[1.1.2] Ultimate Self-Cast Arc Tanky Witch / 21k dps x 5 (with a Video)

Introducing my Self-Cast Arc tanky witch. She's a level 86 witch, powerful and pretty fun to play. The character's name is Kaikua.

Highlight (Level 86 stats)

Eldritch Battery
Level 20 Arctic Armour
3 auras : Determination, Haste and Clarity
High Armor : 11,500, self buffed with Molten shell (20 seconds + duration)
Decent Life : ­4,250
73% chance to shock with Arc
Very high casting speed : +134% casting speed with Arc and Storm Call
Arc dps : 21k dps x 5. 0.34 sec cast time
Storm call dps : 5140 damage per Storm. 0.23 sec cast time. (22,3k dps)

(Arc and Storm Call dps numbers do not take shocks bonus into account)

Offense

Main Skill : Arc

Kaikua's main skill is Arc supported by Power Charges on Crit + Faster Casting + Lightning Penetration + Increased Critical Damage (5L). With 7 Power Charges and self-buffed (Haste), it deals around 15.5k tooltip dps. If you consider lightning penetration to be at least 35% more damage, the real dps is 20.9k (15.5*1.35). Chances to shock with passives (25%), level 20 conductivity (14%) and quality Arc (20%) is 59%. If you add 33,4% chance to crit to that number, actual chance to shock is 73%. I use Arc for most content except for single targets and large groups (10+). (Edit : I expect Arc to work much better for large groups now that it chains 4 times)

Large groups and Single target skill : Storm Call or Spark

Storm call is supported by Faster casting, Lightning Penetration and Increased Critical Damage (4L). With 7 Power charges and self-buffed (Haste), it deals around 5,140 tooltip damage with a cast time of 0.21 second. That means you can cast Storm call 7.14 times in 1.5 second. Multiplying 5,140 by 7.14 gives 37,700. In other words, without counting shock bonus, I'll deal 37,700 damage every 1.5 second with Storm Call. In term of dps, it means 25,133 dps (37.7k/1.5)

For some content, I find Spark to work better than Storm Call, especially against fast moving bosses. But since you can use Spark with the same support gems (Lightning Penetration, Increased Critical Damage and Faster Casting), you can simply switch the 2 gems (Spark and Storm Call) depending on the content you're facing.

Keystones

Eldritch Battery : Converts all energy shield to Mana.

Uniques

I use None.

However, it's not a bad idea to use a cheap well-rolled Moonsorrow Wand if you can't find a better rare. Other good/interesting unique choices include the Voidbattery wand, Rathpith Globe shield, Maligaro's Virtuosity gloves, Windscream boots, The Taming (ring) and Berek's Grip (ring).

Auras

The build benefits from -12% mana reservation passives in addition to a large amount of mana thanks to Eldritch battery. This allows the character to use 3 Auras. I normally use Haste, Determination and Clarity (level 20). In addition, the build provides +28% to aura effect. All in all, it means that Haste provides an additional 20% casting speed while Determination provides 65% more armor. Since then build already provides 104% increased armor, it means that every point of armor I get from gear is multiplied by 2.7. Finally, level 20 clarity provides an additional 33 mana per second. With the +135% mana regen provides by gear and passives, the 33 mana/sec translate into 77 mana per second.

While running some specific maps mods, it is sometimes a good idea to use different auras than the usual ones. For example, in "Elemental Weakness" maps, I usually run Purity of Elements instead of Clarity. To compensate the lower mana regen, I can run a lower level Arctic Armour. I can also run Grace instead of Haste for increase defense.

Curses

Since 100% of my damage is lightning, the best offensive curse are either Elemental Weakness or Conductivity. Quality Elemental Weakness will reduce resistance by a larger % while Conductivity gives an extra 14% chance to shock and 20% shock duration. Usually, when I'm soloing, I use Conductivity. In party, I use Elemental Weakness.

Other utility skills

Arctic Armour: The insane mana regen of the build allows the character to use a high level Arctic Armour. I expect to be able to run level 20 Arctic Armour even though the gem is currently leveled to 18. At level 20, it provides a flat 189 physical and fire damage reduction. Very useful.

