Arc

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bhavv wrote:

Casting arc depletes mana too quickly, and it does pathetic damage compared to just about every other skill.

The damage actually scales pretty nicely, but it's too inconsistent.
I'm currently 68 on my Arc Witch, and she does 1069 tooltip dps with very crappy gear.


Passives (will go to CI)


The problem with Arc is it'll sometimes pick random targets and or crates instead of the intended target. This makes kiting mobs with speed a tough job sometimes.
I've been using zombies and spark totem for this reason, but lately I've been looking into combining it with lightning trap and maybe Arc/chain totem for shock stacks.
So in my opinion, Arc as main spell is not yet where it should be but it is getting pretty close.
I love the way the attacks look and with faster casting, you can really destroy things quickly. But sometimes you cant trust it completely and while soloing this can put you in awkward positions.

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bhavv wrote:

I thought of trying to use Arc on a totem to apply shock stacks for a lightning strike melee I'm making..

I think that could work very well. I've been leveling with a Facebreaker Cyclone Duelist from the start, and we see very tough mobs dying to one spin when they're shock stacked by my Arc, even in higher lvl areas. We can also run 66 blue maps for this reason.

If you're tired of the boring and overused spark totem, I would certainly recommend Arc/Chain/Lightning Pen on a spell totem! If possible, get the Static Blows Passive since this will add alot. If your output is high enough you can consider switching out lightning pen for Elemental Proliferation.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

Update:

I was actually doing pretty well with Arc+Elemental Proliferation+Quality Added Lightning Damage+Mana Leech until I hit Alira in Cruel. I'm using Ephemeral Edge both for the energy shield boost and because Flicker Strike is actually quite good at picking off stragglers.

But the Alira fight was a punishing fight of tiny, useless hits. I don't mind kiting as necessary but getting through her shield and dodging her stupid wand attack to keep my own shield up AND getting in some decent damage was all but impossible at level 43 for this character.

Elemental proliferation and arc are both meant for multiple targets, so it's not surprising you weren't doing so well. Also note that Alira resists lightning.

It's like saying Kraityn is too hard because you can't beat him with Ice Nova.

I am looking forward to link Arc with "cast on hit/kill" trigger gem, let's see what we can do with that!

MORE ARCS!

triggering an effect three times may come in handy ;-)

Current arc issues :
+ Is lack of bonus benefit from "chain" support gem, 4/5th hit deals trash dmg
+ Mana hunger, even with "Mana reduce" gem, you still need Mana Leech gem
+ Even you combo "Mana reduce" + "Mana Leech", it still drain your mana in 1v1.
+ Was limited number of hit (3 hits, 5 hits with chain)
+ Deals random damage from 1~10000000000000000000000000000000000000000

guess i'm late to stop people from saying inception jokes...

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lightmoon wrote:

Current arc issues :
+ Is lack of bonus benefit from "chain" support gem, 4/5th hit deals trash dmg
+ Mana hunger, even with "Mana reduce" gem, you still need Mana Leech gem
+ Even you combo "Mana reduce" + "Mana Leech", it still drain your mana in 1v1.
+ Was limited number of hit (3 hits, 5 hits with chain)
+ Deals random damage from 1~10000000000000000000000000000000000000000

1-X nature of lightning is also why mana leech is totally inconsistent with it, making arcs insane mana cost even stupider.

So, arc making good checklist:

Lower mana cost to sane levels [ ]
Stop targetting random crates and pots instead of mobs [ ]
Have non-chained damage against single targets compile into 1 big hit [ ]


Cause of the existance of totems, keeping the mana cost as it is now but upping the damage wouldn't work. Sadly, as it is now, arc is weak and only really useable on totems. My arc miner was having fun until the mana costs just got so stupidly high that I couldn't even kill whites of my level without chugging potions.

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Wooser69 wrote:

So, arc making good checklist:

Lower mana cost to sane levels [ ]
Stop targetting random crates and pots instead of mobs [ ]
Have non-chained damage against single targets compile into 1 big hit [ ]

No, keep the insane mana cost and then make the other 2 changes. Otherwise will be OP.
150% single target damage is no joke, but the mana cost is one thing that asks for nothing less.

The only other change that needs to be made is the chain support to have ''50% less projectile dmg'' instead of ''50% less dmg''. Then you would have 2 more bounces for 200% mana multi, which again is fair.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

While I know it was a losing battle all round, using her lightning resistance as an excuse for Arc's inefficiency isn't entirely tenable.If I'd leveled up spark+fork (since she has all those cauldron-creepers around), it would almost certainly make much shorter work of her.

As it was, Shock Nova was doing okay.

Spark is good against single targets because of spell projectile shotgunning.

Shock Nova should have been terrible against her too, though, so if it was considerable better against her then that is good evidence that arc is lame.

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Kadajko wrote:

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Wooser69 wrote:

So, arc making good checklist:

Lower mana cost to sane levels [ ]
Stop targetting random crates and pots instead of mobs [ ]
Have non-chained damage against single targets compile into 1 big hit [ ]

No, keep the insane mana cost and then make the other 2 changes. Otherwise will be OP.
150% single target damage is no joke, but the mana cost is one thing that asks for nothing less.

The only other change that needs to be made is the chain support to have ''50% less projectile dmg'' instead of ''50% less dmg''. Then you would have 2 more bounces for 200% mana multi, which again is fair.

The dmg change is fair to another skill.
Ex :
Fire ball : Deals 50%, chains 2 times, total dmg is 150%
Current Arc : Deals 100%, chains 2 times, total dmg is 300%
Current Chain-Arc : Deals 50%, chains 4 times, total dmg is 250%
You can see the problem : Double cost and lower 50% total dmg.

To be fair to another skill, the total must be 450% with 4 chains.
450% / 5 = 90% dmg for each hit.
It stills need some dmg nerf.

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lightmoon wrote:

The dmg change is fair to another skill.
Ex :
Fire ball : Deals 50%, chains 2 times, total dmg is 150%
Current Arc : Deals 100%, chains 2 times, total dmg is 300%
Current Chain-Arc : Deals 50%, chains 4 times, total dmg is 250%
You can see the problem : Double cost and lower 50% total dmg.

To be fair to another skill, the total must be 450% with 4 chains.
450% / 5 = 90% dmg for each hit.
It stills need some dmg nerf.

Arc has 50% inbuilt dmg effectiveness without the chain for all supported gems, and deals less dmg than fireball, less critical chance, doesn't benefit from quality chain, and cost more mana so 500% dmg would be fair. So no dmg nerfs needed.