Enki's Arc Witch - dead for now

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arciinus wrote:

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

I'm also using a medium curse one (with Hextouch support in my Storm Brand setup) to get free Culling Strike and Unnerve, each of which is another tangible DPS boost.

I've seen some setups with Orb of Storms/Storm Brand to trigger Conductivity using Hextouch support. How does that playstyle work? Right now, without it, it's a "just cast Arc until you hit bosses" build. Do you only use Orb of Storms/Storm Brand on bigger enemies? Or do you just constantly spam it on every mob alongside Arc?

Typically I try to lay one down every 10 seconds or so when mapping, but I don't pay too much attention to it most of the time because I'm 1-shitting trash mobs, anyway. I definitely pay attention when it's a big boss, which is why I ended up going with SB over OoS, as it's way, way better for single targets that move around a lot. Just lay 3 down right as Sirus starts descending, for instance, and you have EO procked in no time.

I am NOT a fan of spamming Arc until it procs. That's lost damage and therefore lost time!

Re: Cluster Jewels

It seems obvious now, but I didn't realize it before tonight, check to see if you have 4 mods on each cluster jewel and regular jewel, because if you don't, you can use an exalt to add to a maximum of 4.

I spent, perhaps wasted, 4ex and got all of 28 life and 3% chaos resistance but perhaps your luck will be better. Got a sweet tier 1 mod on the cobalt jewel, it's just not useful for this build of course.

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BuckFutter9 wrote:

Re: Cluster Jewels

It seems obvious now, but I didn't realize it before tonight, check to see if you have 4 mods on each cluster jewel and regular jewel, because if you don't, you can use an exalt to add to a maximum of 4.

I spent, perhaps wasted, 4ex and got all of 28 life and 3% chaos resistance but perhaps your luck will be better. Got a sweet tier 1 mod on the cobalt jewel, it's just not useful for this build of course.

Spending the ex for those marginal benefit is such a luxury... BTW, your wand still have one mod slot to be ex slammed.

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billybob630 wrote:

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BuckFutter9 wrote:

Re: Cluster Jewels

It seems obvious now, but I didn't realize it before tonight, check to see if you have 4 mods on each cluster jewel and regular jewel, because if you don't, you can use an exalt to add to a maximum of 4.

I spent, perhaps wasted, 4ex and got all of 28 life and 3% chaos resistance but perhaps your luck will be better. Got a sweet tier 1 mod on the cobalt jewel, it's just not useful for this build of course.

Spending the ex for those marginal benefit is such a luxury... BTW, your wand still have one mod slot to be ex slammed.

Yeah, I'm not saying it was a wise use of resources, what I should really be doing is saving to get another awakened spell echo so I can vaal or double corrupt the one I have at level 5.

Perhaps I should just vaal it now, worst that can happen is a loss of a level and some quality, correct?

I have to double check the wand but I am pretty sure that what appears as two mods online, the spell damage and the mana, is actually three mods that combine into the same stats so they get shown as two.

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BuckFutter9 wrote:

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billybob630 wrote:

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BuckFutter9 wrote:

Re: Cluster Jewels

It seems obvious now, but I didn't realize it before tonight, check to see if you have 4 mods on each cluster jewel and regular jewel, because if you don't, you can use an exalt to add to a maximum of 4.

I spent, perhaps wasted, 4ex and got all of 28 life and 3% chaos resistance but perhaps your luck will be better. Got a sweet tier 1 mod on the cobalt jewel, it's just not useful for this build of course.

Spending the ex for those marginal benefit is such a luxury... BTW, your wand still have one mod slot to be ex slammed.

Yeah, I'm not saying it was a wise use of resources, what I should really be doing is saving to get another awakened spell echo so I can vaal or double corrupt the one I have at level 5.

Perhaps I should just vaal it now, worst that can happen is a loss of a level and some quality, correct?

I have to double check the wand but I am pretty sure that what appears as two mods online, the spell damage and the mana, is actually three mods that combine into the same stats so they get shown as two.

Yeah that wand already has 6 affixes for sure. There's no 1h-weapon affix that gives 200 mana on its own (unfortunately!).

Makes sense, wow, so many things to learn.

Thanks again for the tips! I think I'm pretty close to being done my build as I haven't been able to find any really easy (<5 ex) upgrades lately.

Here's the character page and POB. With Conductivity, Elemental Overload, and Righteous Fire (disabled for resistance-reducing maps), I have 5.2m DPS. With all of those disabled, it's 2.1m. I have 3.5k life, 8k mana, 50% damage to mana, and >50% block.

