This is my first play through and I just got to Ultimate. I’m finding it much harder than expected. I cleared everything on normal and elite. I did some farming in Elite to get better gear. I was clearing SoT in Elite without much trouble until I ran into “Moosy”. It just took me forever to kill him without risking death at the bottom of SoT.
I’m Level 76. I still have 18 attribute points with nothing good to put them towards at the moment.
I feel like my build is good, but not great. I’ve been playing around with respecing my character since I started Elite but I haven’t been able to find something that works well for me. I like being a bit of glass cannon but I’m willing to take some hits in DPS if it means I can survive.
My build right now is 100% Arcanist. I don’t know why but I didn’t realize I could have a secondary class until I started reading about other people’s builds. :rolleyes:
I’ve also taken a screenshot of my current character and attached it to the post.
I’d like recommendations for a good Secondary that still lets me be a bit of a glass cannon with the understanding that I don’t have the uber gear that a lot of people talk about with their builds. I’ve kept all my blues and purples since I started. I don’t mind doing a few more SoT or similar runs but I want to enjoy the game, not do runs all the time.
You can’t spam PRM and AAR at the same time, so you can safely respec from either of those. You don’t cast anything with weapon damage, so respec from IEE line outside of Elemental Balance.
Drop IEE (except Elemental Balance if you want you can max that one). Should give you a lot of point (didn’t check how many + Skill you have)
All out on Conversion might be overdoing it I would drop point from there (most Arcanist I play only take 1 point)
Nullification is usually a 1 point wonder to remove Debuff/Buff more than for the Elemental Resistance.
Like mentionned PRM/Aether Ray can’t really be used atthe same time. Drop one or the other will give you at least another 20 points. Also you are mostly Fire/Aether no matter which one you pick and they are both “permanent” cast (no CD on PRM and Channelling on Aether Ray). You could drop the whole TSS line.
I’m guessing you could get nearly 80 points back just from those. Quite easy to get a 2nd Class with those and it would add a lot of Survivability. Your pick would depends on if you keep PRM or Aether Ray as your main Skill but there is a lot of good option.
If you want to stay glassy but take another mastery for the stats Occultist might be the way to go.
Reducing the points you have in skills will be necessary to take another mastery. I can seen good reasons to take elemental exchange, for the regen particularly with your high mana costs, but like everyone said you get nothing from the damage, overload is only giving you an elemental boost, but the DOT modifiers on Balance are good for Supercharged and Frozen core.
It is not so simple though, if you have any secondary active skills from items that do a % mainhand damage, like Aether tendril, they get all the bonuses from Elemental exchange. You will have to decide if the % return is worth it. On Tendril i am not sure it is, being a single target high damage burst with a long cooldown. On the other hand, its another source of DOT, always good, particularly for bosses.
One way or another, you will have to sacrifice some of these skills. If you have any aether/elemental items that give a +1 bonus to all arcanist skills consider using that. Empowered Crushing Will, Neither Crown, if you have the empowered Mavens set use the whole thing. For the weapon consider a suitable Dagger or Wand. The Aetherwoe isn’t doing much for you, a Spellweaver dagger, or the Cortosian Invoker or Cosmic invoker wand…if you have it of course. And don’t be afraid to go Rare, Pulsing Shard offhand with a few suitable affix’s would work well. , Boosting Aether Ray and giving a alternate source of Aether Smash.
All those attributes should go into physique, you definitely need the health. 6K health is a minimum for a caster in ultimate, with all resistances maxed.
Just keep in mind that Cunning affects chance to hit and chance to crit on spells as much as weapons. Something like high level Stonehide(for defense) or Aetherfire(for aethercaster) [Pants] of the Eagle would hard to top on any hero IMO. Those double affix single rares are not too common but not too uncommon either. I think I have a few, they are painful to remove once put on.
I agree that getting rid of PRM or AAR makes sense. PRM doesn’t seem to do much in ultimate, even to trash, so I’m leaning towards ARR. The problem with ARR is that my regen is low. Even with Elemental Exchange I’m only getting 105 Energy Regen. It’s my understanding that many people recommend around 300 for ARR. I have no idea how I’ll get there, even doubling my current Energy Regen seems pretty hard. Suggestions?
