[2.2] JoSo's ARC-CORE, Beginner Friendly Hardcore Arc, High Life, Budget Viable

There are a few Arc builds floating around these days, and many from the past which have influenced me, so why this one? Well if you’re looking for a nice safe build for Hardcore that won’t cost you very much (read: pretty much anything) whilst still having options for when you do earn a few exalts, then this might be the one for you. Any questions, feel free to ask…. any suggestions, by all means suggest away….

So why Arc?



When looking to play a cheap build, the choice of skill is going to play a huge roll in how effective it is, as well as how cheap it really can be. Arc is great for a few reasons:
- It’s a spell. As it levels the DPS will increase even without gear changes, keeping it cheap.
- Built in AOE. With chain as part of the skill, it’s great for pack clearing.
- Shock! = More damage.
- Very little passive requirements, allowing us to get more life, perfect for Hardcore.

Having said this, it does have a few drawbacks:
- Once you get to the very top levels, the DPS can seem a little lacking compared to other top builds.
- Single target damage is mediocre at best. (Although more than capable of boss-killing)
- You won’t be able to do Curse Immune maps.

Build Concepts

Stack life! It’s the easiest way to stay alive in Hardcore, we pick up as much as we can…219% on the tree (without jewels). Taking us easily over 6000 life. If you put a little money into it and go for a Kaom’s Heart you’ll shoot well over 7000.

Elemental Overload. Pass up expensive crit for more reliable 40% more damage.

Cast Speed. Whilst not always the best overall DPS increase, picking up cast speed helps us to move around more freely, spending less time in casting animations. You don’t want to be stood still for too long in Hardcore, so this helps us stay mobile as well as getting out more DPS.

Scion based, allows us to pick up both Raider and Berserker ascendancies.
- Raider provides us with Frenzy Charges which are nice for a DPS boost, as well as onslaught for some more cast speed and movement speed.
- Berserker provides us with great leech, combined with Warlord’s Mark we can leech through most things we’ll come across. Don’t be scared of the 5% increased damage taken, it’s not all that bad.




Full Passive Tree


Bandit Rewards

Normal: Help Oak - We want that life

Cruel: Help Alira - Cast speed is always nice

Merciless: I usually take the point, but you can help either Oak or Kraityn if you like as we generate both Endurance and Frenzy Charges.


Levelling With Arc

You get Arc at level 12, until then you can use whatever you like to level. I like to use Fire Trap and Freezing Pulse, but something like Lightning Tendrils is a perfectly good choice. At 12 we can switch to Arc.

Come out of Scion and head straight for Constitution. This gives us a nice chunk of life to feel a bit safer early game.

Head up through Sanctity and Retribution to get Elemental Overload.

Continue up through Cruel Preparation to get Heart of Thunder.

Pick up the Alchemist wheel. Those flask nodes are so good!

Head north out of Scion again and grab Path of the Savant. Gives us a some mana, mana regeneration, and cast speed which you’ll probably be thankful for at around this point.

From here you have some choices. I’d start to head out to pick up Celestial Judgement and Celestial Punishment, however if you’re feeling a little weak, and haven’t got quite as much life as you’d like, stop off and pick up Tireless, Devotion, and Combat Stamina on the way there.

For a little more cast speed we’ll pick up Mental Rapidity. Then down to Light of Divinity, picking up Purity of Flesh along the way.

By now you’ll know how your build is shaping up. If you’re feeling completely safe (which you never are in Hardcore!) then pick up Lightning Walker and Occultist’s Domination, followed by the Gem Sockets.

To keep getting your life up (always recommended) fill up the rest of your Scion life wheel, and head south to get Bloodless, Juggernaut, and Barbarism.




Arc

Early game, if you’re running a 3L Reverberation Rod you can go with:

Arc - Added Lightning Damage - Faster Casting

Lightning Penetration isn’t too important at early levels, but will become much more so as you level.

