Arcane Currents is a devotion skill that requires 16 purple + 14 green affinity. It has a 25% proc chance, 1 second cooldown, 5 summon limit, and 4.5 second duration.
With some CDR and a good devotion proccer, it is reasonably possible to reach the summon limit in around 4 - 4.5 seconds. But, there are problems with this:
Arcane Currents’ symbols are fixed to the ground and don’t move with your character
The currents are blocked by obstacles
It can be difficult to precisely position the symbols
For most of GD, much of the fight in a given location is already over after 4 - 4.5 seconds
This means Arcane Currents only really reach their full potential in long duration static superboss fights, which time-wise only constitutes a small part of the game.
So here is my proposed solution: Add a +3 Summon bonus to the skill.
That way, it is highly possible to reach the summon limit in only ~2 seconds, allowing Arcane Currents to reach its full potential in far more situations in the game.
Balance-wise, this would greatly increase AC’s effectiveness in short-term battles, in which it is weak anyway (for a 30-affinity skill), without greatly affecting its effectiveness in long-term battles.
As an aside, many of these criticisms can also be leveled at Whirlpool, but that’s a whole other topic…
It is worth noting that with max summons Arcane currents DPS is the highest of all devotions by far. It has more than double the DPS of second place Magi.
But what good is that high peak theoretical DPS if only ~22% of it or so is actually utilised for most of the game? Taking into account proc rate, time-to-max-summons, and average battle length.
And speaking of peak theoretical DPS, according to my calcs, 3x Fissure is actually higher than 5x Arcane Currents. It’s also possible for T1 Aetherfires to nearly reach the peak theoretical DPS of Arcane Currents. Also, both of those other skills are not player pets so they have better binding options. All of this just makes 30-point, 4-damage-type T3 Arcane Currents look even worse.
If we compare to Elemental Seeker, Seeker has significantly higher actual real DPS due to its 100% proc rate, ability to move around, and arguably better type of AoE (circular vs. linear). With just 17% CDR, you can bind it to a skill that ticks once per second and not worry about it at all.
Anyway, the point is that peak theoretical DPS alone does not make the skill sufficiently attractive. It needs to have better actual DPS and one way to accomplish this is +X Summon.
If there is some apprehension regarding translation strings (e.g. “symbol” vs. “symbols”), then I propose this alternative solution:
Change the summon limit to 3, the duration to 2.7 seconds, and the damage to 390 elemental + 390 aether. Peak theoretical DPS remains about the same, but you can reach it sooner. No change to summons per proc, so no change to translation strings needed.
i don’t understand this?
are you talking purely MC content?
because what stuff endgame content are you killing in 1 second ?
in crucible where bosses have lower health it also doesn’t seem like the static nature of currents hurt that much as they still zap incoming stuff that might not be were you are directly but runnign towards you
personally my gripe with currents have never been effective dps spawns vs uptime and cd
but that the path frequently leaves my characters short on other important stats, because it’s so hella expensive to reach
probably ended up using it on meme conversion builds more or green stuff where i could fluff those stat shortages on affixes
as for dmg output/effective dps, i’ve never really had an issue on that front, seems pretty decent overall, and not all procs need to be compared 1:1 in max efficiency/theoretical dps output (imo)
It’s a back of the envelope calculation. Binding AC to Reap Spirit with 1 second base cooldown and 20% CDR results in a 85% proc rate every 0.8 second. So over 4 seconds, the probability of getting 5 summons is 44.4%.
Assuming average battle time in a particular location is around 4 seconds, then only half of the DPS of those summons is utilised.
So, roughly 22% overall efficacy.
The majority of the playerbase plays MC most of the time and probably a bit of SR as well. The CR speedrunners with GDStashed characters that dominate discussion on this forum are only a tiny part of the playerbase.
Like you said, it’s expensive to get AC and sacrifices have to be made. So if the only thing going for AC is damage, then the damage better be worth it. “Decent” isn’t good enough.
Perhaps if AC also applied some sort of debuff effect, such as fumble, OA/DA reduction, RR, etc. then I might be fine with the current summon limit/+X summon/duration/damage setup. Life steal works too.
and devo efficiency is basically 0 concern there, imo, all that matters is the FX and that it does some dmg
so what matters is the SR or Crucible portion “gdstashed speedrunners” aside, which is my basis, where i think it dmg wise feels fine
you aren’t killing SR bosses in 1 sec, trash durings shards doesnt’ matter, and even for a non speedrunner arcane currents still work fine in cruci as their static nature isn’t a penalty since they will still tag inc enemies
i’m not against buffs to the overall devo (or the unlikely reduction of affinity requirement), i just dont’ understand this dps efficiency argument/perception, nor do i really agree that much with it