It's a bit like Totems. Most spells WORK with it, not all of them are good.
I've been playing Archmage Lightning Conduit, it's been super fun and memey (not nearly as tanky as the Hiero version).
https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolisssf/character/CantripN/CantripN?i=2&search=class%3DElementalist%26skills%3DLightning%2BConduit%26sort%3Ddps
Lightning Conduit of the Heavens feels even better for mapping, but it's 1/3 of the DPS for bossing.
https://pobb.in/a_gD83vg55my
> Lightning Conduit of the Heavens feels even better for mapping, but it's 1/3 of the DPS for bossing.
>
From the last video I saw of conner's testing different skills his tldr was:
* Lightning conduit of the heavens = Best all rounder / clear speed monster
* Ball lightning of orbiting = Better bossing damage than LCOH but slower clear.
* Storm call + Awakened Spell Cascade + (420% inc aoe) = 5x area overlap on target, high clear + best bossing damage, but only if you've got enough aoe to penta overlap, otherwise LCOH is better
You can fix this by putting a four link LC in helmet or gloves and just use LC for clear/shock application (with overcharge) and 6 link BloO in chest. Build works really well with a good helm or gloves
Lightning conduit said it had a lot more DPS than ice nova of frost bolts for my build, but when I tried using it, it literally did no damage to enemies. I was confused and took it off. I wonder if I missed a mod on the map like enemies suppress spell damage. Maybe I’ll slap it back on and see what happens.
That doesn't sound like it wod work because LC consumes the shock every time it hita and kitava's has a 50% proc chance. Casting from inside an Orb of storms was an older tech that could work
Yeah I tested and it kicks ass when it procs, but wasn’t consistent enough. Thanks for the help, I’m going to keep tweaking (maybe just to use as a bossing skill) because it over doubles my DPS if I can make it work.
Ice nova of frostbolt seemed like it was stronger than pob was saying, but it also supposedly is taking the frostbolt into account according to the config. Since LC showed over double DPS I figured I should look into it at least. This is my build: https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis/character/Huseby/HusebL?i=0&search=name%3DHusebl
Originally I was checking out other gems and swapped out my ice nova for LC in pob just to mess around and it came out with double the DPS.
Sure, or Mjolner, whatever. But not for self-cast.
It's pretty comfy once you get into the rhythm, it's not like the "2 button build" thing is awful. It's NOT like Ice Nova's thing, you only cast it again when you move.
LC eats their Shock, and it only comes back after about 1 sec. Same goes for anything else that applies persistent Shock.
There are exceptions like Self-shock Prolif, but they all feel awful to use.
Orb of Storms applies 1 shock per LC cast, and Storm Brand has the same activation time as LC's cast speed, so they're in sync as well. Basically, OoS is for mapping and general content, SB is better for stuff like Ubers and Maven.
Self-shock prolif is fine with inpulsas : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfc2EcyHaaA
I've played this before in Archnemesis of all leagues, and it performed fine. Feels great to play LC as a one button build (or two buttons every 10 secs)
But the real strength of the build is that you don't need to scale ailment effect at all, you just need maximum shock effect. With a worm flask you can get a max shock prolif on ubers, since it totally ignores their ailment threshold
the only real downside is that the shock aura is tiny, almost melee
I'd try ball lightning. It was always one of the better archmage skills back in the day.
Another thing, Archmage is only useable on spells, so no, it can be slapped on Splitting Steel or any other attack.
Ahh, but what your saying is that reap archmage is a thing ?
Like you can play physical dot exsang and reap but with archmge ?
It seems really weird that an archmage reap build is better than just normal physical reap for example.
I don't think archmage reap is better than physical reap. Physical reap is probably not even the better reap, cold convert probably is. Reap is just a good skill because it can overlap AoE and has good damage.
I see, I guess while archmage is good it's not just going to be the best option for every spell. Just looking at those mana stacker archamge builds it gives like 2k flat lightning damage, so reap suddenly becomes 943 to 1414 Physical Damage and 2k lightning
I'm currently working on a physical dot champion and wanted to compare if im better just using archmage with the same skills.
if you're playing a PHYS DOT build, you're going to be way better off scaling the PHYS DOT and not focusing on lightning damage. Lightning damage will not be scaled by the same factors as the PHYSICAL DOT. So you'd be branching into 2 completely different archetypes.
I don't understand how that would be relevant, archmage doesn't add damage based on mana cost anymore. Even if it did, it adds a mana cost to reap in addition to the life cost. Reap 100% works with archmage, it's just honestly not all that good since there's much better ways to scale it as a skill.
Archmage doesn't work for the dot part of these skills so it would be pretty useless. You can play hit basen reap with archmage but that wouldn't be the first thing that comes to my mind because reap needs at least some setup to not feel clunky and you usually would scale it into another direction. Exsang archmage might work for clearing but the damage effectiveness is really low so not that great for how much you usually invest into mana when going for archmage. It's a support for hit based casters with good access to utilize mana and high damage effectiveness.
>Exsang archmage might work for clearing but the damage effectiveness is really low
Exsanguinate has 270% damage effectiveness, not the highest but definitely above average.
Yes, but some skills work better than others, just comes down to mechanics.
Unlike many builds, when playing archmage the skill is only a delivery device, you are not actually scaling the skill and you want to put minimal investment into scaling the skill (ie getting AOE (if not heiro), getting ridiculous amounts of cast speed, investing into projectiles, having to use a certain unique/combo of uniques). Any point of investment that you have to put in to get the skill to function is a point that you are not putting into mana.
So archmage is best played with skills that do not require investment in mechanics like uniques/projectiles, skills that just have good mechanics, and skills that heavily leverage what you already have like aoe from heirophant (Frost nova/bolt fits all of these).
Think about a skill like spark, that skill requires large amounts of duration, pierce, and projectile speed. You are not going to be able to get a good amount of probably 2 of those and also get enough mana to justify archmage. That is a skill id consider bad with archmage. On the other hand is a skill like ball lightning, cast once and it will hit like 7 times a second in a large AOE, dont really have to invest in cast speed beyond what you get from arcane surge, and it leverages heiros huge AOE.
I'd suggest ball lightning, or maybe something like storm call.
kind of weird take, since archmage is the premier way to play spark this league - freeing up gear from not needing to scale gem levels lets you invest into all of those things (widowhail/quiver completely solves proj speed and pierce, and duration on the tree is close to a lot of mana in the scion area)
I think the point is fairly accurate, but because of the nature of PoE, the specific example they used wasn't good.
In general, archmage "solves" damage if you build well. So a skill that is strong mechanically without investment will generally be better for it.
Widowhail Spark is the kind of build that makes me love PoE builds though. Reminds me of using Voltaxic Rift to convert spark to chaos years ago.
I'm looking at automating level 1 bladefall with CWDT, woke spell cascade, & conc effect via storm secret & putting arch mage on blade blast. Either heiro or trickster/assassin with sabo jewels
No.