You’ll replace this with a 5L (6L) Chest:

Arc - Spell Echo - Lightning Penetration - Controlled Destruction - Faster Casting - (Added Lightning)

And finally, at end game, you may choose to switch to a Pledge of Hands:

Arc - Lightning Penetration - Controlled Destruction - Faster Casting - Added Lightning - Empower


Curse on Hit Setup

We use both Orb of Storms as well as Herald of Thunder to apply our curse. It’s extremely important that things are cursed as without Warlord’s Mark we won’t be leeching back our mana. Herald of Thunder is great for pack killing, but in a long drawn out boss fight, we keep the boss cursed with Orb of Storms. This also proc’s our critical strikes in order to keep Elemental Overload up.

Orb of Storms - Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Warlord’s Mark


Auto Immortal Call

A staple for any hardcore build, Immortal Call will save your life many times over. Making use of the endurance charges we gain from warlord’s mark, we run a simple 3L. The levels are a matter of preference, personally I like it fairly quick triggering, and then I get out of harm’s way before it ends. Feel free to level higher. The Increased Duration level isn’t limited so level that all the way up.

Cast when Damage Taken (Level 7) - Immortal Call (Level 9) - Increased Duration


Movement Skills

With a dagger we can use Whirling Blades, allowing us to proc Fortify for an extra defensive boost. As well as this we’ll make use of our cast speed for those times we need to get up or over things with a fast Lightning Warp.

Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify

Lightning Warp - Less Duration - Faster Casting


Extra, Unlinked Skills

Wrath - Big DPS boost, won’t need linking to anything. If you do throw it into a linked item, just be sure to check that your support gems aren’t increasing the amount of mana it’s reserving.

Decoy Totem - Great for throwing down against some of the bigger, scarier bosses. Don’t forget it’s on your bar, it can work wonders.

Summon Flame Golem / Summon Chaos Golem - We don’t gain a great deal from our golem. If you’re feeling safe, run the Flame Golem for a small DPS boost, if you want a bit more defensive against physical, go with the Chaos Golem. If sockets are an issue, just don’t bother with it.

There are no required pieces of gear for this build, keeping it nice and cheap. A few unique options are available if you want them.

Levelling Up Gear


The Lifesprig Driftwood Wand is a great weapon to start with. Put whatever spell(s) you want in it from level 1 and be on your way.


Being slow is no fun, so you might want some movement speed, Wanderlust Wool Shoes will give you some of that. The Mana Regeneration and Freeze Immunity doesn’t hurt either.


Resistances are top priority, the Goldrim Leather Cap can help you out early on (Although it’s not always too cheap in Hardcore leagues, especially early on). Don’t get attached to it though, as soon as you can cover your resistances elsewhere you’ll want a helm with life on it.


You can get the Reverberation Rod a long time before you can get spell echo and it’s definitely worth it. This is as close to a required Unique as the build has. You can do without it, but if you can, get one. You will use this for as long as it takes to get a decent 5L chest setup.


If Mana is an issue, you can always grab a piece or two of Elreon Jewellery. If you do find you need this, you’ll only need it until you get your Curse on Hit setup sorted.


Helm (Armour Based)

Nothing special on the helm, we look for the following stats in this order of priority:
- Life (80+)
- Resistances
- High Armour Roles
- Strength (gives more life)


Chest (Armour & Energy Shield Based)

Look for links, 5 or 6. You’ll need a lot of Blue sockets which is why we need a base with some Energy Shield on to help roll the colours. In terms of stats, again we look for the following in this order of priority:

- Life (90+)
- Resistances
- High Armour Roles
- Strength (gives more life)


A Kaom’s Heart Is perfect here if you have got yourself a Pledge of Hands for Arc and you want to spend a bit of money.



Gloves (Armour & Energy Shield based, or Armour Based)

We generally look to put our curse on hit setup in the gloves. We don’t gain a lot of Armour from them so it isn’t a massive hit to switch for a hybrid base. We’re going to need 3 Blue sockets so this helps rolling them. You can of course go pure Armour and just spend the extra chromatics getting 3 Blues. We look for the following stats in order of priority:

- Life (80+)
- Resistances
- High Armour Roles
- Strength (gives more life)
- Attack Speed (This is just a very small quality of life improvement to Whirling Blades)


Boots (Armour Based)

The movement speed on boots is valuable, but less important if you’re running Whirling Blades. We look for the following stats in order of priority:

- Life (80+)
- Resistances
- Movement Speed (Ideally 30%)
- High Armour Roles
- Strength (gives more life)


Belt (Leather Belt)

A huge variance in price for the belts. Life and resists are enough, but there are other desirable stats. We look for the following in order of priority:

- Life (120+ total, including implicit)
- Resistances
- Armour
- Strength (gives more life)
- % Increased Flask Life Recovery Rate
- % Increased Flask Charges Gained
- % Reduced Flask Charges Used


Rings

This is where we pick up a lot of our resistances. Focus on that first, worry about other stats once the resistances are sorted. We look for the following stats in order of priority:

- Resistances
- Life (80+)
- Strength (gives more life)
- Cast Speed
- % Increased Lightning Damage
- % Increased Armour


Amulet

Depending on how the rest of your gear has worked out, you might be able to focus on offensive stats for your amulet rather than defensive. If needed though, be sure to get the resistances capped. We look for the following stats in order of priority:

- Life (80+)
- % Increased Spell Damage
- % Increased Lightning Damage
- Resistances (If Needed)
- Strength (gives more life)
- Cast Speed


Flasks

Flasks are generally open to personal preference, however there are a three things you need to make sure that you have:


A Seething Divine Flask. In fact at almost all points during levelling you should have an instant flask. It’s your “Oh Shit” button for when things start to go wrong. Don’t be afraid to keep pushing it until it’s empty.


An of Staunching flask. There is nothing more heartbreaking than watching your health drain away after stacking up 20 stacks of Corrupting Blood. Get a Staunching flask for the first Dominus fight and then keep one on you at all times.


An of Heat flask. Freeze kills, make sure you can unfreeze yourself. Personally I like this on a Quicksilver flask as that’s the button I hit when I want to move/run away so it synchronises well, but you can put it on anything.


Past this, it’s up to you. I like to have a Granite Flask of Iron Skin for some extra defence against physical hits. With a flat 3000 Armour added onto what your gear gives, and then a big percentage boost on top, it makes quite the difference.


Dagger Shield Combo

By far the cheapest of the weapon options. Keeps your Arc links on your chest and provides you more sockets overall, as well as allowing for Fortify.


The Dagger base doesn’t matter, and isn’t a difficult piece to craft due to the small number of affixes we’d like. We are looking for the following stats in order of priority:

- Spell Damage
- Adds Lightning Damage to Spells
- Attack Speed


With the Shield (Armour Based) We are looking for the following stats in order of Priority:

- Life (90+)
- High Armour Roles
- Strength (gives more life)
- Resistances
- % Increased Block Chance


Kaom’s Heart and Pledge of Hands Combo

You can replace the Dagger/Shield and Chest with these at end game, providing you are covering all resist requirements on the rest of your gear.


Videos:

Coming Soon

+1 nice build

edit - well put together, need more guides like this

You gave this a lot of thought and put much effort into it, well done!
It read pretty good.

Only advice I can give you is to maybe write a little section of stuff you should look out for if you're a new player in hardcore with arc (what bosses / type of mobs do you need to be carefull or what act, etc.)

I am gonna give this a try. Thanks for the guide.

a little feedback for the passive tree

Personally I would ditch path of the savant combat stamina and those 2 4% life nodes

and instead pick up

storm weaver(above the templar)
2 endurance charges
jewel socket for 2 pts(inbetween templar + witch)


also im sure you could run immune to curse with clarity + rallying cry (maybe not even need both)

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Harakan37 wrote:

I am gonna give this a try. Thanks for the guide.

Good Luck, let me know how it goes for you.

why do you want attack speed on dagger? This doesn't affect casters does it?

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jrandom wrote:

why do you want attack speed on dagger? This doesn't affect casters does it?

Nope, hence why it's down the list of priorities. It does affect Whirling Blades, so it has a little benefit, and there aren't many suffixes that are valuable to us here. By all means don't worry about it.

i'm actually lvl 74 and the build is going well ! But i still need 2 potions of mana ( i use wrath and HoT ) and solo boss take a lot of time and timing to kill. But still good ! :)