Couldn’t you just add another transmuter to AAR that boosts damage and eliminates piercing? Pretty please?
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Time for yet even MOAR feedback… 
This time it’s about clairvoyant cabalist and this is the build that was used FYI:
While the build has a fair amount of staying power thx to the sets proc, sigils & scales that sadly is the only thing it has going for it.
What do I mean by that?
It lacks in damage, clear & consistency thx to the RNG nature of the set.
Here’s a run that shows just that:
(thx to @romanN1 for providing!)
There are a few things that come to mind to help improve the situation (for the set!):
-
Please consider adding a small amount of impact AoE to reap spirit & slightly increase it for DB
-
more flat dmg to DB & RS
(this would also help the warlock & binder aar versions to make it feel worth it using either DB or RS in between aar casts) -
improve the RNG factor of the set, 25% chance doesnt feel enough for consistent dmg, increasing that chance to something like 33% for both should make things feel a lot better or if that sounds too much consider giving a bit more flat cdr to them.
Cheers, Mergo. 
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I would also like to add vit decay to db too.
1 Like
I don’t want to upset you but no, he can’t.
Physical AAR on templar is great because
- It is Physical, with corresponding devotion map and no need to cast anything except AAR
- All damage is converted to Physical, including Electrocute from Disintegration.
Obviously with Aether AAR this electrocute part remains mostly useless (or converted to Vitality Decay).
Considering Reap Spirit already adopts this approach - all flat is converted to Aether and Vitality Decay serves as damage over time part - i think the balance would not be broken if same is applied for AAR:
- fire to aether on wand
- lightning to aether as 4-piece bonus to encourage using full set
- electrocute to vitality decay on helm.
Ideas?
I don’t think this is possible if lightning is converted to aether because only once can you convert a damage type and there is no special conversion for dot damage. So lightning and electrocute either becomes aether and electrocute or vitality and vitality decay.
Is it the end of development thing or technical limitation due to the engine being used?
Then it’s a problem for the whole concept of Clairvoyant = Vitality + Aether.
Right now Clairvoyant AAR is simply gimped by losing flat lightning converted to Vitality.
It’s more that masteries aren’t getting more skills and transmuters at this point. Skills only get the equivalent of transmuters through skills modifiers like how ABB becomes spam with Amarastan Crusher and Aegis with the Conduit amulet.
So you can get basically old AAR through a skill modifier technically but it’s gonna be tied to a specific item.
Specifically with Spellbinder, I think Clairvoyant damage is good enough for something that just rotates 2 invulnerability skills non-stop. If memory serves, that even was one of the reasons for global AAR gutting back in the day.
I see. But, it would be great to be able to play the old AAR. I kind of regret not playing with the skill earlier, since my first AAR build came after the pierce change. Sigh. I can only hope it will be added somehow as a part of MOAR. He did say in the NEXT THING DISCUSSION thread:
“I will note however that apart from some extreme exceptions, we’d rather avoid mastery changes. Masteries are in a great place overall and, for the most part, we do not really need to tinker with their baseline performance.”
Maybe the AAR transmuter can be the exception. Fingers crossed. 
Wasn’t the rotation gutted few patches ago. Now you have gaps within the invulnerability rotation unless you itemize with certain items that increase the duration of MoE and MoT.
It is technical limitation of end of development. Neither modifier have option for enable/disable passthrough beam.
No piercing was the reason why old AAR sucked and it got much better with piercing. Old AAR had basically double the damage of current AAR but it cleared much slower.
Still, it could be quite fun challenge. The old AAR underdog time. xD
There is a gap, but it’s still a powerful combo with Nullification also thrown into the mix. Even without hourglass, 7.4 seconds of invul/extreme damage reduction (number from the random GT build) is a strong selling point.
You can easily farm the offhand in a Malmouth shop, just restart the game every time you check the shop. Its really not hard compare to Pulsing Shard farming in key dungeon shop. I got these 3-5 double rare off hands in 30 minutes farming.
3 Likes
Lol, we’re at the point where people are asking for old AAR (before piercing).
Incredible.
1 Like
The people asking for that never experienced the pain of AAR sucking for literally years until it got piercing. If they did, they wouldn’t be asking for old AAR.
5 Likes
I admit that I wasn’t playing with AAR before the pierce change, since I was enamored with other skills and couldn’t stop playing with them. Not to mention that I started playing the game quite late in comparison to a lot of players, so by the time I got to play with AAR, the pierce patch came and the rest is history.
One of the reason why I am asking for the old AAR to be reintroduced as transmuter or whatever, is because of its mediocre single target damage. AAR’s nature is both blessing and a curse. Old AAR was strong single target, but bad at AoE. New AAR is great for AoE and mediocre for single target. And that is the issue for AAR builds you use it for both single and AoE damage, and since it can’t be great at both, one of its aspects has to suffer. Maybe the devs could have kept the damage but with the increased mana cost, who knows… at least the Arcane Will energy regen would made sense and be useful for a change.
I know that the current AAR won’t change. But I can’t help but wonder if the old AAR could have worked with a bigger cleave area instead of piercing AoE, of course without its damage gutted in half. At least that way, the damage would be preserved, and it could damage multiple targets, not just one.
Not really, it was actually pretty average and there were better single target skills in the game and this was after Zantai kept buffing its damage.
If it was pretty average, then it didn’t need to be gutted for pierce version, right? But we know it was.