I swapped out my mana regen Watcher's Eye with the damage-to-mana since I thought I had enough regen and wanted to tank larger hits.

With this, I can clear T16 Vaal'ed maps fairly quickly and the Conquerors are pretty quick now.

Here's my collected takeaways from all your advice:

• To be tanky against mobs and gradual damage, mana regeneration is key. The original guide heavily emphasizes having a lot of mana which is needed for the Agnostic, but since your mana costs (with Archmage) scale with mana, you do need a good amount of extra Mana Regeneration to ensure that you have extra mana to tank with. To get this, the 3 uniques (Crown of the Inward Eye, Atziri's Foible, Cloak of Defiance) are the best starting point. After that, it's a nice crafting bench craft on any suffix slots in your weapon, shield, or ring. Finally, the enchantment for 70% mana when you've cast a spell on good boots are great (I bought these - enchanting is really annoying), followed by the "5% of mana on block" for your shield (also bought; this can be rolled especially with Lucent fossils, but costs a decent bit).
• Using Controlled Destruction instead of Chain as the last support gem for Arc is definitely better for the endgame. It disables crits on Arc, but the damage without Elemental Overload is only about 5% lower than Chain with Elemental Overload. With Storm Brand proc'ing Elemental Overload, the damage is about 33% above that of Chain support. Getting rid of Chain also removes my highest Dexterity requirement, which allowed me to unallocate Agility and spend the point elsewhere.
• Storm Brand/Hextouch support/Conductivity is a great combination for bosses. The original build recommended putting Conductivity in the weapon after finding one with % to spell cascade, but it's hard to craft that or buy it, so this is a good alternative.

I also think there are a few small passives tweaks that are definitely worth it:

• I think pathing through the Elemental/Lightning damage nodes near Lightning Walker is better than pathing through strength/intelligence near Arcanist's Dominion. This increased DPS by 2% with just a tiny HP loss
• I got rid of the Essence Extraction node around mana flasks. I find I don't use the mana flasks that consistently, and I have enough regeneration from other nodes. On the advice of billybob630, I added this back and removed some life nodes for it.
• I chose to keep Holy Devotion and that area since I haven't maxed out on Cluster Jewels yet. I path to Holy Dominion through the Strength/Elemental damage nodes next to Devotion instead of the Intelligence/Dexterity nodes next to Retribution. This is a tiny improvement of 0.6% DPS.

I have a 2 more questions:

1. I find that on T16 maps (especially Vaal'ed ones) that have Vulnerability or Elemental Weakness mods, I can still get 2-shotted or killed if I jump into mobs or stand too long in an area with lots of projectiles. Is there something wrong with my gearing, or is this just something I'll have to learn to play around by moving/staying out of mobs?

2. When using flasks, what's the best way of using flasks? Should I be having Rumi's Concoction/my mana flask be on 100% of the time? Currently I mostly only use Rumi's/Life/Mana at the same time when I see my life/mana low.

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arciinus wrote:

I have a 2 more questions:

1. I find that on T16 maps (especially Vaal'ed ones) that have Vulnerability or Elemental Weakness mods, I can still get 2-shotted or killed if I jump into mobs or stand too long in an area with lots of projectiles. Is there something wrong with my gearing, or is this just something I'll have to learn to play around by moving/staying out of mobs?

2. When using flasks, what's the best way of using flasks? Should I be having Rumi's Concoction/my mana flask be on 100% of the time? Currently I mostly only use Rumi's/Life/Mana at the same time when I see my life/mana low.

1. I also try to avoid those two curse mods. For curse based maps, you'd better keep your flask on most of the time, and sometimes just give up fighting corresponding boss, if vulnerability + phys boss or elemental weakness + elem boss.
2. Usually just 1-2-3-4-5 to trigger all flasks. I would recommend you take a try on this flask to replace your life flask, bleeding immune is no longer useful with your gear:


the recovery on kill is huge for mapping, and it is <1 ex. Veiled mod doesn't matter too much.

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Two quick suggestions in case you missed it:
* Your Wave of Conviction gem is better to be lv 7 instead of lv 20, currently it is not triggered and you'll have to cast manually, which is not necessary
* Deallocating Essence Extraction node is quite dangerous: we need the mana flask effect to remove Freeze / Shock, which will be fatal

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arciinus wrote:

Thanks again for the tips! I think I'm pretty close to being done my build as I haven't been able to find any really easy (<5 ex) upgrades lately.

