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

"

oldmetalguy wrote:

when you first posted about the gloves a couple days ago, a pair dropped for me less than an hour later, not quite as good, but even at my level and not so great gear, I've noticed a difference

with the mana drains, are you having to pound the flask even more? Even just walking around, is your mana always just draining away? Sorry, I'm not understanding the math, and I can't find / afford the boots yet to actually see how it all works

The gloves reduce your mana pool but not by 30% as you might think, it's something less than that which I don't know how to calculate.

The boots don't seem to have a great effect on mana regen. Clearly it is lower but it doesn't seem hard to sustain. I rarely use my mana flask other than to clear curses or if I am unlucky with proccing the 30/30 gloves and then I am hammering it to try to get mana back.

There are a lot of interactions in this game which are difficult to wrap your mind around. Significant differences between "more" and "increased" and other terminology as to how stats are calculated. I have found that I often read something and think it won't work but then try it and it does because without an extensive amount of knowledge I just can't see all the interplay going on behind the scenes. There are quite a few who do so I tend to try things that people are doing who have gotten their witch to higher levels, sometimes it works well with what I am already doing and sometimes it doesn't but I don't always know why.

"

BuckFutter9 wrote:

The boots don't seem to have a great effect on mana regen. Clearly it is lower but it doesn't seem hard to sustain. I rarely use my mana flask other than to clear curses or if I am unlucky with proccing the 30/30 gloves and then I am hammering it to try to get mana back.

Thinking more about this I don't think it's true, I am constantly activating flasks when around larger packs, bosses, or rushing through a map and I'm sure the mana flask is getting activated as I furiously press buttons. Basically you just have to keep flasks up to maximize survivability. Quicker thinkers might do it with some strategy but I mostly just mash buttons in a panic but it seems to generally work although a bit more control and strategy is warranted when facing a boss type enemy.

"

BuckFutter9 wrote:

The gloves reduce your mana pool but not by 30% as you might think, it's something less than that which I don't know how to calculate.

The difference between increased/reduced and more/less is one of the core mechanics used in every build to scale just about everything to useful levels.

See it as 2 different 'pools' of stats.
Everything with 'increased' or 'decreased' gets added together to make one total number, just as everything with 'more' or 'less' gets multiplied together to create another total number.

If you for example look at mana:

1. Calculate how much 'raw' mana you have by adding and subtracting every source of raw mana

-> Say you have 2 wands that give + 100 mana each, and nothing else that adds or subtracts mana
-> You have 200 'raw' mana

2. Calculate how much % increased and % reduced mana you have by adding and subtracting every source of it

-> Say you have 5 items that increase mana by 50% and 1 item that reduces mana by 30%
-> You have a total of 220% increased mana

3. Calculate how much % more mana and % less mana you have by multiplying every source of it seperately.

-> Say you have 1 item that gives 50% more mana and 1 item that gives 30% less mana
-> (1 + 50/100) * (1 - 30/100)
-> 1,5 * 0,7
-> 1,05
-> You have a total of 5% more mana

4. Calculate your end result of mana by combing these 3 numbers

-> 200 raw mana * (1 + 220/100 increased mana) * 1,05
-> 200 raw mana * 3,2 * 1,05
-> 672 total mana

If you balance these 2 pools the same way, they will have the same impact on your total mana.
But like you probably already noticed, you have waaaay more sources of increased/reduced than sources of more/less.
Also, every source of more and less has a way bigger impact on the total.

That is why these gloves are a nice option to use them in this build:
30% reduced mana has not quite as big an impact as you would think, seeing as we have like 300% increased mana from other sources.
If it had said 30% less mana, nobody would be using it.

Look again at the example:
- You have 1 source of 30% reduced mana, but you barely notice it
-> the difference of not having it would be * 3,5 instead of * 3,2
-> that is only 735 mana instead of 672 mana if the rest stays the same
-> In this example 1 source of 30% reduced costs you 63 mana.

- You have also 1 source of 30% less mana, but it's impact is way bigger
-> the difference of not having it would be * 1,5 instead of * 1,05
-> that is 960 mana instead of 672 mana if the rest stays the same
-> In this example 1 source of 30% less costs you 288 mana.

Bossfights

Bossfights are all mechanical, the build can take some hits and allows you to learn those fights.

Start each bossfight with Sigil of Power, then cast Wave of Conviction, Arcane Cloak and Vaal Righteous Fire and burst them down with Arc. Circle around the boss if you have to move.
You only want to gain distance for a few skills such as AoE slams, explosions or burrow attacks.