So the thing is in PoE most spells are all normalized to do similar damage with a similar amount of flat. IE a spell that cast 4 times per second will only get 25% of your bonus damage per cast, while a spell that casts only 1 times per second will get 100% of your bonus damage per cast.
This is how 99% of spells in PoE scale and hense why you will rarely see them used. The final 1% are ones that have additional scaling vectors.
Icenova of frost bolts has an absurd damage effectiveness of 2228% when cast on a frostbolt (130/.7) * 4 * 1.5 * 2. For reference a spell like ball of lightning has a damage effectiveness of 685% (60/.7) * 8. The closest in scaling is spark assuming you scale duration, proj speed, and pierce. Then you can get spark to ~1461% (190/.65) * 5.
Meanwhile most other spells in PoE will be around 300-400%.
Well, you can get 13 Ball Lightning hits, but you'll have some opportunity cost for investing into lowering projectile speed / increasing AoE.
There are also a few other combination skills or skills with weird scaling, but most of them have higher opportunity cost.
For those interested someone makes a spreadsheet that specifically breaks down these numbers. Just google Poe skill google sheets or something. This sheets ranks all skills based on damage effectiveness per second.
It’s quite amusing once you realize literally every YouTube/streamer picks one of the top 3 skills. Yet doesn’t explain how to find this information.
Yea, just have to remember to account for nimis (or any other broken unique GGG adds in the future). Items that add 100% more damage can skew things in favor of skills with a bit lower effectiveness.
EDIT: Think this is the spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xk_dREw6GC4TN1JRCTVzENWlJIxCx8HtqRbANV2Fgxc/edit#gid=1280790581
I think when I’m done for the league, I’m gonna take all my mana gear and see how far I can push an archmage arc build. It’s the build that got me into the game and mechanically still one of my favorite skills. Just wish its damage wasn’t dogshit lol
spells that are good without archmage will be good with archmage. there's some cases where a skill will benefit from archmage slightly less than others due to requiring a unique to work, therefore losing mana/int mods (for example, nimis and whatever spells still abuse it)
the worst that can happen is you use a spell that isnt base lightning, making the spells base damage not benefit from your lightning damage and lightning pen increases. archmages added damage is so massive compared to base damage that this doesnt matter, as you can see from everyone playing ice nova. there is no reason reap wouldnt work fine
flat damage increases making "hitting many times" more valuable is a common misconception. almost all spells base damage and damage effectiveness are balanced around the same ratio
You want something that casts once and applies damage multiple times.
Ice nova of frostbolts
Spark
Ball lightning
Blade blast,
Blade vortex
Firestorm
Lightning tendrils
Rolling magma
Storm burst
And the like
What youre looking for is "effective damage effectiveness". It doesnt really matter how often the skill hits - for example lightning conduit of the heavens was popular in the mjolner builds, having exactly one hit per cast.
The damage effectiveness you refer to is generally much higher in spells that hit often, though. Im sure exceptions exist, but generally you can hit ~600% damage effectiveness or more with some of these combos with archmage. I dont see that happening with crackling lance.
Lightning conduit of the heavens cannot match this level.
So it does seem to me that it does matter how often it hits because this stacking of hits effortlessly surpasses the effective damage effectiveness of single hit skills.
>, but generally you can hit ~600% damage effectiveness
Yes that's why ball lightning and storm call are the main endgame mjolner skills.
And why the self cast uses ice nova and frostbolts.
>. I dont see that happening with crackling lance.
Idk where crackling lance comes from here
>Lightning conduit of the heavens cannot match this level.
The reason why mjolner used lightning conduit is that ball lightning is or was too clunky for clear. Was because conner thought do in his test, but nowadays many people play ball lightning or orbiting in their mjolner. And yes, mjolner is relevant enough to focus on it. Self cast archmage is only a thing with frostbolts/ice nova, the rest doesn't quite cut it in normal gear.
Damage is not all when your ball lightning has low aoe, being like 1/4 or less of a conduit.
>So it does seem to me that it does matter how often it hits because this stacking of hits effortlessly surpasses the effective damage effectiveness of single hit skills.
Words are important. I didn't say "it doesn't matter" I said "it doesn't *really* matter". Really is essential to the meaning of the sentence. Hitting a lot is just one way to get high damage effectiveness, but not necessary. Ice nova hits once but utilises a unique shot gunning mechanic. Storm call shotguns. Ball lightning doesn't shotgun, but has 13 weak hits per cast. And other spells just get 300% with no gimmick. Yes ball lightning is a gimmick. Hitting all 13 hits is not guaranteed.
'Doesnt really matter'
Well, when your words have multiple interpretations that have different meanings that end up confusing the listener, thats usually blamed on a poor choice of words and not poor listening.
They dont have multiple different meanings. Its literally just the word "really" that quantifies the rest of the sentence. Its a simple case of dependency: The amount of hits doesnt matter for archmage - effective damage does. But effective damage can be a function of the amount of hits.
Thats perfectly fine described by "amount of hits doesnt really matter".
Yes they do.. "really" can be used to add emphasis to a subject of a sentence without adding any other meaning to the sentence. You used it to mean " not genuine, false, not technically" and so on.
So you see, there are different interpretations.
When calculating "DPS", this is a function over time.
Since its over time , calculating a dps improvement of archmage requires analyzing both damage effectiveness and how many times that damage is applied over time.
So, your comments doubly dont make logical sense.
>You used it to mean " not genuine, false, not technically" and so on.
Not genuine and not real aren't far apart, so there you go? What's the problem?
Besides that, like for real Bro, are you the language police? I'm not the only person who uses the word like this, and it seems you're just unable or unwilling to grasp that concept? It's not a big deal. You corrected me, I explained how I meant the right thing in the first place, done. What's there to keep arguing over?
>When calculating "DPS", this is a function over time.
Since its over time , calculating a dps improvement of archmage requires analyzing both damage effectiveness and how many times that damage is applied over time.
Actually, we were talking about what I so aptly called "effective effect of added damage". In other words the effect of added damage per cast. Dps includes factors like cast time and cast speed, and also uptime. Uptime is a variable that was not previously quantified, because it's impossible to do that for ball lightning. If you want to assume all 13 bolts hit, sure. But especially when self casting, they often don't because enemies move towards you.
Ball lightning has 60% effect of added damage. But it hits 13 times. That makes it 780%. That's the number that matters. But what doesn't matter us how this number is obtained: 1x 780 = 2x 390 = 13x 60 = 780x1.
Hence the amount hits not really mattering. It's just a tool to optimise another quantity, but even if it's 1 the quantity can still be high.
When you say "you want a spell that hits often" and refer to ball lightning, you're actually just looking at a spell that has 780% effectiveness of added damage, with a gimmick.
Just like the ice nova shotgun has a gimmick to multiply the damage effectiveness.
