Arc

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Vipermagi wrote:

The damage effectiveness is there to reduce the strength of flat damage bonuses (Added Chaos/Lightning damage supports)

And why is that needed to do on arc? There are a few real AoE spells with way better damage effectiveness.

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BigB1ene wrote:

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Vipermagi wrote:

The damage effectiveness is there to reduce the strength of flat damage bonuses (Added Chaos/Lightning damage supports)

And why is that needed to do on arc? There are a few real AoE spells with way better damage effectiveness.

Because it always hits 3 targets, assuming they're anywhere on the screen, regardless of where you click or where you are. Sure a spell like freezing pulse can hit 3 targets too and get full benefit, but it has lower range, it's a "line" and you need to line up the mobs correctly. Arc does everything on its own, it never misses, it doesn't require you to be close, it doesn't require you to group the mobs. You just press, it hits, always.

Although this is true, I guess it is the common understanding that arc isn't as powerful as other spells, exspecially freezing pulse.

I'm not sure if the damage-effectivness is the reason, but compared to what Arc does it has a rather high mana-cost. So it should either do more or cost less.

The damage-average is 175 on FP to 150 on Arc. With 23 to 39 Mana per Cast and 6% to 4% Base-Crit.

So Arc has a pretty bad base-damage, is difficult to support since it only gains 50% of the benefits and has a high mana-cost which makes it even more difficult to support. In addition it suffers from a very low base-critchance which makes it even less effective for status-effects. Also Arc has a high cast-time of 0,8seconds.

It just isn't a good spell, considering that it was just recently added it might get some adjustments, but at this point it feels weak compared to most other spells.

I came to the same conclusions when using Arc - it's a safe skill, and it's very, very easy to use. Usually when I kite something and use other spells, I need to run away then position my mouse to hit something with a spell, with Arc, I can just keep running and press RMB. It's super simple.

My strife with the skill though isn't the damage, it's the insanely high mana cost. I wanted to play a spellcaster lightning templar, but Arc mana cost is simply out of this world. I'm not even talking about using Chain on it. I can use any other spell without interruption for DPS, but not Arc. Considering it already has it's dmg reduced, and that lightning in PoE does the ever infuriating 1-1100 damage thing where you could end up spending your mana for 10 dmg, couldnt it get a mana cost reduction? I'd really like to be able to play my Zeus build with Arc as my main attack :D

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Emphasy wrote:

The damage-average is 175 on FP to 150 on Arc. With 23 to 39 Mana per Cast and 6% to 4% Base-Crit.

Freezing pulse only does that damage when directly adjacent to the enemy, where arc does it from a safe distance.

Ye thats true till you dont account things like GMP/LMP, faster projectiles and quality into FP or do we compare here just clean skills without supports? Autotarget should not be counted in dmg efficiency, or noone will later use it at all, position in game where you use 3 binds is not a problem. And if then make it targetable it would be even better because necromancers are pretty big problem for arc user.
What about comparing it to Lightning arrow...

Maybe when 99% of people will running with FP/LA/PS then some useless spells get remodel, 95% is clearly not enough.

I think Arc is fine from my experience, I have a lv72 Witch who basically just use Arc as main damage spell. Auto aim with super long distance make Arc user doing some damage and stay in safe.

In the term of Visual effect(how do I want my spell look like in my screen), Arc is a spell that you can not really customized with sup gem, and the combination of the sup gem and skill gem is the one of the most fun part in this game. When you use Arc, that is mean you cant use LMP/GMP/Fork/Penetration/area effect increase/concentrate effect to customized this skill, You can just use Chain to hit 5 target with double mana cost or dont use it and just hit 3 target.

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raz415 wrote:

I came to the same conclusions when using Arc - it's a safe skill, and it's very, very easy to use. Usually when I kite something and use other spells, I need to run away then position my mouse to hit something with a spell, with Arc, I can just keep running and press RMB. It's super simple.

My strife with the skill though isn't the damage, it's the insanely high mana cost. I wanted to play a spellcaster lightning templar, but Arc mana cost is simply out of this world. I'm not even talking about using Chain on it. I can use any other spell without interruption for DPS, but not Arc. Considering it already has it's dmg reduced, and that lightning in PoE does the ever infuriating 1-1100 damage thing where you could end up spending your mana for 10 dmg, couldnt it get a mana cost reduction? I'd really like to be able to play my Zeus build with Arc as my main attack :D

Well Arc has a high cost and a fairly fast base cast speed so you run out of mana faster, but it's not really more expensive than the other expensive spells(firestorm or EK for example). It is generally too expensive to run in anything but a Blood magic+ Lifeleech support or EB build unless you use Arc as a secondary damage source with not many supports, say for example a summoner build.

It's a common issue with basically every spells. All but one, for some reason, Freezing Pulse costs between 20% and 100% less than every other spells. And it has an innate chance to freeze, and it works with LMP/GMP even at medium range(very little to no split on waves most of the time) and it has a solid cast time and base damage. When I did the comparison earlier I was only comparing the ease of use etc, but truth is Freezing Pulse is by far the best spell in the game. It's low cost, fast casting, applies status ailment easily, can be shotgunned with multiple projectiles at almost any range, has fairly good range if you support it/have quality/use specific items, it's just good at everything. Well everything but its archenemy, DOORS.

So yeah Arc pales in comparison to FP, but it's a pretty good spell if you compare it to other spells. Nothing really does well when compared to FP, maybe EK with the right supports in endgame and even then the single target damage is abysmal compared to FP and it literally costs twice as much base mana.

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PyrosEien wrote:

So yeah Arc pales in comparison to FP, but it's a pretty good spell if you compare it to other spells. Nothing really does well when compared to FP, maybe EK with the right supports in endgame and even then the single target damage is abysmal compared to FP and it literally costs twice as much base mana.

I agree with this, but really only when looking at the base skills. FP is very strong, I don't think many people would disagree with this, but I think arc's primary issue is its inability to be heavily modified (I'm not purely referring to mana cost - My arc is around ~92 mana a cast at .39 speed with BR up. Sustaining it is doable...but you really have to go out of your way to get a hefty mana pool and a ton of regen. Mana is an issue, but I don't think it's arcs biggest issue.) There just aren't a lot of options for arc, in terms of support gems, compared to other skills like spark, FP, fireball (to some extent, but that skill needs a bit of love too).

The ones considered most viable are - Fast casting (a must have), Ele prolif, and Lightning Penetration. Chain is on the table for EB and Blood magic builds, but has been argued in this thread already that it might not be as effective as previously thought.

Part of this is the fact that arc isn't considered a projectile - there goes LMP, GMP, Fork, Pierce. It's not considered an aoe - there goes concentrated effect and increased aoe. It's not modified by weapon damage and damage modifiers (when comparing to LA) - There goes weapon ele damage and it's kin. It gets 50% spell effectiveness - this greatly harms the added damage gems. I think, if arc is going to be on a similar level to the skills that we see heavily used now, more support gems that will actually work with it have to exist and, quite frankly, we have no idea when that will happen. Mana cost has to change, but it honestly is pointless if there aren't many good options to ramp up arc with.

Is arc blatantly awful right now? No, I'm 76 and I clear maps fairly effectively with it...but damn did I have to get some pretty good gear and cater my tree to cast speed and mass mana regen to make it work and even then, I still feel like it's a very niche skill. Other skills break out of and enter new niches via support gems, but arc just doesn't have the options right now for that to be a thing.

If the devs soon showed a roadmap or some sort of plan that implemented some new support gems that could radically change what arc is capable of and quite possibly solve many of the issues in the thread, but until we see something like that I don't think arc's issues will be fully solvable.