Builders vs Zantai

Well, you are probably right then. Star Pact does add damage to Cannister Bomb specs and synergizes quite nicely with -2 seconds to Blast Shield cd stat on Ulzuin.

how can you even use that experience as a way to judge balance? You said you were playing an unfinished build, we have no clue what your resists are and what your overall setup is. There are also different tiers of mobs, theres basic trash mobs which are generally walked over, then theres, elites, heroes etc. For example you might have been fighting trash mobs which did pierce damage, but you might have 80% pierce resist making their attacks feel extremely weak then you go fight a boss which does cold damage and for all we know your cold resist could be at 30%.
It’s the same in almost all ARPG, trash mobs are… trash lol

I know how Star Pact can change the game. Before the aether nerfs almost every binder took it instead of Reckless power.

But I still feel like there’s something missing from arcanist in order for it to be a fully fledged support mastery. Maybe changing +%cold to elemental on Star Pact. Maybe removing the total dmg penalty on Maiven. Maybe buffing the IEE line for more dmg.

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Total damage penalty on maiven would be a nice start, but it seems to be a thematic choice the devs wish to keep so we’ll see how that goes.

Buffs to IEE wouldn’t be out of line. The question is more “what gets added?” given a lot of the existing stats are simply low usefulness stats that won’t improve builds if they were scaled higher. The base skill’s main offering is flat damage but of the worst kind, elemental. Either you convert it or the values are so low it doesn’t do anything for you. The second node gives dots, which again most builds won’t care about, % damage which isn’t usually a priority in skill choices, and aether res which alone isn’t enough to usually justify investment here. The third node’s popularity for its crit damage speaks wonders about the value of the stat as well as the lack of other appealing options in various portions of the arcanist tree.

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The problem with the second node of IEE is that you only got 33% chance to roll your dmg type. DoT builds that want that flat are builds that rely on high wpn dmg nukes with cooldown (like cold ABB breaker - fun but gimmick). The fact that only every third nuke would use that flat makes this skill pretty useless.

The only scenario when this thing might be useful is DoT builds that rely on wps autoattack (a’la Bloodrager) where many hits per second make the 33% chance less of a thing. But arcanist will never be any good for any kind of autoattack (no attack speed). And even if this wast an issue, the scaling of dmg is still just too low. I’ve never seen a well made, polished build that would push the second node of IEE more than 1p.

Also, tri-elemental DoTs but I’ve never seen such a thing.

Another thing, aether res. Great, everyone loves aether res. But it so happens that much of arcanist gear and devos already got aether res. Why not pierce res?

image

You take reckless on elemental builds?

I might if I played Elemental Builds. :inquisitorseal:

https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8252

Even burn Sorcs takes usually Star Pact :worried:

This is used exclusively on Aether builds. No sane Fire Sorc or Templar or Mage Hunter will ever take it. Another thing, Aether builds that need attack speed on Reckless power are pretty weak, it’s Krieg’s Battlemage and gimmicky Theoden scepter auto-attacking spellbinder.

Bonemonger Mage Hunter is a fan too.

Not unviable to use it on a Physical Build, either.

E: Spam BWC Sorc absolutely uses RP, btw.

E2: Chaos FS Sorc also goes for RP.

Those are very gimmicky builds. First two you have mentioned. (Also, who would use it on a Physical build, really? Why?) Spam BWC sorc is so outdated as a concept, and it’s been outdated since forever. No place for it in the current meta.

Chaos FS sorc? Again, some extreme gimmick I haven’t even heard off. All your examples make Reckless Power look bad if anything, because it seems like it’s an Exclusive skill for a bunch of Cronley’s Hideout farmers from 2017.

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Didn’t realize something has to clear crucible in 3 minutes to be worthy of acceptance.

What does Crucible even have to do with this? Those builds don’t even come close to being potent endgame content farmers, I doubt you can do well with Chaos FS sorc or Physical build that decided to give up 15% of it’s damage in Ugdenbog roguelike.

The conversion is often detrimental. But the AS/CS could potentially be of use to a skill that has already seen 100% convert through a transmuter or item. I can’t think of any concrete build examples, at this time - but I could see that being an exception.

Edit: that said, this idea is really a work-around to the basic problem of the Exclusive. It is kind of the same with both exclusives, in order to avoid the detrimental conversion. (if you don’t want aether or cold conversion).

Sure man…

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4NODnLY2

My personal take on this is…

If you can’t beat 'em…

…keep a copy of your Steam account permanently offline. :stuck_out_tongue:

I might or might not have my main machine at 1.1.0.

I like my Warlords OP, OP. :stuck_out_tongue:

While that is one way of doing it, unfortunately you would be missing out on all the visual upgrades done in the recent patches plus the upcoming Skeleton Key Dungeon for FG.

Honestly, man, all bickering and trolling aside, this build looks like it’s going to struggle versus endgame content. On paper. Chaos damage is weak as it is, and you have chaos autoattacker with less flat damage then Rah’Zin Witchblade. Also, no wps. Also also, since you are converting fire to chaos on Fire Strike, why not pump the main skill?

But maybe it somehow works in-game and I am wrong, maybe you could provide a video of at least a roguelike (aom one) run.

True.

But I can farm whilst multitasking. :coffee:

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