[1.2] KuteKitteh’s Tanky Arcer, 20k+ Effective DPS, Atziri/HC-viable. Poor-man’s BM Arc included

@Mufer, link your tree please? You should be running a lvl20 AA easily with that setup.

@Zupafundo, link your tree please? If you don't have Athleticism, you can grab it. You can also grab the Maurader life nodes.

@Llyrain, Block scaling is more important than armor, hence why a Crest instead of something like Lioneye's Remorse (which, by the way, is a decent option for those who don't mind the -7% block). Also, if you consider the fact that armor blocks up to 1 damage per 12 points of armor, that implies that a level 20 AA is far more effective than 2.3k armor.

Armor is generally a no-go since the build can't scale it effectively, but you're free to use a Lioneye's if you don't mind getting hit more often.

Ye my tree was probably the problem because I didn't have Deep Thoughts yet but didn't expect such a big increase from it.

With this tree

and this gear

I'm currently at 4132hp, 3413mana/859 unreserved (with discipline), 75%block/75% spell block, 287.1mana reg and -40% chaos (atziri's flask makes me have no issues with that) and finally resists are so over the cap that I can run elemental weakness map while still maintaining 75/75/75 resists.


Obviously my next step is getting the whole Scion wheel for that 25% hp left, like I asked before is it worth going for the Sovereignty aura wheel after that? My only issue on survivability is those hard hitting physical bosses that instantly drop my mana so next hit goes almost completely to life and more unreserved mana would totally help. With those 4 points spent i'd jump from 817 unreserved to 1127+ and also get 10% aura effect.

Hi, upgraded from BM to EB few days ago, bought a gear but, im sitting at 2940 Mana with discipline, 642 unreserved (251 regen), or 2427 Mana, 472 unreserved (220 regen) with Haste.
I'm not leveled AA to close to maximum, since i don't know if those unreserved pools and regen will be enough to sustain it? Where i should improve my gear? (Since now i see option to change boots, but first need to get Lazhwar +1 curse, it allow get some life, mana, es from boots..), and maybe one ring with extra mana, but thats all? What guys you have mana pool/unreserved to sustain max AA? My clarity also just level 18, but not expecting big boost in 19/20 level. And the last question: cast speed or ele dmg nodes after 85? Since i got 2 points unallocated.
Thanks for replies
My gear currently looks so, also armor piece i will change, but saving some chaos for Empower :D

@Mufer, go ahead and take Sov if you feel you need that unreserved. Generally, I turn off my auras if I feel that I might get hit hard.

@Mate, You definitely don't want to run Haste with that little mana. You can sustain a level 17-18 AA easily, with or without Haste. And yes, getting Clarity to 20 will let you sustain a 20 AA without Disc.
You normally want Cast first and elemental after.
Also, your gear looks decentish.

I've posted in this thread before commenting on how impressed I was with block and how successful my build has been in Beyond league. I am now just a jump away from level 88 and figured I would share some adaptations to the build based on my needs and availability of gear in a new league.

Gear:


Build:


Looking at the gear you'll note that instead of using an ES chest I am using a found lightning coil. Kitteh has weighed in on his thoughts as to why he doesn't use one, and they're very sound.

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KuteKitteh wrote:

Spoiler

Oh trust me, I've tried theorycrafting a MoM + EB + AA + LC + Block build. Lightning coil murders options:
1. You have to use PoL (less unreserved mana!)
2. You can't use an ES chest (even less unreserved mana!)
3. You can't run a 5L arc. 4L arc on Geo/vertex with lpen + fc + se gives about 8-10% less DPS than the 5L setup.
4. You have to use a geofri/vertex (no HP helmet)

Lightning Coil really tightens the build and murders options while decreasing overall sustainability and DPS. I like to keep my builds flexible, hence why this is doable with an average-roll rathpith and without a cloak of defiance.

With all that being said, I have decided to stick with the Lightning Coil for now for a couple of reasons.

1) My face-tanking capabilities have increased by an order of magnitude (probably not literally) by using this chest. I am no longer afraid of what happens if I stand too close to a mob or eat a couple roah charges.

2) Right now I am able to run Clarity, Tempest Shield, and Purity of Elements (for ele weakness maps) with an accepted level of unreserved mana (680-1200). If I am farming something, I can turn on haste for approx. 430 unreserved mana which isn't much of a safety barrier but I keep it on a hotkey to toggle if I run into some bad juju. This means that while more ES increases my capability of running auras more consistently or running without a mana pot, it is sacrificing the physical mitigation that LC gives which doesn't appear to be worth it.

3) Right now I can run level 19 arctic armor and getting an ES chest would allow me to bump it to 20. This is of course at the cost of 75% lightning resist applied to all physical attacks from LC. Given that opportunity cost, I am fine with level 19 AA for now and have the potential to upgrade later if I can boost one of my rings.

4) Purity of lightning is not necessary to benefit significantly from the survivability of LC. While it further reduces physical damage taken by a large degree, it is not realistic with my mana pool and I would choose to run other things even if it were.


I think that Lightning Coil helps to close a gap in this build from the exceptional threat of large physical attacks hitting you. It is clear by Kitteh's demonstration that a high ES chest allows you to do most of the content in the game very safely, so I am by no means trying to discount that reality. I simply find that being able to stand still as vaal drops rocks on my head while DPSing is significantly less stressful than the alternative.

Downsides to the LC are that my damage takes a rather large hit and my 5-link (accidental, but no complaints) is largely useless. I don't have the mana pool to run life leech in my tempest shield (but do have it on my want and can pop warlords on the mobs if necessary) so right now its acting as a 3-2 link. I have noticed however that upgrading my gems to 20% quality and then re-leveling them along with the addition of a geofri's allows for pretty significant gains beyond that 4k-4,5k dps wall which people seem to hit. If I hit another wall in the 77 maps then I may seriously reconsider lightning coil for this purpose.

