Path of Exile: One Health Scourge Arrow Raider Deep Delve Guide
Understanding the One Health Concept
The One Health concept in Path of Exile revolves around intentionally maintaining a very small health pool while maximizing damage output. The philosophy behind this approach is simple: with minimal health, survival depends on evasion, mobility, and careful positioning rather than relying on large life totals or heavy defensive layers. The trade-off is significant-you can deal incredible damage and clear content quickly, but one mistake can instantly end your run.
The success of a One Health build depends on several key elements:
High Damage Output: Since survivability is low, fights must be over quickly. A One Health build needs extremely high DPS to eliminate enemies before they can deal fatal damage.
Avoidance and Evasion: Instead of tanking damage, the build relies on avoiding attacks altogether through evasion, movement skills, and dodge mechanics.
Skillful Gameplay: Precision and awareness are critical. You must react quickly to enemy attacks, traps, and environmental hazards. One Health builds reward experienced players who can anticipate danger and position themselves optimally.
Life Recovery Options: While minimal, having mechanics like life leech, regeneration, or recovery flasks is useful to recover from small mistakes without breaking the One Health philosophy.
Why Raider?
The Raider ascendancy is exceptionally well-suited for a One Health Scourge Arrow build. Raider provides outstanding mobility, evasion, and attack speed, which are all vital for staying alive with a low health pool. Key reasons Raider excels in this setup include:
Enhanced Mobility: Raider nodes increase movement speed, allowing for quick repositioning to avoid deadly attacks or environmental hazards in Delve.
Onslaught Buffs: The Onslaught mechanic grants increased attack and movement speed, boosting both damage output and survivability by enabling faster repositioning.
Phasing Ability: Some Raider nodes provide phasing, which lets the character move through enemies, avoiding damage while maintaining DPS.
Elemental and Projectile Enhancements: For elemental Scourge Arrow setups, Raider provides bonuses to elemental damage and penetration, improving efficiency against resistances at higher depths.
Scourge Arrow Mechanics
Scourge Arrow is a bow skill that excels in Deep Delve due to its high damage over time and spreading effects. It applies chaos damage over time and spreads contagion to nearby enemies, making it a strong choice for both single-target and group encounters.
Scourge Arrow has several advantages that make it ideal for a One Health build:
High Chaos Damage Over Time (DoT): The skill deals persistent damage, allowing enemies to be worn down quickly without prolonged engagement.
Crowd Control Potential: The contagion effect spreads damage to multiple enemies, making it highly efficient against clusters.
Range Advantage: Being a bow skill, Scourge Arrow allows the player to maintain distance from dangerous foes, critical for a low-health build.
Scaling Flexibility: Scourge Arrow benefits from various modifiers, such as increased chaos damage, poison, and area-of-effect damage, allowing players to tailor the skill to different playstyles.
Preparation for Deep Delve
Deep Delve presents unique hazards that make preparation crucial, especially for a One Health build. The deeper you go, the more dangerous the enemies and environmental hazards become. Here are essential preparation steps:
Flask Management: Flasks are a primary defensive tool. Instant recovery life flasks, Quicksilver flasks for movement speed, and utility flasks for resistance or debuffs are crucial. Timing flask usage is critical since one misstep can result in instant death.
Gear and Jewels: Prioritize items that increase chaos damage, attack speed, and projectile damage. Defensive layers should focus on evasion, dodge, and movement speed to avoid fatal hits. Unique items like Queen of the Forest can provide the necessary mobility for survival. You can buy POE orbs to get them quickly.
Node-Specific Considerations: Deep Delve nodes contain enemies with elemental resistances, traps, and other hazards. Preparing with the right resistances, immunity flasks, and situational awareness is essential.
Visibility: Some areas are dark or filled with traps. Keeping the area well-lit with flares or skills ensures you avoid walking into danger.
Passive Skill Tree and Bandit Choices
The passive skill tree should focus on maximizing damage while providing enough survivability to avoid instant death. Core considerations include:
Bow Damage Nodes: Increases base bow damage, projectile damage, and attack speed.
Chaos Damage and DoT Nodes: Enhances the potency of Scourge Arrow's damage over time.
Evasion and Dodge Nodes: Crucial for avoiding hits, especially with minimal health.
Critical Strike Nodes: Boosts damage output and allows for faster enemy elimination.
For Bandit rewards, Alira is typically preferred. The bonus to mana regeneration, resistances, and critical strike multiplier synergizes well with elemental or chaos-focused Scourge Arrow setups.
Pantheon Choices
Pantheon selections can significantly improve survivability in Deep Delve:
Major God - Soul of Lunaris: Provides movement and projectile avoidance, helping the player dodge attacks in tight corridors.
Minor God - Soul of Shakari: Reduces chaos damage over time, which is particularly valuable against Delve monsters that apply poison or other chaos effects.
These choices enhance survivability without requiring a large health pool, keeping in line with the One Health strategy.
Flask Setup
Flasks are critical for both offense and defense in a One Health setup. Recommended flasks include:
Life Flask: Instant recovery with bleed and curse removal capabilities.
Quicksilver Flask: Increases movement speed, essential for dodging traps and repositioning.
Diamond Flask: Boosts critical strike chance, enhancing Scourge Arrow's damage.
Silver Flask: Provides temporary dodge or phasing effects.
Utility Flask: Specific situational flasks for elemental resistance or poison/bleed mitigation.
Effective flask management is a cornerstone of One Health survival. Timing usage proactively rather than reactively is critical. Use your Path of exile currency to get them.
Gameplay Strategy
The One Health Scourge Arrow Raider relies heavily on positioning, awareness, and precise execution. Key strategies include:
Kiting: Maintain distance from high-damage enemies while continuously applying DoT damage with Scourge Arrow.
Contagion Management: Spread Scourge Arrow effects across groups to maximize efficiency and avoid prolonged exposure.
Node Awareness: Scout for traps, environmental hazards, and enemy clusters before committing to engagements.
Flask Timing: Use defensive and utility flasks strategically to mitigate incoming damage.
Trap Avoidance: Always anticipate and avoid Delve-specific hazards, which can instantly kill a low-health character.
Conclusion
The One Health Scourge Arrow Raider is a thrilling and challenging build for players seeking the ultimate Deep Delve experience in Path of Exile. By combining the mobility, evasion, and offensive bonuses of the Raider ascendancy with the powerful chaos damage over time of Scourge Arrow, players can achieve exceptional clearing potential while navigating the dangers of Deep Delve.
With the right combination of gear, passive skills, Pantheon choices, and gameplay strategy, this build is capable of handling some of the toughest challenges in Deep Delve. Mastering it requires patience, precision, and practice, but for those who succeed, the rewards-both in loot and in gameplay satisfaction-are immense.
Dec-16-2025 PST