Having gotten to level 51 as a pure aether ray arcanist, I am looking to start playing Elite and add demolitionist. (If something else is obviously superior, please let me know). I can’t get the 50 levels back, but I can take points out of skills in arcanist and get a quick contribution from the second class. What do you all suggest?
Maxed out Flashbang and Searing Light are neat, because it prevents like half the incoming damage.
Just something to think about as an alternative to Demo, the other strong contender for an AAR build would be to go Warlock by adding Occultist; this would allow you to apply the transmuter to switch AAR’s aether to Chaos, and/or use Blood Orb of Ch’thon of Chthon to convert your elemental to chaos. This would leave you with fire+chaos, aether+chaos, or pure chaos if you did both. Not to say there’s anything wrong with the Demo route, just throwing the option out there.
With that said, are you looking for anything specific from your second mastery? If you’re happy with your skills and just want to add more survivability, shaman or soldier would do that. Neither class adds much to AAR per se, but both will add plenty of sustain to a squishy build. (And there are plenty of fun respec options for both battlemages and druids.)
If you really like fire specifically, Demo is the obvious choice. (If you just like killing things with lazors, either Demo or Occ will do the job.) If you go Demo, Searing Flashbangs are great defensive AOE, and Flame Touched will boost your DPS. A few points in Vindictive Flame for the total speed boost, and you should definitely think about Canister Bomb as an AOE option to alternate with Devastation, plus great CC with the stun transmuter.
maybe thermite mines for an easy 50% damage boost?
Thermite Mines suck, they bounce arround like no good. If they realy were reliable this would be a good option but like they are now? nah!