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

Yo Enki and folks,

Balance Manifesto for 3.8 is out: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2627116

This only line hopefully will make you feel better: "Beacon of Ruin now grants increased effect of non-damaging ailments, to improve its overall power".

Not sure what the exact numbers are as patch notes aren't out yet, but it looks to me with the new things added in 3.8 like Evasive stuff, Sand Stance and other things your brilliant and seemingly immortal guide will still continue on its journey, defying all expectations. This is probably just the beginning of Elementalist receiving some of her justice delivered. Thanks for writing and continually updating your own guide for a lot of players, old and new to follow, and I believe this can give you some more motivation to carry out your slaughters of endgame bosses in 3.8, as usual. :)

Ye...

"Beacon of Ruin now grants increased effect of non-damaging ailments"

Pretty much the only positive thing in there. But like you said, no numbers yet. If it's just something along the lines of 10%, then it's not bad, but also far from a good buff and not going to do overly much to hit the 234%.

Besides... that's not exactly what we need the most anyway.

And I don't know what to think of the passage talking about mana gain. That sounds like a massive nerf to me. Or at least another thing that'll end up giving us massive headaches in the future. As if there wasn't enough already. Survivability is already oof... and now they start to molest our mana sustain.

I don't know... to me it sounds as if they're giving us a tiny buff in Beacon and in return rip off a whole arm in mana gain.

:/

Sad

"

Cendrake wrote:

Ye...

"Beacon of Ruin now grants increased effect of non-damaging ailments"

Pretty much the only positive thing in there. But like you said, no numbers yet. If it's just something along the lines of 10%, then it's not bad, but also far from a good buff and not going to do overly much to hit the 234%.

Besides... that's not exactly what we need the most anyway.

And I don't know what to think of the passage talking about mana gain. That sounds like a massive nerf to me. Or at least another thing that'll end up giving us massive headaches in the future. As if there wasn't enough already. Survivability is already oof... and now they start to molest our mana sustain.

I don't know... to me it sounds as if they're giving us a tiny buff in Beacon and in return rip off a whole arm in mana gain.

:/

Sad

Well, I'd say don't lose all hopes yet. There might be something good once the full skill tree is released and we look at that and decide what's better and what's worst. Aside from 3.5 I didn't see Enki use Mana Leech support at all in his gem setup so that really shouldn't bother this build. Also there are some more mana regen nodes on tree, and the current setup of Enki already has a choice for a mana flask, whether it is a Hybrid flask (which probably will give more mana recovered in 3.8 along with other mana flasks). It sure does affect other self-cast builds and kinda make this problem a clearer quagmire, but for this guide, I doubt it.

I think EB/MoM combo with Clarity/Sand Stance/Wrath auras can be good combos for the build in 3.8. Mana regen shouldn't be a problem with a high level Clarity, Sand Stance helps mitigate dmg and give blind, or the Evasive aura whatever that means, alongside Acro + Phase Acro (even if this gets nerfed I don't think it'll be a huge problem but we'll see). These 2 keystones + Evasive + Pantheon with some dodge + Vaal Grace + Quartz Flask should be easy to cap dodge. As niche as it sounds Enduring Cry can be slapped for a slot just for 3 endurance charges in maps/delves, and the curse of choice is Assassin's Mark for 3 power charges. Good ol' Flame Dash probably can be useful and save a gem slot (doesn't need any support). Cwdt + cold snap for 3 frenzy charges... etc There's still some options, but depends on how motivated Enki is, to continue the guide.

Watcher’s Eye mana leech is out. This possibly hurts end game, but it drops a semi-required unique. I think using Arcane Surge as a support for Arc combined with a few mana nodes on the tree should be sufficient, maybe using a Clarity...just have to wait for the tree.

"

Hologram_o wrote:

snip

Well, sure, we'll have to wait for the patch notes and the tree to get a clearer picture. But it certainly doesn't sound very inspiring.

I'm not worried about Mana Leech support. I'm more worried about "In 3.8.0 we've changed all remaining sources of Mana Leech, either replacing the stats or changing them to only leech from Attacks. This includes Enchantments, the Mana Leech Support, and unique items."

I'm still playing Enki's version from Betrayal in Standard for example, which still works quite decent. But I can just barely sustain my mana with the help of the Watcher's Eye wrath leech (I dropped clarity and put wrath in Essence Worm; we're usually starving for gem slots). With MoM, if I get hit and lose a big chunk, it still happens from time to time that I end up with my pants down. It's hard to say now what they changed, but I'm definitely worried.

