Recently played elemental forcewave Tactician, even after all buffs to Attak Seru devotion it was more beneficial in raw stats and procs to take Blind Sage plus some Tier 2 devotions (Phoenix, Crab, Chariot) compared to Blind Sage + Attak Seru. Some thoughts on how to improve it (I think that Arcane Currents: increased Elemental damage scaling with rank change in new patch is not enough of an improvement as Ascendant (Purple) affinity requirement is too high for this devotion).
Some ideas on how to improve this devotion (I dont think this changes are too OP as Attak Seru requires 30 points of investment and 16 of them are purple):
give Arcane Currents % reduced elemental res (Ultos, Viper have this type of RR, between 15% and 30%, not sure) or
increase % OA by 2-4% and add between 5-15 critical damage (Phoenix has 10% crit damage and flat damage reduction proc and is tier 2 devotion) or
rework the Arcane Currents proc to at least look cool like Spear of Heavens, Light of Empyrion or Whirlpool or elemental purple Devastation, or increase the radius of the proc or something, would probably see more use even if it is suboptimal in stats.
The only reason why Attack Seru is not included in the builds is that it is too expensive - it has absolutely inadequate requirements. Because of this, she simply does not fit into any of the devotion maps. Also, her points do not give any bonuses to the dots, and the proc also does not have them. Blind Sage has exactly the same problem with proc, there are no dots on Seeker’s.
Yeah, agree about inadequate requirements, not sure that just adding DOT bonuses will be enough, I mean in its current state Attak Seru is like Tsunami, rarely used because it competes with Sailors Guide and Eel (and Tsunami does not require 30 points of investment), the node with 4% OA and 6% DA is good but I can get 6-7% OA from agressive prefixes on jewelry and %DA is not that good as in most builds (below 3500+ DA) DA only gives damage avoidance, not damage mitigation (reduction) against enemies that matter (Nemesis bosses, Celestials). This devotion is so expensive to get that it needs something really good that cannot be easily acquired by other means (like a lot of OA and crit damage, or % reduced res, or some + max res, or fumble, or physical resistance etc.), for example add +100% elemental dot damage with +50% increased duration - who cares, change the proc to the proc of Light of Empyrion (30 % on hit, purple instead of yellow, reduces elemental res instead of target’s damage) - great, will try to make a new devotion map or even a new build to try it.
And unfortunately, this is the only option to make tri-elemetal builds at least somewhat competent. His main problem is that, in fact, all your damage is divided into 3 parts and the flat values of these three parts are not very high. In addition, everything is getting worse by high mob resistances and access to RR.
I guess an additional problem is that it’s both for aether and elemental damage. But so the first two nodes only end up giving you +50 DA and +80% damage. And then the proc does low damage, about 1/4th of whirlpool or elemental seeker for example.
I find the whole thing both awkward and underwhelming.
This I don’t get though. It’s a pretty good node imho. There’s other T3 nodes that just give +5% OA (and some other minor thing). This has both OA, DA and armor. I mean it’s not worth chasing, since the rest is a meh, but I don’t think that node is the issue.
4% OA + 6% DA + 100 armor is the most powerful node in all devotions. Other nodes of Attak Seru are at average level.
The proc is also powerful. If you have full conversion, its theoretical dps is much higher than Sage and Leviathan. In theory, you can keep 4-5 Arcane Currents at the same time, and each one attacks 1.5 times per second. The total dps is 470*4*1.5=2820. After the latest update, it is even higher.
Leviathan’s theoretical dps is 420*3+270=1530. Sage is only 400+555=955.
Even if you have no conversion, Arcane Currents can deal more damage than Leviathan and Sage.
16 purple + 14 green, too expensive is the only shortcoming of Attak Seru.
In most situation you don’t feel it because you can’t stack 5 but in most situation you kill stuff before the proc does anything. Right now, you could potentially feel it vs bosses that don’t die fast
Potential solution : I guess the other way would be to have only one of the arcane current (instead of up to 5) but that do significantly more damage. That way you would probably feel the impact more often.
Attack Seru T3 devo really is an oddball. It’s a beautiful skill, however, I myself and haven’t seen other players in MP use it at all… Blind Sage at least stuns trash mobs.
A fumble or impaired aim on it would do wonders, would make me want to use it a lot more imo, like Dioarchet suggested and placing 5 at the same time would be more insane as well like MrTek suggests.
All in all, if it’s gonna be expensive then at least give us some goodies not only looks, amirite?
Its attack interval is between 39 and 43 frames in my tests (1 second = 60 frames). But my calculations are just theoretical numbers. As MrTek said, It’s hard to stack 4 or 5 in most situation. Anyway, its actual dps is still higher than Leviathan, as it’s also hard to stack 3 Leviathan pools.
(well, Sage itself is a very strong devo but proc is utter garbage and should be looked at).
anyway, on the original topic, Seru definitely needs sth. it’s way too taxing for aether (and that part gives nothing to aether whatsoever), for ele you kinda take it but it’s expensive still and proc could get some facelifting. damage still feels low even after latest buff.
maybe AC could be reworked into sth like Korvaak’s proc but bigger, better, stronger. an ele whirlpool that grows around the char etc.
Best way to fix attack seru is to give it 2 things that are needed the most, one being - x % tri ele rr, because thats what tri ele builds struggle with the most, and 2 adtch because seru sage procs do not help any tri ele build sustain unlike others. And regarding tri ele damage in general, flat tri ele dmg sourcea are very low.
And yes, please add tri ele dots everywhere, augments included too
i bet that a lot of people would try tri-ele builds if only arcane current was more impacfull. As i said early, if the 5 arcane current spawned at the same time that would be great.
Also tri element damage builds tends to be just ok, not bad but not great, having a litle boost from the proc would be nice
Not only is this not possible with the current skill template, it would cause single element builds to strongly favor Attak Seru over other single or multiple element T3s, reducing build diversity.
