🧙┃mage

[queen mason]

I'm confused how are they 100% chance to cast meteor by crit

[weary hamlet]

lol your red ring rolls are almost as bad as mine

[scenic sail]

It's not 100%, but your glaciers can crit 10 enemies easily with one spell cast, so you can get your meteors to cast very often, each spell cast of glacier is 3x spells in a pretty large area and they gain an easy +8% base crit chance, so large area + 3 casts + large area is how meteors cast so frequently

[scenic sail]

My red ring rolls are really good, 8% movement speed is the most important stat to me, as I prefer higher movement speed on all my gear, and the 2nd most important stat is +5, which both my current red rings have, I'm not sure what I had in the build planners though

[weary hamlet]

you got t4 endurance threshold on one here, you must have gotten my nemesis by mistake

cause mine gave me a bit of poison res just yesterday

[scenic sail]

endurance threshold is powerful, and it's better than nothing, but yea that one isn't a +5 ring, still very good though, I use endurance, and seed of ekkidrasil + damage dealt to mana before health to stay alive. My defense is very good, which is why I can do 2k corruption as a mage, I haven't really seen any other mages at my corruption...

[queen mason]

This node shouldn't active?

[scenic sail]

I don't spec that, I don't want glacier to do less damage with no real benefit, freeze rate is not important to me, but I do spec the double chill point instead, the point in the lower left corner. I've seen the difference with and without that point in the arena

[queen mason]

I'm not sure where large area + large area + 3 casts come from

do this build is more suitable for the case that limited space like on an arena? I must avoid too close to enemies every second then... lol game over

😅 hah yeah arena is much more imple than normal maps

[queen mason]

This is what I did on slain enemies by meteor + glacier.

What I mean by "meteor summoned by crit from glacier always deny a lot then enemy slain me" is glacier will not summon meteor instantly every time, so I must run different directions to cast glacier. Meteor will not kill enemies immediately too, especially enemies who move consistently so meteor maybe fall down on an area but he's on another area. On the other hand, I can't indirect cast direction of glacier and meteor so they're cast on empty area instead of enemies themselves which it's annoying...

Any ways can fix that?

too damn on focus single target to output damage... this is the truth

[scenic sail]

Tip 1) Turn off camer shake at the bottom of the 1st page of Settings, it's required when playing meteors, the screen just shakes the whole damn time. Tip 2) Use static orb for immediate damage on nearby enemies, you can quite easily recover mana as long as you have the efficiency nodes on meteor and if mana is an issue, just stay on the single meteor side of the skill tree, and make sure you're not doin spark charges.

Tip 3) If you want faster meteors just take the meteor fall speed nodes, but I would avoid the node that makes meteors cost more mana, it'll run you low on mana, which it looks like you're already getting here

[queen mason]

Yeah I'm doing spark charges...

[scenic sail]

That's why you're running out of mana, you'd have to stay on the left (single meteor) side of the meteor skill tree to make that work, and even then it's a pretty bad idea. If you want chain reactions, you can always spec shrapnel, it's 2 meteor points and does a good job of casting multiple meteors

[sterile solar]

Haven't played this game since before beta

What spell are best for leveling now before reaching runemaster? Fireball? Glacier? Disintegrate?

[scenic sail]

Any of them will work for leveling, but I would rank them 1) fireball 2) disintegrate 3) glacier and for endgame 1) glacier 2) fireball 3) disintegrate

[unreal blade]

glacier into frostclaw (with double flat melee prefix staff and glamdring node) is excellent also https://imgur.com/a/H5csy9J

[weary hamlet]

not glacier, it costs a ton of mana and mobs die all the same from any skill

[dense juniper]

using firestarter + calamity with fireball as main dmg is fun, watching everything burn around u

[queen mason]

emmmm I see now

😅 No idea why it's super less

Lower than my runemaster a lot...

🤔 My runemaster use Boneclamor Barbute and necrotic resistance is 121%, my sorcerer can't copy that

[fallen ibex]

Any frostclaw runemasters know the secret to fixing mana issues?

I got a staff with -3 mana cost and mana regen, frost claw mana efficienty idol (x2), frost claw mana gain node.

Anything I'm missing?

I've yet to find a single Oceareon across all my characters in 250ish hours

[queen mason]

how much mana your frost claw spend per cast?

I have no idea what your issue is

[fallen ibex]

Last I checked it was 17, I'm at work unfortunately so I can't check

I could maybe get a sceptre with tier 7 reduce spell cost (-5 mana)?

I like your art btw

[queen mason]

😂 😂 😂 hah thanks! Appreciated :)

You want this skill cost more mana or less mana?

[fallen ibex]

Less

[queen mason]

then I don't think you do anything wrong

[fallen ibex]

I'm following this guide more or less

https://maxroll.gg/last-epoch/build-guides/frostbite-frost-claw-runemaster-guide

They have 2 Oceareons tho 😭

Its a very strong build otherwise, tanky and hits pretty hard

[queen mason]

what the hell...

380k+ dps

[fallen ibex]

Ya idk if tooltip dps is accurate but I can confirm it slaps

Maybe I need better mana efficieny idols 🤷🏼‍♂️

I guess that with the -5 mana cost instead of -3 mana cost should help a lot

[weary hamlet]

inb4 10m dps on disintegrate

that deals more like 10k in reality

[radiant vessel]

Depending on the skill and how its specced the tooltip DPS can be very accurate or insanely off, most accurate way to measure is with target dummies but at low dps even that isn't very helpful, once you get into the millions of dps the dummy becomes decently accurate since you can actually start killing it

[nimble shoal]

You can at least use the dummy to see your actual damage numbers, and if you know what you're doing you can calculate dps off those

[unreal blade]

glacier with 3rd explosion turned off is very light on mana and still does a ton of damage. you can spam it no problem. i can't play with 3rd explosion on, at least in the early game. the mana drives me crazy having to kite mobs together to use my ability efficiently enough because mana is annoying. this only takes 2 skill points so you can do it right away while leveling.

[unreal blade]

Do you have Frozen Reign node in FC? -3 mana cost

[worthy coyote]

Does mourningfrost do more damage for shatter strike even tho they both scale with dex and int ?

[harsh abyss]

More damage than what?

[worthy coyote]

I thought since they both scale with dex and int it ain’t no use of using them am I wrong

What are the benefits that’s what I’m saying

[harsh abyss]

What are you comparing mourningfrost to though?

[worthy coyote]

Shatterstrike

[harsh abyss]

Mourningfrost is a pair of boots, do you mean frost claw?

Or are you asking if, because Shatterstrike scales with dex and int, mourningfrost wouldn't apply it's bonuses?

[worthy coyote]

Yea

[harsh abyss]

No, they scale together just fine. Mourningfrost adds flat damage per dex, that's on top of whatever damage you get from your weapons.

[worthy coyote]

Oh rd

So if you ran shatterstrike you would use them boots?

[harsh abyss]

If you're stacking a lot of dexterity, yeah

[worthy coyote]

Ok

[fallen ibex]

yup!

[scenic sail]

Frostclaw builds often use the combination of meteor + teleport to refund mana and make the spell usable. You can look up frozen sentinel's build guide for frostclaw, he explains it thoroughly.