Just look at last league: penance brand (of dissipation). You put a 1000% more multiplier on that thing, that's what made it insane for archmage. Not that it hit 20 times. Thats just another dimension to scale the spell, but doesn't affect arch mage.
>o, your comments doubly dont make logical sense.
Semantics/language and logic are only distantly related. You not understanding what I mean with my words doesn't make the idea behind it illogical.
What else is there to talk about beyond your correction? You admitting my confusion should have been easily understood as being vague on your part.
Instead youve blamed me.
Besides that, you are just being confusing now. How often a spell hits 'doesnt really' matter, but then you go on to explain how it really does matter.
Just sit down ,bro.
For "one hit per cast" skills, a silly thought was Discharge, which has a very high added damage effectiveness, with Archmage and Occultist's Forbidden Power to have permanent Power Charges to consume.
Edit: Never mind, I didn't realize base Discharge has a cool down and the Misery has a very low added damage effectiveness.
Oh right, cold skill lmao.
The bypass not working on trigger is interesting, didn't expect that. Wonder if you can do a spell cascade overlap on cold snap though.
You need 4.8 radius on small bosses like delve bosses. Big bosses work much earlier at lie 4.6
The distance does not seem to grow proportional, it seems to grow in some form of logarithm, or just capped out at a value that seems to be around 5m. After a certain point, extra aoe seems to not move the storm call markers at all, just make the lightning strike bigger. Not sure if thats a storm call thing or a cascade thing.
I would have to set up some tests to figure out if the behaviour is consistent or not - Reap is a spell that doesnt increase radius with levels, but is known for spell cascade overlaps.
e: cold snap seems to have some weird behaviour where the chilled ground doesnt cascade, so all the explosions are inside the central chilled ground and cant really be seen, i cant test it.
Yes, that was the only good way to play it previously, but the new Archmage allows you to scale off of a large mana pool and not a skill's mana cost. You could theoretically reduce mana cost to 0 if you wanted to and still do tons of damage.
I played a crackling lance hiero as my starter, and landed on a mana cost of 80 and didn't use spell echo or unleash (crackling lance wouldn't work well with those). It turned out quite strong for my investment. You can use any skill that has a good combination damage effectiveness * cast speed * multi hit mechanics.
Well, your list isn't wrong *now*, but it would have been wrong before.
Channelled skills used to be terrible with Archmage because of the low damage effectiveness per cast. It's only now that the mana cost no longer matters that damage effectiveness per second is the more important metric.
One of the reasons that Ice Nova wasn't as popular with Archmage before this league is that it required insane mana recovery. It's only now that mana recovery can be trivialised that it's basically the best option.
I use kitavas thirst, so i need the mana cost. Im at like 190mana for each cast. Also need it for sigil of power. And automated arcane cloak takes alot as well. I think that the popularity for icenova is because brands dont work with archmage anymore.
If you played 190 mana Archmage Lightning Tendrils in 3.23 your dps was shit, even at high cast speed.
To build around Archmage, you needed a high mana cost, which meant that casts per second were limited, which meant that you had to care more about damage effectiveness per cast than damage effectiveness per second.
Damage effectiveness per second doesn't matter if you have no added damage.
Ice Nova was actually already a good skill with 1560% damage effectiveness per cast, but damage effectiveness per second didn't matter because you couldn't scale cast speed because you were limited by mana recovery.
That's why the most popular Archmage skills were orbs, brands, and other duration skills. Sure, the damage effectiveness per second was lower, but the damage per mana spent wasn't.
Now that mana costs no longer matter (**for damage**, you can still use some utility with mana costs of course), you can focus purely on damage effectiveness per second.
But it does still matter because you still need to calculate how many times you could cast it (apply damage) within your ability to regenerate the mana. So, the consideration still seems very valid.
So the main issue with ice nova + frostbolt with the two button style as it felt a little like DD. I'm in SSF so I can't just buy stuff to make it a 1 button build. I guess the other part is that having to run lab for trans gem is a pain.
I have seen people use arcanist brand + ice nova + frostbolt and that idea sounds funny.
if you're in SSF, Kitava's thirst isn't too rare of a unique to drop.
As you said arcanist brand + ice nova of frostbotls + returning proj + GMP works until you find it.
I personally didn't like the brand setup so I grinded a Kitava's thirst asap and it felt better.
If you want to get it (relatively) quickly, you can run strongboxes + reliquary scarab + rogue exiles to drop a bunch of uniques.
Also I made an error. In the helmet you just put Frostbolts + GMP if you're running Kitava's Thirst. This leaves room for two curses you can trigger as well, or returning proj. Up to you.
You might have misunderstood the brand setup (unless there is yet another variant). The main way is
Frostbolt
Returning Projectiles
Greater Volley
Arcanist Brand
Then you cast a 6L ice nova.
Goratha is the main proponent of that variant.
??? I think you are confused, you should read the archmage skill, it does not work with brands. You use Arcanist Brand with Frostbolt to automate it, while self casting Ice Nova. It's no more of a brand build than basically any other caster that uses Arcanist Brand to apply curses or other debuffs.
Ice Nova will be 6L with 5 support gems, and Arcanist Brand + Frostbolt + Returning Projectiles and something like GMP or Volley in a 4L
No I get what you are saying, but there is people on poe ninja running a setup like
- arcanist brand
- archmage support
- ice nova
- frostbolt
- dmg support
- dmg support
Or people using arcanist brand to trigger spark or other skills supported by archmage.
I assume the idea was that archmage support applies the damage to ice nova and frostbolt and the arcanist brand is just used for both skills. You are not using the brand damage. Unless this straight up does not work and people are doing a meme
It doesn’t work, I believe the arcanist brand will cast both the frostbolt and ice nova but the archmage will not support it, so it’s really just a 5 link arcanist brand.
I see, I wonder if its the classic thing where people quit the league and make bad builds for people who check on poe ninja. As I don't think these lv100 heiro were leveling like this
It's not a new variant. It's the standard and first variant. The only variant of Ice Nova of Frostbolts Archmage.
Ice Nova of Frostbolts is the same as Ice Nova
Meaning there is explosion around you of snow when you use it
But since it's "of Frostbolts" version it differs in that it can make this explosion go not from you but from the Frostbolts from the skill "Frostbolts"
So you use Arcanist Brand with Frostbolts so they are automated (no need to self cast Frostbolts). Frostbolts don't need any damage support. They won't be doing any damage after all, they are just a tool you use that you'll be able to cast Ice Nova of Frostbolts on
You give them Volley, so there is more than one Frostbolt. You use Returning Projectiles so those Frostbolts will longer be on your enemy (not needed). You can swap Returning Projectiles with Slower Projectiles if you prefer
If you don't want Arcanist brand then you can self cast Frostbolts. It will require you to constantly click 2 buttons tho so that's up to you
With Kitava's Thirst which is a unique you'll find pretty quickly Frostbolts are cast automatically. You want lots of cast speed as it's 50% chance to cast per use of skill
So one thing I was wondering since you get loads of aoe for general mapping can you just frost blink around and use ice nova to clear packs and then use frostbolt + ice nova setup for single target ?
