Arc

the big - 50% effectiveness has to go

Yeah I the mana and more dmg will help. I think the mana was deserved and it probably will be in line with other skills now, so nothing too special here.

The damage however is lost against the shock nerf and arc will do considerable lower dmg with many supports, simply because the follow up damage (added lightnign dmg, added chaos) benefits less from shocks.

This means that the base boost of 23% is all or nothing and iron will/ crit dmg, will be the type of support gem. It either works for it or it will be worse than before. Issue with crit is the low base chance on arc... and we kind of already know where that one goes :(

I expected a boost, but more on the line of a rework of the skill and how it functions :( I mean there have been plenty good an creative suggestions in this thread to take from.

It might be that I am missing something and feel free to point that out pls, was quite excited about this at first.

The issue with the gem is that it has severe damage reductions when paired with support gems. Not only that, but it is not the best lightning damage gem available. Everything Arc can do, spork builds can do better. So why bother?

"

Fhedaykin wrote:

Arc 1.0.0: Less mana, more damage ... Any thoughts?

Erm yeah ..
first thought I got was:
What does this change mean for Arc Mages in A3' Barracks area.
Can't remember if monsters use copies of player skills or have their own versions.
This change to Arc may (or may not) have an impact on specter versions of Arc Mages as well.
If Arc Mages will have 23% more damage, we might be in trouble.
However shock stack damage increase has been reduced from 40% to 30% so that's probably smoothing out the damage increase.

So i played a little with my Arc witch.

It's nice for solo but still "useless" in a party - I only have mediocre gear.

The big BUT: I went full cast speed and it is for sure nicer to play than before! Cast time is 0,37 (from 0,8) at the moment and I still have room to improve that with gear.

Guys, this patch just made arc my most anticipated skill to try again!

Ok, so I think I came up with the sickest build, and I believe it will work the best with arc, as arc shocks the best. But it's still a concept.
I am getting a Tabula rasa soon to try it out. So.


Link Arc with:
Remote mine ( Dmg multi )
Trap ( Dmg multi )
Multiple Traps ( 3 Arcs per cast )
Reduced duration
Last slot for any support skill that you believe will increase the effectiveness.

Now get the sunblast unique belt which has:
80% reduced Trap Duration
Traps trigger at the end of their Duration

Between this belt and Reduced duration, here what happens:

You throw out a mine and detonate it, 3 traps appear out of the mine and detonate at once, without the need for enemies to step on them, and these 3 arcs shotgun enemies.

Now get another slot for a totem spell, and grab 2 extra totems.

Link Totem with:
Remote mine ( Again dmg multi )
Trap ( dmg multi )
Last slot for any support skill that you believe will increase the effectiveness.

Now you spawn 3 totems, that all have arc with dmg multi from remote mine and trap, which makes every totem hit almost as hard as your main char would hit if casting themselves, and on top of that you are going around throwing out triple arcs every second yourself.

But wait there's more, look at the passive tree:
New trap/mine nodes with SICK dmg scaling
( Reference to Kripparian video - when you put trap inside the mine, the increased dmg from trap AND mine will wor on the skill. There are nodes that add 20-30-40% increased dmg, and even defense penetration. )
New totem nodes with dmg scaling

Sick dmg output - check.
Immune to reflect - check.
Safe - check.

This should be good.

Arc should work like another game skill :
150% on 1st target
90% on 2nd target
54% on 3rd target

@Kadajko:
nice
waiting 4 report

So after 5months i came back to check how is launch and its looks like ARC is still shit :)

Even newest support gem cast on crit is only for attacks, hehehehe god forbid that arc could have some supports lol.

So long and so useless.
GG GGG

I really really want to use Arc as a main skill but it is just so bad right now.

Here are my thoughts:

main problems with the skill atm:
- cant use support gems like fork or lmp
- 50% dmg efectivness --> the few support gems that you can use with arc get their damage
reduced by half --> bad scaling
- bad aoe and bad single target

Here are some suggestions to improve the skill: (I am not suggesting to do all of those things at once)

- make it possible to use fork and lmp with it
- higher damage efectivness
- let it chain more than just twice to improve the aoe
- let it chain on your own character if only 1 enemy is available, without doing damage to
yourself, but consuming a bounce of course
- increase crit chance

- lower chance to shock to compensate the buffs
- maybe a restriction that it cant bounce more than 3 times to the same target (if it will
be possible to support it with lmp or fork)

PLS GGG make this skill viable, the recent 23% dmg buff is not even close to enough