If you're going for an efficiency FC build, you can gain mana but you will miss out on Spark charges and the ward gained through Lost Knowledge passive points, so if you want to go the very efficient route I recommend using Aergon's Refuge and you have to convert your frostclaw to fire to gain ward on every FC spell casts from the "20% of current mana gained as ward when you cast a fire spell"

[fallen ibex]

Im Runemaster, not sorc; going for a frostbite build and using runic invocation for extra ward + freeze

https://www.lastepochtools.com/skills/runic_invocation18_ice_shield

[harsh abyss]

Alternatively, go Lightning and get the "Lightning penetration with lightning invocations" on your chest/helm for an absurd amount of ward/sec

[weary hamlet]

think of it as of most effects being independent from each other, the fact that the skill has dex scaling and that the boot has dex scaling simply don't interact at all

the boots are also incredibly powerful and most builds that are even remotely synergistic will try to use them

imagine that you have like 60 dex which isn't a lot, now your boot has more base damage on it than your weapon

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, and when as a spellblade you're getting 8% increased crit and 4% increased damage for your abilities from it... it's got value. Lots of your gear will probably use dex and int as your prefixes

Kinda makes me wonder about a Mana Strike (Frigid Grasp) Mourningfrost or Yrun's + Mourningfrost build

[harsh abyss]

Thinking about it, it'd have to be a frostbite build, since Mana Strike has such bad More multipliers. Which I guess means mourningfrost is kind of out.

[worthy coyote]

Ok

But when I put on blood of the exile I do more damage than with mourning frost I’m testing the damage

That’s why I don’t wear them try it

[harsh abyss]

How much dex do you have? If you aren't specifically building for it, you're not going to see much value.

[worthy coyote]

Hold up

I’m bouta link my build

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/o3negeRB

[silk pewter]

Spellblade, Level 88

:white_check_mark: This character build is verified

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (20) / Spellblade (72) / Runemaster (8)

General:

▸ Health: 1,028, Regen: 35.17/s
▸ Mana: 125.89, Regen: 14.72/s
▸ Ward Retention: 284%, Regen: 160/s
▸ Attributes: 0 Str / 92 Dex / 58 Int / 0 Att / 0 Vit
▸ Resistances: 137% / -28% / 142% / -6% / 116% / 137% / 64%
▸ EHP: 1,386 / 683 / 1,386 / 836 / 1,386 / 1,386 / 1,249

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 206
▸ Dodge Chance: 15% (417)
▸ Armor Mitigation: 23% (856)

Damage Types:

▸ Cold, Lightning / Melee, Spell

Buffs:

▸ Enchant Weapon (Passive)

Used skills:

• Teleport (22)
• Shatter Strike (24)
• Mana Strike (23)
• Enchant Weapon (22)
• Flame Ward (22)

Used unique items:

• Boneclamor Barbute
• The Kestrel
• Shattered Chains
• Mourningfrost
• Siphon of Anguish
• Julra's Stardial
• Nihilis
• Diothaen's Bloody Nib
• Throne of Ambition

[worthy coyote]

Did you test it

[harsh abyss]

And you're saying that if you just swap for blood of the exile and change nothing else, you have more damage?

[worthy coyote]

Yea and more defense because the damage from the frost boots don’t stack I’m testing it rn

[harsh abyss]

How much increased bleed duration do your Blood of the Exile boots have?

That's probably why. It's probably allowing you to stack 30-67% more bleed stacks on yourself, which is an crazy amount of value for a Bloody Nib build

[worthy coyote]

34%

And I got 24 dex on these boots

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, let's say that you're stacking 100 bleeds on yourself with Mourningfrost, you'd be stacking 134 bleeds on yourself with Blood of the Exile, which would be an additional 68% MORE damage, which is a massive multiplier.

And the more bleed stacks you're accumulating, the stronger it is.

Check how many bleed stacks you can maintain with Mourningfrost vs BOTE, and that'll tell you how much more damage it's giving you.

[worthy coyote]

I didn’t even know

Rd hold up

The same amount 32

Stacks

[harsh abyss]

Alright, then that's not it. In that case, it's probably the amount of dex/int on Blood of the Exile. It's probably bumping your crit chance up to 100% by swapping over, which is a pretty big damage increase.

[worthy coyote]

It’s prolly from the dex and the lucky slam then

Yea I think so too

[harsh abyss]

The way crit chance/damage works is the more crit chance you have, the more value crit damage gives.

Looking at the build you linked, you have a 75% chance to do 116% More damage. That's the equivalent of 87% "More" damage with attacks on average.

If you bump that up to 100% crit chance (likely, given the boost from BOTE), you're getting a full 116% More damage, which is 29% overall More damage

Not to mention all the "% increased" damage that the stats on those boots, 24 dex is 96% increased damage, which isn't nothing.

[worthy coyote]

I never knew that

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, if you look at the tags on Shatterstrike, each point of dex gives you +1 (flat) cold damage AND 4% increased melee damage

So the additional 24 dex is a lot of bonus damage

[worthy coyote]

Yea I know that but i didn’t know the more crit chance equals more damage so i should want a 100%? Right

[harsh abyss]

If you slammed a T7 dex onto Mourningfrost, you'd probably get higher damage from it

[worthy coyote]

I do got one but it’s on my ballista falconer

But it does around the same damage with bote so you right

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, it's kind of an average thing. If you have 5% chance to do 100% bonus crit damage, it's a 5% "average" more damage increase. Obviously it doesn't increase every hit by 5% but the crits that you do will average out to a total of 5% more damage over time.

So boosting your crit chance AND your crit damage gives you more value the higher both of them are. Since you're hitting the 100% crit mark, you'd get a TON of value from any +crit multiplier.

[worthy coyote]

I just slammed a t7 dex on the boneclamor just now I’m lucky😂

That’s 28 dex 12 int

[harsh abyss]

Example, if you have +100% crit multiplier on top of the regular 100% extra (so Crits do 300% damage), then a 5% crit chance will give you 10% more "average" damage. But a 50% crit chance would be 100% more "average" damage.

There's a graph somewhere showing at what points it's more value to get more crit chance vs damage, but the general rule is "the more the better" for both up to 100% crit chance.

Yeah, that's a good slam

[worthy coyote]

That’s crazy and I been trying to get a good eye of reen slam you know that sword

It’s stacks crit and increased damage it’s op

[weary hamlet]

you still want more multipliers for ailment builds btw

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I mean that's why mana strike is rarely used as a main attack in general

Only way I could ever see it really working would be mana stacking with the node that gives 15% current mana as flat damage

[weary hamlet]

that's still meh, mana strike in general is just not good for direct damage, its used as a "main" attack in proc builds

so something like lightning procs with static or meteor belt

[harsh abyss]

Yeah

[queen mason]

Question:
which reason let you think spellblade is cool enough to try by yourself?

