Arc

With the patch due soon and the announcement saying that unloved skills are getting some changes, I can only hope Arc is about to change - in which case I'll hold off on any more ideas and such for now.

Arc I feel is going to be really tricky to balance though, so I doubt even if we do get a change to Arc soon that it will be the last we talk of it (although, who knows?).

Finally

-I hope I don't upset the mods with this post! ;)

Been weeks since I last came to this place, but the ocassion well worths it.

An increase of SIXTY F*CKING PERCENT in damage to both Arc and Vaal Arc... just awesome. Also, with the chaining effect now scaling with levels, there is no more need to put it up with the Chain support (this last part it's for me only; I like to think out loud :) ).

I think this improvement goes one or even two steps closer to what I always wanted with it: a pure, raw power lightning skill :)

The thing now would be testing: would it be better for shocking an entire room or for something else?

Today is a good day for Arc -- and I was actually of the opinion that it was (barely) fine, and am currently in the process of building an Arc Lightning Witch (currently Level 41). Time to ramp it up :)

This build by Velkor, which is now going to have a field day with these changes, was a good reference.

God damn, finally some meaningful change.

However, the purpose of the spell is even more unclear now, it used to be a 'two enemy spell' before, it's still too weak to be a single target heavy-hitter and still hits too few enemies to be used for crowd control.

Yeah, the chain lightning concept worked fine in D2 and some similar games, but all those games have way fewer enemies on the screen.

"

Charanjaydemyr wrote:

This buff is the result of so much feedback in this thread, and anyone who posted with the hope that Arc wasn't beyond redemption should be proud. :)

I'm a bit more proud about that cleave buff if it was a result of the stink cloud in 'revive DW' thread. People had conflicting opinions on DW rework but most agreed cleave needs a damage buff - less range than GS, less area, less damage, no special properties, it was a clear-cut case.

Yeah, arc should work very good now in builds that invested an unrealistic amount of effort to see it float, but, I still don't think the spell is really suited for this game by concept, regardless of execution.

Wow. I was hoping for, and expecting, EITHER a bump damage or an increase in the chain amount. Getting both is extreme, I don't know how internal testing goes with this sort of thing but that seems like a bit ... too much all at once.

Don't mistake that for complaining though, I'm having a blast with it so far.
Just saying that I hope it doesn't go the way of Searing Bond now, where it first gets a MASSIIVE bump, THEN they realise 'oh wait, maybe we overdid it' and have to tone it down again.
(Whether that is going to be actually necessary for Arc, I don't really dare to say (yet)).

I'm using Arc together with Remote mines, a build which I tried like a year ago, now finally I'm having fun with it :D Put 'em all down, activate that strongbox, watch 'em go ZZAAPPP

I want to try cast on crit Arc build so badly now. Like barrage+gmp+coc+arc. Or even +chain with give less arc damage, but more arc from crit and more arc chains.

Maybe even dual arc totem wouldn't be bad idea.

The Chain support would be even worse now; do not go there!

Seems like a decent buff. I assume it chains 6 times now at max level (7 hits total)? 2 chains base (+first hit), additional chain every 5 levels (4 additional by level 20).

I'm not surprised they made it require an extra bounce before hitting a target again - I pointed out the problem (in terms of balance) with adding extra chains when taking into account just two targets, due to the bouncing between them. This is not a bad way of countering that problem. Even with more targets it makes sure the hits are more evenly dispersed.

The extra 60% damage will help with single-target encounters.

I guess we would still like some support love, and I assume we would still like Arc to not be intercepted - Weaver will probably still be a pain with this buff I would have thought (although less so?).

arc buffed.

coming back to game :D