If they say that they changed all remaining sources of mana leech then this sounds worrying to me. I have a feeling this includes the Watcher's Eye. My biggest concern tho is MoM/survivability. Which is pretty much the biggest issue I have with the build, despite all these other layers of defense you mention there. If mana sustain becomes an issue, then this will hit survivability.

I definitely hope Enki can bring up some motivation and come up with something ingenious again to counter GGGs bad habits. Because without him, I'd be lost. :D

"

Lahtios wrote:

It seems that elemental penetration modifiers on weapons and mana leech modifiers on any item will not apply to spells, unfortunately.

It seems damage, survivability, and sustain are inferior to what they once were.

I recently purchased those items for great amounts of currency :(

Nothing will change about your weapons or current gear. Gems and the tree will change by default, but you have to intentionally reroll gear for it to change unless they specifically (very rare) say current gear is changing. There are some very broken OP things with legacy gear (i.e. +3 chains to Arc helm enchant).

Looks to me like Beacon of Ruin will likely just be restored to its previous version, which means we only need 150% shock effectiveness instead of 234%. If that's the case, this would be HUGE and couple open up more options.
Edit: actually, the manifesto says they're adding increased effect of non-damaging ailments. Definitely not as good as increased the base % shocks always increase an enemy's damage taken by, but could still be significant if it's at least 40% additional increased effect of shock.

Also very interesting is the 1h "+1 to all [global] lighting/spell gems" mod. Could let us push that Arc level to 26 with Empower to get that extra chain, which is a fat bonus. Seems like this is in addition to the already nice mods you can get on Shaper wands or daggers.

Also encouraging are the buffs to golems. We might be able to have 3 and get even better buffs for it!

Wonder if burning damage over time could be utilized. If Beacon of Ruin makes maximized shock effectiveness possible, is it worth investing in lots of added flat fire damage for more bdot and just leting a point of added lightning damage apply maxed out shock?

Seems like there's plenty of extra damage potential with these changes, so that's exciting.

The bit on mana leech is not encouraging. Maybe Mind of the Council will still be an option, depending on how hard they're trying to hit. Constant sustain is absolutely vital to the MoM defense. All may not be lost, though:

"A variety of new passive tree clusters have been added, including one that improves mana and Arcane Surge, one that gives curse bonuses and a way to recover mana after hitting or killing cursed enemies, and one that grants Spell Damage based on your maximum mana, up to a limit."

Also, them breaking up the Alchemy node is probably not optimal for this build.

I'd be curious to know Enki's thoughts from the manifesto, though of course everyone is right and we won't know anything for sure until the skill tree and final gems are released.

It's probably going to be either Mind of the Council or back to EB + MoM, each having their pros and cons. Or maybe mana sustain is finally going to be able to sustain Mind over Matter in endgame situations with realistic gear, tho i'll doubt it. What I dislike the most about this change is having to come up with something that reliably works for the intended audience of this build, without being able to properly test it first.

Other than that very reasonable changes in the dev manifesto. The Elementalist stuff sounds like a rushed decision, I still can't understand why Assassin or Saboteur got a rework that barely changed anything about them, when it's ascendancies such as Elementalist that really needed a rework.

Well, let's hope dodge survives, tho it won't be an option if i'll decide to go the EB + MoM route.

Meh, I'm skipping this league in favor of WoW classic and AoE2 Definitive Edition anyway.

Hoping for a proper elementalist rework in 3.9. It'd be nice being able to play a great elementalist build again over christmas.

I just started playing this build a few days ago in SSF in standard. It took awhile but I kept the faith and soldiered on and it's really starting to sing now. Just crafted a low level assassin's mark ring and got to put in hypothermia for PCoC and wow... lots more fun!

Anyway, just wanted to say that I hope you'll be able to update it for 3.8. It's a lot of fun once you get even halfway decent gear. I did find that using lightning spire trap was essential to make bosses easier but other than that, awesome guide. Learned a lot and I've been playing POE for many years. Just got spoiled by trade. Forces you to really understand some of the more subtle mechanics when you have to make so many gear compromises. Here's my current gear. Got quite a shite roll on the regal for my diamond ring but spent over 500 alts to get the curse roll so i'm keeping it until i find another shaper ring:



Edit: Should clarify, I didn't find all of this in the last few days, although most of it I did. I had some from a previous SSF build that I gave up on.