[harsh abyss]

Because sword mages are cool, basically

They're a great theme that I love in every game

[worthy coyote]

They’re strong too

[weary hamlet]

think about it from a lore/story perspective, the mage embodies the power and dignity of ole good eterra of yore while all other classes suck

rogue is literally a criminal, she's an assassin for hire
sentinel is a deserter, "strong in virtue" my ass, how about the virtue of following orders and honoring your oath?
acolyte is an apostate and heretic
primalist is an ooga booga barbarian, his only redeeming quality is that at least his dad didn't fu ck a deer unlike all the wengari

and spellblade is the manliest kind of a mage since you are purging the filth up close and personal

[dense juniper]

little bias on that ain't you? xD

[sterile solar]

what are the best invocationss for runemaster?

[harsh abyss]

There isn't one best one, most of the 3-rune incantations are pretty decent. You'll find some solid hydrahedron and plasma orb build guides though

Reoywn's Frostguard is super good as a support spell, Revik's Blizzard is strong and you can build around it, Ball Lightning is my personal favorite because I just really like lightning skills...

[nimble shoal]

Yeah but mage was a failure, he's the reason acolyte did what she did

[weary hamlet]

that's what big acolyte wants you to think

[nimble shoal]

he had one job

[true dew]

is a meteor sorc build viable for abberot?

[jade blade]

hi mages! Is freeze rate stacking a viable build? I was looking at frostwalls frigid domination node and snowdrift to build a cold dot build. It looks good on paper but most of my on paper builds burn when i build them ingame... 😅

[gritty pagoda]

that sounds like a good idea to me (assuming you enjoy using frost wall)

worst come to worst you can just respec

[harsh abyss]

Snowdrift + Frostbite Shackles is a pretty common combo for any cold dot build

[gritty pagoda]

wait does frigid apply to frostbite there

or is that just the walls damage

[harsh abyss]

I think it's just the wall's damage, it shouldn't affect frostbite damage

[jade blade]

yea its just the walls damage

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BODm8MGo

[silk pewter]

Runemaster, Level 100

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (20) / Sorcerer (25) / Runemaster (68)

General:

▸ Health: 1,006, Regen: 20/s
▸ Mana: 220.51, Regen: 9.44/s
▸ Ward Retention: 459%, Regen: 142/s
▸ Attributes: 1 Str / 1 Dex / 37 Int / 1 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 84% / 471% / 84% / 92% / 81% / 117% / 57%
▸ EHP: 1,246 / 1,246 / 1,246 / 1,349 / 1,246 / 1,246 / 1,056

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 201
▸ Armor Mitigation: 22% (854)

Damage Types:

▸ Cold, Fire, Lightning / Spell, DoT

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Frost Wall (28)
• Runic Invocation (20)
• Flame Ward (20)
• Elemental Nova (20)
• Ice Barrage (22)

Used unique items:

• Frey's Retreat
• Frozen Ire
• Frostbite Shackles
• Snowdrift
• Snowblind

[jade blade]

thats like my first draft

but i dont play mage much soo... 😅

[gritty pagoda]

I guess my thought is why runemaster

[jade blade]

i thought i needed the runic invocation tree to make revik's blizzard stronger

but yea maybe thats unnessesry

[harsh abyss]

Runic invocation is the only way to cast Revik's Blizzard, so yeah you'd need it

[gritty pagoda]

oh true

I forget the invocations a lot

[jade blade]

well it casts it on frostwall with frey's retreat

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, the RI tree can give you crazy boosts though

[jade blade]

yea that was the idea

[weary hamlet]

you wont be permafreezing mobs like you could in older patches, but many cold skills have dps scaling off freeze rate

also I'm pretty sure that the best way to scale blizzard is reowyn's which for obvious reasons not compatible with frey's retreat

[unreal blade]

you might be interested in my take on it #🧙┃mage message

[jade blade]

ill have a look thx

[jade blade]

i only found these two, could you point me toward those other cold skills?

[unreal blade]

you can permafreeze bosses with my version, even up to decent corruption.

i theorycrafted a marksman that has even more freeze that could permafreeze abberoth (is he freezable?) according to math.

[unreal blade]

took a glance at your planner. you're really going to want mourningfrost if you are trying to scale FRM for damage. at first glance these boots just appear to have up to 100% FRM on them, but it's actually a multiplier of your FRM, doubling it (with a good roll).

[jade blade]

😱 i never noticed that!

[unreal blade]

swapping boots on your planner with average rolls enabled takes your FRM from 4k to near 7k

[jade blade]

that would make frost wall very happy, the frostbite not so much 🤔

what is better; ~200 ish spell damage for frostwall or 400ish cold pen for frostbite?

[weary hamlet]

wait a damn second..

does this track in-game?

[unreal blade]

haven't tested in-game and can't atm.

was changed long ago, so i assumed this was verified and common knowledge

seems to work according to this 2021 build guide: https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/still-freezin-static-orb-ice-barrage-cold-sorcerer-freezing-t4-julra-and-600-corruption-bosses/47050

[plush flicker]

is it possible to play spellblade with all or two elements? Or do you hve to focus on one?

[harsh abyss]

Technically possible but it's usually a lot better to scale one element because the more specific affixes are, the higher their numbers are.

Example: On a Ring: Elemental Damage T5: 33-45% vs Fire damage T5: 40-60% vs Elemental Damage Over Time T5: 71-110%

BUT you could probably set up a build where you're scaling stats and don't care as much about the element. For example, on Mana Strike and Flame Reave, they both get 4% increased damage from dexterity and intelligence. If you're stacking up bonuses from those attributes, then you might not need to look for stats that scale specifically one skill or the other.

Only problem is that the only synergy between melee attacks happens between firebrand and flame reave, which are both fire skills. So crossing over to Mana Strike or Shatter Strike doesn't necessarily add much value. Or if you're triggering frost claw, you can set it to whatever you want with a couple passive points, so why split damage types?

Similarly, surge can be swapped to any of the elements

[plush flicker]

Good explanation. Well written

Another question, is it possible to skip ward and stack HP and leech?

[harsh abyss]

Probably, but a lot of nodes in Spellblade give you ward and other stats you want. But you can focus on hp/leech as your primary defenses and count ward as just extra on top.

Like you want lots of int to scale damage in general, but you also have access to Prodigy, which is one of the best crit scaling nodes in the game (if you stack a bunch of int). Then you can also use int to scale flat damage to Fire Aura with the Incinerating Aura node, which gives you incentive to stack more fire auras, which makes you want to take the whole linked top spellblade row, which provides ward per second per stack of fire aura...

So there's a lot of ward related synergies, and spellblades don't have access to a TON of leech options or flat/% health on the passive tree

But I'd encourage you to try it and if it doesn't feel good enough, start focusing more on ward until it feels better 🤷‍♀️ LE is forgiving enough with respeccing that you can try stuff out and not really brick your character.

[plush flicker]

Awesome. I'm only 38 but getting there!

[scenic sail]

I think defenses are best when you stack all of them. Too much ward (8k+) and it begins to fall off quickly, so you have a point of diminishing returns. For my mage I've had great success with 70% damage dealt to mana before health, endurance and ward as my 3 main defenses.

[harsh abyss]

Also don't forget Armor and Dodge as options. Having a good 30% dodge makes your ward a lot more effective, and Armor reduction is just great to have in general, as much as you can get.

