Good decisions here, glad to see others are exploring different ways to take the build at a high level.
Personally, I would never give up the Agnostic. It is just way too good in a build with so much free mana, and completely mitigates almost all DoT in the game. It does put more of a burden on your mana, but better the burden goes there than onto your much more fragile life pool, right?
Plus, Agnostic is the only way to run RF, which is 40% more damage and simply too good to pass on.
I enjoy messing around with builds and theorycrafting.
I see the upside of using The Agnostic, and it would certainly be an upgrade if you can keep enough mana on hand for mind over matter to be effective.
That's what I'm hesitant about.
But I think after I've lvled up I will try it out and see how noticeable it actually is.
I have still one big source of mana I can use to compensate the extra drain (the 30/30 gloves I've avoided till now) so maybe it all works out.
In that case using The Agnostic would certainly be worth it, especially if you can keep that 40% more modifier from RF on all the time.
The difference between increased/reduced and more/less is one of the core mechanics used in every build to scale just about everything to useful levels.
See it as 2 different 'pools' of stats.
Everything with 'increased' or 'decreased' gets added together to make one total number, just as everything with 'more' or 'less' gets multiplied together to create another total number.
Thank you for the most precise, thorough, and understandable explanation that I have ever seen regarding this topic.
I'm not sure the ring is needed but I do think it helps. To get the curses from the trigger wand to hit you have to be close to the enemy and have it proc. I found that I was often facing the wrong way and often didn't want to be close. I would only look at getting one if you also have Culling Strike against cursed enemies although there is still a damage boost against enemies at long range so perhaps it would still be worthwhile if you can get one without breaking the bank. To be honest I don't understand all the interactions well enough to say whether or not it's worth it. Pulling it off doesn't show a difference in PoB but removing the Conductivity gem from the trigger wand does and I don't know why.
Assuming that you don't have any other curses the following applies:
There can only be one instance of the same curse active on each enemy, but the curse with the greatest strength will apply.
In your case, you hits will always cause a low lvl conductivity curse because of your ring mod.
In the case that your conductivity curse from your gem gets triggered and actually applies to an enemy, it will overwrite the curse from your ring because it has a greater strength.
In Path of Building there is an assumption that the curse from the trigger wand will always apply, hence your dps gets lowered if you remove it while removing the mod from your ring does nothing.
If you have multiple different curses, you need to look at how many different curses you can apply at the same time on the same enemy.
Your different curses will overwrite each other if you get above that limit.
This is also appreciated, so the ring is basically causing something on the order of what a level 1 conductivity skill gem would cast but with x% increased effect. My particular ring with 32% increased effect is equal to a level 8 gem at -32% or is it the -25% level 1* 1.32 for -33% and equal to a level 9 gem? Regardless, the level 20 gem in the trigger wand is -44% and therefore the better curse. So am I getting utility out of the ring because it curses everything arc hits which is way more than what is being hit by the trigger wand, or is the radius of the conductivity curse that is being cast really large and the ring isn't doing much of anything?
why you keep lv1 blade blast and wave of conviction ?
thanks
Blade Blast is used only to apply Unnerve (causes enemy to take 10% increased spell damage)
Wave of conviction is used only to apply Exposure (lowers enemy resistance to the highest damage taken (in our case lightning) by 25%)
These effects are unaffected by gem level, but it does increase the physical damage they deal, which we want to keep low so we can run Physical Reflect maps safely.
Last edited by adam420 on Feb 4, 2021, 12:12:53 AM
This is also appreciated, so the ring is basically causing something on the order of what a level 1 conductivity skill gem would cast but with x% increased effect. My particular ring with 32% increased effect is equal to a level 8 gem at -32% or is it the -25% level 1* 1.32 for -33% and equal to a level 9 gem? Regardless, the level 20 gem in the trigger wand is -44% and therefore the better curse. So am I getting utility out of the ring because it curses everything arc hits which is way more than what is being hit by the trigger wand, or is the radius of the conductivity curse that is being cast really large and the ring isn't doing much of anything?
I wouldn't go for the mod on the ring.
Yes, it will apply to more enemies than the triggered curse ever could, but do you really need it there?
Most enemies die in 2-3 casts in the worst case, so the curse on hit ring doesn't really need to bring anything to the table there.
The enemies where the curse does matter are the buffed rares, the uniques and the bosses. And I always manage to curse these with my trigger wand.