Looking at my passive tree it is possible to notice that I don't necessarily take the ideal path. I do not have unwavering yet (it is the plan for level 90), nor have I fully filled out the Iron Wall block tree in duelist. Right now, with tempest shield, I am sitting at 73% block 75% spell block. The additional points of investment are very much not worth it to me to cap out block fully, and I am doubtful I would notice a difference. Those points instead go towards more HP which make me feel very happy inside (currently sitting at 4300 HP).

This build is incredible. I feel like an absolute God when walking around in even super dangerous maps because even the most insane packs of mobs have a hard time denting my HP pool. My DPS isn't as high as many of my friends, but they also won't run Poorjoy's without the slightest hiccup where I can.

Here's a things where I am looking for advice or perspective:

1) If I were to drop LC, the CoD seems like the most reasonable replacement due to gaining 4 additional points from the tree (at least). Kitteh chooses to instead go with an insane ES/HP chest which is unrealistic for beyond league currently. Is the CoD worth it? How could it change the build beyond just dropping the 4 points to MoM? Is dropping the bottom half of the tree outside the Scion life wheel a possibility?

2) How is lightning coil calculating into my survivability? Is MoM mitigating first on a physical hit or is LC?

3) What the hell should I do with this 5-link? Is there anything more creative than what I have set up currently?

4) I'm leveling an empower in off-hand now. At what point (if ever) does this become more DPS than what I have in my 4-link?

5) Quality on some gems seems super big, and on others seems pretty lackluster. Are there any recommendations as to which gems I should be trying to quality?


Thanks again for this build, it is the most fun I've had in a hardcore league in a long time.

I am following and using this build, and very happy with it. I did read something earlier on another thread that might be of interest here as it that covers the same topic - "Coil vs. CoD". This is from the FoxTactic's - [1.2] Pledge Of Arc 26k dps Updated: 2014-09-08

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FoxTactics wrote:

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Techneeq wrote:

Why go with Discipline as 3rd aura? Now without having to really worry about your mana pool anymore after dropping Cloak of Defiance (MoM), why not just go with haste for even more cast speed and some movement speed?

Edit: Also I am curious, were the changes of replacing Cloak with Coil, Rare boots with Kaom's Roots, and Void bringers with rare gloves just general optimizations or are they specifically tuned to be better for Atziri?

I have dropped dicipline for haste as we speak. :D

Uff, i think both optimization and atziri, coil fits my wreckless playstyle better and feels a lot more stable.

When it comes to atziri, the entire apex map is very easy, either with cloak of coil. cloak is ofc better for vaal bosses.

The one really cruical difference is at Atziri.

During her split phase, with 4 atziri and 1 reflect. Doing that part with cloak of defiance really drains your mana since dmg is reflected back, even with topaz. When i curse warlords mark before shooting, it just barely covers the mana, and while taking hits from flameblasts&stormcalls you are likely to run out of mana and by then your cod is useless, and might drop your AA which is even worse.

This problem does not exist with lightning coil and atziri is much easier now with a bigger hp base pool and just focusing on drinking topaz and ruby during split and look at life.

... so I'm a very lucky SOB today. Dropped an Aegis Aurora in Merciless Slum Sewers and traded for a high roll Rathpith :P
Gotta say.. dat spellblock really is OP. I also totally underestimated the amount of extra mana I would get, coming from a Crest of Perandus. My Mana Pool juped from ~1300 to over 2k at lvl70, so I finally got some regen to level AA:

Now I just have to pimp out my damage a bit, 3200 tooltip really doesn't feel like a lot.
Which gems are the best to quality? FC and echo, I presume?
I bought an empower as well, but it's gonna take ages to replace the LL gem lol.
Since Doryani's weapon and belt aren't really available on beyond, my plan is to find/buy another wand like my current one, and once Catarina is lvl6, craft the 1% lightning leech on it.
As opposed to my ripped earlier char, this one has a chaos resistance of 0. This really helps alot with degens and desecrated ground, I really recommend everyone try to at least get out of the negatives.

Updated gear in Beyond:

One more small question, Why 51%+ and not 50%+ for the Rathpith ? Shouldn't you just need 100% with stone of lazhwar to get 75/75 or am I missing something ?

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Rizzophrenic wrote:

One more small question, Why 51%+ and not 50%+ for the Rathpith ? Shouldn't you just need 100% with stone of lazhwar to get 75/75 or am I missing something ?

We get 74% (attack) block chance.

@Magnus
1. CoD is a great item for the build, since it comes with some good mana + regen for great sustainability. Also far more accessible than my chest in Beyond.
2. Dropping the bottom half of the wheel is not a possibility. Trust me, I've calculated all the optimal routes by locating every health and block node and figuring out the topology of the pathways between them to construct the most optimal route that covers important nodes. Testudo, Iron Wall, and Aegis along with their HP nodes are must-haves.
3. BBGRR can get you a beastly flame totem. Flame totem + FC + ACD + GMP + Firepen. Asides from that, I'm not really sure.
4. Empower will beat the geo 4link when it's level 3, so you have a long ways to go. I'm sure added lightning beats the 4l somewhere along the way, but I'm not sure when, or if it even happens anymore since 1.2.
5. The most urgent Q20 is FC, which you have. From there, Lpen and SE are secondary. I think Q20 on AA is somewhat important. Asides from those, the build doesn't really need quality.

@therealjcool
Read point number 5 above.

@Rizzo
The tree gives 74% block chance.