[scenic sail]

Dodge works best with classes that can use it effectively, like rogue. I don't know of a good way to make dodge work well with sorcerer, though it could be good for spellblade or runemaster, I'm not sure. I had T7 dodge rating on my sorcerer gloves, but it never did much, it helped a little bit with Foot of the Mountain (dodge rating is converted to endurance threshold), but since I was a sorcerer there was nothing else I could do with it.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, Runemaster has some synergies. Not enough to go whole hog on it, but with Ward/sec and ward threshold as a defense, dodge is a valuable add, dodging gives your ward time to regen after taking hits. I found that even 20-30% dodge is a pretty significant survivability boost.

[nimble shoal]

Particularly that one staff that you need to balance ward/armor/dodge to get the most out of

[next lance]

I have a question about Warden's Echo... If i hit a melee, does it cast based on my spec of frostclaw? So technically, i could spend points to were melee triggers frostclaw, that can trigge elemental nova?

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, it cann

It's not as good as it seems though, the chance to trigger ele nova is per CAST not per HIT, so there's no way to increase it except casting more frost claws

[compact current]

kind of a noob question, but what is mana stacking? I see on all these builds that mana stacking is the way to go with glacier. How would I go about it? Is it just getting more mana on gear?

[weary hamlet]

yes, getting gear with max mana and all the passives that give increased mana pool

some skills and passives have scaling with your max mana and these types of builds utilize that

[compact current]

ok cool. thank you

[next lance]

Thanks. It’s just for memes mostly. I really like cluttering the screen with bs, but also like seeing my double sword mage!

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, you can go full trigger swordmage: Melee triggers frost claw, which triggers lightning blast and ele nova, uses almost all your specializations just for triggers 😝

[cursive cypress]

I'm running a build like that and it's amazingly effective and a total blast. Teleporting Strikes is especially nice since Mana Strike retains the Melee tag and thus any triggers on melee still function.

[weary hamlet]

I ran a similar build but also with static and it's probably the best lightning based build on SB right now

I mean not that it has a lot of competition

but anyways

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, static (especially with surge) is a nice big kaboom spell to have.

[next lance]

I haven't seen the build on youtube, so i though it was going to be so bad! I just want to swing with melee but still see lots of sparkles, if not, i lose interest so quick. I was playing a runemaster, but the combo playstyle just inst for me

If there is a way to 1 cast combo, i didnt know it

[harsh abyss]

I have a low APM build that I'll probably remake the guide for when the next cycle comes out. It's bugged right now but I understand it's getting fixed so it should work again.

Super easy runemaster build

[next lance]

😄 yes!! I dont know why but when i saw youtube videos it looked like they were casting their hydrahedrons and lightning orbs by dashing and not really comboing.. Is that a thing?

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, there's a couple ways to cast Runic Invocation without actually casting it, same thing with static orb

[plush flicker]

im trying to convert to dual wield but cant get decent weapons, only level 38. Should I buy white items and craft upon or just wait until drops?

[harsh abyss]

Just wait on drops, you'll get them eventually

[plush flicker]

it sorted itself, got into a lizard rift? had like 15 unique lizards. Got a rainbow edge and a sick fire dagger 😄

[harsh abyss]

Sometimes those lizards be crazy

[plush flicker]

Would you recommend trade or ssf for a first character?

[weary hamlet]

there are a few, Immutable order for example, or setting your Runebolt bolts in a fixed order and using that to gain runes

[weary hamlet]

take a look in the Flame Rush tree, plus said Immutable order

[dense juniper]

Any Frostclaw expert online?

Will this Frost claw passive node, Reowyn's Veil be affected by an item's Freeze Rate Multiplier (from Enigma)

[rapid hinge]

yes

[dense juniper]

to think this Enigma that i thought was a bust from Neme is actually gonna buff my ward gain big time lol

[weary hamlet]

yes, that node scales off your global freeze rate multiplier + freeze rate multiplier for frost claw from its tree

this is the main reason why FC builds used to stack it

[dense juniper]

Thank you thank you for the clarification, definitely gonna use this Enigma for a while

[plush flicker]

Say I was to respec at level 68, how far would that set me back? and is there a way to farm them back up reliably?

[weary hamlet]

you can check the base level of your skills in their skill trees, up on the left

at that level you should be able to get them back within a couple echoes

[plush flicker]

can I repeat the echoes if I fail etc? and redo them if completed?

[unreal blade]

can't redo if you complete, and if you fail, you'll get no reward the second try, and less stability for completing it.

[plush flicker]

so how do you safely relevel skills if the build is bad lol 😦

[tawdry scarab]

So I feel like I have hit a plateau with gear (RNG?) with my Frostclaw Sorcerer.

I am trying to transition into FC Converted into Lightning - but have not had any luck with finding some of the uniques needed / rings / idols.

I feel like I am not fully using CoF's prophecies correctly, or its literally just coming down to bad luck with RNG / crafting into the prefix/suffix setup I need.

This is a link to the guide I am following:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DLiKBOApPtBBm5prr185HU-iYM9k28ENFgz-voXpB-4/edit?pli=1&gid=2091810248#gid=2091810248

And this is my current character on LE Tools:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/AvmlMZWo

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 78

:white_check_mark: This character build is verified

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (21) / Sorcerer (58) / Runemaster (11)

General:

▸ Health: 788, Regen: 16.92/s
▸ Mana: 362.7, Regen: 12.8/s
▸ Ward Retention: 157%, Regen: 52/s
▸ Attributes: 1 Str / 1 Dex / 37 Int / 1 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 55% / 73% / 105% / 43% / 38% / 46% / 75%
▸ EHP: 774 / 911 / 929 / 733 / 678 / 720 / 929

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 238
▸ Armor Mitigation: 12% (233)
▸ Crit Avoidance: 7%

Damage Types:

▸ Cold, Lightning / Spell, Melee

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Flame Rush (20)
• Mana Strike (20)
• Flame Ward (20)
• Static Orb (20)
• Frost Claw (22)

Used unique items:

• Avarice

[tawdry scarab]

I think the biggest question I have - is how I can target some of these upgrades

[scenic sail]

I respec skills on daily basis, there's virtually no downside and it takes like 10 minutes to get your skill points back

[dense juniper]

at lvl 82, your skill catch-up level-up bonus is at till lvl 20 already.

Even then at lvl 70 it is quite fast already.

Regarding gear, its all RNG. I got lucky i got Mad Alchemist's Laddle in my early level fighting a Exile mage, put it inside a neme Egg and it has Crit multiplier + a Minion pene (which sux) but will serve me nicely for a while.

