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

Hello, Enki

I'm really enjoying your build right now but I'm struggling how to upgrade my character because I just start playing this game 1-2 week and I don't know anything much about the game

I really appreciate if you help me look at my character tab and tell me how can I improve my character as SSF and Blight league

I already read your upgrade guide and buying guide but I can't decide what I should buy or find first, I already public my character tab please help me, love you.

I try not to buy items as much as possible but if you prefer to buy I will buy it

right now I try to make currency and roll my flask setup

"

Tyran wrote:

-Fixing my flask setup (probably adding Cinderswallow and I need to remove the grounding)
-Getting 21/23 Vaal Arc
-Helm with the right enchant
-A decent Watcher's Eye
-An amulet I can actually anoint

Is there anything I'm missing that would be easily fixable?

I'll have to leave any advice about the Elemancer to Worder, he is way more knowledgeable about that than I am.

I would agree with you on most of the points you've listed. Consider getting an eternal life flask with the right affixes and maybe get 20% quality on your cinderswallow aswell.
You don't really need quality on vaal arc, so if you still want this, consider upgrading it as the last thing.
Since you've already mentioned jewels with the watcher's eye, consider getting some more jewel slots in your skill tree if you need some more survivability (you can get quite a bit of life through the jewel nodes). Otherwise I agree on getting a decent watcher's eye.
Amulet and helmet enchant- See if you can get these!

Now from what you haven't covered:
I think it'd be a good idea to find a ring with curse enemies with assassin's mark on hit, so you can replace oskarm for better gloves (most likely it'll be an upgrade for both the gloves and the ring slot, depending on what you can find). If you can't find a good ring, there are probably rings with just assassin's mark that you can multimod.
Consider getting weapons that have gain 20% of elemental damage as extra chaos damage (something like this: )
If you feel like it, you could corrupt your gems and see if you get lucky and get some to lvl 21. If they stay unchanged, you haven't really lost anything and with a 30ex budget you should be able to replace any that have lost a level.

"

oPuTTo wrote:

I really appreciate if you help me look at my character tab and tell me how can I improve my character as SSF and Blight league

Good on you for working on your flasks atm!

Since you're kind of reluctant to buy stuff I would suggest to look out for a replacement of Apep's rage. The wand doesn't really synergise with Arc, so basically it just gives you a good amount of cast speed. You can probably find a rare wand with better/more useful stats.
The next steps are probably to look out for gear that has better/more relevant rolls. A few examples:
Your amulet has decent affixes in theory, but the rolls are pretty low. So when you come across an amulet with atleast 60+ life, 60+ mana and 50+ total elemental resistance it is probably better. You would only lose some intelligence and 4% spell damage. (So basically a few high relevant affixes are better than a lot of low relevant affixes.)
In the same way you can probably upgrade these items fairly easily: your helmet, your diamond ring, your belt.
Depending on how many and what oils you have, you can probably get a cheap or more expensive anointment on your amulet. Enki has provided a useful list and you can pick any within what you're comfortable spending on them. I would put a relatively cheap one on the amulet you're currently wearing, and depending on how good the upgrade is, a more expensive one on that.

If you do want to buy stuff, I would suggest for you to initially look into the following items:
Essence worm (and put wrath in it),
Some jewels with crit multi and life,
A lvl 21 vaal arc,
A 5linked or 6linked Inpulsa's.
(And what I've said above still applies ofcourse. :P)

"

Tyran wrote:

Hi, thanks for the guide! I know the league is almost over but I only started playing 3 weeks ago to get to know the game before the next league starts. I chose this as my first build because it seemed accessible and would work well early on without huge investment. I didn't intend to take it this far but I liked it enough I just kept playing it, I am now about to kill Uber Elder with it, I hope to get it done before Zana's questline goes away for good.
I'm not planning to play on standard anyway, so now I'm looking for the last quick improvements I can make before the league ends and hopefully kill Uber elder. I have about 30ex to invest.

Things I'm looking for:
-Fixing my flask setup (probably adding Cinderswallow and I need to remove the grounding)
-Getting 21/23 Vaal Arc
-Helm with the right enchant
-A decent Watcher's Eye
-An amulet I can actually anoint

Is there anything I'm missing that would be easily fixable? Maybe gear pieces that stand out as weak? I still don't really know what I'm doing so I just try to follow the guide. I probably won't have time to do a lot of trading for crafting supplies anymore so I'm just trying to buy quick upgrades, but I am not really good at comparing weapons for example.
And what about the elemancer variation with what looks like 9 golems posted 1 page back? It looks interesting too.