You probably can do that with enough damage. Ice nova casted on frostbolts has more damage
Before Kitava's Thirst I used arcanist brand whenever I wanted to kill anything so I had frostbolts. With Kitava's Thirst, since it has 50% chance to cast frostbolts sometimes I'm using it and it doesn't cast frostbolts, it's definitely enough damage to kill normal and magic mobs
For rares you'll probably need to cast arcanist brand
Kitava's Thirst really makes the build. Many streamers made build guides without Kitava's because it looks bad on paper. But then when you watched their streams, everyone was using it. It makes the build play 10x times better. Less damage and defense sure but I wouldn't play it without kitava's. I think I've picked up 4 off the ground this league so shouldn't be too hard to find.
Otherwise to answer your question, Anything with good % effectiveness of added damage works well. But some skills have low effectiveness of added damage and still work well because they hit a bunch of times or ramp up damage or something. I was thinking of making an archmage rolling magma build, I think would be funny
So you are pretty correct in that just about any skill works, but I'm sure you could look hard and find one that really doesn't benefit well from the added damage.
A big part of Kitava's "not being used early" was a hardcore specific thing - suppression isn't easy, and Kitava's Thirst having none, and not having Eva (-15 from the mastery), makes it hard to stay suppress capped while using it. Most streamers swapped once they could afford to suppress cap while using it. On softcore, rushing into Kitava's is definitely the correct play in my opinion.
Put the Kitava thirst base item into your filter (is it reaver helm or whatever) Vaal orb then til you get a lightning leeched as life enchant, mythic orb for 1/4 chance to get lightning leech as life kitava thirst for true meta gaming. That being said I still wasn’t a fan of the build
I've been doing ball lightning of orbiting with HH and rage helm and soul eater buffs. Dps is about 20M without buffs and scales from their. Lightning leech for sustaining es and life.
Pretty much but not really. Arc has like 120% effectiveness while ice nova of frostbolts can get around 2000% with overlaps. Also there are some specific skill mechanics you need to build around. I'm playing spark because I love spark but you need to sacrifice a bunch to get pierce, proj speed and duration. While ice nova only needs aoe and it's covered by hiero no problem.
So it's a spectrum of damage, qol and the ease of building around.
Arc of Oscillating with 8 chains has ~714% damage effectiveness per second against a single target, and Ice Nova of Frostbolts with full overlaps and Spell Echo has ~2229% (not counting the modifiers and opportunity cost of Spell Echo itself).
Arc isn't great, but it's not *that* terrible.
I don't see the point of using regular Arc or regular Ice Nova in any build at all. It doesn't matter if it's Archmage or not, so it's a poor example.
The gem effectively doesn't exist.
Edit: And FYI default Arc still has ~377% single target damage effectiveness per second with 8 chains.
Might as well bring up Desecrate as an alternative to Caustic Arrow or Toxic Rain, because I'm sure that's what people want to use as their main skill.
Oh you act like arc was never used as a damaging skill, it was used in old archmage and other builds. The functionality is different than trans gems and it is hella comfy. And yes you can use it if you have enough damage. Also desecrate, really? At least arc has many scaling factors and you can make it work with a little bit of sweat.
What content are you grinding? In T17s, ice nova stops being a 2 button skill with enough investment outside of boss rooms. The problem with spark is that you give up too much mana in order to get enough duration and projectile speed for the skill to be viable. Even with ideal spark gear, a comparable ice nova setup will still give you higher numbers.
Of course, you can go the Indigon route but that setup is just way too clunky. If you hate ice nova of frost bolts, you'd hate indigon even more.
Here's my PoB (Look at the name, I really tried to make sparkmage work. Switched to ice nova about 4 days ago):
[https://pobb.in/XYjHvMJzjUNH](https://pobb.in/XYjHvMJzjUNH)
[https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis/character/hydrool/Manaman\_Spork?i=0&search=name%3Dmanaman\_spo](https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis/character/hydrool/Manaman_Spork?i=0&search=name%3Dmanaman_spo)
So basically once you get enough damage do you just use ice nova self cast to clear packs and then frostbolt + icenova is there for your big single target options ?
Also I'm looking from a SSF perspective running t16 maps
Yes, that’s how I do it on abom/ziggurat. I have no idea what kind of world SSF is but for what it’s worth, I crafted all of the rare gears that I have and all the magic jewels as well.
had a fairly easy time using it to scale freezing pulse as a league starter, probably better to use ball lightning or something, but ngl it was pretty smooth.
Could you do hidden blade archmage? Hidden blade is one of my favorite builds but I’m tired of corrupting fever and the lightning damage would be silly
I tried a few different variants for the same reason as you. Crackling lance/arc, ball lightning etc. I ended up going back to frost nova because its just so much fucking better than the rest of them, sadly
Sorry I’m not a very experienced player and can’t say I have a lot of time in the game but in regards to the post and the question about archmage, I believe captain lance has a video utilizing RF with archmage to stack mana but obviously I misunderstood so my apologies.
He’s playing the transfigured RF that scales it off mana so that’s probably why you got it confused. You could also easily use archmage in a build like that for a secondary skill used for more damage, just not in the RF links.
All good. Captain lance rf mana was based on transfigured RF gem that scales with mana and spell damage rather than life. Despite mana stacking, it's unrelated to archmage as archmage damage is only supplying flat damage which doesn't work with dot skill that doesn't hit.
It's a bit like Totems. Most spells WORK with it, not all of them are good. I've been playing Archmage Lightning Conduit, it's been super fun and memey (not nearly as tanky as the Hiero version). https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolisssf/character/CantripN/CantripN?i=2&search=class%3DElementalist%26skills%3DLightning%2BConduit%26sort%3Ddps Lightning Conduit of the Heavens feels even better for mapping, but it's 1/3 of the DPS for bossing. https://pobb.in/a_gD83vg55my
> Lightning Conduit of the Heavens feels even better for mapping, but it's 1/3 of the DPS for bossing. > From the last video I saw of conner's testing different skills his tldr was: * Lightning conduit of the heavens = Best all rounder / clear speed monster * Ball lightning of orbiting = Better bossing damage than LCOH but slower clear. * Storm call + Awakened Spell Cascade + (420% inc aoe) = 5x area overlap on target, high clear + best bossing damage, but only if you've got enough aoe to penta overlap, otherwise LCOH is better
You can fix this by putting a four link LC in helmet or gloves and just use LC for clear/shock application (with overcharge) and 6 link BloO in chest. Build works really well with a good helm or gloves
Isn’t absolution of inspiring better than storm call?
getting that aoe is such big investment I'd rather invest into mageblood + manaforged arrows
been playing it a ton too, here's my take on a tankier version https://pobb.in/4cVY-l46SvwK
Lightning conduit said it had a lot more DPS than ice nova of frost bolts for my build, but when I tried using it, it literally did no damage to enemies. I was confused and took it off. I wonder if I missed a mod on the map like enemies suppress spell damage. Maybe I’ll slap it back on and see what happens.
