Arc
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Well Arc only has 4% Base-Critchance which is very low.
The Main reason to use Arc is because there are so few good lightning-gems for casters. You only have Shock-Nova, Spark and Arc, and although they are all nice to clear out large groups and apply the Debuff, Lightning-Damage lacks a more focused form of attack, exspecially considering that lightning seems to be the intelligence aligned elemental (well... based on the aura and the location of the node). Actually only Frost has a really nice Skill-Setup yet, Fire and Lightning both are useful (Firestorm is really powerful and the buff to Fireball also is nice), but Ice seems far more flexible. |
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" And Warp. |
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I'm finding Arc rather useless in comparison to other frost abilities.
i mean it's ok, but the damage spread, the fact that it can only hit a target once (and not 3 times) like LMPed ice spells, and the the inability to fire it at the target you're aiming at first just kill it for me. |
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" Problem is that LMP-ed/forked/pierced projectiles damage is normal when you compare it to another projectile spells not to ARC. Like you can see ARC is weak like most people reporting here and everyone with basic math skills can evaluate what is difference between, increasing 4% crit chance by 50% vs multiplicating 1 projectile by 3 and reducing their dmg by 30% in highly aoe based game. ARC is fine like melees in that game... ▄█▀█▀█
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Lightning Arrow and Lightning Strike kinda ruined Chain for people who wanted to put it on Arc :(
50% less damage isn't cool when it already does 50% less damage. |
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" Problem is that LMP-ed/forked/pierced projectiles damage is normal when you compare it to another projectile spells not to ARC. Like you can see ARC is weak like most people reporting here and everyone with basic math skills can evaluate what is difference between, increasing 4% crit chance by 50% vs multiplicating 1 projectile by 3 and reducing their dmg by 30% in highly aoe based game. ARC is fine like melees in that game... [/quote] Here's the basic issues i have currently With arc 1). It's Bugged Currently my tooltip (on my Cast bar) says 16-307 Damage, Where as the gem itself has 18-341 Damage. This is a level 11 Gem. Unless i have negative lightning damage, i highly doubt this can be correct. Lightning damage seems to have bugged scaling, were as my equipped frost gems get double the damage the gem shows, lightning actually becomes lower. Edit: According to the bug report forum, this is intentional, dear god why. It's a "Damage effectiveness" of 50%, meaning 50% of the total damage is dealt. Which means it's automatically worse than a frost spell with Lesser multi projectiles, which is a damage effectiveness of 70% 2). The damage range is horrible, rolling the low end sucks and the high end is barely noticeable in comparison. Frost spells are within 10% of the high end of lightning at all times, and have 100s of more base damage. 3). Shock doesn't freeze enemies like frost does, it really should stun them or something, just a tiny bit. 4). Spell can't be split into three and focus casted on a single mob for double or triple damage. 5). You can't choose your targets, or your "Primary" chain target. 6). THE MANA COST, DEAR GOD THE MANA COST Last edited by mack1510#1376 on Feb 4, 2013, 4:07:49 PM
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I'd like to see what happens to this skill when the damage effectiveness isn't laughably bad. The low crit chance and damage effectiveness, combined with hard restrictions on support gems, makes this a head-scratcher when it comes time to support it. Look:
* Lightning Penetration. Almost certainly the best option, since it works and isn't subject to the savage Damage Effectiveness penalty. * Lightning Damage. Terrible. 150% mana cost for 50% of the gem is worthless. * Crit Chance. Seems mediocre. Heavily invested at a high level, you're looking at taking a 4% crit rate and turning it into an 8% crit rate. Sweet? * Crit Damage. Without additional crit chance you're spending 130% mana for ~4% DPS increase. Again, sweet? * Chain adds bounces. Why waste it on this skill? * Pierce, Fork, GMP, LMP, Concentrated Effect, Increased AoE... none work. If you have the option for Life or Mana Leech, I guess you go for that. If the damage modifier didn't suck, it would open up the +Damage gems as semi viable options. If that's not an option, why not get creative with other gems? Make Concentrated Effect remove the chain effect and increase damage. Let each bounce Fork a non-chaining bounce. Allow GMP and LMP. Basically treat it as a projectile! As it stands now, I can't countenance using it; it's just got too many negatives and too few positives, especially in the saturated "lightning AoE" market. |
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" I would love to see a +66% damage boost if it only hits one target, +33% if it hits two, 0% if it hits three. That, along with a 50ish point increase in the base possible damage would go a huge way towards making this the most viable lightning spell. But currently i think sparks just... just is better somehow still. |
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" At that point we may as well make a more traditional chain lightning spell, with diminishing damage on each target hit. Actually, that would probably balance the spell nicely: you could put 100% damage effectiveness on it, but each bounce might do (for example) 20% of the previous bounce. It would make it much easier to balance as a single target spell, but it would retain some element of AoE damage. Instead of being a primary 3-target AoE, though, it becomes a single-target spell with modified splash; the Fireball of the Lightning tree. |
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" Would LOVE to see this change to Arc. Either that or have it hit the max amount of hops no matter how many targets there are. Up until yesterday I was running with Arc as my primary damage skill with support from SpellTotem/LMP/Ice Spear on my EE witch. Once I got towards the end of act3 cruel I had to switch up my skills and take it off of primary. As much as I wanted to, I simply could not progress in the game with Arc as primary damage. With a change like you propose it would actually be worth using Arc with Chain as well. |
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