Same with Enigma, got it from Neme, empowered it. And Got Slow chance + Freeze Multiplier (which is good since it help with the passive node for ward generation in Frostclaw passive tree)

[dense juniper]

same reason why i ask some Mage expert if this Enigma will affect frostclaw's passive node. haha

Here is my current gear:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BO1NLkEA

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 83

:white_check_mark: This character build is verified

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (20) / Sorcerer (62) / Runemaster (14)

General:

▸ Health: 950, Regen: 17.62/s
▸ Mana: 702.62, Regen: 18.8/s
▸ Ward Retention: 416%, Regen: 107/s
▸ Attributes: 10 Str / 10 Dex / 104 Int / 14 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 116% / 96% / 94% / 28% / 96% / 108% / 108%
▸ EHP: 1,225 / 1,225 / 1,225 / 899 / 1,225 / 1,225 / 1,225

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 305
▸ Dodge Chance: 2% (40)
▸ Armor Mitigation: 21% (640)
▸ Crit Avoidance: 13%

Damage Types:

▸ Fire, Lightning / Spell, Melee

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Frost Claw (22)
• Teleport (21)
• Flame Ward (21)
• Meteor (21)
• Mana Strike (22)

Used unique items:

• Mad Alchemist's Ladle
• Fragment of the Enigma
• Blood of the Exile
• Phantom Grip
• Knowledge of an Erased Mage

[plush flicker]

Got to end game, found some Nice items and respecced. This is the gist of my build. Is it workable?

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/ApxjzrLA

[silk pewter]

Spellblade, Level 100

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (32) / Spellblade (52)

General:

▸ Health: 906, Regen: 59.2/s
▸ Mana: 102.51, Regen: 8/s
▸ Ward Retention: 130%, Regen: 40/s
▸ Attributes: 1 Str / 11 Dex / 25 Int / 1 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 24% / 0% / 24% / 0% / 0% / 1% / 1%
▸ EHP: 588 / 507 / 588 / 507 / 507 / 510 / 510

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 181
▸ Dodge Chance: 2% (44)

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

None

Used unique items:

• Shard of the Shattered Lance
• Apogee of Frozen Light
• Fragments of the Shattered Lance

[plush flicker]

I have mourningfrost in the stash but not sure It's worth it

It didnt save abilities but its maine shattering strike + mana strike with flame ward, enchant weapon and teleport

[scenic sail]

mourningfrost are very powerful with lots of dex

[plush flicker]

I don't have a lot of dex and mana is q bit of an issue otherwise doing great

[plush flicker]

does Apogee of frozen light not give cold skill levels for spellblade?

[weary hamlet]

it gives levels to minion skills which sb doesn't have, read it again carefully

[plush flicker]

Well I did but Interpret it wrong

So its better to have 2x shattered lsnce swords I guess

[small topaz]

Isn't shattered lance set only good with lots of health Regen?

[weary hamlet]

you dont use the full set, just the swords

unless you are like on cold bear

if that build is still a thing

[rapid hinge]

it should be even stronger with the latest huge buff to primalist's health regen

[spare pendant]

They also introduced the cold maul unique

That build should be good now

[plush flicker]

Im new. Currently using both swords +relic, are there better relics?

[weary hamlet]

depends on your build and whether or not you are stacking health regen, although that;s a moot point since Vessel (the reason why you might want to stack hp regen on SB) is also a relic

[plush flicker]

Im just shattering strike, enchant, flameward, tele and mana strike

No real build yet I guess, mostly exalted items

[weary hamlet]

that's just a normal shatter strike build, I mean, why would you say that it isn't real?

you can just use a relic that buffs the stats you need - melee damage, ele damage, crit multi etc

[plush flicker]

the shattered lance does that I guess but there are better exalteds?

[harsh abyss]

If you aren't specifically building into Shattered lance, yeah

Generally with that set, you want to stack as much health regen as you can get, because the sword(s) give you a ton of flat melee cold damage and the set bonus scales increased cold damage based on health regeneration. You can get it up to bonkers numbers.

[next lance]

Of course

[dense juniper]

Upon testing, even Teleport's Freeze Multiplier passive node helps with ward generation. Thank you all

[flint wolf]

Looking for a bit of advice as im struggling in emp monoliths at 100 corruption. https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/AL1J83dQ

[silk pewter]

Runemaster, Level 84

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (25) / Sorcerer (19) / Runemaster (53)

General:

▸ Health: 1,178, Regen: 17.76/s
▸ Mana: 149.43, Regen: 13.68/s
▸ Ward Retention: 374%, Regen: 86/s
▸ Attributes: 0 Str / 0 Dex / 84 Int / 0 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 78% / 80% / 78% / 119% / 79% / 125% / 164%
▸ EHP: 1,572 / 1,572 / 1,572 / 1,670 / 1,572 / 1,572 / 1,572

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 41%, Threshold: 281
▸ Dodge Chance: 1% (12)
▸ Armor Mitigation: 17% (463)
▸ Crit Avoidance: 48%

Damage Types:

▸ Fire, Cold, Lightning / Spell, DoT

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Runebolt (20)
• Glyph of Dominion (20)
• Frost Wall (20)
• Runic Invocation (24)
• Static Orb (20)

Used unique items:

• Fundamental Criterion

[flint wolf]

I've been working towards this "wild magic" build from an older patch. are there tweaks i can make as i get better gear? or is the build reliant on some things from the previous patch that no longer exist?

wild magic build: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/volXm2zo

[silk pewter]

Runemaster, Level 100

Game Cycle / Version:

Beta / 0.9.2

General:

▸ Health: 1,320, Regen: 24/s
▸ Mana: 288, Regen: 9/s
▸ Ward Retention: 711%, Regen: 0/s
▸ Attributes: 29 Str / 16 Dex / 113 Int / 16 Att / 16 Vit
▸ Resistances: 72% / 263% / 132% / 77% / 18% / 94% / 34%
▸ EHP: 2,564 / 2,312 / 2,312 / 2,404 / 2,564 / 2,138 / 1,511

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 41%, Threshold: 242
▸ Dodge Chance: 3% (75)
▸ Armor Mitigation: 29% (1,406)

Damage Types:

▸ Fire, Cold, Lightning / Spell, DoT

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Runebolt (21)
• Glyph of Dominion (21)
• Runic Invocation (24)
• Frost Wall (21)
• Static Orb (21)

Used unique items:

• Mad Alchemist's Ladle
• Prismatic Gaze
• Frostbite Shackles
• Fundamental Criterion
• Red Ring of Atlaria
• Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros
• Foot of the Mountain
• Orian's Eye
• Throne of Ambition

[weary hamlet]

these items jeez

other than that the rainbow builds didnt change much

[flint wolf]

yeah he had some decent gear.

the frostbite shackles seem pretty essential. but gated behind a boss doesnt help

[unreal blade]

shackles got nerfed on ward retention, so his defenses would be weaker now

[next lance]

How does the runemaster feel/perform after it got nerfed? I wanted to build a frostclaw/elem nova build, and maybe hydraheron!

[red geode]

Is ignite fireball any viable? Stack mana and dmg taken from mana for defense?

[harsh abyss]

It's not massively OP any more, but it's still really good.

[weary hamlet]

should be reasonably viable still

[feral birch]

i'm thinking of making a sorc with volcanic orb/black hole. Any recommendations?

HC, so any defensive tech is also appreciated. Does damage dealt to mana work well?

[lyric gyro]

what are must-have items for a glacier build?

