Arc

I had more fun with arc than with any other skill bar flame totem, no clue what you are talking about. sure it's not strong while levelling, but it's great in the 1-10 map range (and I never got further due to SSF). the fact you often overshoot yourself with reflect is speaking for itself. damage range 40-50k I got in breach is my top score by a long shot (and that was before I would've went to standard (I deleted all my chars then in order to go perma-ssf), especially since that is always my problem in late game - no dps

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cigarette wrote:

i'd like to know what arc's range is in units for the first target

can't tell if it's inside or outside a remote mine's 60 unit base detonation radius

i don't know the exact number but i can tell you that taking high explosives (after volatile mines which gives a smaller boost) gave me a noticeable increase in range, often hitting enemies offscreen on the first hit.

I have 2 questions regarding arc. My goal is to make a CoC build with elemental equilibrium. So I am thinking of using arc but I have some questions:

1)Does the chaining happens instantly or does each chaining needs a delay?

2)If there are many monsters in a pack, will arc prefer hiting the other monsters rather than turning back to the enemies that have already been hit?

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phmn wrote:

I have 2 questions regarding arc. My goal is to make a CoC build with elemental equilibrium. So I am thinking of using arc but I have some questions:

1)Does the chaining happens instantly or does each chaining needs a delay?

2)If there are many monsters in a pack, will arc prefer hiting the other monsters rather than turning back to the enemies that have already been hit?

1-If by that you mean does the lightning stop for a moment before chaining, no.

2-It hits new targets before rehitting as far as i have seen.

I would like to see a staffer talk about Arc's future. It is in a bad place at this point. It is either under-powered or needs to gain more chains. With crit+crit multi it performs okay, but cannot keep up with other damage skills. For such an iconic type of skill in this sort of game, it pains me to use it when i see how much stronger other skills are. I have always loved chain lightning in dungeon crawler/hack-n-slash games, but PoE is not kind to it.

Please remove the current quality bonus, i rather want a 0,5% increased damage bonus per 1% quality for example, or increased chains, instead of a shock chance bonus. I use Elemental Focus on my Arc gem, it's a very strong support gem but i cant shock, im okay with that but it also wastes the quality bonus.

But even if i did not use Elemental Focus, i think if you put % increased lightning damage for example, its better in my opinion, now its kind of a waste if you dont invest in shock some more. And its not only the quality bonus, it's in the gem without quality too, maybe replace the +10% shock chance with +10% increased lightning damage or something.

http://i.imgur.com/MrPNmNH.jpg

RAINBOW ARC HYPE
pls mr wilson

What if instead of buffing arc, we buff around arc? EG.

Unique Cobalt Jewel:

Makeshift Capacitor
Limit: 1
----------
+(7-10)% Increased Lightning Damage
+(2-4)% Chance to Shock
---------
If Arc applies shock to a target but does not critically strike,
Arc will also apply Overcharged to the target.


Overcharged
Overcharged causes the next lightning ability against the target
to overload the target consuming overcharged and emitting a lightning nova
for 20% of the damage dealt.
(hidden) Radius: 5


This would play around arc's base "shock" play style, and help it out a bit with both single target and fill in the gaps of damage against massive packs. It requires concentrated attack on the same target/targets, so would not help with increasing initial clear speed which is the primary concern in buffing the ability itself.

Arc is my favorite elemental spell, but it seems it is actually getting an indirect nerf in 3.0 with bosses now having more health; add to the fact that it was already struggling on boss fights and it has become much less viable compared to other elemental spells.

One problem with arc is that 'shock' is many times not very good against bosses. Shock doesn’t last as long on bosses and many boss fights require a lot of movement which reduces the chance of getting the full if any benefit from shock. I once tried making a 'shock' build with a ton of shock chance and shock duration and it was still pretty bad. Furthermore shock is useless against packs since arc kills them fast enough. It makes the whole 'shock' mechanic feel rather useless in general.

I would propose two things:
(1) Make it so 'shock' damage bonus applies during the hit that creates the shock. This way no matter what happens you will get at least a small damage boost from shock.
(2) Making it so Arc utilizes shock differently in some way. Maybe something like: "Every time Arc shocks a target you build a static charge which increases arc damage by x% and lasts y seconds"

As long as arc-miners exist, self-cast arc will never get any love from GGG