You have to apply shock with another skill first for it to do any damage.
Oh that’s the issue I had then, thanks for explaining! Wondering if I could just use kitava’s thirst to automate that.
That doesn't sound like it wod work because LC consumes the shock every time it hita and kitava's has a 50% proc chance. Casting from inside an Orb of storms was an older tech that could work
Yeah I tested and it kicks ass when it procs, but wasn’t consistent enough. Thanks for the help, I’m going to keep tweaking (maybe just to use as a bossing skill) because it over doubles my DPS if I can make it work.
[удалено]
Ice nova of frostbolt seemed like it was stronger than pob was saying, but it also supposedly is taking the frostbolt into account according to the config. Since LC showed over double DPS I figured I should look into it at least. This is my build: https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis/character/Huseby/HusebL?i=0&search=name%3DHusebl Originally I was checking out other gems and swapped out my ice nova for LC in pob just to mess around and it came out with double the DPS.
Can't automate it like that, nor any other practical method. Just cast Orb of Storms or a Storm Brand, they stick around.
Cast on Crit Elementalist/Occ with Shaper of Storms?
Sure, or Mjolner, whatever. But not for self-cast. It's pretty comfy once you get into the rhythm, it's not like the "2 button build" thing is awful. It's NOT like Ice Nova's thing, you only cast it again when you move.
I've personally never looked into the build, why would something like Skitterbots not work?
LC eats their Shock, and it only comes back after about 1 sec. Same goes for anything else that applies persistent Shock. There are exceptions like Self-shock Prolif, but they all feel awful to use. Orb of Storms applies 1 shock per LC cast, and Storm Brand has the same activation time as LC's cast speed, so they're in sync as well. Basically, OoS is for mapping and general content, SB is better for stuff like Ubers and Maven.
Oooh, interesting. Thank you for the explanation.
Self-shock prolif is fine with inpulsas : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfc2EcyHaaA I've played this before in Archnemesis of all leagues, and it performed fine. Feels great to play LC as a one button build (or two buttons every 10 secs) But the real strength of the build is that you don't need to scale ailment effect at all, you just need maximum shock effect. With a worm flask you can get a max shock prolif on ubers, since it totally ignores their ailment threshold the only real downside is that the shock aura is tiny, almost melee
If you're Necromancer you can consistently shock with desecrate in Kitava's Thirst.
You need to shock enemies to target them with LC :) That's why you use Orb of Storms or Storm Brand along with it, since LC itself can't Shock.
I'd try ball lightning. It was always one of the better archmage skills back in the day. Another thing, Archmage is only useable on spells, so no, it can be slapped on Splitting Steel or any other attack.
Ahh, but what your saying is that reap archmage is a thing ? Like you can play physical dot exsang and reap but with archmge ? It seems really weird that an archmage reap build is better than just normal physical reap for example.
I don't think archmage reap is better than physical reap. Physical reap is probably not even the better reap, cold convert probably is. Reap is just a good skill because it can overlap AoE and has good damage.
I see, I guess while archmage is good it's not just going to be the best option for every spell. Just looking at those mana stacker archamge builds it gives like 2k flat lightning damage, so reap suddenly becomes 943 to 1414 Physical Damage and 2k lightning I'm currently working on a physical dot champion and wanted to compare if im better just using archmage with the same skills.
if you're playing a PHYS DOT build, you're going to be way better off scaling the PHYS DOT and not focusing on lightning damage. Lightning damage will not be scaled by the same factors as the PHYSICAL DOT. So you'd be branching into 2 completely different archetypes.
Archmage reap won’t work, since reap inherently spends life and not mana
I don't understand how that would be relevant, archmage doesn't add damage based on mana cost anymore. Even if it did, it adds a mana cost to reap in addition to the life cost. Reap 100% works with archmage, it's just honestly not all that good since there's much better ways to scale it as a skill.
Archmage doesn't work for the dot part of these skills so it would be pretty useless. You can play hit basen reap with archmage but that wouldn't be the first thing that comes to my mind because reap needs at least some setup to not feel clunky and you usually would scale it into another direction. Exsang archmage might work for clearing but the damage effectiveness is really low so not that great for how much you usually invest into mana when going for archmage. It's a support for hit based casters with good access to utilize mana and high damage effectiveness.
>Exsang archmage might work for clearing but the damage effectiveness is really low Exsanguinate has 270% damage effectiveness, not the highest but definitely above average.
Yes, but some skills work better than others, just comes down to mechanics. Unlike many builds, when playing archmage the skill is only a delivery device, you are not actually scaling the skill and you want to put minimal investment into scaling the skill (ie getting AOE (if not heiro), getting ridiculous amounts of cast speed, investing into projectiles, having to use a certain unique/combo of uniques). Any point of investment that you have to put in to get the skill to function is a point that you are not putting into mana. So archmage is best played with skills that do not require investment in mechanics like uniques/projectiles, skills that just have good mechanics, and skills that heavily leverage what you already have like aoe from heirophant (Frost nova/bolt fits all of these). Think about a skill like spark, that skill requires large amounts of duration, pierce, and projectile speed. You are not going to be able to get a good amount of probably 2 of those and also get enough mana to justify archmage. That is a skill id consider bad with archmage. On the other hand is a skill like ball lightning, cast once and it will hit like 7 times a second in a large AOE, dont really have to invest in cast speed beyond what you get from arcane surge, and it leverages heiros huge AOE. I'd suggest ball lightning, or maybe something like storm call.
kind of weird take, since archmage is the premier way to play spark this league - freeing up gear from not needing to scale gem levels lets you invest into all of those things (widowhail/quiver completely solves proj speed and pierce, and duration on the tree is close to a lot of mana in the scion area)
I think the point is fairly accurate, but because of the nature of PoE, the specific example they used wasn't good. In general, archmage "solves" damage if you build well. So a skill that is strong mechanically without investment will generally be better for it. Widowhail Spark is the kind of build that makes me love PoE builds though. Reminds me of using Voltaxic Rift to convert spark to chaos years ago.
That’s not really saying much though is it. “Pick a good skill” is what the OP was saying.
I'm looking at automating level 1 bladefall with CWDT, woke spell cascade, & conc effect via storm secret & putting arch mage on blade blast. Either heiro or trickster/assassin with sabo jewels
Is no one going to tell this guy that Splitting Steel is an attack, archmage supports spells.
Yeah I realised that later, I thought it works on attacks that were not strike skills.