Devouring totem : Awesome tool to leech mana and life from corpses, especially with a build that don't shatter any corpse. At level 20, it leeches 299 life and 59 mana per corpse. Supported by faster casting, it can leech 636 life and 125 mana per second (as long as there are corpse to leech from). Impressive !

Molten Shell : Level 20 Molten Shell provides a flat 1058 armor. With my passives and determination, that means an extra 2860 armor. Too good to ignore. I support it with increased duration and faster casting so it takes only half a second to cast and last more than 20 seconds. As a bonus, If it explodes, it deals an average of 13,320 damage (with 70% chance to burn with quality). In the linked video, you can see how effective it can be against bosses.

Defense

With my current gear, Kaikua has around 4200 life. She also has a decent chance to block (32% against attacks) and pretty decent armor (11,788 with molten shell). Like mentionned earlier, she also the 189 flat damage reduction against fire and physical damage provided by Arctic Armour. In term of resists, the character has max elemental resists and -29% chaos resist. Passives provides +16% to fire and cold resist, +31% to lightning resist and +8% to chaos resist.

Link to the build's passives choices (at level 88):



Passives choices progression (Level 1 to level 88)



Bandit rewards (I underlined my choices)

Normal : 40 Life, or +1 Passive point.
Cruel : 4% faster casting or +1 Passive point.
Merciless : +1 power charge or +1 Passive point.

Gear and skills setup :



What kind of gear you should look for

With passives and gear that provides +170% to Armor, 148% to Energy shield and 0% to Evasion, Armor and Energy shield are naturally the first defense you should look for on gear. However, since Energy shield provides only mana with Eldritch Battery, you should focus on armor, unless you need more mana regen to cast your spells. To give you an idea, I have 2108 armor and 682 ES from gear and its working fine for me.

For your main hand weapon and shield, I highly suggest to pick a items that gives +spell damage, faster casting and crit chance with spells.

In addition, its important for survivability to have lots of +life on gear. The build provides +160% to life. It's ok but with that amount, you'll need life on almost every piece of gear to break the 4000 life barrier, which should be a priority.

How to deal with Elemental reflect ?

Against elemental reflect rares in non-reflect maps

When you encounter a rare with the elemental reflect mod, I suggest to switch do a 2nd set of weapons with a Saffell's Frame equipped. With the 8% additional block chance from the build + the Saffell, you'll have close to 41% chance to block your own spells reflected and when you fail, you'll have 80% lightning resist. So, you proceed to kill the rare with Storm Call. When he's dead, you can switch back do your normal weapon set. (you'll notice in the linked video that I didn't do that and it hurt)

For elemental reflect maps

In elemental reflect maps, I completely change my setup. I replace Arc by Firestorm. I replace Lightning penetration by Added Lightning damage. Since Firestorm deal many smaller hits, the Arctic Armour and maxed elemental resistance can absorb all or most of the damage reflected. For storm call, I replace lightning penetration with added chaos damage and its enough to use it safely. Finally, instead of conductivity, I use Elemental weakness. And Voila. Works really well.

Gameplay video

Gameplay video 1 (Soloing a level 70 map. Dealing - not so well - with an elemental reflect rare)

I think I'm gonna use a Saffell's Frame to deal with them in the future !

Any comments, suggestions or questions are appreciated !

"

Velkor wrote:

Introducing my Self-Cast Arc tanky witch. She's level 86 ranger, powerful and pretty fun to play. The character's name is Kaikua.

I guess she ain't a ranger but a witch.

"

Velkor wrote:

However, since Energy shield provides only mana with Eldritch Battery, you should focus on armor, unless you need more mana regen to cast your spells.

I think you got lucky with an all-blue hybrid gear. Recommending a (pure) armour chest will make that socket colour combo impossible though.

Since Arc usually hit 3 times, I consider the dps to be 33k.

It doesnt hit same target 3 times per cast, so no

Wow my melee splash often hits 10 targets at 45k tooltip, I have 450k dps?

facepalm

Post ONLY tooltip dps, I HATE it when they make up catchy titles. Lightning pen? I dont care. Curses? I dont care. Shall I take vulnerability into account too, oh look 40% more now I have almost 700k dps! GG!!!!