Overall, I seem to be low on health and damage, which is never a good combo. I can’t seem to stay in the fights for long and I’m not able to damage much. Devastation is by far my best damage dealer right now. I’m having trouble figuring out what I’d do for damage with only Devastation and ARR. It seems like I don’t have enough damage dealing skills.
Also, why won’t it let me put anything but PRM, Weapon Attack and Move on Left Click?
What DOTs are available to me? I really haven’t seen much outside of the big skills that have some DOT components like TSS. I’m all for a slow burn on bosses while trying to maneuver into place for ARR.
Gear-wise, I’ve had crap luck when it comes to wands especially, off-hands and amulets. I had maybe 4 wands from level 25 - 75. I had 3 descent amulets in that time. I don’t know if it’s just me but getting some of the gear that would help the most seems to be in short supply. I don’t have any completed sets but I’m close on Empowered Apothecary’s Touch (I know, not really for an Arcanist but it helps with my health. I’ve got Callidor’s Vestments and Codex. I’ve got Empowered Maiven’s Tome but nothing else. I’ve also got Empowered Marauder’s Gloves but that’s it.
wwtchhntr, I wish I had any of that gear but no luck so far. I’m fine with putting all/most of my remaining points into Physique but it seems strange as a caster and glass cannon to be putting almost all of my points into Physique.
Regarding the skills. It looks like a put extra points into some skills only because of my +All Skills (+1), +Arcanist Skills (+2) and +Specific Skills that I get from some of my gear.
Can someone explain or link to which Devotion healing proc’s I should be looking at? I filled out my current Devotion distribution in Grim Calc, which I’m all for changing as needed.
Chariot of The Dead (Healing + DA Require 5 Purple and 5 Green)
Behemoth (Strongest Healing but only Healing Require 3 color 3-4-4 (Red-Green-Blue)
Tree of Life (the one I would probly recommand you giving Healing and Mana Regen (Require 20 Blue and 7 White)
If i remember correctly, it’s an issue with the way the game handles skills while moving around. For example, you can’t use Trozan’s Skyshard on left click as every time it would come off of cooldown, you’de cast it whether you wanted to or not, and it has a rather low cooldown.
It’s my understanding that many people recommend around 300 for ARR. I have no idea how I’ll get there, even doubling my current Energy Regen seems pretty hard. Suggestions?
I can’t help you on this but keep in mind that -% skill energy is also great for reducing energy cost. Mental Alacrity adds a good amount, so does a Focusing Prism component on your Amulet. Iskandra’s Balance relic also adds some more at endgame but is geared towards Fire/Cold instead of Aether.
What DOTs are available to me? I really haven’t seen much outside of the big skills that have some DOT components like TSS. I’m all for a slow burn on bosses while trying to maneuver into place for ARR.
Callidor’s Tempest with the transmuter and Inferno are great for Burn damage. Though, it won’t do much on it’s own. DoTs true strength come from stacking multiple sources together and having them crit with high multipliers.
2nd mastery with ease to play I’d recommend you are demolitionist and nightblade.
Arcanist based build without shield rely on devotions and gears for defensive.
Basic devotions you should grab are
Tortoise : Prevent dead and help you absorp 3000 dmg if your hp lower than 40% - lowest investment
Chariot of the dead : Shortest cooldown proc, +DA and instant heal - devotion path is quite good and gives high OA for more chance to hit and crit
Behemoth : Good instant heal proc - devotion path may scatter but it worth.
These 3 constellations are very good for defensive and the colour path support each other. Empty throne is a good universal constellation for purple.
Arcanist’s skills I think going AAR but focus more on devastations if you can’t sustain energy consumption. Good AAR need more specific gears to deal good dmg worth the energy spent. Devastation can deal good dmg in more case, but have high cooldown.
Anyway fight with moosy and other nemesis is usually hard. Don’t care too much about them until you clear the game. They’re design to be hard enemies those need good prepare to beat
From now on. Put all stats into physique. Take 2nd mastery and get it to 50/50 for more stats. Fix your low HP by increase both flat and % amount. Try pick up greens drop with high, various type of resistance and have HP bonus. Some purple and blue don’t suits your character and not solve your current probems.
