Enki's Arc Witch Memorial Page

Do you understand that the range applies to each chain, and it's not a total maximum range from the first target?

It's going to expire on the same pack more often because it runs out of chains, than to mobs being too spread out.

The only noticeable difference is going to be when running low level content. It's not going to kill 3 separate packs of mobs per 1 cast, but you won't notice it much when running a relevant tier of maps.

And there's also the fact that Arc can chain back to targets it hit 2+ chains ago.

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SilverWF wrote:

Maybe only for that ones, who plays 640*480, but this isn't the reason for nerf.

The resolution you're using has no effect on the amount of surrounding area you're able to see, or the distance of abilities and spells. Everything scales.

What *does* have an impact is aspect ratio. Thus a player using 640x480 will have the same visible vertical FOV as a person using 1920x1080, but they wouldn't be able to see as far to the left or right due to 1920x1080 being a wider format.

If you do some crazy stretching and resizing, for example start out with an 800x600 window and then stretch it *either* horizontally or vertically, your visible range in the wider direction will increase and you'll be able to see further away, but the other direction will be unaffected. Playing the game in a weird 800x1080 sized window allows you to visibly see a few screens-worth of area directly above and below your character for instance (which, if you think about it, could be considered a kind of cheat, since it provides an advantage), but there's no way to reduce FOV below what can be seen using any 4:3 aspect ratio.

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Audiska wrote:

Do you understand that the range applies to each chain, and it's not a total maximum range from the first target?

That was always true in the past. If you cast the spell into a pack, it would chain the maximum number of times on the enemies in that pack, because the chain always prioritizes a nearby valid target before looking for ones further away.

However in narrow tunnels it isn't unheard of for packs to disperse over long stretches of tunnel, while remaining close enough together for the chain to move from enemy to enemy along the chain. It's mostly (maybe only) these cases that result in Arc affecting enemies over 3 screen-sizes away.

That would also be the case post-nerf, but since the allowed gap between enemies is smaller, the maximum range Arc can reach (assuming an ideal scenario where the enemies are spaced equally, the maximum legal range apart to be chained) would be quite a bit smaller.

But in most cases we wouldn't be doing this, so it shouldn't affect us hugely, and it's highly doubtful that many players did it deliberately when it did happen, since it's not the sort of behavior we get from Arc most of the time.

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Audiska wrote:

Do you understand that the range applies to each chain, and it's not a total maximum range from the first target?

It's going to expire on the same pack more often because it runs out of chains, than to mobs being too spread out.

The only noticeable difference is going to be when running low level content. It's not going to kill 3 separate packs of mobs per 1 cast, but you won't notice it much when running a relevant tier of maps.

Do you understand, that monster packs are usually pretty spread around and if u killed monsters in the center of it, side monsters are further away from each other than 25 units?

So you would need to make 2 casts instead of 1, or even 3 for mobile enemies, like goatmen

That means more stops and less clear speed. Less speed on the already not the fastest cleaner around.

And I see no reasons for this.

P.S. Lol, especially goatmen and similar ones - they jumps much further than 25 units, so your cast would hit their initial pack, while ignoring "jumpers" on you, or vice versa: hit that jumper and ignoring initial pack.

There seems to be more attack speed nodes in range on the new passive tree though, and in addition to the flat cast speed reduction this should help mitigate problems related to not getting the first attack in on a pack.

But still I expect clear speed to decrease, yes. Unless Enki comes up with something clever to further offset the effect of "wasting" casts on spread mobs.

I'm not really worried about the nerfs. Sure, the chain distance will hurt, but it's never a bad thing to nerf broken mechanics, and the chain potential was in truth broken. The cast speed overall is a buff, and the raw damage nerf is offset by ALD support gem. Furthermore, if we get a new support gem, that means a damage buff that will likely nullify any damage nerf, and GGG has no reason to buff Arc.

As ES seems to be strongly buffed this league, I want to look at possible build routes. I'll post anything I find if I consider it relevant, but only after Enki updates his guide. Generally speaking anything he does I find preferable to anything I found on my own. I strongly recommend anything he posts over me.

Also, with no changes except to navigate around the new tree, we at the very least get access to .2% damage as ES leech. This will add a notable defensive buff, even with no change to focus on ES. Keep in mind that with any amount of ES, you have 50% less chance to be stunned.

Edit: PoB is updated with the new talent tree, even if the official talent tree hasn't yet.

The amount of shock effect we can get off the tree is ridiculous. I was able to get 113 without much difficulty. That's quite frankly much more than needed.

I'm going to attempt to explain what I believe the new ES stats mean, and I'm hoping someone can either verify or correct my assumption. I'm assuming each instance heals for 1% max ES and has a max duration of 5s, though to the best of my knowledge none of that information has been posted.

• Spell Damage Leeched as Energy Shield: Pretty straight forward. This is a leech applied exclusively to ES. Increasing this increases the total potential healing per hit, up to a maximum of 5% max ES.
• Increased Total Recovery Per Second from Energy Shield Leech: This is the the equivalent to life's increased life leeched per second. This will apply a multiplier to the 1% leeched per instance.
• Increased Maximum Total Recovery per Second from Energy Shield Leech: This is the equivalent to life's maximum life per second to maximum life leech rate. This will apply a multiplier to the 10% maximum leech per second. Ethreal Forest and Light Eater will bring this up to 15% max ES per second.

Ghost Reaver will do 3 things:

• Convert the full 20% life leech to 20% ES leech. This can potentially be doubled by Vaal Pact and increased by life leech modifiers, but it is not affected by ES leech modifiers.
• Double the maximum total ES leech: 10% becomes 20%, 15% becomes 30%, etc.
• Halve ES recharge

My understanding is ES will be able to leech upwards of 50% (includes Ethereal Forest, Light Eater, and Ghost Reaver) max ES per second with 50% recharge, even more if Vaal Pact is in the mix. That sounds way too powerful for any ES-based character to achieve with little investment...

Thoughts?

Edit: It has been pointed out to me that GR is actually worded a bit differently: "life leech is applied to energy shield instead" changed to "leech energy shield instead of life." I still don't see any change in the meaning of the wording...but GGG is often quite vague like that. Granted, it would make sense if GR will no longer be affected by VP.

So we should be good to go still right?

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NLe wrote:

So we should be good to go still right?

Right.

It should still be around the same damage, with the only difference being that it won't chain between packs. So a slight clear speed nerf, but the same power.