Arc

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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Aimeryan wrote:

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.

Now you're just making me repeat myself. :(

This isn't about the strength of CoCS with Arc compared to other spells; it's about what sort of bump Arc gets when used in conjunction with, among other things, CoCS. And I have seen it for myself.

That is the relevant issue.

I'm not following. It might be how I wrote the first sentence, but I think you have misunderstood. I'll rewrite the first sentence:

'CoCS with Arc is no stronger than most spells with CoCS.'

In case this still doesn't help, my point was that, unless buffing Arc would make Arc w/CoCS stronger than other alternatives w/CoCS, buffing Arc need not worry about the effect it has on CoCS. The best way I could perhaps explain this is like so:

Lets use an arbitrary point system for how well any particular spell w/CoCS works. This allows us to compare and order them. Lets assume that Arc w/CoCS is not one of the top combos. Perhaps the list looks like this:

spell (w/CoCS)
a: 110 points
b: 108 points
c: 108 points
d: 105 points
e: 101 points
f: 99 points
g: 97 points
Arc: 94 points
i: 91 points
j: 88 points
etc.

Now, lets assume we buff Arc. The list may now look like this:

spell (w/CoCS)
a: 110 points
b: 108 points
c: 108 points
Arc: 107 points
e: 105 points
f: 101 points
g: 99 points
h: 97 points
i: 91 points
j: 88 points
etc.

In this scenario, assuming that CoCS itself is balanced then Arc w/CoCS is still balanced; Arc w/CoCS has got stronger but balance has not been lost because it has not overtaken the top combinations.

Balance is only potentially lost if it ended up something like this:

spell (w/CoCS)
Arc: 130 points
b: 110 points
c: 108 points
d: 108 points
e: 105 points
f: 101 points
g: 99 points
h: 97 points
i: 91 points
j: 88 points
etc.

This can occur if Arc w/CoCS was already one of the top combos, or, the buff to Arc is very strong.

So, my point is, buffing Arc need not worry about Arc w/CoCS as long as 1) the buff to Arc itself is not overpowered, and 2) Arc w/CoCS is not already one of the top combinations (which in my opinion it is not).

The rest of my post was explaining that I do not know how Arc fares with totems; but a similar case could be made as for CoCS, i.e., as long as 1) the buff to Arc itself is not overpowered, and 2) Arc w/totems is not already one of the top combinations.

Regarding either CoCS or totems I did make an assumption - that they themselves are balanced. If this is not the case, then of course any buff to Arc may mean that Arc with either would be imbalanced - that may already be the case! However, this would be CoCS's/totem's problem though, not Arc's.

I follow this thread since a moment and i want to share my experience with arc.

My witch was level 72 when i use a full respec and going for a arc hard-caster.
Now i'm level 81, i mostly play solo in maps level 66-71 without real problems, and found that this spell is not that bad.
I use it with conductivity and a frost wall totem.

I focus my build on stacking shock with enouth damage, casting speed and shock chance for being able to shock a monster before the first shock expire.
I dont use crit at all, i have something like 5% critical chance.

For the support gem, i use, with a 5L armor, lighting penetration, faster casting, elemental proliferation, iiq or life leach when i need.
EP is for me, the only must have support gem for arc, it give the aoe component that is missing. With it, it's really fast to put 3 shocks charge and then os most of them.
When i try without it, it was nearly unplayable.

Problems i met :
- The mana cost, I want to switch iiq with add lighting damage, but the mana cost is really a pain, and make it difficult to handle.
- My build is really bad against solo monster, against boss and rare who doesn't want to die i must another skill.
- The shock duration is too short against Blue and rare monster with more life, arc havn't enouth base damage or 50% damage effectivness is too much.
- In party, i found it completely useless. Most of the monster doesn't need to be shock to die in 1 sec, and the one that need to be shock just can't be shock.

Map affixe i avoid : those who reduce mana regen, more life monster, enfeeble and lighting resist.

