[3.15]Archmage Ball Lightning Hierophant, will it work in Expedition?

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Krumplefly wrote:

The Projectile Weakness/Sniper's Mark nerf is actually a buff for the build, as you noted with the removal of curse resistance on bosses. Assassin's Mark is unfortunate but can be recouped in other ways including Righteous Fire alternate quality now buffing us further and just getting any other source of +1 curse. More relevant as a nerf is actually the Watcher's Eye changes as we lose a bunch of recovery which translates to less life regen and less mana all at once.

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SkylerOG wrote:

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Krumplefly wrote:

The Projectile Weakness/Sniper's Mark nerf is actually a buff for the build, as you noted with the removal of curse resistance on bosses. Assassin's Mark is unfortunate but can be recouped in other ways including Righteous Fire alternate quality now buffing us further and just getting any other source of +1 curse. More relevant as a nerf is actually the Watcher's Eye changes as we lose a bunch of recovery which translates to less life regen and less mana all at once.

Also, Assassins Mark isn't going just be "recouped". For those of us using power charges/crit, where does our power charge generation come from if we use Sniper's Mark instead?

Not to mention, AM was about 13% more damage(+crit dmg/+power charges), on top of the fact it was an instant application (on hit w/ ring), which made the 2% mana recovery on cursed mob dying seamless and constant from Cursed Concoction wheel.

So losing ~200 mana regen from watcher's eye change AND getting less mana recovery from less consistent mobs dying with a curse on them AND not getting the 25 life/mana everytime a mob dies with AM on it.

UGH!


So the choice is either dump crit/power charges(~13% damage), or dump Sniper's Mark/40% projectile debuff.

And +1 curse isn't going to do it either. You can't have more than one Mark on anything at a time. Not to mention this is made difficult due to Whispers of Doom being moved. And i'm not replacing Heart of Thunder anoint for WoD, or there's another 7% damage gone.


I get that we can probably make up some damage with AltQ on a few things, but we're not making up even close to what we're losing. I mean it's not going to be close.

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Krumplefly wrote:

Sigil of Power will, in one cast, give 28-564 added lightning damage as well as increasing our mana cost a little to add even more lightning damage from Archmage, so that does at least give us a complete counteraction and slight bonus in compared to the base damage nerf. I misunderstood +1 curse thanks to some ambiguous wording in the patch notes ("you can't Mark an enemy with two Marks" which I read as not being able to apply three for some reason??). I'd argue that Assassin's Mark may be the better of the two for QoL thanks to the availability of having it apply on hit.

The Watcher's Eye Regen nerf can feel a bit better with an added Clear Mind, though that kind of sucks for the tree.

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SkylerOG wrote:

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Krumplefly wrote:

Sigil of Power will, in one cast, give 28-564 added lightning damage as well as increasing our mana cost a little to add even more lightning damage from Archmage, so that does at least give us a complete counteraction and slight bonus in compared to the base damage nerf. I misunderstood +1 curse thanks to some ambiguous wording in the patch notes ("you can't Mark an enemy with two Marks" which I read as not being able to apply three for some reason??). I'd argue that Assassin's Mark may be the better of the two for QoL thanks to the availability of having it apply on hit.

The Watcher's Eye Regen nerf can feel a bit better with an added Clear Mind, though that kind of sucks for the tree.

Sigil still needs to be tested with this to see if it actually works like that with Archmage (and will Arcane Cloak be effected, too? Don't know yet, either.).

We don't want a scenario like with Indigon where you can only do one cast inside the Sigil before you're out of mana to do a 2nd or 3rd successive cast.

Not to mention, standing stationary on this build isn't highly recommended. And, Sigil will be a complete non-factor during map clearing for obvious reasons. Which means map clearing will absolutely be affected by the flat dmg reduction.


But is this why you were suggesting the flat damage reduction was meaningless?

Because while I do hope Sigil of Power gels with this build, we're starting to get in the realm of tediousness with all this stuff to cast.

Arcane cloak is on a constant loop. Storm Brand to apply curses (unless you're lazy like me and just use CWDT+aCoH), VRF... and now SoP?

Sorta gotta fit casting BL in there somewhere, too.

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SkylerOG wrote:

Why the hell wouldn't the flat damage reduction affect us?? Of course it does. Go put a level 11 Added Lightning Damage support gem on your PoB and that's about the difference in flat damage.

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Aniki_Leads_people wrote:

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SkylerOG wrote:

Why the hell wouldn't the flat damage reduction affect us?? Of course it does. Go put a level 11 Added Lightning Damage support gem on your PoB and that's about the difference in flat damage.

Dude are you serious? Added Lightning Damage has a 130% mana multiplier, and what affect the damage is the increased mana cost, not those added lightning damage.

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SkylerOG wrote:

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Aniki_Leads_people wrote:

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SkylerOG wrote:

Why the hell wouldn't the flat damage reduction affect us?? Of course it does. Go put a level 11 Added Lightning Damage support gem on your PoB and that's about the difference in flat damage.

Dude are you serious? Added Lightning Damage has a 130% mana multiplier, and what affect the damage is the increased mana cost, not those added lightning damage.

I’m not saying to play this char with Added Lightning Damage support gem, [Removed by Support]

But if you don’t understand that the freaking BL gem itself is getting a 20% reduction to its damage scale... on top of a 4 radius reduction to its AoE, then I don’t know WTF to tell you.

[Removed by Support]

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Aniki_Leads_people wrote:

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SkylerOG wrote:

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Aniki_Leads_people wrote:

Dude are you serious? Added Lightning Damage has a 130% mana multiplier, and what affect the damage is the increased mana cost, not those added lightning damage.

I’m not saying to play this char with Added Lightning Damage support gem, [Removed by Support]

But if you don’t understand that the freaking BL gem itself is getting a 20% reduction to its damage scale... on top of a 4 radius reduction to its AoE, then I don’t know WTF to tell you.

[Removed by Support]

Dude, what I mean is that the difference on PoB comes from the mana cost multiplier of Added Lightning Damage! Just try to add an "added X to X lightning damage to spells" mod to one of your gears and you can see the real difference.