I’ve been looking around for some useful tips and come to the conclusion it’s AAR or bust. That being said, I dislike AAR and enjoy casters that don’t simply spam death lasers, even ff it does look cool. I absolutely love cold spellcasters but as always they’re weak by themselves. It’s like frozen orb sorceress in Diablo 2 all over again.
I was one shot by Shar’Zul at level 61 on Veteran, literally on his first hit. I’m a squishy but I’ve been managing so far. Elite is beginning to give me trouble though, I just made it to act 2.
Most of my gear is blues/greens focused on +ele% damage. Death’s Ward & Alchemists belt actually do a great job of keeping me alive, but I still have to pay attention constantly. Elemental resists are good but everything else blows, 3.3k life, ~700% to ~900% elemental damage, ~400% to ~600% burn/frostburn/electrocute damage.
Grimcalc build: /4iGqyfD (Wow, a forum that enforces no links for new accounts! Thats awesome!)
I just switched out 19 points from PRM skills and finished out TSS and added IEE to try it. I’ve also never had MoE before but I’ll try it out for a while. I really don’t do well with more than four or five skills + a right mouse button.
All of my devotions focus on damage. I’m still quite new so I’m not familiar with which ones are actually any good defensively for a caster. I’m plenty willing to change it up, sometimes things just don’t workout the way we’d like.
3.3k hp is way too low. By lvl 60 my hp are typically around 8k. Part of your problem is that you’re still a single class. Sorry, can’t see your devotions on the android, but I would had went for offensive ones anyway, like Blizzard + Tempest =/
I’m curious, why run pure arcanist and not pick a second class? Just assuming you’re doing it on purpose, try seeing if you can equip some +HP gear even if it means you lose some % damage. I got super lucky and got a +970 HP / +5% Physique robe.
If you’re not doing it on purpose, picking up a second class with the extra levels in mastery will really help your HP too. Shaman has lightning synergies, and Nightblade has Cold. Shaman also can benefit you with Heart of the Wild for bonus HP as well, Nightblade as a defensive HP regen burst skill. There’s more than a few options.
As for builds, just play with what you enjoy and don’t worry as much about what is or isn’t optimal. If you dont like AAR, dont use it! Nothing wrong with that.
I really like elemental casters so that’s why I stuck with just the Arcanist. I really enjoy it, but now it’s lost viability without +HP gear. I haven’t really found something I like in the other classes but I’ll try out a Spellbreaker. I’m not worried about optimal so much as viable, at least until I hit 85. Once I cap, I’ll optimize.
I’ve got 20 Physique, 14 Cunning, and 27 Spirit for stat distro right now, brings me to about 360 Phys/Cun & I sit at ~1k Spirit.
My damage output is great until I hit a high cold resist target.
I’m sure it’s just me, but I’ve come across almost nothing but plate armor. The vast majority of loot I find that’s worthwhile is heavy armor or melee oriented weapons. So my Soldiers stash is full right now.
You don’t need AAR if you don’t want to use it. TSS+Devastation make perfectly fine boss killing and OFF murders trash, with a component skill from Amber or Enchanted Flint for a spammable attack.
Your class and item abilities give you plenty of offense; you should probably plan on a more defensive devotion setup rather than stacking yet more DPS. Check out the devotion spec in that build guide.