[3.13 / 3.14] Transitioning Enki's Arc Witch into a 50M+ DPS Boss Killer

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jorgitolin wrote:

Hello, is anyone still checking this thread?

I wanted to make a bossing char and came by this one, already played enki before and love it.

https://pastebin.com/pkaVstZq
This is my current gear, I know im missing some key things like bottle of faith, awakening gems or even finishing leveling my current gems.

Still i feel like the difference from like 10M i have to the 55M is huge, what could I go for next as big improvements?

Everything is really expensive at this point

It is an expensive build. The big damage comes online with a level 5 awakened Hectouch support and the expensive crit multiplier gems (which were easy and somewhat cheap with Harvest). A Wish for Death / Master of Fear medium cluster is another big step as is the Bottled Faith.

I think you can almost top it out for less than 100ex or so but that might be low as it is somewhat based on what I did last league and stuff is more expensive this league.

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kanofel wrote:

Hi there, how does this build perform when it comes to ultimatums etc?

If you replace the gloves with Asenath's Gentle Touch and anoint Mind Drinker on neck, you will map like a god on pretty much any tier and never die, but you will be giving up some boss DPS and survivability by doing that. If you're still not satisfied with the clear, you can replace Arc with Ball Lightning/GMP.

is there a particular reason for lightning golem to go in the 6 link body or is it just because thats where there was space?

and another question i have... why is whispers of doom used when awakened hextouch can apply two curses without it?

Hi all,

I've been running this upgraded arc build (after starting with Enki's) and wanted to pass along a few observations after a lot of trial and error that might help out some folks in a similar position.

In my experience, the bossing damage in this build is great, but it's just too squishy. It's especially brutal for ultimatums, since we're locked in place for so long and are relatively easy to overrun. While amping up the damage helps, in my opinion you hit diminishing returns on damage where it's just more helpful to stay alive.

To that end, and to improve QOL while playing, I focused on hitting a better balance of survivability and have settled on the following:
-integrating Clarity into the build (which requires dropping supreme ego), and running a watcher's eye with damage to mana before life, which brings our mana-before-life mitigation from 40% to 50%;
-running a jade flask with extra evasion rolled on it, which brings my dodge chance to just shy of 50% along with the cloak of defiance;
-using a large cluster jewel with disorienting display (and scintillating idea), which provides an additional blind on the enemy when active, bringing my dodge chance to 74%.

Otherwise, we cram as much mana into the build as we can per the rest of this guide (including the glove, belt, and boot enchants for mana regen).

It's not perfect, but these steps have helped smooth out the most frustrating aspects of the gameplay to me, which is the frequent random one-shots. I still die a fair amount, but this has helped make it less of a frequent occurrence outside of juiced T16s. I've also killed the ultimatum trial master with this build, so while this is still probably not a great build for this league, it's certainly at least workable.

For context, I'm currently sitting around 20 million dps with a POB "total pool" of 16.5k hp and an "effective hit pool" of 55k. Other than my 6 link staff and chest, the only high-budget item that I have is an awakened hextouch to bring my ring's assassin's mark curse online. Without it, you can replace the ring with a Cerulean (to get extra % max mana) and cram as much mana into the build as you can otherwise.

Happy to provide a POB if anyone's interested, and I'd love to hear thoughts on cost-effective ways to improve the build.

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EnglishGravy wrote:

is there a particular reason for lightning golem to go in the 6 link body or is it just because thats where there was space?

I believe it's just where there's space.

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EnglishGravy wrote:

and another question i have... why is whispers of doom used when awakened hextouch can apply two curses without it?

You have three total curses to apply: two from the chest gems and one from the ring (assassin's mark). So you need 3 curse slots; one by default, one from whispers of doom, and one from awakened hextouch.

If you don't have awakened hextouch, don't use the ring and just focus on the two chest gem curses.

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Hi all,

I've been running this upgraded arc build (after starting with Enki's) and wanted to pass along a few observations after a lot of trial and error that might help out some folks in a similar position.

In my experience, the bossing damage in this build is great, but it's just too squishy. It's especially brutal for ultimatums, since we're locked in place for so long and are relatively easy to overrun. While amping up the damage helps, in my opinion you hit diminishing returns on damage where it's just more helpful to stay alive.

To that end, and to improve QOL while playing, I focused on hitting a better balance of survivability and have settled on the following:
-integrating Clarity into the build (which requires dropping supreme ego), and running a watcher's eye with damage to mana before life, which brings our mana-before-life mitigation from 40% to 50%;
-running a jade flask with extra evasion rolled on it, which brings my dodge chance to just shy of 50% along with the cloak of defiance;
-using a large cluster jewel with disorienting display (and scintillating idea), which provides an additional blind on the enemy when active, bringing my dodge chance to 74%.

Otherwise, we cram as much mana into the build as we can per the rest of this guide (including the glove, belt, and boot enchants for mana regen).

