I was wondering if anyone could sway me one way or the other on the two builds I’ve been considering for my AAR/Devastation Arcanist.
Here’s the Battlemage build.
Here’s the Druid build.
The Battlemage has the Devotions on it too, if anyone is curious.
This is a softcore character, who has just completed Normal. It’s time for me to dip into the second class though. I’ve got 21 points to spend on the new part to get it going, if anyone wants to factor that into the equation. I’ve got a good assortment of gear to put on as I continue levelling, and I’m aware I might have to put all my attributes in Physique, which I’m fine with.
Usually I smash together a build and plod along, but with this one I’m a little stuck. I’m just really torn on which build will be better for me. There is the possibility that I am completely barking up the wrong tree and there’s another option I haven’t thought of (or already dismissed), so feel free to tell me I’m doing it wrong.
Of the two builds you listed both are bad but the Druid is less bad.
A few notable issues:
-Veterancy is quite possibly the worst still in the game.
-IEE is mostly a melee buff, you don’t have a melee attack.
-Olexra’s is a great skill but without more points will be lacking in area and duration.
-Mavien’s sphere is almost never worth taking beyond rank 12 (counting soft points) frequently it isn’t worth taking beyond rank 3.
-What is the point into Blood Pact for? Same with the point into Absolute Zero…enemies that the slow would be good on are the same ones immune to the freeze.
-Disintegration is a rather poor return/point for your investment. Especially with the lowish amount of OA your build + devotion would be providing.
-Your devotion setup seems to try and hybridize offense/defense/regeneration. I suspect you’d get better results going for Tree of Life + Spear of Heavens w/ the two Aether procs.
Now, I get that you are trying to maintain perma-beam. But you could get better returns with the Tree of Life proc (50% energy and 10 flat energy/sec, with near 66% uptime) and reducing your disintegration and sphere investments (which will reduce your costs). Also consider Callidors - beaming tiny enemies one by one is overkill.
For a 2ndary mastery I’m actually building a pure Aether/fire character atm too. I went Occultist for Blood of Dreeg, planning to end something like:
Devastation REQUIRES A CASTER OFFHAND … which means you’d be wearing an item that excludes you from using a large amount of Soldier skills.
Do not go Battlemage.
Yes, your spec doesn’t try to use any of those skills… BUT… if you’re anything like me you will likely find that Battlemage spec you linked boring as all hell. That spec means all you would do is cast Aether Ray and Devastation. That will get boring real quick. So if you find yourself wanting to try something different you’d be stuck with Battlemage; one of the WORST class combos in the game. It’s just bad.
Do NOT go Battlemage.
Druid (Arc/Sham) can be a lot of fun in a lot of ways. That’s not a bad choice at all.
Spellbreaker (Arc/NB) is also a lot of fun in a lot of ways. I’d also recommend that.
Veterancy was there just in case I needed the armour requirement reduction, but I did wake up thinking those points were terrible.
IEE is left over from when I was considering going Sorcerer and throwing in Fire Strike. I can defintiely assign those points elsewhere.
Olexra’s been doing the job so far, and I’ll be getting at least +4 to Arc skills, probably more. I can definitely chuck some extra points in there.
I’ve never used Mavien’s before, so I wasn’t sure how well it would perform. I just know I need more defence to be happy.
Blood Pact was an excuse to spend 20 Mastery points. AZ is because it’s going to get boosted by +skills.
I should be sitting on at least 2500 DA at 85. So it shouldn’t be too bad. I figured it was worth getting AAR as high as possible, since it’s my primary attack.
As for the Devotions, I spent a lot of time on those. I did consider going for ToL, but I’m not satisfied with the constellations I’d have to take in order to get the affinity for it. I could rework it, but I think there’s no way I’m going to be able to grab Spear too. I might look at reworking it to see if Tree is possible, but I’m not sure I need it.
I originally was going to go Warlock, but I find Blood of Dreeg a little underwhelming. This is what inspired my search for a second class.
And Qbert, this will always be an AAR character so I don’t mind the class being limited by the two skills. If I get bored I can just play a different character.
Personally, I disagree with this. Maiven’s sphere at level 3 gives 10% damage absorption, which increases your total HP (post modified by % health and everything else) by 11% (1 / 0.9). At level 12, it gives 20% damage absorption, which increases total HP by 25%.
If it’s worth maxing Heart of the Wild for 40% HP, it’s worth maxing Maiven’s for 25% total HP (effectively), as this will also multiply with any % hp buffs. At least, that’s in my opinion.
I usually leave maiven’s at one point and let +skills do the rest. It scales very poorly. Heart of the wild does not, nor does Heart of the wild come with a penalty. 20% absorption is obviously better than 10%, but you have to consider the points needed to get there and the multiplicative damage reduction to your own damage.
i played my battlemage with 3 points in MSP but with the switch to ultimate it is way smoother with full 12 points (with +skills). I also did some elite BoC test runs with 10% and with 20% and the 10% bossfight was way to close for my impression. I may respec when i got full legendary equipment but until then i chose 10% more damagereduction over 5% damage penalty.
Eh, its 9 skill points to increase your effective total health by 14% but decrease your effective total damage by 5%. I usually am very happy at rank 3, half the buff - half the debuff.
Also on disintegration. Don’t forget that while it will increase your beam damage somewhat it also increases the cost noticeably. I wouldn’t be sold on disintegration with just the increase in energy cost vs damage returns…add in the point cost and not a fan of the skill.
Lots of strange advice here, I’ll write what I think too.
IEE is an important regen skill in ray builds, do max it or at least keep at 12/12.
Max mental alacrity ffs.
Keep elemental balance at 12/12 for crit damage.
Keep desintegration at 12/12 for more crit - you do not have to max it, returns from going above that are bad while mana cost increases are huge. It’ll be at 4-6 points probably.
It’ll be awesome if you get Maivens to ultimate rank. Its not always feasible, but better max it at least.
I have recently recovered my old battlemage and made him into callidor build after attempting some other things. The benefit of being a battlemage is that you are beefier than any other arcanist with soldier armor skills and military conditioning, and warcry. It doesn’t look attractive but came out much better than what I previously did with spellbreakers and druids. To get decent armor with caster items you will need field command, scars of battle and that defensive devotion with tree of life and obelisk of Menhir. Its still good even after it was nerfed, just not insane. I have 1200 armor with that while dressed in caster gear. Callidor is a skill that requires going close and personal so its very valuable, but you can do that with the ray too.
Replace callidor with ray there and you almost have it. You will need to find some points for IEE though, maybe even sacrifice scars of battle and points in soldier mastery.
If you totally do not want armor and want to be glass there is another devotion route with the tree you may try
Owl devotion is actually good, but nothing you can’t live without. Just be sure you have focusing prism and more items with mana cost reduction. Elemental balance relic, Codex of Lies or greens with of the oracle suffix.
I personally went with the offhand that reduces your cds by 5 secs on a 12 sec cd. This allows me to spam devastation on every other pack.
While I’m no where near endless aar, I can keep it up enough to melt stuff. A few autoattacks with absurdly high energy leech are enough to top me up, and as a bonus I use the sacred strike on the first attack for a resist debuff.
I have 1 point in maivens (6? With equip) mostly for the stun/freeze reduction, and I rely on the reflect/immune for actual survivability which pairs with my offhand perfectly