Enki's Arc Witch - dead for now

Thanks for this guide. As a new player, I must say it's explained very nicely and it's easy to understand.

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elhigg86 wrote:

NOOB QUESTION INC: i've mostly followed the guide up until lvl90, full ascendancy, and now working on the atlas. but wondering if i can make some tweaks to add some toughness to golems and decoy totem

what if i change golems/totem to a 4L: flame golem, lightning golem, decoy totem, ele res support?

then change movement to a 3L: flame dash (with sceptres), fortify. and was going to try cast when stunned to see if it'll get me out of a bad spot, or arcane surge, or faster casting

i've spent a lot of time reading and think i have a good idea of how these things work together. but would love some advice if possible, please :)

Well, unless you plan on continuing in standard, you're pretty much done. The league ends in about 19 hours.

Your totem would be fine supporting with Ele Res, but your golems are already immune to elemental damage, and quite frankly, the totem becomes less effective the further you progress into the game.

If you link FD to CWS then you will be unable to manually cast FD. Also, I'm pretty sure the direction would be wherever your mouse happens to be at the time, and I'm willing to bet it would do as much harm as good. Linking with AS is nice; I did it for much of this current league. It flows very smoothly while mapping and is still viable while bossing. Linking with FC is nice, but I'd only do it if you can have it in a shaped piece with "socketed gems supported by level # faster casting."

Overall, the biggest change to gems I'd recommend is setting up a Lightning Spire 4L, preferably in shaped gloves or helm. It's a bit clunky to start with and takes practice to use efficiently, but it can potentially double your single target damage.

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Enki91 wrote:

Currently not, as it only applies Minion Attack Speed, which would only affect Whirling Blades/Leap Slam. If it should ever get changed to apply both Minion Attack & Cast Speed then yes, it would be really good for us to take.

I would love it if they did that, but that would have to come with heavy changes to summoner builds. If they moved some passives around, I might consider grabbing it, but as it is I completely agree it isn't worth it. I expect if cast speed was added, it would be either a separate notable passive or even a keystone.

Okaay, is Spell Echo replacable with some other support skill with more or less same dmg output (don't care about mana)?

Not bein able to fully microcontrol char with it feels not great after years of microcontrolling in other games.

2nd Added Lightning dmg or Penetration - will work? dk the stacking mech in-game. Or Innervate mb?
Or just Faster Casting?

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Tusk_Luv wrote:

Okaay, is Spell Echo replacable with some other support skill with more or less same dmg output (don't care about mana)?

Not bein able to fully microcontrol char with it feels not great after years of microcontrolling in other games.

2nd Added Lightning dmg or Penetration - will work? dk the stacking mech in-game. Or Innervate mb?

with high cast speed (like 5.5-6 CPS) spell echo feels fine
But it's probably gonna be replaced with that new support (unleash or whatever its called), we have to wait to patchnotes and gems reveal

in current league there is nothing even close to spell echo

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skynet_mainframe wrote:

Hey Enki,
Just wanted to say: You're build guide is amazing! I started playing PoE two weeks ago and began a not-beginner-friendly shadow build. It took me days to complete Act I - X. Then I started an Arc Elem with your build and I feel like I've learned SO much during playing. Your guide is really an extensive tutorial, just like you said. You're helping me a lot and I just wanted to thank you! I'm looking forward to getting my atlas complete now :) Gotta release my inner Sith Lord

Fair warning the current league ends in about an hour. Sometime later today everything should transfer to standard with the exception no Betrayal content until later this week. I believe they mentioned atlas changes, so it could also mean the atlas in standard will reset later this week as well.

Per the page 1 of the development manifesto,

"Here are a few examples of cast times after these changes: Discharge (0.75 sec from 1 sec), Glacial Cascade (0.7 sec from 0.8 sec), Arc (0.7 sec from 0.8 sec) and Ice Nova (0.7 sec from 0.8 sec).

Arc also has a lower chain distance now, so it won't bounce between distant packs of enemies. "


The other smaller concern: Storm Brand nerf?