It's not perfect, but these steps have helped smooth out the most frustrating aspects of the gameplay to me, which is the frequent random one-shots. I still die a fair amount, but this has helped make it less of a frequent occurrence outside of juiced T16s. I've also killed the ultimatum trial master with this build, so while this is still probably not a great build for this league, it's certainly at least workable.

For context, I'm currently sitting around 20 million dps with a POB "total pool" of 16.5k hp and an "effective hit pool" of 55k. Other than my 6 link staff and chest, the only high-budget item that I have is an awakened hextouch to bring my ring's assassin's mark curse online. Without it, you can replace the ring with a Cerulean (to get extra % max mana) and cram as much mana into the build as you can otherwise.

Happy to provide a POB if anyone's interested, and I'd love to hear thoughts on cost-effective ways to improve the build.

Yes this build has survivability issues but so does Enki's. Enki's build is great for people who just staretd and want to complete the acts and reach maps, it has easy upgrades path's and its well written.
But if you play Enki's, juicy maps get you in a lot more trouble because you just lack the DPS to clear fast enough unless your gear is crazy, you have trouble with conqueror's. Shaper supported by Maven can be unbeatable if your gear is meh and you're playing Enki's Arc.

About what you said about survivability, if you hate dying you can always go for more HP instead of mana, MoM works better the more HP you have, if you have 15k mana and 2k hp pool you're going to get oneshot either way (looking at you Replica's Kaom). You can take HP wheel, use a leather belt and a coral ring all with T1 life and survive more but halve your DPS (wich is still way better than running EO arc).

This build is good because it offers great DPS with some decent defences for a budget in comparison to other builds, 6L Pledge of Hands is a 6-10ex item while other builds need a 50-100ex weapon to reach 20m dps.

To improve some of your inconveniences on a budget, you can always spec into Aqueous Accelerant and swap your lightning pen with faster casting for mapping if you're having issues being stuck casting Arc.

Ultimatums are incredible easy with this build, I had some troubles with them at the start of the league but realized that you have to play them safely and you never die if you do them correctly.
Never cast arc when you dont have arcane cloak, just run around (I used a phasing on kill abyssal jewel when my DPs was a little bit low and it helped a lot), pop arcane cloak and clear the screen, when arcane cloak is down drop some brands while you run around in circles. The only one I don't do is stone circles just because its tedious but its easy as well, never stand still casting without arcane cloak. Also, ultimatums have different mobs, some have archers (those are the ones that probably kill you) wich depending on the mods of your map can be quite dangerous, so once you recognize those archers you know you can't cast Arc without arcane cloak, other ultimatums like the ones with spiders that don't do nothing I just stand still in the middle if I chose mods that don't force me to move and dont get any issues.

Looking at your build, some cost effective improvements (considering what you don't like about the build) would be changing lightning pen for awakened lightning pen which is quite cheap. Since you're running pure talent you can get boots with higher HP since you don't need the +dex and maybe elusive. Swapping the belt for one with cast speed during flask effect and mana recovery rate with some decent life (I've been trying to craft a stygian but no luck, I keep selling them because I hit cooldown recovery rate and other mods). There are cheap leather/studded-whatever belts with 90+ life and those stats, less than 20c. Disorienting Display is really good because it works like an aura for some reason, I suggest investing in that plus prismatic heart to help with resistances (around 3 ex but really really good). I'd get a jewel with immunity to corrupted blood and something else so you can switch that flask for a Vinktar's with Lightning pen you're not going to feel bleeding with Agnostic (you're immune to shock with the golems up so Vinktar's is great and cheap). Recovery rate is really good, but its meaningless while you map because of Cinderswallow so don't focus too much on that, once you get some good DPS you delete bosses on your mana pool without the regen (for example, you can skip Drox phase where he goes immune and just delete him).
Also, I find anomalous arc pretty good but that may get pricey, and if you're looking for some chaos res, essences are really cheap this league and you can craft some decent items with that.
I've been trying to upgrade my gear on my own this league but RIP harvest, but there are some options out there to make this viable without too much investment.

I suggest you invest in more cast speed to ease things out and feel how smooth it can get once you reach a certain point (you can get cast speed on gloves, belt and a medium cluster jewel, aqueous accelerant, rare jewels and maybe swap faster casting on main link for mapping) and then you can map easily without the constraints of being stuck while casting arc. In my opinion movement in this game is the the best defensive stat you can get, and as you get more cast speed you're no longer "stuck" and it flows more easily.

Thanks, Cloud! This is all great info, I appreciate the response.

for anyone having trouble with ultimatum... my method is to use hydrosphere instead of woc. i run from one side of the circle to the other, drag hydroshere across the middle to me so it curses everything in its path. then blast away.

i also moved lightning golem to gloves in place of enahance and have increased critical strikes in the 6 link with hydrosphere for more consistent power charge generation. i think that works anyway?