via additional Poison stacks. Try to get Corrupted ones with additional Sockets to get a bit of extra Resistance here.

(40–60)% increased Evasion Rating +(7–17)% to Chaos Resistance (6–10) Life Regeneration per second (20–30)% chance to Poison on Hit Targets can be affected by +1 of your Poisons at the same time

(Gloves) Plaguefinger - you can also use those Gloves to inflict Poisons with Elemental Damage. You will need tons of flat Elemental Damage on your Rings and Bow to make it worth it, but it is possible.

(30–50)% increased Evasion and Energy Shield (4–6)% increased Attack Speed (20–30)% chance to Poison on Hit All Damage from Hits Contributes to Poison Magnitude

(Boots) Rare Boots - the Boots are very important to raise your Movement Speed. You will also need the usual Defensive modifiers.

Min. requirements: 30% Movement Speed +100 to maximum Life Gain Deflection Rating equal to #% of Evasion Rating +30% total Elemental Resistance Optional affixes: Attributes % reduced Freeze Duration on you

(Jewel) Rare Jewel - get at least one Jewel with Mana on Kill modifier. Other than that, look for Ailment Magnitude; it will boost both your Poisons and Shocks.

Min. requirements: % increased Magnitude of Ailments you inflict   % increased Magnitude of Poison you inflict   Recover #% Mana on Kill

If you have any other build requests please leave that in the comments below. We are always open to suggestions and constructive feedback.

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