Crit is not the only option, without it, it is not great but at least viable and fun to play for me.
The thing that made me love this build is that i could play without taking care about desync,
with the combination of frost wall totem and arc, that give me a safe zone while arc auto-target monsters.

My suggestion for this spell is to reinforce the fact that it is a spell made for shock, by calculating the shock duration on the damage of 3 hits when arc hit only one target.
It would make it not useless against boss or heavy life rare monster and give an advantage at using it on only one target.
I said 3 hits as an exemple, it maybe need more.

Arc Mages use an empowered version of Arc to deal with the fact that they mostly come across solo enemies (one player). Any change to Arc need not be translated across to Arc Mages as well.

One of the best suggestions so far is to have the first target be hit hard, with subsequent chains reducing in damage each jump. Number of targets unlimited, but can only hit a target once per cast. This would give scaling as appropriate.

The crit chance could be normalised; no reason not to. Perhaps reduce the range of the damage a little (both to make it more reliable and to stop it being luckily overpowered) - although it still should have an abnormal range. Mana cost could do with a small reduction too.

That is what I would do.

If instead Arc is meant purely to be supportive with shocks, then reduce damage (possibly by a lot), make it hit more targets, make it faster casting, reduce mana, increase shock chance, give a large shock duration modifier. Basically, see http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Cold_Snap, minus the damage and cooldown, for shock instead of chill/freeze.

Right now, it is very poor as a supportive spell except in a CoCS link (and even then...). It takes too long to do its thing, costs too much mana to support a lot of builds, and doesn't scale with mobs that well (although EP helps with this).

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

I have to disagree with overcomplicating the chain effect. One of the best parts of it is the fact that it can bounce between two targets for full damage a hit.

I think the reason Arc is poor in the first place is this sort of thinking - balance Arc around rare events. The fact that it can hit a target more than once is hardly relevant at the existing number of chains - it only really occurs when there are only two mobs, only results in one mob being hit twice instead of once, and if the mobs are similar it merely means one will die faster than the other (rather than clearing those two mobs faster overall). It is just insignificant in the overall scheme of things.

The other (extremely) rare event that particularly comes to mind with Arc is continuously dealing damage at it's very top end (which, given the range, is high) - you could potentially list this as a benefit Arc has as well, but it would be poor thinking to balance around it.

In particular, the issue with more chains that can potentially re-hit targets is that it becomes more difficult to balance with each additional chain. For example, lets say we allow Arc to chain 9 times (roughly the potential number of mobs most other spells would hit when paired with LMP); if there are only two targets then it is likely each target would be hit somewhere around 4 or 5 times - this makes it far faster to clear than if there had just been one target. On the other extreme, if there are say nine targets then some may be hit more than others (this is quite likely), reducing its ability to scale with number of targets which may mean it is underpowered here.

When you switch to a system that allows targets to only be hit once per cast, it becomes much easier to balance. For example, lets say we allow Arc to chain 9 times; if there are only two targets then each target gets hit once. On the other extreme, if there are say nine targets each target gets hit once. Basically, each target gets hit once - a fair bit easier to balance around.

Regarding the suggestion of a chain effect that reduces in damage each jump - I don't find such a suggestion that complicated an idea. It is fairly common a theme and quite easy to code. That said, the only reason I suggest it is that it might have a better chance at being implemented than a straight-up buff (such as just more chaining). For the record, I would be fine with the addition of more chains without any downsides as I feel it would help balance Arc, but the developers may not be fine with this (which might be why they haven't done it) - so offering an alternative that is not a straight-up buff seems wise.

Adding more chains per level would make the support gem Chain even more useless for the skill though. I wouldn't want to see that happen, as it's probably the most 'fitting' support for it, even though it's currently stupid.

I just wouldn't want to make it more stupid.