[weary hamlet]

VO is a decent skill and can be built in several ways, but black hole is a big ole meme

especially in HC

[weary hamlet]

I mean it's more or less the same way but you can run it with either ailments or direct damage in cold or fire

[scenic sail]

Should be easy to get it up to 300-500 corruption

[undone onyx]

hi, I am new to this game, may i know is there any website that can search for the most updated version of builds recommend?

coz I tried to search on youtube and it seems most of them are outdated as they were uploaded 10 months ago

[dense juniper]

https://maxroll.gg/last-epoch

https://www.lastepochtools.com/

Welcome to Last Epoch

[candid shore]

We have not have a balance patch since... oct? So a good chunk of builds are 'old'.

[dense juniper]

meaning many top build still viable

[harsh abyss]

Even Oct wasnt major balance shifts.

Anything from 1.1 is probably still good.

[weary hamlet]

tbh most of the balance from like 0.9 is still in game, with a couple of most egregious exceptions being fixed

[gritty pagoda]

the only change then was making warpath slightly more consistent to use

[small topaz]

is there a good way to level with spark charge mana strike?

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, just... do it. Spec the spark charge node, go for attack damage and spell damage... It'll be enough to get you through the campaign as long as you keep building for it

[small topaz]

So Sceptre is best option?

[harsh abyss]

Scepter is good, yeah. You're not generally worried about mana unless you're using it for other triggers. The only item you'll REALLY want to be on the lookout for is a Fragment of the Enigma, because it specifically scales spark charge damage to huge numbers. But you won't even be able to use it until 46 or something.

Spark Charges are involved in my favorite way to level mage, but they're not even really the focus: I use Elemental Nova with the lightning nova tree to make it proc spark charges and have a big AOE, then grab the Teleport nodes that cast novas when you teleport. Easiest screen clearing around.

[unreal blade]

At 37, Dragorath's Claw is fantastic, and that can be taken into an endgame build. Otherwise you can go more into attack damage with a sword/axe/mace/dagger, or more into spell with sword (spell damage prefix) or sceptre.

Mana strike, especially on spellblade, is also a very durable leveling build for hardcore, though not fast, since you always have mana to pop flame ward or teleport out of danger. You can keep it melee for better mana and higher early damage, or take it range and have less damage early on.

[small topaz]

I have 2 2LP fragments which is why i wanted to try this

[small topaz]

Thanks dude

[harsh abyss]

Ranged mana strike doesn't affect damage, just mana gained. So unless you're triggering things that cost mana (like Lightning Blast or Frost Claw), making it ranged and auto target is a huge QOL

[unreal blade]

you have to spend points on non damaging nodes to enable it = less damage early. you could spend those points on damage instead.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I wouldn't get it until after you pick up the Spark Charge nodes, but after that the opportunity cost for the build is pretty low. Plus you probably want to get Rune Sap on the build eventually anyway.

[plush flicker]

Hi. I'm new to the game. How does the interaction between enigma and daggeroth work? Do i spam mana strike? Do I spam firebrand?

the whole interaction is confusing

[harsh abyss]

They're kind of separate. Dragerath's casts lightning blast by frost claw critting, so all it cares about is that you cast lots of frost claws. Enigma scales spark charges so you want to get as many spark charges on things as you can. Lightning Blast can apply spark charges, so that's a way they can interact a bit.

Use melee attack (doesn't matter what one) to trigger frost claw
frost claw crits and triggers lightning blast
lightning blast applies spark charges

I'd probably go with mana strike spam for 3 main reasons:

1. You can spec it so it can apply spark charges inherently with every hit.
2. It generates mana to keep your FC and LB proccing.
3. It's a lightning ability so you scale it's damage the same way as spark charges, LB and FC

[weary hamlet]

as already said above, the two simply have no interaction. Your goal in a spark charge build is to maximize hits per second, you don't really care about anything else

so the idea is that melee hits trigger frost claw which triggers LB

[plush flicker]

so stack firebrands then mana strike?

[plush flicker]

thanks. I'm seeing alot of firebrand/mana strike builds. Do i build up firebrand stacks then just mana strike?

[harsh abyss]

I'm not an expert on those builds, but I'm sure there's some synergy there 🤷‍♀️

[weary hamlet]

just spam mana strike cause it has a 100% chance to apply spark charges, Im pretty sure that firebrand doesnt add much of value here

[harsh abyss]

I think it's to stack up firebrand stacks for additional spell damage maybe?

Yeah, there are a bunch of different buffs you can get by stacking up firebrand

[weary hamlet]

you have a ton of flat damage on spark charges from enigma - do you really want to be using a suboptimal skill to add more?

[harsh abyss]

Ward on hit per stack with mana strike, spell damage, crit multi, ward/sec per stack, armor per stack, fire resistance per stack

And you can set all the stacks to refresh when you hit, so as long as you hit it once in a while it'd be enough to keep all the stacks up once they're built

I think the max it 8 stacks, which would be: 32 ward on hit with mana strike, 400 armor, 200% fire resist, 72 ward/sec, 120% crit multi, 40 spell damage

The crit multi is definitely not nothing

[weary hamlet]

yea the crit multi is a good point

[small topaz]

Yeah

[harsh abyss]

But that's like.. top end for it to matter. Just spam mana strike for most of the leveling/gearing process, worry about niche stuff like that way later.

[viral fox]

hi all, im trying to build a fire mage, until now i went with volcanic orb and meteor and its all fairly easy, but now i want to replace volcanic orb

elemental nova or forst claw can be good as volcanic orb?

[weary hamlet]

you need to decide which main skill you want to build around, cause a lot of fire builds will use meteor as a free source of 75% fire pen and not much more

or maybe also mana regen with mana tunnel

but you can also totally build it as a primary skill

[harsh abyss]

Meteor is probably my favorite 'big kaboom' skill

[scenic sail]

I loved playing fireball + meteor, but volcanic orb is just as powerful. You can also use frostclaw with fire and you can spec craterborn to get the 75% fire penetration

[next lance]

Is there a way to build runemaster where he becomes a walking simulator? I want to use plasma orbs since they do that chain lightning attack and I want to just walks around

[weary hamlet]

yea plasma orb is the closest you get

although it's a fairly involved walking simulator if you want to maximize it

[next lance]

Would you recommend the RM after the nerfs? I really didnt play before and i dont know how impactful the nerfs are. I know Sorc got some massive buffs and ive been running a meteor/static sorc and crushing corruption

[weary hamlet]

It's a normal balanced class now, although weaker than some sorc builds on power level

[next lance]

is there any reason why my flame rush isnt always casting runic?

[harsh abyss]

Have you given your RI a cooldown?

[nimble shoal]

Outside of the cooldown, it's one of the only things in game that requires you to have enough mana to cast it (as opposed to just >0 mana).

[next lance]

Could be this. My RI doesn’t have cooldowns

[turbid dome]

if youre going frostclaw/static orb sorc, what are the primary differences between flame ward and arcane ascendance?

i remember someone telling me that flame ward does nearly as much damage

[harsh abyss]

Flame ward primarily gives you an insane amount of defense, where arcane ascendence is usually used as a dps boost

[weary hamlet]

It's more that ascendance is not a very good skill and you pick it not because it's outstanding but because it's better than having an empty slot

[turbid dome]

@harsh abyss@weary hamletoverall how noticeable a damage bump would it give you late game?

