[2.4] Mines over Matter - Lightning Warp Finally Viable!

So, I finally both got a +3 skill staff, and 6linked it.

This is my gear as of now, at level 90:


Some of my gear is pretty garbage, the amulet in particular. I haven't found a better one so far and I've been stubbornly refusing to trade for rares.

As for Weave the Arcane vs Shade Form, the difference comes down to Acrobatics and gear. Right now, my gear is very light on evasion, and my ES is being crippled by Acrobatics. I don't expect Evasion to save me with my gear as bad as it is. Right now my paradigm is "I'm going to get hit, so I'm better off focusing on effective max HP to soak the big hits while I run my ass away." And Weave the Arcane does that better than Shade form, with its 33% increased max mana. The mana regen and recovery are welcome extras. Its an approach with spell defense in mind rather than melee or projectile defense. Incidentally this is also why I run a Quartz flask in place of a Jade flask.

Is it ideal? No, and I'm not going to pretend it is. Once my evasion gear gets better, and I find a better way of keeping my max mana at least 30% of my max HP, I will in all likelihood swap to Shade Form. Swapping the Wrath in my Essence Worm to a Grace would be a good way to move towards evasion focus as well, but right now I feel Its not worth the damage loss.

Finally, I've been playing with this 6link +3 staff, and the more I use it the more I want my Tremor Rod back, the loss of minelaying speed is really noticeable, and I feel like being stuck in animations longer is a threat to my survivability. Secondly, I love the extra detonation. In fast paced situations being able to manually detonate a second time is often flat out better than the time lost putting up a totem. I'm not running Empower in it right now, and I've overhauled my DPS spreadsheet to accommodate everything I could think of from crit to penetration to gem levels and Empower's impact, And the final result is that Empower feels really underwhelming on paper. A level 4 corrupted Empower in a +3 staff is roughly equivalent to a 47% more damage gem, and a level 3 is only about equivalent to a 33% more multiplier. With all the big damage gems we can slot, with their irrelevant mana multipliers, Empower feels like its worth nowhere near its price or its hype. Sure it doesn't have the drawbacks of Controlled Destruction, Trap and Mine Damage, or Elemental Focus, but it seems like its nowhere near competitive enough to justify its price tag. Am I missing something?

Also, one of the two is working and the other isn't, but I think either Zerphi's last breath (in case the game still considere the skill has a mana cost) or Scold's Bridle (In case the case considere the manacost is 0) may be great additions to the build.

Scold's bridle would increase spell damage by 100% while augmenting the mana pool without any downside. And if it's zerphi which is working... Just go full retard with Fevered mind for increased mana (without any effect) for massive regeneration.

Can't try for now. I would bet on Scold's Bridle since if it's zerphi, you could get way too much regen...

Good call on Scold's Bridle, I forgot it had increased spell damage on it. The downside is the same sort of downside as other uniques, lack of resists and life, but only Orb of Storms and a golem if you use one would damage you. I thought about Scolds for automating detonate mines, but it was too awkward, especially with Acrobatics dodging Scold's damage. And though Scold's was league specific, you can buy it from Cadiro this league, so its very much still available.

As for Zerphis, I found two of them as I was leveling, and they seemed entirely useless. I'm pretty sure that the game does not consider LW to have any mana cost at all.

-Empower 4 has its efficiency depending of the spell. It may not be good on LW, but some other spells greatly befeit from it. On some spells, it's a +60% more damage without any drawbacks. On others, it grants additionnal effects or projectiles.

Also, a lvl 28 lightning warp + a 30% lightwarp duration enchant on helm + a 20/20 less duration has a 97% reduced duration in total (only 93% with a lvl 24 LW).

-Did you try a double essence worm setup, with both Grace and Wrath, without any mana reserved? Doedre damning may be good, but it can be substitued by whisper of doom, and the stats are shit.

For those of us too poor to afford an essence worm, and not having enough mana to reserve Wrath on mana, I thought maybe we could skip out on auras altogether and run Clear Mind instead. Because the only other auras we could run are Herald of Thunder, Arctic Armour, and whatnot.

Also, Lightning Penetration will always be better than Trap and Mine Damage. Look at this graph:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/bydmflilqh

Red line is lightning pen damage, blue line is trap and mine damage. I've set base damage to 10 for both, with 75% lightning res. I've noticed that lightning pen amount is trap and mine damage more multiplier - 2.

Also, lightning pen is better than controlled destruction:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/la42zexmq5

And elemental focus:

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/asopmxswly

Without the drawbacks. However please check my work, I may have done something wrong.

It's almost true, but if you are running Conductivity and the 10% mine pen (54% total) on a 0% lightning resist monster, getting lightning pen only increase damage by 24%, less than anything else.

But you are right, when getting more damage actually matters (against strong monster), lightning pen is a must have.


Edit: Also, you should really try the double essence worm + clear mind, imo. But you need some great res gloves/helm/amulet/belt, so if you are self looting the yellow, it may be hard.

Really? On the graphs, the point at which the damage from ele focus, controlled destruction, or trap and mine damage is greater than lightning pen is in the -100% res.

Well, I don't know how works this graph, but with Lightning pen, Conductivity and the 10% mine pen, you get 91% lightning pen (well, not if the monster has > 75% lightning res, but no matter) meaning you do 91% more damage on a 0% resistance monster.

Conductivité + 10% mine pen + Elemental focus pen only 54%, but also add another 49% more damage.

1.49*1.54 = 2,2946, which is 20% more effective.

Edit: Well, actually, for elemental focus, Shock excluded, Lightning pen starts to be better at 80% lightning res. So I think you messed up somewhere^^

Well, I set up my lightning pen equation by having base damage of 10 (unnecessary, I know, but the scaling is easier on the eyes), then multiplying it by the damage pen.

10(1 + (75 - x)/100) = y

The TaMD equation is simple, just 10 * (1 + (x + 2)/100) * 0.25. The 0.25 is the part that gets through 75% light res.

You don't need to factor conductivity in, as both equations use it, so we can cancel on both. Same thing with 10% mine pen.

Okay, so I just made a new graph assuming res is 0. I factored in conductivity (level 20) and the mine pen just for the heck of it. It compares light pen to ele focus (the equation for ele focus is the same as TaMD, just a different value for the x part). Yea, you are right, the damage is a bit better with ele focus/TaMD/controlled destruction, but by a very small amount.

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/dwx9bfznf7

Edit: Sry, that one was wrong.

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/p2aumcunrs