Definitely listen to Dreagation's advice here, and also to your own suggestions. With that kind of budget, you can easily get what you need to beat all the content in the game pretty quickly.

As suggested, get a Shaper's ring with Assassin's Mark on hit so you can get some good Shaper's gloves with faster casting, life, resistances, and ideally decent mana. If you're going Elemancer, ES doesn't hurt here, either, since you'll have to sacrifice some life on amulet/jewels.

And about that...I would definitely recommend trying the Elemancer variant I posted about. I've already recorded a deathless Uber Elder and all the Delve bosses and will try to get them posted tonight. I'm still working on getting all the guardians recorded, and also the Mastermind. I've got a Hall of Grandmasters with 1 death, but I'm trying to record a deathless run. If I'm really lucky, I'll be able to capture the Cortex fight, though I doubt I can do that one deathless.

If you want to go this route, you should get good results if you can emulate my equipment pretty closely. The biggest things are getting all 6 jewel sockets on the passive tree and getting a second 6L item. You need 3 sockets just for the primordial jewels and another for a Watcher's Eye, and those last two provide precious room for maxing life and mana. Try to buy the primordial jewels I chose and look for ones with good corruptions, since it's only slightly more of an investment--definitely immunity to corrupted blood on one, and increased AoE is for sure useful on the others. You'll obviously need the Primordial Chain amulet, too. It's expensive, but I'd go for the Soul of Steel anointment.

The 6L weapon you need in order to maximize your golem buffs (lvl 4 Empower and maxed golem gems are big here). You definitely want a multimodded eclipse staff here. Golems will go in your Inpulsa's and Arc in the staff. I recommend an ilvl 80+ Shaper's so you can get a 7L--best base mod is level 20 Arcane Surge, though it was not an easy process for me to craft mine. Other good alternative base mods are +x to all spell skill gems (+1 is fine because you can divine it to +2 easily), t1 gain % of elemental damage as extra chaos damage (as Dreagation suggested), or even +3 to all lightning spell skill gems.

Most of your power is from the golem buffs. You want your lightning golem at gem level 26, if possible. If survivability becomes an issue, you can try swapping in stone golem for the flame or ice golem, but your damage will take a hit.

Good luck, let us know how you're progressing!

I have a general question regards to gearing. If this is dumb, forgive me as i'm new to the game and this is my first character.

For the affixes listed in each gearing section.. Am i correct to assume the bolded options are the top priority? Also, are the following affixes listed in priority order as well?

For example, on weapons, there are so many affixes that we're looking for, but i have no idea which ones are better and in which quantity, so i'm having a hard time deciding on upgrades without spending currency and equipping them to find out.

For example on weapons:

"

Damage % (Spell, Lightning, Elemental) (/, C, F)
Critical Strike Chance for Spells (/, C)
Global Critical Strike Multiplier (/, C)
Cast Speed (/, S, C)
+1 to Level of Lightning/Spell Gems (/)
Gain Lightning/Elemental Damage as extra Chaos Damage (/, S, V)
Damage Penetrates Lightning/Elemental Resistance (F, S)
Adds Lightning Damage to Spells (/, C)
Adds Cold Damage to Spells (/, C)

Do i just go down the list prioritizing top to bottom unless a lower stat has a vastly higher roll?

This is also where i struggle to know how each affix is relative to the others in power. How much cast speed is worth how much crit chance ? Would the best options be the ones with maxed out [total] Damage% and Crit chance for spells?

Another thing i'm not sure about is the +1 lightning spell gems mod. We aren't using lightning spells in our weapons so it seems this is a wasted (and expensive) mod for no gain? Unless i'm misunderstanding the build, we have our LW and Buff setup in our weapons due to 3 socket limit.

"

Dreagation wrote:

"

oPuTTo wrote:

I really appreciate if you help me look at my character tab and tell me how can I improve my character as SSF and Blight league

Good on you for working on your flasks atm!

Since you're kind of reluctant to buy stuff I would suggest to look out for a replacement of Apep's rage. The wand doesn't really synergise with Arc, so basically it just gives you a good amount of cast speed. You can probably find a rare wand with better/more useful stats.
The next steps are probably to look out for gear that has better/more relevant rolls. A few examples:
Your amulet has decent affixes in theory, but the rolls are pretty low. So when you come across an amulet with atleast 60+ life, 60+ mana and 50+ total elemental resistance it is probably better. You would only lose some intelligence and 4% spell damage. (So basically a few high relevant affixes are better than a lot of low relevant affixes.)
In the same way you can probably upgrade these items fairly easily: your helmet, your diamond ring, your belt.
Depending on how many and what oils you have, you can probably get a cheap or more expensive anointment on your amulet. Enki has provided a useful list and you can pick any within what you're comfortable spending on them. I would put a relatively cheap one on the amulet you're currently wearing, and depending on how good the upgrade is, a more expensive one on that.