Here's the character page and POB. With Conductivity, Elemental Overload, and Righteous Fire (disabled for resistance-reducing maps), I have 5.2m DPS. With all of those disabled, it's 2.1m. I have 3.5k life, 8k mana, 50% damage to mana, and >50% block.

I swapped out my mana regen Watcher's Eye with the damage-to-mana since I thought I had enough regen and wanted to tank larger hits.

With this, I can clear T16 Vaal'ed maps fairly quickly and the Conquerors are pretty quick now.

Here's my collected takeaways from all your advice:

• To be tanky against mobs and gradual damage, mana regeneration is key. The original guide heavily emphasizes having a lot of mana which is needed for the Agnostic, but since your mana costs (with Archmage) scale with mana, you do need a good amount of extra Mana Regeneration to ensure that you have extra mana to tank with. To get this, the 3 uniques (Crown of the Inward Eye, Atziri's Foible, Cloak of Defiance) are the best starting point. After that, it's a nice crafting bench craft on any suffix slots in your weapon, shield, or ring. Finally, the enchantment for 70% mana when you've cast a spell on good boots are great (I bought these - enchanting is really annoying), followed by the "5% of mana on block" for your shield (also bought; this can be rolled especially with Lucent fossils, but costs a decent bit).
• Using Controlled Destruction instead of Chain as the last support gem for Arc is definitely better for the endgame. It disables crits on Arc, but the damage without Elemental Overload is only about 5% lower than Chain with Elemental Overload. With Storm Brand proc'ing Elemental Overload, the damage is about 33% above that of Chain support. Getting rid of Chain also removes my highest Dexterity requirement, which allowed me to unallocate Agility and spend the point elsewhere.
• Storm Brand/Hextouch support/Conductivity is a great combination for bosses. The original build recommended putting Conductivity in the weapon after finding one with % to spell cascade, but it's hard to craft that or buy it, so this is a good alternative.

I also think there are a few small passives tweaks that are definitely worth it:

• I think pathing through the Elemental/Lightning damage nodes near Lightning Walker is better than pathing through strength/intelligence near Arcanist's Dominion. This increased DPS by 2% with just a tiny HP loss
• I got rid of the Essence Extraction node around mana flasks. I find I don't use the mana flasks that consistently, and I have enough regeneration from other nodes.
• I chose to keep Holy Devotion and that area since I haven't maxed out on Cluster Jewels yet. I path to Holy Dominion through the Strength/Elemental damage nodes next to Devotion instead of the Intelligence/Dexterity nodes next to Retribution. This is a tiny improvement of 0.6% DPS.

I think this is a really good summary. I pretty much agree with all of your collected takeaways, though I would add that a Conductivity on hit ring is a great alternative to the Hextouch setup, if you can find a good enough one (I couldn't without sacrificing too many core stats).

I can't comment specifically on the skill tree stuff because I'm on my phone and at work at the moment, but it looks like you did your research there, so I'm sure you made good decisions.

All in all, very well done! The best suggestion I can give based on all of this is to push your flat mana harder on your gear. Boots, belt, and wand are all places you could collectively gain at least another 1k total mana from, though the ones you've got are by no means bad and I recognize the difficulty in acquiring replacements that would be pure upgrades to them.

Regarding your followup post, I honestly try to avoid maps with Elemental Weakness because you are a lot more likely to die if you're not careful with flask (i.e. curse immunity) uptime. But it can certainly be done, you just need to be more conscientious about positioning. Ideally, maintain a moderate distance from big mobs, as there's no reason you need to be in the middle of them with this build.

Other things that will help prevent this: get more mana, as stated above. Get a Crown with the Arcane Cloak enchantment (can be pricey, though), and make sure Arcane Cloak is bound to left click (this has finally become conventional wisdom in this thread but it always bears repeating, just in case).

ALWAYS roll all of your flasks right before you engage a mob, that's just good practice when mapping no matter what, since your flasks will be refilled almost instantaneously. I would swap out the life flask for an Atziri's Promise. Wise Oak is even better if you go through the trouble of balancing all your resistances, and Bottled Faith is better still, if you have 20 ex to spare on a flask. But to answer your general question, you pretty much want your flasks to be active 100% of the time there are monsters around you.

Edit: Cinderswallow is also a good option, as stated above. I don't think it's necessary if you've invested enough in mana recovery, but it's a really powerful item if you find yourself consistently under 40% of your max mana when mapping. Also, I would never use it for big boss fights.