Arctic Armour

Yup it's the hard hitters like Vaal and Dominus that need some attention to not get smashed, and I'm not using Discipline :p

Grace+Hatred+Clarity is what I'm running :)

Edit. Also, I'm a pure melee char, so those Rhoa's / Blackguards charging without AA are very painful :(

I'm running an incinerate build myself so I'm also face tanking everything, without AA I would be dead in 5s hehe.

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Vipermagi wrote:

It's quite doable without EB, too, but you won't be sporting a level 25 version.

Actually according to my maths I can theoretically run a lvl 26 (+2 cold gem +1 gem, empower) AA at lvl 87. I say theoretically because gems (esp. empower) take so long to lvl up =-\

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SEXYSUPERSATAN wrote:

-hmm yeah-

its more along lines of meeting the mana regen when its that high of a level.

I copied Juhazzz's MoM/EB build, and running currently Q20/lvl 17 AA with +1 from Empower and +8% from Enhance, will probably hit +2/+16% in a few weeks.

I noticed that the verbage on AA states:

-X mana drained per second while moving.

So technically, the faster you run, the less mana you will spend going from point X to point Y, correct?

So essentially, increasing quality on AA is a sort of mana saving bonus.

I was very hesitant about Q20'ing my Lvl 20 AA gem, but did it on a whim, and so far, pairing it with a lvl 2 Enhance gem has increased my movement speed by 9.5%. Which I think equates to roughly 4% mana cost savings while moving/not moving on average, depending on HOW much you are moving, and how far, and current runspeed bonus.

It has roughly reduced my mana regen per second required by roughly 12 mana/s.

Once I get my enhance gem to lvl 3, the movement speed bonus will be 12%, and save me roughly 6% mana savings which equates for me 17 mana/s.

Obviously this bonus is less useful if you just facetank, but for myself, I have to kite quite a bit sometimes on some really poorly modded maps, and the AA Quality bonus is phenomenal for that.

TLDR: the faster you run, the less mana AA consumes. quality bonus works very well with that mechanic.

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Targuil wrote:

I'd like to know if it's possible to blood magic it so it drains life instead of mana.

i just tried and no you cannot currently. it would be very nice if they reworked it so that it could be used with blood magic. i am making a blood magic tank templar and i think this skill could be very useful with proper precautions.

I dont know if its a bug, but whenever i change an Area, AA is turning off, and i have to activate them again.
Is this the way the skill should work?

What is the minimum level of AA required to become immune to Voidbearers and Tentacle Miscreations [at an average Armor value, of say 5k-10k]?

I had heard, before the changes to AA, that level 8 was sufficient. Not sure what level it is now..

And I mean Docks/Lunaris 3 mobs, not map. Though I would be interested to know the level required for map versions as well. :P


PS. To those saying AA is only useful vs small hits and not big hits, 7k armor reduces a "big hit" by around 500, lvl 20 AA about 190. That's not useless in my book.

PSS. A really underestimated, yet in my opinion one of the most powerful defensive Uniques, is Cloak of Flames. (I personally believe that Cloak of Flames is among the Top 4 most defensive Uniques, along with Kaom's, Lightning Coil, and Aegis Aurora.)
Even though you drop a potential high Armor/Life Chest, it mitigates WAY more damage, ESPECIALLY against "big hits" than you'd lose, even with only 75% max Fire Resistance. And, the most interesting/important thing to note, is that it double dips with AA, since it reduces the physical AND the portion that was converted to fire. (And because of how damage conversion works, it also increases the efficacy of what armor you DO have.)

Cloak of Flames isn't as good as it's older brother, Lightning Coil, but it is amazing while leveling up to mitigate the big hitters, giving you ~16% damage mitigation across the board! Whereas Armor becomes nearly useless versus big hits. The one benefit Cloak has over Lightning Coil, is the double dipping into AA, and 49 ES if you're EB.