[harsh abyss]

Really depends on your build. I never use it because it forces you to stand still and that can cause unintended deaths. I'd go for Flame Ward 10 out of 10 times.

[scenic sail]

AA gives my glacier mage a good damage boost, about 20% when active, but you're obviously much more vulnerable while it's active. The 50% extra cast speed is the main appeal of AA so you don't need to spec AA if you don't want to, as that benefit is free. I also recommend avoiding items that remove evade (crab ring and fingers of the phantom mire) while using AA for that reason. Flame ward is more of a defensive skill and I usually spec flame ward, but I don't activate myself, it gets procced automatically when stunned. Here's my build and planner for AA if you want to take a look: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BEj22E7o

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 100

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (21) / Sorcerer (63) / Runemaster (29)

General:

▸ Health: 1,243, Regen: 23.8/s
▸ Mana: 2,084.01, Regen: 25.44/s
▸ Ward Retention: 494%, Regen: 218/s
▸ Attributes: 21 Str / 19 Dex / 117 Int / 25 Att / 17 Vit
▸ Resistances: 83% / 71% / 126% / 72% / 68% / 70% / 118%
▸ EHP: 2,672 / 2,774 / 2,885 / 2,943 / 2,497 / 2,544 / 2,885

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 71%, Threshold: 649
▸ Dodge Chance: 5% (145)
▸ Armor Mitigation: 14% (437)

Damage Types:

▸ Lightning, Fire, Cold / Spell

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Glacier (20)
• Focus (20)
• Meteor (21)
• Static Orb (20)
• Arcane Ascendance (20)

Used unique items:

• Seed of Ekkidrasil
• The Kestrel
• Wrongwarp
• Scales of Eterra
• Swaddling of the Erased
• Harbinger of Stars
• Blood of the Exile
• Red Ring of Atlaria
• Phantom Grip
• The Confluence of Fate
• Stormcarved Testament

[harsh abyss]

Mana stacking Focus + Lightning Blast Sorcerer build, anyone?

[gritty pagoda]

[scenic sail]

That's defniitely a cool boost to Focus, and every build that uses Focus is going to appreciate the T7 mana regen. Personally though I don't see it replacing the Confluence of Fate as the best amulet for a sorcerer, it just adds so much damage to every spell hit, I don't see it getting replaced by this in my builds atleast.

[nimble shoal]

No, it's for mana guide builds

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, it's for builds that use Energy Overflow, which definitely don't need Confluence of Fate because they already get 40% of your max mana as flat lightning damage. Right now it's no fun to use because it's always just a BIT awkward because the AOE isn't quite large enough to hit everything in a desired radius.

This solves that both by having you move while channeling and by casting lightning blasts to hit things outside of your radius.

Obviously a natural fit for Sorcerer because you'll also use Damage Taken As Mana Before Health and be stacking a bajillion mana to maximize your damage anyway. And you can spec Focus to give you insane defense while channeling with some added levels.

[proper hawk]

Am I crazy for thinking that Runemaster actually looks very interesting for this? Runic Fortress would give 450 flat armour and 20% of armour as ward after 2 seconds while channelling, Focus itself gives 12 flat armour per int and a 48% more armour multiplier, and you could lock in fire/fire/fire runes with RI and use the flat armour per fire rune affixes on body armour and helmet. You would have insane armour, and pretty good ward off it too

[worthy mirage]

Focus mage is one of the builds ive been able to afk, literally not in the same room as my pc, kill T4 julra with
this item alone makes me very happy

[worthy mirage]

naaa, cause one of the nodes increases damage if at capped mana, and if you arent capped then that'll hurt it

Overcharge might fix that? I cant remember, but I could never get enough points to warrant taking Overcharge

that and while I do LOVE this new item, theres also the fact that with Conveyance and Never Late/Nimbus Walk in Runemaster talents, you could really easily achieve 100% crit on Focus

now if it allowed me to do the conveyance teleport and then continue to walk around with massively buffed crit chance, it would basically become a bajillion times stronger than warpath sentinels and ghost flame acolytes and I can see it getting nerfed SO FAST

you essentially get 2000+ mana and sit at like 800+ flat lightning damage, with 100% crit rate + all the lightning crit damage affixes and become a better warpath than warpath sentinels with this new item

sentinel rework? naaa shii don't matter when Mana Guide will exist

I used to numlock auto cast focus on T4 julra and then leave my pc for 15 min and come back to her being dead, being able to move while using focus is wiiiiiiiild

though, that item is also an amulet, and theres some REALLY fatty max mana amulets and affixes, so you're getting the ability to move at the cost of taking a pretty large damage hit

[nimble shoal]

I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work this way, that's kinda what I'm looking at

(tbf almost anything is way stronger than ghostflame)

[worthy mirage]

ive played LE for the lst 5ish years with sentinel as my main, and if that crap actually works, I may just make Mage my starting character

it'll be so much better for a season start for grinding to get other builds squared away

and it requires level 30?

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, level 30 and build-enabling, so I'm expecting it to be pretty easy to get. Probably will be easy to get LP, too.

[worthy mirage]

true, that also means easier to get a fat mana affix on

so not too much of a damage loss

[harsh abyss]

My lightning blast bug is fixed, so I'm definitely starting Mage, I'll def let you know how it is if I get one.

Mastery respec is big, too

[worthy mirage]

i enjoy making stupid boss tanks out of each class, just always playing really stupid builds that work, and focus mage was one of my top tops

rogue tank will always be my strongest tank by far, with focus mage being a close second

[nimble shoal]

I will probably still season start as sentinel, but feeling very tempted to start as mage now... mana guide will probably be char #2

[harsh abyss]

I never liked focus mage because it always felt like the bursts took a LITTLE too long to start. And things were always just a bit out of range

[proper hawk]

wait which bug, halo effect?

[harsh abyss]

Yep

[worthy mirage]

endurance rogue tank that cant dodge, is so stupidly strong, it can literally face tank repeated T4 julra nukes

[harsh abyss]

FINALLY fixed

[proper hawk]

hell yeah

that was so annoying

it was breaking multiple LB concepts I had

[harsh abyss]

My infinite channeled LB build is back on the menu

[nimble shoal]

I wonder when halo effect bug even started, so odd

[proper hawk]

battlemage's endeavor frostbite LB too

I wanted to try that

[harsh abyss]

.82 it worked, because thats when I made my build guide.

[worthy mirage]

the only problem with focus and LB is how much you wanna go for this

[proper hawk]

but halo effect was very important

[worthy mirage]

especially since the amulet casts LB

[harsh abyss]

Overcharge will probably make that still work

[worthy mirage]

oh you know what

focus never could run other direct hitters

because of nimbus walk

[proper hawk]

eh just go for zero LB cost and ignore it imo

[worthy mirage]

ok so if you run the new amulet

you dont get insane crit rate focus

because the lb auto casts will immediately break it

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, unless your LB is free

Which is easy enough if you treat it as extra dmg

Go no chain + halo effect and a staff with -3 cost and you're fine.