Other things:

What you do vs reflect? Lightning thorns? No regen / half regen maps?

"

Bada_Bing wrote:

I guess she ain't a ranger but a witch.

Yeah, thanks. I copied/paste some part of the text from my dual claws Ranger Guide, that's why it happened :p

"

Bada_Bing wrote:

I think you got lucky with an all-blue hybrid gear. Recommending a (pure) armour chest will make that socket colour combo impossible though.

Well, getting 6 blue socket on a hybrid ES/Armor Chest is not easy but certainly doable. The chance to get 6 blue is approximately 0.8% (45%x45%x45%x45%x45%). So, on average, it will take 120 chromatic orbs. Its much easier to get 5 blue though, 1,8% or 55 chromatic orbs, on average.

So, I definitively don't recommend pure armor for chest. But Hybrid Armor/ES is fine, really.

"

ancalagon3000 wrote:

It doesnt hit same target 3 times per cast, so no

Wow my melee splash often hits 10 targets at 45k tooltip, I have 450k dps?

facepalm

Post ONLY tooltip dps, I HATE it when they make up catchy titles. Lightning pen? I dont care. Curses? I dont care. Shall I take vulnerability into account too, oh look 40% more now I have almost 700k dps! GG!!!!

I posted (11k x 3) Arc dps in opposition to an Arc setup that would include the chain support gem. For instance, if my 6th link was "chain", the dps would be something like (6k x 5) dps. In the end, its almost the same total dps (33k dps vs 30k dps), but in practice, its very different.

For a melee splash skill, you can't calculate the total dps because you don't know how many targets you're gonna hit each time, but you should mention 45k AoE dps, because its very different than 45k single target dps.

For curses, shocks and any outside buffs, I agree with you, they shouldn't be include in the dps mentionned by a guide because they don't/can't always apply. And I didn't include them. Lightning penetration is different though. Because the dps boost it gives always apply. Even if the target has 100% lightning resist, lightning penetration will reduce target's max resistance from 75 to 45%, effectively increasing dps by 80%. In the worst case scenario, the target resistance will already be 0% or under 0%. In those cases, lightning penetration will increase the dps by 35% and that's the number I applied. At least, I explained where my numbers comes from.

"

ancalagon3000 wrote:

Other things:

What you do vs reflect? Lightning thorns? No regen / half regen maps?

Against elemental reflect rares in non-reflect maps, I simply kill the rare with Storm Call before anything else. With 75% lighting resist, I can do that without problems.

For elemental reflect maps, I completely change my setup. I replace Arc by Firestorm. I replace Lightning penetration by Added Lightning damage. Since Firestorm deal many smaller hits, the Arctic Armour and my maxed elemental resistance can absorb all or most of the damage reflected. For storm call, I replace lightning penetration with added chaos damage and its enough to use it safely.

I haven't find lightning thorn to be much of a problem really. I barely notice it.

In half-regen maps, I simply use a lower version of Arctic Armour and I'm fine.

Finally, I can't do "no regen" maps. With blood magic, its about the only map mod I can't deal with. But when I roll either of those maps, I simply keep them for my other character that can run them just fine : the covenant pulser (see the link in my signature)

OK, that was unexpected indepth reply. tnx a lot

And sorry about first part, I just prefer tooltip dps because a lot of ppl use misleading titles, in my opinion. No offense.

OK i get the lightning pen part. I still dont get the chain part, I know arc without chain gem still hits 3 times, but ... never on the same enemy? So you meant 33k aoe dps right? And in title ppl will always assume dps vs one target ... ok yeah it seems so, you just edited it to 11k x 3 for clarity now :)

"

KorgothBG wrote:

Just to clear something out.
Arc CAN hit the same target twice. It can hit the same target 3 times if the arc is linked to chain support gem.

now im even more confused

so without chain gem, it cant even hit the same target 2x?

and with chain gem, if there is just 1 monster around ... it keeps hitting him 3x per cast?

ok tnxx man!