Enki's Arc Witch Memorial Page & POE 2 Arc Summary

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CliffAhead wrote:

@WorderMostFoul

just a question: you anointed Mana Flows on your amulet. what was your thought process?

Don't need to anoint Crusader because Crown on the Innward Eye settles that notable

Did you consider Mind Drinker?

i anointed Mind Drinker on the same amulet. Mana Flows gives me 1.1% more DPS in PoB, but i feel that the usual times i die was when i flame dash into 2-3 pack of mobs, and the recover 2% of mana on kill helps in sustaining the mana pool for dps/survivability

Mind Drinker is also a great choice, and dirt cheap to boot. My thought process was that recovering 2% of mana on kill is only useful for mapping, and if I die when I'm mapping it's usually because I took so much damage so quickly that the sustain from recovering mana on kill would probably not save me most of the time, anyway. I haven't tested them side-by-side because I am striving to maximize boss DPS and my mana sustain is already very comfortable, even wearing Omeyocan, using Fevered Mind, running RF, and not having recover % of mana on block on my shield. In a nutshell, providing more overall mana and a decent chunk of increased mana regen--which is really powerful for the build in combination with our ascendancy and Cloak of Defiance--makes Mana Flows flat-out better for boss fights; that said, they're both good options, and Mind Drinker might well be the better overall choice.

For some reason I've decided to try BL. The difference in damage output with default Arc is insane, especially on bosses. Do i miss something, but why doesn't this build use BL instead ?

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

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CliffAhead wrote:

@WorderMostFoul

just a question: you anointed Mana Flows on your amulet. what was your thought process?

Don't need to anoint Crusader because Crown on the Innward Eye settles that notable

Did you consider Mind Drinker?

i anointed Mind Drinker on the same amulet. Mana Flows gives me 1.1% more DPS in PoB, but i feel that the usual times i die was when i flame dash into 2-3 pack of mobs, and the recover 2% of mana on kill helps in sustaining the mana pool for dps/survivability

Mind Drinker is also a great choice, and dirt cheap to boot. My thought process was that recovering 2% of mana on kill is only useful for mapping, and if I die when I'm mapping it's usually because I took so much damage so quickly that the sustain from recovering mana on kill would probably not save me most of the time, anyway. I haven't tested them side-by-side because I am striving to maximize boss DPS and my mana sustain is already very comfortable, even wearing Omeyocan, using Fevered Mind, running RF, and not having recover % of mana on block on my shield. In a nutshell, providing more overall mana and a decent chunk of increased mana regen--which is really powerful for the build in combination with our ascendancy and Cloak of Defiance--makes Mana Flows flat-out better for boss fights; that said, they're both good options, and Mind Drinker might well be the better overall choice.

I see where you are coming from and you make sense. I should aim to maximise dps too. Thank you.

The main reason we use shield instead of another wand is bonus % Mana regen?

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OnlyRipper wrote:

The main reason we use shield instead of another wand is bonus % Mana regen?

That, and survivability i guess. With % recover mana and life on block, chance to block spell dmg.

Archmage scales with max mana, and with arcane cloak, max mana becomes both an offensivr and defensive modifier, so you dont really need a 2nd wand's mods. Besides, shield can roll 90+% spell dmg, or 100% crit chance if you so fancy, +2 minimum frenzy charge as well

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CliffAhead wrote:

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OnlyRipper wrote:

The main reason we use shield instead of another wand is bonus % Mana regen?

That, and survivability i guess. With % recover mana and life on block, chance to block spell dmg.

Archmage scales with max mana, and with arcane cloak, max mana becomes both an offensivr and defensive modifier, so you dont really need a 2nd wand's mods. Besides, shield can roll 90+% spell dmg, or 100% crit chance if you so fancy, +2 minimum frenzy charge as well

Oh ok thx :D

I just started playing. I', not even close with my 10 farmed Chaos Orb to 90+% or 100% rolls.
I was just curious why not benefit the 2 wand damage multiplier.

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OnlyRipper wrote:

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CliffAhead wrote:

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OnlyRipper wrote:

The main reason we use shield instead of another wand is bonus % Mana regen?

That, and survivability i guess. With % recover mana and life on block, chance to block spell dmg.

Archmage scales with max mana, and with arcane cloak, max mana becomes both an offensivr and defensive modifier, so you dont really need a 2nd wand's mods. Besides, shield can roll 90+% spell dmg, or 100% crit chance if you so fancy, +2 minimum frenzy charge as well

Oh ok thx :D

I just started playing. I', not even close with my 10 farmed Chaos Orb to 90+% or 100% rolls.
I was just curious why not benefit the 2 wand damage multiplier.

Once you get archmage support, levelling is a breeze. Enki has some cheap trade links after the first post on getting good upgrades for less than 10c, defnitely check it out

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OnlyRipper wrote:

The main reason we use shield instead of another wand is bonus % Mana regen?

The primary reason is absolutely the chance to block. Arcane Guarding and Mistress of Sacrifice are big buffs when using a shield, and both synergize perfectly with this build. Take that away and you've got almost zero damage mitigation. And really, most of the important damage mods on wands can already be rolled on spirit shields, 150+ mana and influenced weapon affixes being the main exceptions:


(I would kill to be able to horticraft a t1 mana roll on that!)

Plus the shield gives us another place to put life and resistances. Admittedly, you can get those on weapons, but at that point you'd just be screwing yourself out of all that damage mitigation for a comparatively insignificant gain in DPS.

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Xevus77 wrote:

For some reason I've decided to try BL. The difference in damage output with default Arc is insane, especially on bosses. Do i miss something, but why doesn't this build use BL instead ?

Well, the most honest answer is that this always has and always will be a guide for self-cast Arc. Enki has been clear that the flavor of Arc is intrinsic to his vision of the build, which he has been reworking and refining and fundamentally uprooting every league for many years. He is taking a very well-deserved break from constantly monitoring the thread and answering all questions this league, but he's still the mastermind of this build, the primary purpose of which is to provide an accessible, in-depth learning experience for newer players while maintaining a fun, interesting, and relatively straightforward one for more experienced ones--not to make the build as overpowered as possible (that's what the rest of us are for!). It would simply be a different build if we dropped Arc.

I'd still pick Arc over Ball Lightning for clear speed, but you're probably right about single-target DPS. It'd require some retuning to maximize DPS, though. I'd imagine you'd want to use Pledge of Hands and drop one of the support gems for Greater Multiple Projectiles (mapping) or Slower Projectiles (bossing), and then you'd tweak the skill tree to support staff block chance instead of shield block chance. It wouldn't be as nimble, but the raw damage output would probably be very good. Maybe I'll tinker with it in PoB later.

Ok so, so far the build has been very strong and it's nice to change from cold to lightning. But there are some things that i still not understanding. For example, shock, do we shock with this build? The gem called Elemental Focus removes this ability but the tooltip says we shock. And then the "activate skill when you attack" mod. I'm using the Poet's Pen wand because i couldn't use my Kitava Helmet because of resistances. But the Desecrate skill (i'm at ACT 6) only activates when i use a normal attack and not when i attack with ARC. I'm using dual wands because i don't have a shield right now.