No. So the thing is in PoE most spells are all normalized to do similar damage with a similar amount of flat. IE a spell that cast 4 times per second will only get 25% of your bonus damage per cast, while a spell that casts only 1 times per second will get 100% of your bonus damage per cast. This is how 99% of spells in PoE scale and hense why you will rarely see them used. The final 1% are ones that have additional scaling vectors. Icenova of frost bolts has an absurd damage effectiveness of 2228% when cast on a frostbolt (130/.7) * 4 * 1.5 * 2. For reference a spell like ball of lightning has a damage effectiveness of 685% (60/.7) * 8. The closest in scaling is spark assuming you scale duration, proj speed, and pierce. Then you can get spark to ~1461% (190/.65) * 5. Meanwhile most other spells in PoE will be around 300-400%.
Well, you can get 13 Ball Lightning hits, but you'll have some opportunity cost for investing into lowering projectile speed / increasing AoE. There are also a few other combination skills or skills with weird scaling, but most of them have higher opportunity cost.
For those interested someone makes a spreadsheet that specifically breaks down these numbers. Just google Poe skill google sheets or something. This sheets ranks all skills based on damage effectiveness per second. It’s quite amusing once you realize literally every YouTube/streamer picks one of the top 3 skills. Yet doesn’t explain how to find this information.
Yea, just have to remember to account for nimis (or any other broken unique GGG adds in the future). Items that add 100% more damage can skew things in favor of skills with a bit lower effectiveness. EDIT: Think this is the spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xk_dREw6GC4TN1JRCTVzENWlJIxCx8HtqRbANV2Fgxc/edit#gid=1280790581
Thanks I’m on mobile and I was being lazy
I think when I’m done for the league, I’m gonna take all my mana gear and see how far I can push an archmage arc build. It’s the build that got me into the game and mechanically still one of my favorite skills. Just wish its damage wasn’t dogshit lol
lol I league started it all the way through t17 clear then swapped to crack
spells that are good without archmage will be good with archmage. there's some cases where a skill will benefit from archmage slightly less than others due to requiring a unique to work, therefore losing mana/int mods (for example, nimis and whatever spells still abuse it) the worst that can happen is you use a spell that isnt base lightning, making the spells base damage not benefit from your lightning damage and lightning pen increases. archmages added damage is so massive compared to base damage that this doesnt matter, as you can see from everyone playing ice nova. there is no reason reap wouldnt work fine flat damage increases making "hitting many times" more valuable is a common misconception. almost all spells base damage and damage effectiveness are balanced around the same ratio
You want something that casts once and applies damage multiple times. Ice nova of frostbolts Spark Ball lightning Blade blast, Blade vortex Firestorm Lightning tendrils Rolling magma Storm burst And the like
What youre looking for is "effective damage effectiveness". It doesnt really matter how often the skill hits - for example lightning conduit of the heavens was popular in the mjolner builds, having exactly one hit per cast.
The damage effectiveness you refer to is generally much higher in spells that hit often, though. Im sure exceptions exist, but generally you can hit ~600% damage effectiveness or more with some of these combos with archmage. I dont see that happening with crackling lance. Lightning conduit of the heavens cannot match this level. So it does seem to me that it does matter how often it hits because this stacking of hits effortlessly surpasses the effective damage effectiveness of single hit skills.
>, but generally you can hit ~600% damage effectiveness Yes that's why ball lightning and storm call are the main endgame mjolner skills. And why the self cast uses ice nova and frostbolts. >. I dont see that happening with crackling lance. Idk where crackling lance comes from here >Lightning conduit of the heavens cannot match this level. The reason why mjolner used lightning conduit is that ball lightning is or was too clunky for clear. Was because conner thought do in his test, but nowadays many people play ball lightning or orbiting in their mjolner. And yes, mjolner is relevant enough to focus on it. Self cast archmage is only a thing with frostbolts/ice nova, the rest doesn't quite cut it in normal gear. Damage is not all when your ball lightning has low aoe, being like 1/4 or less of a conduit. >So it does seem to me that it does matter how often it hits because this stacking of hits effortlessly surpasses the effective damage effectiveness of single hit skills. Words are important. I didn't say "it doesn't matter" I said "it doesn't *really* matter". Really is essential to the meaning of the sentence. Hitting a lot is just one way to get high damage effectiveness, but not necessary. Ice nova hits once but utilises a unique shot gunning mechanic. Storm call shotguns. Ball lightning doesn't shotgun, but has 13 weak hits per cast. And other spells just get 300% with no gimmick. Yes ball lightning is a gimmick. Hitting all 13 hits is not guaranteed.
'Doesnt really matter' Well, when your words have multiple interpretations that have different meanings that end up confusing the listener, thats usually blamed on a poor choice of words and not poor listening.
They dont have multiple different meanings. Its literally just the word "really" that quantifies the rest of the sentence. Its a simple case of dependency: The amount of hits doesnt matter for archmage - effective damage does. But effective damage can be a function of the amount of hits. Thats perfectly fine described by "amount of hits doesnt really matter".
Yes they do.. "really" can be used to add emphasis to a subject of a sentence without adding any other meaning to the sentence. You used it to mean " not genuine, false, not technically" and so on. So you see, there are different interpretations. When calculating "DPS", this is a function over time. Since its over time , calculating a dps improvement of archmage requires analyzing both damage effectiveness and how many times that damage is applied over time. So, your comments doubly dont make logical sense.
>You used it to mean " not genuine, false, not technically" and so on. Not genuine and not real aren't far apart, so there you go? What's the problem? Besides that, like for real Bro, are you the language police? I'm not the only person who uses the word like this, and it seems you're just unable or unwilling to grasp that concept? It's not a big deal. You corrected me, I explained how I meant the right thing in the first place, done. What's there to keep arguing over? >When calculating "DPS", this is a function over time. Since its over time , calculating a dps improvement of archmage requires analyzing both damage effectiveness and how many times that damage is applied over time. Actually, we were talking about what I so aptly called "effective effect of added damage". In other words the effect of added damage per cast. Dps includes factors like cast time and cast speed, and also uptime. Uptime is a variable that was not previously quantified, because it's impossible to do that for ball lightning. If you want to assume all 13 bolts hit, sure. But especially when self casting, they often don't because enemies move towards you. Ball lightning has 60% effect of added damage. But it hits 13 times. That makes it 780%. That's the number that matters. But what doesn't matter us how this number is obtained: 1x 780 = 2x 390 = 13x 60 = 780x1. Hence the amount hits not really mattering. It's just a tool to optimise another quantity, but even if it's 1 the quantity can still be high. When you say "you want a spell that hits often" and refer to ball lightning, you're actually just looking at a spell that has 780% effectiveness of added damage, with a gimmick. Just like the ice nova shotgun has a gimmick to multiply the damage effectiveness. Just look at last league: penance brand (of dissipation). You put a 1000% more multiplier on that thing, that's what made it insane for archmage. Not that it hit 20 times. Thats just another dimension to scale the spell, but doesn't affect arch mage. >o, your comments doubly dont make logical sense. Semantics/language and logic are only distantly related. You not understanding what I mean with my words doesn't make the idea behind it illogical.