One possible solution, that would perhaps add to the tactical use of the skill, would be to give it more chains per level, perhaps 0.2 increased chains per level, starting at 1 chain at level 1:
level 1 = 1 chain = 2 hits;
level 6 = 2 chains = 3 hits;
level 11 = 3 chains = 4 hits;
level 16 = 4 chains = 5 hits;
level 21 = 5 chains = 6 hits; and
level 26 = 6 chains = 7 hits.

BUT, in addition to that make each subsequent hit deal 10% more damage:
first hit - 100%
second - 110%
third - 121%
fourth - 133%
fifth - 146%
sixth - 161%
seventh - 177%

More chains and more damage means the Chain support isn't totally shit, because the eighth and ninth hits would do 194% and 214%, respectively. So even with the 50% LESS on Chain, you could still do some decent (if not respectable) damage, and hit more targets.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

It's not that rare.

What is not that rare?

If you are talking about having exactly two mobs in order to take advantage of Arc hitting the first target twice I would say that is fairly rare. Not winning the lottery rare, but it doesn't happen often (at least not until a fight is almost over).

Regardless, did you understand the part about how chain hitting two targets 4 or 5 times if there was two targets (with a 9 chain limit) vs. hitting only once if there was one target and how this would make it hard to balance?

I get that you enjoy this possibility, but the Devs are not going to buff Arc with additional chains if that sort of stuff could occur. Right now it is fine because it is only 3 chains, which means you can guarantee 2 hits for one target maximum - and only rarely. Once you start adding chains things change.

Taking 9 chains again. Two targets would get 4 or 5 hits each. Three targets would end up with roughly 3 chains each. Four targets would end up with roughly 2 chains each. However, because chain can't chain without an additional target, one target would get 1 chain. Do you know how hard this would be to balance appropriately? Do they balance around 1 hit per mob? 2 hits? 3 hits? 4 hits? You tell me - I don't know.

Once you take the system as allowing only one hit per target per cast it becomes very easy to balance. Easy to balance = actually might happen.

P.S. I only suggested damage reducing on each jump in conjunction with unlimited chaining - allowing full damage hits on potentially unlimited targets would be too much. Making the damage reduce each hit keeps it under control. One advantage of allowing unlimited chaining is that the number of appropriate chains need not be worked out, therefore making for an easier/quicker buff. However, as I said, I don't particular desire it to be this way.

You don't balance it.

You leave it be.

AOE attacks hit every mob in a group. Who cares if the same monster is hit twice or more by a non-AOE attack?
All that means is that you aren't hitting the other monsters in the group.

I'm really not seeing the issue that you are trying to present.

So it hits the same monster more than once. You kill that monster slightly quicker, and kill the other monsters slightly slower.

Why is that an issue?

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So it hits the same monster more than once. You kill that monster slightly quicker, and kill the other monsters slightly slower.

Only true for monsters that number greater than the number of chains. If the monsters are less than or equal to the number of chains then each surplus chain increases clearing speed (with the exception of a single target).

Take nine chains and two mobs; each will be hit five times (1st hit, then nine chains). This results in clearing those two monsters five times faster than if there had only been one mob or ten+ mobs. Basically, with nine chains, Arc under the current rules can only possibly be balanced either for '1 <= x <= 9' or 'x = 1 or x > 9'.

Another way of saying this is that Arc will either be overbalanced for hitting a few targets (because of lots of chaining between them but having been balanced for only one or two hits normally) or Arc will be underbalanced for hitting one or many (but not few) targets (because having been balanced for many hits per target and this not happening).

Ironically this is true even now with only two chains; Arc seems to have been balanced (at best) for facing 2 or 3 targets, i.e., the optimum number with two chains. However, the balance gap between the optimum and the worse gets larger with each additional chain meaning this would be a lot more noticeable with additional chains.

Maybe I am wrong - maybe the Devs would be fine with Arc being strongly overpowered/underpowered depending on number of mobs by adding more chains and balancing for one of the extremes. However, they haven't done this, have they?

Maybe they would add additional chains and balance for one hit per mob though.