If you do want to buy stuff, I would suggest for you to initially look into the following items:
Essence worm (and put wrath in it),
Some jewels with crit multi and life,
A lvl 21 vaal arc,
A 5linked or 6linked Inpulsa's.
(And what I've said above still applies ofcourse. :P)

I bought some of the items in the list but I feel like my character die easier I don't know why I like some of monster can 1 hit and kill me or do tons of damage I never found this situation before

this is when I do 5-10 Tier maps

Thank you Dreagation for the advice, this made me more confident in investing some more in weapons. I also found a browser script to copy paste poe.trade items directly into pob so I was able to compare much more efficiently.
I posted my first comment when I was still using a level 20 vaal arc, I know the quality isn't that important. I managed to find a 21/14 cheaply which will do for now, still a massive increase.
I swapped out the ring and gloves, but gloves could be better still with shaper affixes. I also respecced into some more jewel slots so I managed to get almost 500 more life in total while shaper dps is 670k. With all the damage passives it's over 1m but I really need the survivability for bosses now. I also need a little more mana now to balance it out. And level up some more if my laptop cooperates with not freezing :)
Helm and amulet are still being worked on and I threw in a watcher's eye I had in my stash for the life/mana but I need to get one with wrath affixes.


Also thanks a lot WorderMostFoul for the advice on the elemancer variant.
The soul of steel anoint is probably the one I will go for because it helps with what I feel is the weakest aspect of the build. I got an assassins mark ring but haven't found amazing gloves yet, using non shaper ones for now.
I think I need to change a bit too much to throw together the elemancer build for now because I won't have a lot of hours left to play this league, but it's definitely something I will try at some point.


I tried my first uber elder today (before I did all the changes) and lost in the final phase. I feel confident I can take it on now with the upgrades and getting to experience the fight once. Still most deaths seem to happen in half a second and my reaction speed is not what it used to be 25 years ago, so it's not easy for me. I switched to the cold damage reduction pantheon, anything else I can do? I guess faster lightning warp will help too. I didn't even know you can just reattempt the fight if you have the fragments, so that was a pleasant surprise at least.

And speaking of Cortex, I got the pleasure of getting that map today and my heart sank a little when I realized even with everything I did that's going to take a lot more practice, which is the one thing you're not allowed on this boss. Probably not happening on this character :)

Yes, Cortex is truly frustrating. That's all I have to say about it.

Here are some videos of the Elemancer variant in action. I apologize for any shittiness in the video quality. Also, keep in mind these are to showcase the strength of the build and not how good I am at this game. LOL

Level 83 Mastermind's Lair: https://youtu.be/ziNcAGVIOuw
T16 Elder guardians: https://youtu.be/sB3JqY63L_E
Uber Elder: https://youtu.be/XEMu6ZTiDio
Ahuatotli, the Blind (The Grand Architect's Temple, delve depth 347): https://youtu.be/HuEik3Sv25A
Kurgal, the Blackblooded (The Lich's Tomb, delve depth 343): https://youtu.be/YAL4vmjs4Do
Aul, the Crystal King (The Crystal King's Throne, delve depth 350): https://youtu.be/WJN5BB3mJUU

More to come, hopefully!

Edit: Hall of Grandmasters (deathless) https://youtu.be/DHV2Jhs0JLE
Edit 2: Shaper guardians: https://youtu.be/wOcyz_g54OE

Hi Enki, thank you for a great guide that helps us new players, I started to play this time last year but had to quit due to life reasons before I got very far.

Just now coming back in time for this new league, I like to play in SSF - will your new build for 3.9 continue to be SSF friendly?

Thanks!

"

Here are some videos of the Elemancer variant in action.

Looks good, thanks for posting these. I'll experiment with it later to see where the main differences would be, playstyle is still the same :)

I did manage to kill uber elder after another failed attempt (just played poorly), which was my goal for this character. I was initially planning to start playing next league but I wanted to do Zana's questline, so I'm happy I managed to do that in 3 weeks as a completely new player. This is probably nothing to more experienced players, but I wasn't even sure if I would be able to complete the questline in time. Thanks again everyone for the help and Enki for the guide, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without it. I'll be taking it a little more slowly now until league end.