Caster Battlemage - Optimization Advice needed

gasconron · October 27, 2017, 12:03am

Ryzel:

I’m honestly still confused as to what you were trying to accomplish with your previous build. You wanted to use pretty much every single Arcanist skill, as well as every offensive devotion you could, while picking Soldier for some tankiness despite apparently refusing to BE an actual tank? Like you want to feel safe but not TOO safe? With the goal of just spamming spells everywhere?

Regardless, there is definitely no gear out there that promotes that kind of “use every Arcanist skill” build, and gear is the name of the game. The Elemental to Physical conversion is your best shot as others have described, as this essentially turns all the Arcanist spells into the same damage type (Physical) and keeps their flashiness while actually being focused and benefited by Soldier’s Break Morale.

I can ramble on with why I built it the way I did, but if I were to put it simply. I wanted to feel like a caster that played in a pretty interactive and flashy way. I’ve always played my Elemental Casters in every ARPG game offensively even on HC, and I wanted to continue doing so.

But I am a realist, and I knew this game didn’t give enough lee-way for that type of play due to many instances of unavoidable damage you just have to eat. So I chose a class at the time I made this toon with passives that boosted survivability with the least investment on that 2ndary tree. I was basically playing as a “pure Arcanist” with Soldier buffs.

As for the skills, well… I wanted Nukes on my Nukes. I stuck a %RR to my OFF, which was my main source of -%RR (Nuke prep). And I used 1 point PRM to fill the screen with Elemental Storms (Nuke Prep).

Agro’d the screen into my storms >> OFF >> Devas >> TSS >>> Profit…

Well, that was until Ultimate when I was no longer able to one-shot Heroes that are 5-10 levels above me. That was fine early game when it was little damage, but I know that wouldn’t be viable late-game when critters would chunk me 1/3 of my life on a hit. Bosses worse.

The change of perspective conversion to Phys Damage was pretty fresh. Even with less optimal devotion setups, I feel like even Nemesis might be doable now for me now. Valbury Ultimate doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

AoM Ultimate will need some getting used to, as only ran 1 toon through it. Will need to get the feel of it on a caster.