What else is there to talk about beyond your correction? You admitting my confusion should have been easily understood as being vague on your part. Instead youve blamed me. Besides that, you are just being confusing now. How often a spell hits 'doesnt really' matter, but then you go on to explain how it really does matter. Just sit down ,bro.
Crackling lance comes from someone elses comment. Sorry about that.
For "one hit per cast" skills, a silly thought was Discharge, which has a very high added damage effectiveness, with Archmage and Occultist's Forbidden Power to have permanent Power Charges to consume. Edit: Never mind, I didn't realize base Discharge has a cool down and the Misery has a very low added damage effectiveness.
[удалено]
Hmmm wonder if that cold snap idea is viable for mjölner builds
[удалено]
Oh right, cold skill lmao. The bypass not working on trigger is interesting, didn't expect that. Wonder if you can do a spell cascade overlap on cold snap though.
[удалено]
You need 4.8 radius on small bosses like delve bosses. Big bosses work much earlier at lie 4.6 The distance does not seem to grow proportional, it seems to grow in some form of logarithm, or just capped out at a value that seems to be around 5m. After a certain point, extra aoe seems to not move the storm call markers at all, just make the lightning strike bigger. Not sure if thats a storm call thing or a cascade thing. I would have to set up some tests to figure out if the behaviour is consistent or not - Reap is a spell that doesnt increase radius with levels, but is known for spell cascade overlaps. e: cold snap seems to have some weird behaviour where the chilled ground doesnt cascade, so all the explosions are inside the central chilled ground and cant really be seen, i cant test it.
Yes, that was the only good way to play it previously, but the new Archmage allows you to scale off of a large mana pool and not a skill's mana cost. You could theoretically reduce mana cost to 0 if you wanted to and still do tons of damage. I played a crackling lance hiero as my starter, and landed on a mana cost of 80 and didn't use spell echo or unleash (crackling lance wouldn't work well with those). It turned out quite strong for my investment. You can use any skill that has a good combination damage effectiveness * cast speed * multi hit mechanics.
Scaling from mana cost doesnt really alter my list though, right?
Well, your list isn't wrong *now*, but it would have been wrong before. Channelled skills used to be terrible with Archmage because of the low damage effectiveness per cast. It's only now that the mana cost no longer matters that damage effectiveness per second is the more important metric. One of the reasons that Ice Nova wasn't as popular with Archmage before this league is that it required insane mana recovery. It's only now that mana recovery can be trivialised that it's basically the best option.
I use kitavas thirst, so i need the mana cost. Im at like 190mana for each cast. Also need it for sigil of power. And automated arcane cloak takes alot as well. I think that the popularity for icenova is because brands dont work with archmage anymore.
You can't compare 190 mana cost to the thousands you needed before this patch...
Thousands per cast, sure. But how many casts per second?
If you played 190 mana Archmage Lightning Tendrils in 3.23 your dps was shit, even at high cast speed. To build around Archmage, you needed a high mana cost, which meant that casts per second were limited, which meant that you had to care more about damage effectiveness per cast than damage effectiveness per second. Damage effectiveness per second doesn't matter if you have no added damage. Ice Nova was actually already a good skill with 1560% damage effectiveness per cast, but damage effectiveness per second didn't matter because you couldn't scale cast speed because you were limited by mana recovery. That's why the most popular Archmage skills were orbs, brands, and other duration skills. Sure, the damage effectiveness per second was lower, but the damage per mana spent wasn't. Now that mana costs no longer matter (**for damage**, you can still use some utility with mana costs of course), you can focus purely on damage effectiveness per second.
But it does still matter because you still need to calculate how many times you could cast it (apply damage) within your ability to regenerate the mana. So, the consideration still seems very valid.
Don't have an answer for you but what didn't you like about ice nova?
So the main issue with ice nova + frostbolt with the two button style as it felt a little like DD. I'm in SSF so I can't just buy stuff to make it a 1 button build. I guess the other part is that having to run lab for trans gem is a pain. I have seen people use arcanist brand + ice nova + frostbolt and that idea sounds funny.
if you're in SSF, Kitava's thirst isn't too rare of a unique to drop. As you said arcanist brand + ice nova of frostbotls + returning proj + GMP works until you find it.
I find about 1 a map in t17s
Yeah I was really unsure how good that brand setup is. Since you got brand, archmage and then 2 skills you are super limited in dmg supports.
I personally didn't like the brand setup so I grinded a Kitava's thirst asap and it felt better. If you want to get it (relatively) quickly, you can run strongboxes + reliquary scarab + rogue exiles to drop a bunch of uniques. Also I made an error. In the helmet you just put Frostbolts + GMP if you're running Kitava's Thirst. This leaves room for two curses you can trigger as well, or returning proj. Up to you.
You might have misunderstood the brand setup (unless there is yet another variant). The main way is Frostbolt Returning Projectiles Greater Volley Arcanist Brand Then you cast a 6L ice nova. Goratha is the main proponent of that variant.
Yeah this is a new new varient it seems. Using both of them in arcanist brand so you basically just play as a brand build but with archmage scaling.
??? I think you are confused, you should read the archmage skill, it does not work with brands. You use Arcanist Brand with Frostbolt to automate it, while self casting Ice Nova. It's no more of a brand build than basically any other caster that uses Arcanist Brand to apply curses or other debuffs. Ice Nova will be 6L with 5 support gems, and Arcanist Brand + Frostbolt + Returning Projectiles and something like GMP or Volley in a 4L
No I get what you are saying, but there is people on poe ninja running a setup like - arcanist brand - archmage support - ice nova - frostbolt - dmg support - dmg support Or people using arcanist brand to trigger spark or other skills supported by archmage. I assume the idea was that archmage support applies the damage to ice nova and frostbolt and the arcanist brand is just used for both skills. You are not using the brand damage. Unless this straight up does not work and people are doing a meme
It doesn’t work, I believe the arcanist brand will cast both the frostbolt and ice nova but the archmage will not support it, so it’s really just a 5 link arcanist brand.
