Arc

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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Aimeryan wrote:

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

But we've already discounted that as an option as it would buff Totem/CoC users as well. When I've discussed it with Chris, he's admitted that Arc is very hard to balance because of this reason. Personally I think it's a broader problem with the metagame that Spell Totems introduced, but whatever. Fact remains: we can't think of a way to buff Arc as a hard-cast spell (which needs it) without unnecessarily overpowering it as a totem/CoC component.

Why is totem and CoC particularly good with Arc though? Surely a lot of skills would suffer the same issue? If not, maybe we could identify why totems and CoC work particularly well with Arc and see if we could selectively nerf that while buffing Arc?

Mana cost, cast time. Simple as that.

What GGG need to do is encourage more hard-casting across the board. I think the fact that CoC and totem style take up more slots is the supposed 'discouragement' from taking that path, in that hard-casting gives you more slots, i.e. more power. That somehow didn't work, because what Totems give you is far, far more durability, and what CoC gives you is insane mana management and cast speed bypassing.

Arc in particular suffers because of the known issues: three targets only; wildly varied damage range; ridiculously high mana cost.

So sure, other spells suffer a similar issue when it comes to totems/CoC but nowhere near as drastically as Arc.

Hmm, I guess Arc lacking amazing supports means the loss of a socket to totem isn't really a loss in the same way it is for other spells.

I still think a temporary stacking buff effect of some kind to cast speed and mana cost might be key. The difficulty is making it so that totems would not benefit as well (or at least not strongly).

Perhaps the blood rage model would be beneficial here, something like: any time you get a killing blow with Arc you gain a stacking buff that adds additional cast speed (preferably towards Arc only?) and decreases the mana multiplier for Arc (so it costs less mana). The buff could last say 15 seconds (refreshed on killing blow, like blood rage) and stacks up to say 20 times, with individual stacks being fairly weak.

The benefit of that would be that totems have to be resummmoned and so would lose any stacks they had gained - therefore stopping them from getting anywhere near full potential (and any benefit at all would be largely towards the end of the fight for them). Furthermore, totem users tend to use dual/triple totems (because, why not?) - killing blows being shared, therefore only amplifying one out of two/three of the totems per killing blow, would make it a very non-noticeable buff for them. CoC users do not use the mana or cast speed of Arc (or any Spell), so the buff would be meaningless to them as well.

It sounds contrived, but it is really quite simple: On Killing Blow gain a stack of something - not exactly a new mechanic to POE. The only particularly unique feature of this would be the high number, weak individually, stacking buff - specifically to make it near useless to totem users because of the totems being reset each fight.

Edit: Just thought, it could alternatively be an On Hit effect (or On Crit); the only criteria is that it takes a while to build up but is easily kept up... unless you happen to be a totem user!

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

You are so woefully ignorant of what I have written and now shown that I see no point in continuing this. Believe what you will.

What have you written that was so crucial ? I don't get it.
About wasting the penetration gem for pcoc in a desperate attempt to take advantage of the low base crit chance of that skill ?
And all of that because of the need to work around crit build only, as it is potentially the only possible way ?

Or that you are ok with poor damage, because it's enough to farm docks ?

This skill is completely fucked up, are you on your way to defend it ?
Is the point that you "have beaten the game" and so arc is ok because you managed to farm merci docks ? Can you travel the road to Dom and beat him alone, without dying ?

I really don't get it. Express yourself clearer.
Mind not all of us are that mentally gifted to understand the hidden deep meanings of your statements.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Aim, sadly that sounds more like a support skill.

Not really; many skill gems come with unique flavours - imagine incinerate without the stacking buff for example. This is what I think Arc is lacking - something unique that allows Arc to be balanced more easily once totems and CoC are taken out of the equation.

I guess another possibility would be to allow it to be cast while on the move (without stopping). This would buff it to some degree without affecting either totem Arc or CoC Arc.

I've gotta say that the video posted looked quite slow to me as well. And I'm surprised about that. I was expecting something much more impressive, given the revelation described, since I estimate that my build to be at about the bottom rung of what I would consider viable.

I actually became frustrated while I was watching it, because of unreliable it was, and how disappointing it is when it doesn't crit. Haha.

I'll try and take a video of my build this weekend. Rough estimate is that my build is significantly faster than what was shown in the video. And a billion times more reliable. Every hit does something different, but whether I shock, curse with Elemental Weakness or curse with Conductivity, the damage is about the same. And I seem to be able to count on having 2 of the 3 on each enemy at this point. And having 5 hits instead of 3, I can deal with bigger groups faster.

It's not that I can keep up with the video when he goes on a crit streak, but I don't run into crit deserts either where I'm doing no damage.

I guess they could first try to change it from 4-5% critical. It does seem pretty reasonable.

Ha! I'm not one to talk about super-efficient builds (I am still using Arc after all). I'm not criticizing in any way. Just trying to keep the conversation going.

I, much like yourself, like to use "outside the box" builds, and try and make them work through skill and talent, despite what nay-sayers may say (and sometimes because of them). I run a double-totem Elemental Hit, Elemental Equilibrium Quill Rain Scion build (see here if you're interested) that I find quite amusing, that I am certain wouldn't be to the tastes of many other players.

I agree we're discussing the spell, but we're discussing a certain general build with respect to it, namely hard casting, as opposed to CoC or Spell Totem. You've had some success with a very particular approach along those lines, I've had some success with a very different approach.

I think this shows the skill isn't totally DoA. I will, however, certainly agree that it still needs work.

What do you think is an optimal arc set-up then?

I have been thinking about a wand barrage CoC arc build, personally. With GMP you could get a lot of arc procs off, and their damage wouldn't be further reduced by GMP, which is the appeal for me.

The focus on crit is a little annoying though, it would be nice if you didn't have to stack power charges / crit to make a powerful spellcaster these days, but your ideal set-up seems like it could give adequate power to a pure arc build to make it work.

I guess what I'm trying to say is your ideal set-up seems very gear heavy. Crit builds are very gear depenendent, in my experience. It's hard to just /get/ that gear with the build itself, because the build doesn't perform well enough on its own to farm it effectively... at least in HC. Crit builds in my experience just get me killed, I need a lot of built-up wealth to make them work. But maybe it's just my poor playstyle.

I think what arc needs is something else to build around, besides crit. It'd be nice if it had a second property you could maybe exploit to build around. Say, the ability to chain more than once under a certain circumstance? Like, what if it had a chance to chain an additional time for free against shocked targets or something? It's the kind of mechanic that might make arc itself 'viable'.

Of course, my experience with arc is limited - the last I used it seriously was on alpha months ago.

CoCS with Arc is no stronger than most spells. In fact, it tends to only be used as a last link just to add shocks if no one else is doing so. Buffing Arc itself probably wouldn't mean much to CoCS users - there are many more spells that are a lot stronger with CoCS.

I am not as familiar with totem builds, but I wouldn't be surprised if Arc is not necessarily the best totem spell to use here either; hence, buffing Arc shouldn't matter too much.

Arc does needs to be buffed. It is not that it can not scrape by (although, hardcore leagues might have something different to say about this), it is simply that it is not competitive. It needs a lot more chains - it suffers from mob number scaling to an extent that no other spell does.

If buffing Arc allows totem users to reach new heights (obvious Arc totem users would be better off, but they may not be the best totem users), then something here would need to be done to specially balance this if necessary - but it should not mean Arc does not get buffed.