Watch out for Fragment of Winter in Waterways, Crusher of Gladiators in Racecourse and Lieutetant of Rage spawning from the Lieutenant buff in Labyrinths! Each of them can go into a temporary damage reflection period, which has a visual indicator.
-------------------

So I re-read the guide again and none of the bosses Im getting ripped by are these.. Mainly its happening in t9-10 maps as Im going for my 10th watchstone atm.. I actually have -8chaos resists and all others over 75% ...

"

Hellzwraith wrote:

So I re-read the guide again and none of the bosses Im getting ripped by are these.. Mainly its happening in t9-10 maps as Im going for my 10th watchstone atm.. I actually have -8chaos resists and all others over 75% ...

At first glance I don't see anything that is causing these deaths, except that your talent tree doesn't really follow a theme.
- You have notables for attack damage, but also for spell damage.
- You have notables for critical damage, but not really that many sources to get critical strikes.
- You have notables for minion damage, but way too few to actually make them matter.

Your talent tree seems to me like its the 'Jack of all trades, master of none' kind, which (in this game at least) translates to not doing much damage at all.
This game thrives on scaling things as high as possible.

I would suggest starting with adapting your talent tree to the tree suggested by Enki, and if the problem still persist we can try to figure out what else might be causing your problems.

"

BuckFutter9 wrote:

I'm not sure the ring is needed but I do think it helps. To get the curses from the trigger wand to hit you have to be close to the enemy and have it proc. I found that I was often facing the wrong way and often didn't want to be close. I would only look at getting one if you also have Culling Strike against cursed enemies although there is still a damage boost against enemies at long range so perhaps it would still be worthwhile if you can get one without breaking the bank. To be honest I don't understand all the interactions well enough to say whether or not it's worth it. Pulling it off doesn't show a difference in PoB but removing the Conductivity gem from the trigger wand does and I don't know why.

Assuming that you don't have any other curses the following applies:

There can only be one instance of the same curse active on each enemy, but the curse with the greatest strength will apply.
In your case, you hits will always cause a low lvl conductivity curse because of your ring mod.
In the case that your conductivity curse from your gem gets triggered and actually applies to an enemy, it will overwrite the curse from your ring because it has a greater strength.

In Path of Building there is an assumption that the curse from the trigger wand will always apply, hence your dps gets lowered if you remove it while removing the mod from your ring does nothing.

If you have multiple different curses, you need to look at how many different curses you can apply at the same time on the same enemy.
Your different curses will overwrite each other if you get above that limit.

Yea I didnt follow Enkis guide - it was another Arc guide I found that I just kind of modified to my liking.. I think the issue is actually corrupting blood thats getting me as my boots ( i was going for my 3rd Al Hezmin Watchstone - couldnt get it again )have immune to poison on them. I only have 3394 life and 1363 mana atm too .. might try to respec to Enkies tree but I dont know if it will be doable...

"

WorderMostFoul wrote:

Good decisions here, glad to see others are exploring different ways to take the build at a high level.

Personally, I would never give up the Agnostic. It is just way too good in a build with so much free mana, and completely mitigates almost all DoT in the game. It does put more of a burden on your mana, but better the burden goes there than onto your much more fragile life pool, right?

Plus, Agnostic is the only way to run RF, which is 40% more damage and simply too good to pass on.

I enjoy messing around with builds and theorycrafting.

I see the upside of using The Agnostic, and it would certainly be an upgrade if you can keep enough mana on hand for mind over matter to be effective.
That's what I'm hesitant about.

But I think after I've lvled up I will try it out and see how noticeable it actually is.
I have still one big source of mana I can use to compensate the extra drain (the 30/30 gloves I've avoided till now) so maybe it all works out.
In that case using The Agnostic would certainly be worth it, especially if you can keep that 40% more modifier from RF on all the time.

What's better here, a 20/20 Anomalous Arc, or a 21/20 normal Arc?

Thank you for the guide!

"

Reechaani wrote:

The difference between increased/reduced and more/less is one of the core mechanics used in every build to scale just about everything to useful levels.

See it as 2 different 'pools' of stats.
Everything with 'increased' or 'decreased' gets added together to make one total number, just as everything with 'more' or 'less' gets multiplied together to create another total number.

Thank you for the most precise, thorough, and understandable explanation that I have ever seen regarding this topic.