"A small number of spells that we consider too powerful for their ease of use, like Brands, Winter Orb and Blade Vortex have had their damage lowered. We'll be revealing the full list of changes in the patch note"


Just wondering how big you all think the arc nerf is based upon the above. I'm sure if Storm Brand is nerfed too much, a suitable replacement can be found.

Can't you wait for the full patch notes?

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Mentoya wrote:

Per the page 1 of the development manifesto,

"Here are a few examples of cast times after these changes: Discharge (0.75 sec from 1 sec), Glacial Cascade (0.7 sec from 0.8 sec), Arc (0.7 sec from 0.8 sec) and Ice Nova (0.7 sec from 0.8 sec).

Arc also has a lower chain distance now, so it won't bounce between distant packs of enemies. "


The other smaller concern: Storm Brand nerf?


"A small number of spells that we consider too powerful for their ease of use, like Brands, Winter Orb and Blade Vortex have had their damage lowered. We'll be revealing the full list of changes in the patch note"


Just wondering how big you all think the arc nerf is based upon the above. I'm sure if Storm Brand is nerfed too much, a suitable replacement can be found.

we have to see the numbers tomorrow
Also, we can't use controlled destruction and elemental overload without extra source of crit anymore. Controlled destruction could be replaced with a new support gem
Storm brand damage nerf doesn't affect this build. With onslaught buff its actually got better, we can get onslaught with storm brand vs bosses now.

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SilverWF wrote:

Can't you wait for the full patch notes?

No

Because it's just fun to speculate since that's all we have now until patch notes come out......I know that nobody knows for sure. Not to mention, that's why the released the teaser, so that it give us things to talk about.

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lokarno93 wrote:

es arc build maybe?

I was debating trying this before the manifesto but couldn’t find a way to reliably make it work. Half the battle is navigating the passive tree. I’ve never gone ES so I wanted to be sure first. However, with the ES buffs and low crit “nerf,” I am strongly reconsidering low life ES and replacing Paragon of Calamity with Elemancer and using Ice Golem. You would have elemental ailment immunity with a 50% chance to avoid stuns. Granted, low life = painful stuns. To make it work, I’d link Wrath to Blood Magic and pick up Pain Attunment (30% more damage). Then Haste and Discipline would reserve mana (MoM doesn’t work with ES). Shavronne’s Wrappings would be required for body armour in order to prevent chaos damage from one shotting me.

There is a small chance I’d focus crit, but I think EO would still be preferable. Another alternative would be going CI, dropping Haste Aura (despite forum confusion, nothing said in the manifesto changes how CI functions, immunity has nothing to do with max resistances).

I have a tentative build worked up, but the tree/gems will change. I’ll post the build if I think it may work. However, I strongly recommend following anything Enki posts over me.

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blg_RealiZe wrote:

Also, we can't use controlled destruction and elemental overload without extra source of crit anymore. Controlled destruction could be replaced with a new support gem
Storm brand damage nerf doesn't affect this build. With onslaught buff its actually got better, we can get onslaught with storm brand vs bosses now.

I don’t see how this would be true really. Previously if you had Arc (base 5% crit) supported by CD (100% decreased crit), the formula would be “crit = .05 + .05 * -1 = 0”. The base minimum would kick in and still provide 5% crit. If we have at least 100% increased crit then there is no change to crit chance “crit = .05 + .05 * (-1 + 1) = .05.” Currently, the tree picks up 40% crit, and 2 daggers with 30% each brings us up to 100%, completely negating the “nerf.” Further crit is added in via Lightning Golem and better daggers. I find no reason why we would want to drop Spell Echo unless the new support gem somehow interferes with the mechanics. You might suffer crit chance while leveling, but for end game content there will be no significant change in that regard. Granted, this does put scepters at a disadvantage.

I agree Onslaught will probably be highly advantageous linked to SB, though it may have to wait for a Watcher’s Eye before getting implemented.