And since we are a bit lacking with 'free mod space' on our items:
If you run with Omeyocan and Crown of the Inward Eye, 5 of our 10 gear slots are filled with uniques. That leaves 5 items to fix our resistances and other mandatory/nice to have mods like Culling Strike, mana regen/recovery, ...
I only managed to fit in Omeyocan with Crown by having T1 resistances on every item.
Though you do give me a nice idea to test out:
- Swap annointement from Mana Flows to Whisper of Doom to have a +1 curse limit
- Get a ring with the hunter mod 'Curse Enemies with Elemental Weakness on Hit, with 32% increased Effect'
(or get unnerve on a cluster notable and put the elemental weakness gem in the trigger wand and remove blade blast)
This is also appreciated, so the ring is basically causing something on the order of what a level 1 conductivity skill gem would cast but with x% increased effect. My particular ring with 32% increased effect is equal to a level 8 gem at -32% or is it the -25% level 1* 1.32 for -33% and equal to a level 9 gem? Regardless, the level 20 gem in the trigger wand is -44% and therefore the better curse. So am I getting utility out of the ring because it curses everything arc hits which is way more than what is being hit by the trigger wand, or is the radius of the conductivity curse that is being cast really large and the ring isn't doing much of anything?
I wouldn't go for the mod on the ring.
Yes, it will apply to more enemies than the triggered curse ever could, but do you really need it there?
Most enemies die in 2-3 casts in the worst case, so the curse on hit ring doesn't really need to bring anything to the table there.
The enemies where the curse does matter are the buffed rares, the uniques and the bosses. And I always manage to curse these with my trigger wand.
And since we are a bit lacking with 'free mod space' on our items:
If you run with Omeyocan and Crown of the Inward Eye, 5 of our 10 gear slots are filled with uniques. That leaves 5 items to fix our resistances and other mandatory/nice to have mods like Culling Strike, mana regen/recovery, ...
I only managed to fit in Omeyocan with Crown by having T1 resistances on every item.
Though you do give me a nice idea to test out:
- Swap annointement from Mana Flows to Whisper of Doom to have a +1 curse limit
- Get a ring with the hunter mod 'Curse Enemies with Elemental Weakness on Hit, with 32% increased Effect'
(or get unnerve on a cluster notable and put the elemental weakness gem in the trigger wand and remove blade blast)
I have a medium cluster with Wish for Death, Culling Strike against cursed enemies which perhaps makes it a bit more useful. Might try to see if switching Conductivity to Elemental Weakness in either the ring or trigger wand feels better. Getting resist capped is a challenge, currently at 76, 78, 75 which doesn't allow much room to maneuver. I am trying to stay away from big damage dealers, most often deaths seem to be coming from large physical damage hits. I think having culling strike against them without having to be close to get it on them does help with that.
Another idea I am playing around with would be to pull blade blast and conductivity off the wand and then use other gems (maybe increased duration and increased AOE) to buff up wave of conviction while also changing it to self cast to get another affix on the wand, or perhaps that's not a good idea and just buffing WoC while keeping trigger. Would be used for more difficult enemies while the conductivity on the ring would take care of the medium ones automatically.
I have a medium cluster with Wish for Death, Culling Strike against cursed enemies which perhaps makes it a bit more useful. Might try to see if switching Conductivity to Elemental Weakness in either the ring or trigger wand feels better. Getting resist capped is a challenge, currently at 76, 78, 75 which doesn't allow much room to maneuver. I am trying to stay away from big damage dealers, most often deaths seem to be coming from large physical damage hits. I think having culling strike against them without having to be close to get it on them does help with that.
Another idea I am playing around with would be to pull blade blast and conductivity off the wand and then use other gems (maybe increased duration and increased AOE) to buff up wave of conviction while also changing it to self cast to get another affix on the wand, or perhaps that's not a good idea and just buffing WoC while keeping trigger. Would be used for more difficult enemies while the conductivity on the ring would take care of the medium ones automatically.
I also have Wish for Death, and it's a nice QoL (and it frees up a glove mod).
Only change the gem/ring if you have a source of +1 curse limit, otherwise they will be just overwriting eachother.
Most of my deaths come from those nasty buffed Conqueror + Sirus influenced rares. I really really dislike those ...
I've already considered a self casted Wave last week, but I would only use it with a second 6-link (Arc in Pledge of Hands).
WoC + Spell Totem Support + Multiple Totems + Hextouch + Conductivity + Culling Strike Support seemed like a nice setup (or swap Culling strike with a second curse if you have a source of +1 curse limit).
But that's only a debuffing setup, not a damaging one.
For a damaging one you'll need Physical to Lightning Support.
