Refining my arcanist build

[Guest]

This gold AnB the mage character I made isn't doing too badly. The build so far I'm testing is arcanist set, the ripple staff set, illusionists sash and the fire lily and VotWS (hopefully the bolts BoM if I get it when I unlock it).


Here's the damage breakdown of TL111 and personally so far VotWS seems to be doing quite well. While people recommend ToP with fire lily, I think VotWS seems to be fine for now. Perhaps later I might see the effectiveness diminish and I'll consider giving ToP a go. The only other thing to be considered is the belt I'm using. Currently it's the illusionists sash but as I mentioned in here the clones seem to apply AL's debuff every other attack so for now the versatile belt is off the lineup despite the illusionists sash doing so poorly even if I try and time the blinks with the arcanist 6 set buff. (the only thing here left to see is whether the clones would somehow apply AL's buff on me, then it might be worth adding in the versatile belt despite the crippled rate of fire).

Haven't thought of a way to abuse dying to reset the free void ward for invincibility to massively benefit me yet so that's hanging around in my the back of my mind.

[Bali_Lenni]

(never having played other than tap&go...)
Is that a standard dmg breakdown on steam/windows ? (the mobile version is far less detailed)

Yup it's off the leaderboard, it's off the trial tab below
https://eternium.netlify.app/leaderboards/6352da0df3b8c536863da193/MMID-D606FE64-0319A477-810B9BDA-5F15F601BC2014A8783F1C67C27A0340$Mage
didn't particularly want to link the specific page if I decide to push again and it's no longer valid.

[Guest]

So after lvl 10 AL it's clear that the clones don't give you the attack speed part of AL which means I gotta use it myself. Now on the belt situation the Illusionists sash burn actually only starts being visible when I begin hitting the boss and it's not very much anyway. The issue with manually doing it yourself is that it's mad fiddly trying to tap with 2 fingers and then you miss and then you start walking towards somewhere you didn't want to go which makes you die. The easier solution then is to take the versatile belt and just accept the slight loss of rate of fire because it saves you that much more hassle.

[Guest]

After having a think about the 6jugg warrior build and looking at the arcanist set, I'm having second thoughts about my current strategy of pushing trials.
Here's what the current clear stats look like for me. Compared to the previous trial clear I realized a couple of things. These were that VotWS obviously requires you to actually stand and use your normal attacks otherwise you don't get a ripple. At the higher trials I find that I'm not able to endure much of anything so the strategy I have mostly consists of running around waiting for cds and using my skills as soon as I have them and stuffing in some normal attacks wherever I can. While doing that I just hope that the crowd doesn't suddenly decide to lose interest and start walking back.

So no more VotWS as for the arcane bolts I find that the % for this one is pretty high because of the boss fight more than anything else. Illusionists sash is also gone since this really only started showing up on the in game stat board once I started hitting the boss. If it's counting for such a minimal value at 111 then I doubt it'll be doing much more at 124.

The inspiration from 6jugg can surely be applied to arcanist. They are similar in the respect that they specialize in big damage to single targets. In which case what have I been doing rounding up loads of small worth mobs which do high dmg against me such as the archers and trying to ripple them to death for minimal gain. It makes less sense than to actively target the elites like one does in 6jugg. While osmosis is great I thought it'd be doing more than I thought it does with bolts. I hoped that because bolts are split into 6 bolts per singular attack then I might hopefully get a lot more stacks of osmosis on the boss, however I have not yet even managed to reach 100 stacks on any boss. The value goes up to about 80-85 and the boss is already dead. Instead then of focusing and buffing up the single target output why not buff the group damage aspect of the build (versatile belt over the illusionists sash then)? The mobbing aspect of this build is its weakest and causes the most pain out of the whole trial. That leads me to put slayer on the head rather than osmosis.

The new strategy I'd like to deploy would be to focus the elites and treat each small pack of them as a mini boss each and while I might attract some attention from smaller mobs, that's ok, I can choose to die and ignore them or bring them along, it's not like this build is the best at keep aggro of massive crowds anyway. Choosing to deal with mobs this way however means that bolts is all the more important when it comes to dmg output since it should be the main source of damage rather than the ripple. In which case I really need a bolts BoM to help with that.

[bojck]

Have you tried Stormcaller? You can still do the farming part with arcanist, where it excels, then switch to SCR for a shot at a red medal.

Arcanist is a really cool set - you have both good AoE damage from ripple (especially the big ripple when SoFT procs - that's where most of the damage comes from, when you blink on top of the mobs, ideally timing it with ToS/ToP). There's also the single-target damage from AB, which is what SCR totally lacks. So if you're left with 2% of the green bar unfinished, you can just take out 1-2 zombies and be done with it. With SCR this can mean restarting the trial :P

The defensive part of arcanist is quite fun, having this huge damage reduction when SoFT is up, then kiting around when it's not. The only problem is that damage is just way lower compared to beam and SCR :/

Maybe the problem is that I should be using crit instead of lily haha. That would probably make my ripples and damage output from all sources hit harder instead of like 8 tickle ripples to kill the weakest mob in a pack. Perhaps I'll roll with crit next time since I've just been relying on the lily all this time since I unlocked it and also crit makes my mind melt over what I should be putting on the gear between crit rate/dmg haste vit AR and power.

So hitting more enemies with a skill like AL has better chance to proc talisman buffs? It felt like that although I wasn't sure.

Usually my strategy for arcanist is to see when I have 6 stacks and then make sure I walk as close to the centre of the mob pack as possible and timewarp to get the big buff and from then on it's on me to blink and pour out as many bolts as I can for my cooldowns and next big buff. I find that If i ever vortexed before I timewarped for the big buff then I'd usually die, probably hit by like 1 arrow from a red buff elite which I didn't see or like a whole stream of arrows.

[bojck]

Well crit won't work wonders, it could possibly clear 5-8 more trials, similarly to other builds.

Regarding ToS - any basic attacks trigger it. Test in Training grounds - after ToS procs, don't attack for 30 seconds, then attack - it should trigger within a few attacks. Singularity also triggers it, blizzard doesn't.

As a survival trick - you can reset the FK bubble by dying :P That's not a great idea if you've made a big pull and haven't dealt with it yet, as you'll lose aggro. But yeah there's some untapped potential in the build so have fun : )

Well crit is probably at least part of the answer to pushing a bit harder and maybe reworking the current strategy I have or maybe just getting further in the trials.

Ye currently can't think of a way to make great use of dying to reset the free invincibility.

Also just realized that I don't actually have any piece of SCR unlocked.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Guest]

As another thought, if the ripple isn't going to be the star of the show, then do I really need the ripple set? Wouldn't it be more effective to simply use a weapon if it exists to maximize the power of my bolts? That's deidres resolve then for the chance to double attack and as for the offhand probably a tome, the glacies tempestas will do since it has the useful effect of freezing enemies for a set chance when you take damage. Other tomes don't have much on them. It may be worth thinking about taking an encrypted shield tho for the defense but likely not worth the investment into it.

So far this sounds like one of the most cursed builds I've ever heard of.

Edit: Now that I think about it, why would I need sing in my lineup if I want to target the elites? The lineup should be blink timewarp and paradox for max purple bolts while maintaining all skills affecting the 6arc effect