Arc

With the recent nerfs to chain, arc really really needs a buff. One more to chain targets would be really good and 60% dmg effectivness. Really not worth using right now since arc is really meh without chain and if you use the current chain with the current arc your damage goes down so so much

I played ARC witch before during closed beta and really liked it so i wanted to make new character using it but this time i plan to go for double totem templar , which supports would you recommend - obvious being totem - my guess is Arc+totem+faster casting+ lightning Penetration - that is 4 slots what would you add for 5/6 slots ?

Im hoping to do a 6l Arc Duo Totem Build now that I'm in beta, but after doing some math crafting... I really don't think it's worth it :P. I would complain like everyone else, but I doubt it'd do any good.

Are you going to make any changes to this spell GGG like adding in extra chains or reducing the damage effectiveness, or even increasing the overall base dmg GGG?

If not please post why.

(If you're going to try a Dual Arc Totem build go with a 6L

Spell Totem
Arc
Lightning Penetration
Added Lightning
Faster Casting
Elemental Proliferation)

Before the chain support nerf it was already kind of situational to use it with arc. Now its a straight up damage loss even if you hit something with every bounce. Which is a shame.

On the other hand, I have been toying around with the idea for a high non-crit shock based build with Arc, you would use a wand / sceptre / dagger with +2 lightning spells among other mods and support it with elemental proliferation and added lightning damage. (every single one of these gems would get extra gem levels) If you start as shadow you can easily get +25% chance to shock from passives, along with the +10% (more with quakity) from arc itself and another 10%+ from conductivity. I could see some absurd triple shocks on everying.

The build Im looking at would easily pick up double curse so you can also use temp chains to help kite mobs and make shock last 50% longer, also in range of plenty of minion nodes which can help act as meat shields while benefiting from shock.

Arc spell is weak dmg wise, imho.
Another problem is its not a projectil, what make it weaker with current amount and strength of projectil support gems.

Sorry, arc is just awful right now. I have literally no reason to use it over any of my other lightning spells.

Both spark+fork and shock nova do better against groups of enemies AND do more single target DPS, while also having faster cast times and lower mana costs! There is literally nothing good about Arc; not even its chance to shock can save it.

I'm not sure what the best way to fix it would be, but personally I'd just jack up its damage, because right now it's totally pointless.

I'd like a clarification: Does the damage number given for the skill get applied to every target hit by ARC individually or does it get distributed between all 3 targets?

In other words lets say my ARC spell description says 4-81 lightning damage, that gives an average damage of about 42. If I cast Arc and hit 3 targets does each of them get hit for 42 damage on average?

Oh, and in the WIKI it mentions "50% damage effectiveness" in the spell description for ARC. Does that mean each target only gets half of the nominal damage in the description?

Thats pretty confusing. Why would you give high damage numbers in the description but then cut them in half later? Wouldnt it be much more straightforward just to give you lower damage numbers to begin with?


I'd like to see this changed, because its a pointless complication and only adds confusion.

"

mr48 wrote:

Thats pretty confusing. Why would you give high damage numbers in the description but then cut them in half later? Wouldn't it be much more straightforward just to give you lower damage numbers to begin with?

Yes, for some people - there should be threads in the suggestions forums remodelling the description of damage effectiveness.

Namely, if you just changed the values on the gem to take that into account, you'd still get confusion. This is because now the damage description on gems no longer lines up with anything else in the game using the same description box. Imagine Rain of Arrows, which says 80% effectiveness. That % is meant to apply to all item-mods on gear, and added flat-damage gems, all of which appears in exactly the same place in the description as the damage on the gem itself.

It could work better if damage effectiveness says "all supports are at x-% effectiveness" along with your suggestion, and then I'd be asking e.g. "what happens with Heavy Strike, which has %-bonuses per level on the gem itself?" The point of 'damage effectiveness' is to influence the effectiveness of everything, including supports. If you can find a better way to describe that, please post it in the suggestions forum. :)