Elemental Storm vs Arcane Currents

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
1

I have done some testing to see if arcane currents is really that bad like it’s reputation and I think it is not as bad.

When testing it on a training dummy vs elemental storm elemental storm wins by a good margin the elemental storm setup killed the dummy 13 seconds faster than the arcane currents setup.

Seeing this you would think that arcane currents is garbage.

Yet I have the feeling when fighting against mobs that even though I am using arcane currents just bound to the devastation spell that it is better for killing groups of mobs than elemental storm.

It seems also to kill heroes super fast.

Is it possible that it increases the crit damage of the spell which it is bound to? the description of says +40% crit damage, are these referring to the spell itself or is it buffing also the spell it is bound to. Anyway in case this bonus is referring just to arcane currents itself the spell would do over 90% crit damage with my build.

Everything that gets crit dies very fast with the +40% bonus. In case it buffs also the spell it is bound to a build with high offensive ability could profit a lot from arcane currents.

Fighting bosses and Nemesis I did not have the feeling that the resistance reduction of elemental storm is helping me to kill them significantly faster than when I am using the arcane currents setup. (Around 40% of my damage is fire damage so elemental storm does help but it seems like arcane currents can keep up with that in most cases or even beat elemental storm).

I think that arcane currents is the better choice for my devotion setup it enables me to have around 1000 more health with a similar damage output and I have the feeling that against groups of mobs it is stronger and does hit hard with its crit damage bonus.

Arcane currents does look inconspicuous and you cant really tell how it buffs the damage but it’s performance with my build live against mobs seems great to me.
A single arcane Current dot does slightly over 10000 dmg with my build. It is not uncommon for devastation to proc 3-4 of them.

Link to my build:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZyv4nkN

Sorry for my bad English I am no native speaker.

2

Elemental Storm is RR
Just use both

3

Pretty sure you need to use pet attack command to get arcane currents to hit the training dummy, that is likely why it seems slower to use than elemental storm

Although this seems a really strange comparison as storm is easily on the way to arcane currents

4

Yes I did not use pet attack on this training dummy maybe that explains it.

Elemental storm is available for me and I could use elemental storm with wendigo totems but at the cost of loosing health, it would surely boost kill time at bosses that’s true but loosing so much health is bad for survivability. I can only respec a few points (I need 3 points for ES) that all give me currently a high health bonus.

Having 21 k health instead of 19k with that build is really important maybe with more defensive ability I could reduce the health. Would be interesting how strong these two skills are combined though.

5

I tested it now how both skills combined work and the damage output is really nice especially against common bosses so for farming certain bosses its an option to use both skills.

I think that arcane currents with more offensive ability could be very strong against nemesis and ultra bosses but its hard to get near 3000 OA. I would need some other items or respec the devotions or attribute points.

Edit: After some more testing I think that its better to aim for a high OA + arcane currents and drop elemental storm at least for my build.

6

Elemental to aether conversion (while focusing on aether damage of course) is also a big factor in AC’s damage. But when you’re doing this, you shouldn’t want or need ES.

7

Yeah, definitely, but he would want arcane bomb.