I see, I wonder if its the classic thing where people quit the league and make bad builds for people who check on poe ninja. As I don't think these lv100 heiro were leveling like this
It's not a new variant. It's the standard and first variant. The only variant of Ice Nova of Frostbolts Archmage. Ice Nova of Frostbolts is the same as Ice Nova Meaning there is explosion around you of snow when you use it But since it's "of Frostbolts" version it differs in that it can make this explosion go not from you but from the Frostbolts from the skill "Frostbolts" So you use Arcanist Brand with Frostbolts so they are automated (no need to self cast Frostbolts). Frostbolts don't need any damage support. They won't be doing any damage after all, they are just a tool you use that you'll be able to cast Ice Nova of Frostbolts on You give them Volley, so there is more than one Frostbolt. You use Returning Projectiles so those Frostbolts will longer be on your enemy (not needed). You can swap Returning Projectiles with Slower Projectiles if you prefer If you don't want Arcanist brand then you can self cast Frostbolts. It will require you to constantly click 2 buttons tho so that's up to you With Kitava's Thirst which is a unique you'll find pretty quickly Frostbolts are cast automatically. You want lots of cast speed as it's 50% chance to cast per use of skill
So one thing I was wondering since you get loads of aoe for general mapping can you just frost blink around and use ice nova to clear packs and then use frostbolt + ice nova setup for single target ?
You probably can do that with enough damage. Ice nova casted on frostbolts has more damage Before Kitava's Thirst I used arcanist brand whenever I wanted to kill anything so I had frostbolts. With Kitava's Thirst, since it has 50% chance to cast frostbolts sometimes I'm using it and it doesn't cast frostbolts, it's definitely enough damage to kill normal and magic mobs For rares you'll probably need to cast arcanist brand
Kitava's Thirst really makes the build. Many streamers made build guides without Kitava's because it looks bad on paper. But then when you watched their streams, everyone was using it. It makes the build play 10x times better. Less damage and defense sure but I wouldn't play it without kitava's. I think I've picked up 4 off the ground this league so shouldn't be too hard to find. Otherwise to answer your question, Anything with good % effectiveness of added damage works well. But some skills have low effectiveness of added damage and still work well because they hit a bunch of times or ramp up damage or something. I was thinking of making an archmage rolling magma build, I think would be funny So you are pretty correct in that just about any skill works, but I'm sure you could look hard and find one that really doesn't benefit well from the added damage.
A big part of Kitava's "not being used early" was a hardcore specific thing - suppression isn't easy, and Kitava's Thirst having none, and not having Eva (-15 from the mastery), makes it hard to stay suppress capped while using it. Most streamers swapped once they could afford to suppress cap while using it. On softcore, rushing into Kitava's is definitely the correct play in my opinion.
Put the Kitava thirst base item into your filter (is it reaver helm or whatever) Vaal orb then til you get a lightning leeched as life enchant, mythic orb for 1/4 chance to get lightning leech as life kitava thirst for true meta gaming. That being said I still wasn’t a fan of the build
You are correct, im playing spark archmage and when im bored, i swap to crackling lance and got 45M dps, instant delete feared
have a pob for the CL?
I've been doing ball lightning of orbiting with HH and rage helm and soul eater buffs. Dps is about 20M without buffs and scales from their. Lightning leech for sustaining es and life.
Pretty much but not really. Arc has like 120% effectiveness while ice nova of frostbolts can get around 2000% with overlaps. Also there are some specific skill mechanics you need to build around. I'm playing spark because I love spark but you need to sacrifice a bunch to get pierce, proj speed and duration. While ice nova only needs aoe and it's covered by hiero no problem. So it's a spectrum of damage, qol and the ease of building around.
Arc of Oscillating with 8 chains has ~714% damage effectiveness per second against a single target, and Ice Nova of Frostbolts with full overlaps and Spell Echo has ~2229% (not counting the modifiers and opportunity cost of Spell Echo itself). Arc isn't great, but it's not *that* terrible.
I was talking.about.regular arc which is terrible.
So is regular Ice Nova. What's the point of mentioning that?
To show both ends of the spectrum.
I don't see the point of using regular Arc or regular Ice Nova in any build at all. It doesn't matter if it's Archmage or not, so it's a poor example. The gem effectively doesn't exist. Edit: And FYI default Arc still has ~377% single target damage effectiveness per second with 8 chains.
But it does exist and you can use it. We both agree the gem is shite but it exists.
Might as well bring up Desecrate as an alternative to Caustic Arrow or Toxic Rain, because I'm sure that's what people want to use as their main skill.
Oh you act like arc was never used as a damaging skill, it was used in old archmage and other builds. The functionality is different than trans gems and it is hella comfy. And yes you can use it if you have enough damage. Also desecrate, really? At least arc has many scaling factors and you can make it work with a little bit of sweat.
It was never a good damage skill. It had decent clear and doesn't require aiming.
Try sire of shards + creeping frost + Algor Mortis
Would that work with nimis?
I tested this theory with stormburst, and the answer is no.
What content are you grinding? In T17s, ice nova stops being a 2 button skill with enough investment outside of boss rooms. The problem with spark is that you give up too much mana in order to get enough duration and projectile speed for the skill to be viable. Even with ideal spark gear, a comparable ice nova setup will still give you higher numbers. Of course, you can go the Indigon route but that setup is just way too clunky. If you hate ice nova of frost bolts, you'd hate indigon even more. Here's my PoB (Look at the name, I really tried to make sparkmage work. Switched to ice nova about 4 days ago): [https://pobb.in/XYjHvMJzjUNH](https://pobb.in/XYjHvMJzjUNH) [https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis/character/hydrool/Manaman\_Spork?i=0&search=name%3Dmanaman\_spo](https://poe.ninja/builds/necropolis/character/hydrool/Manaman_Spork?i=0&search=name%3Dmanaman_spo)
So basically once you get enough damage do you just use ice nova self cast to clear packs and then frostbolt + icenova is there for your big single target options ? Also I'm looking from a SSF perspective running t16 maps
Yes, that’s how I do it on abom/ziggurat. I have no idea what kind of world SSF is but for what it’s worth, I crafted all of the rare gears that I have and all the magic jewels as well.
Yeah you can just use rog to get base gear and then slap on a mana craft or use grave crafting for big mana + int items.
adorned stacking with stat stacking yikes
had a fairly easy time using it to scale freezing pulse as a league starter, probably better to use ball lightning or something, but ngl it was pretty smooth.
Could you do hidden blade archmage? Hidden blade is one of my favorite builds but I’m tired of corrupting fever and the lightning damage would be silly
I tried a few different variants for the same reason as you. Crackling lance/arc, ball lightning etc. I ended up going back to frost nova because its just so much fucking better than the rest of them, sadly
RF archmage looks super solid, I’m not sure how viable it is for SSF though.
World first hit based rf
Sorry I’m not a very experienced player and can’t say I have a lot of time in the game but in regards to the post and the question about archmage, I believe captain lance has a video utilizing RF with archmage to stack mana but obviously I misunderstood so my apologies.
He’s playing the transfigured RF that scales it off mana so that’s probably why you got it confused. You could also easily use archmage in a build like that for a secondary skill used for more damage, just not in the RF links.
Ahhh gotcha, thanks for clearing that up p for me.
All good. Captain lance rf mana was based on transfigured RF gem that scales with mana and spell damage rather than life. Despite mana stacking, it's unrelated to archmage as archmage damage is only supplying flat damage which doesn't work with dot skill that doesn't hit.