[worthy mirage]

no, free LB still breaks it

[proper hawk]

wait why would LB break focus crit rate? I feel like I'm missing something

[nimble shoal]

Well, it doesn't say it costs mana, but we can't see the alt text, so not sure

[worthy mirage]

nimbus walk made conveyance focus get 100% crit rate while you held it down

but

if we make LB a channel spell

it might work?

[proper hawk]

yeah? its a traversal skill, so it will get the crit rate

why would LB break it

[harsh abyss]

Shouldnt that not work because it says non-channeled?

[nimble shoal]

As long as focus has the Traversal tag, nimbus makes it get the never late stuff

[worthy mirage]

nimbus walk makes forces focus to work, but im just trying to make sure never late itself doesnt cause LB to break the insane crit focus gets

[harsh abyss]

Do you even need that if you just have a crit catalyst.

[proper hawk]

why would never late cause lb to break the crit focus gets? focus is a traversal skill, it gets the bonus regardless

[nimble shoal]

You may not need it, but it's really good

[worthy mirage]

because its on next cast, which focus will maintain the entire time it channels, but other damage sources that were direct, would break it. I used to test it with arcane ascendance casting LB and it would break the crit boost on focus

[nimble shoal]

a lot of flat crit from it and a bit of flat doesn't hurt

[worthy mirage]

+16% flat crit

is massive

[nimble shoal]

hm, well that sounds like a bug if LB breaks the effect on traversal focus

[proper hawk]

pretty sure thats a bug then, theres no reason focus should lose the benefits so long as its a traversal skill. it buffs the next non-channelled spell, and all traversal skills, those should be two separate things and not interact with each other

[worthy mirage]

but if you made LB a channel spell, and so focus with the new amulet casts channeled LB's, then it might not break it

[harsh abyss]

It sounds like a bug that it works at all, tbh

[worthy mirage]

ARPG code goes brrr

[proper hawk]

wdym? if you make focus a traversal skill it should absolutely get the crit bonus

[nimble shoal]

Traversal focus getting the buffs matches the wording at least

[worthy mirage]

yea, but then your next spell cast from any source, consumes the buff and the buff affects your character as a whole, not just focus specifically

so you'd have to make LB a channeled spell, and then if the amulet shoots a channeled LB or no LB at all, then it works perfectly

[nimble shoal]

yeah, that's probably the same wonky implementation that made never late's buff permanent for everything you do

and if that's the case then giving LB the channeled tag would probably fix it, like you say

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but it's still a channeled skill, which means it shouldn't get it.

[worthy mirage]

but then you take conveyance, which turns focus into a traversal so it does get it

that traversal tag just ignores everything

[nimble shoal]

It doesn't say that never late applies to traversal skills, it just says that the added damage and crit chance apply - so it explicitly goes around the non-channeled condition

[worthy mirage]

ARPG code goes brrrrrrrrrrrr

[nimble shoal]

They certainly wanted it to work with flame dash

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, just feels bugged to me 🤷‍♀️

But also, even though the flat crit is great, I'm not sure you really need it. Capping crit is pretty easy

[harsh abyss]

I'm fairly sure it would cast no LB, most things that trigger other things can't trigger them when they're channeled from what I've seen.

[worthy mirage]

that works perfectly then

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, the question is whether the extra skill point investments are worth the flat crit

[worthy mirage]

focus is the main point, LB is just a bonus, no LB is fine

[nimble shoal]

also random minor thing, focus is one of the skills that has base 6% crit chance lol

[worthy mirage]

sure, i tend to have like 2 slots free on my focus builds, and just chuck in random skills for what if/oh shit scenarios

[nimble shoal]

and nimbus/never late won't cap crit on LB

[worthy mirage]

and with this amulet, i wouldnt need arcane ascendance anymore either

[harsh abyss]

I mean you want 8 points in RM for Sphere of Protection anyway, then Runeword: Cataclysm is also good, so you aren't really losing much with the RM investment

I wonder how that amulet will work with WASD

[nimble shoal]

It's more the investment in skill specs, 1 point for traversal in focus and 3-4 points in LB to fix the bug maybe

[harsh abyss]

I mean that's definitely worth it for the bonusess

[nimble shoal]

and loss of QoL in your focus having a cooldown

[harsh abyss]

And you lose the 60% more frequent pulses, which is kinda big

I think you just won't want all that with the amulet, because running and casting focus at 70% move speed is going to be solid

[worthy mirage]

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/Q9wn4dXo
i was never good at min/maxing perfect builds, but I had this version I threw together a long time ago and then used it as my baseline to aim for while playing a mage. I just like creating MAXIMUM BULLSH*T builds, that shouldnt work at all, but end up actually working. I already know most would find issue with how this builds probably setup, but it makes for a nice template while just showcasing my thoughts on the build.

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 100

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (20) / Sorcerer (67) / Runemaster (26)

General:

▸ Health: 1,440, Regen: 20/s
▸ Mana: 2,038.82, Regen: 31.92/s
▸ Ward Retention: 84%, Regen: 230/s
▸ Attributes: 1 Str / 1 Dex / 21 Int / 7 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 63% / 63% / 103% / 103% / 101% / 64% / 64%
▸ EHP: 5,318 / 4,680 / 5,242 / 6,374 / 5,318 / 4,722 / 4,722

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 33%, Threshold: 288
▸ Armor Mitigation: 42% (2,399)
▸ Block Chance: 46%, Mitigation: 40% (1,308)

Damage Types:

▸ Lightning, Cold / Spell

Buffs:

▸ Never Late (1), Preparation, Arcane Ascendance, Flame Ward, Focus, Lightning Aegis

Used skills:

• Static (22)
• Arcane Ascendance (20)
• Focus (26)
• Flame Ward (22)
• Snap Freeze (20)

Used unique items:

• Triboelectra
• Moenia Mentis
• Phantom Grip
• Phantom Grip
• Stormcarved Testament
• Orian's Eye

[nimble shoal]

You don't lose the faster pulses, just waste that travel point

[harsh abyss]

The real question is if Overcharge counts as being "at full mana" for the purposes of Unstable Energy so you can do Damage taken as Mana Before Health and use Lightning Blast with a mana cost while maintaining full mana

[worthy mirage]

i was looking over it again and noticed i took flame ward, and the retal i think does proc the crit but i wondered if maybe i took something that removes the retal or i forgot to

[worthy mirage]

if you run the crit catalyst and don't take nimbus walk, sure, I could see fun that way as well

i mean you don't have to go nimbus walk, multiple build variations is good

especially if 1 variation gets nerfed

[harsh abyss]

That's how I'd do it personally, but yeah it's really just preference

[worthy mirage]

like 100% they're prob gonna nerf nimbus walk if people run mana guide

prob chop it in half

so the catalyst variation and actively using LB and overcharge could be the next best variation

[harsh abyss]

The big determining factor for me will be how it FEELS to play

[worthy mirage]

yea that IS 70% movespeed after all

[harsh abyss]

Well, the only reason I didn't really like it before was because of things being annoyingly out of range of focus and the pulses taking too long to start hitting.

So between the LB casts and the movement, it might feel a ton better

[worthy mirage]

yea i think another version of the build i ran fire elemental nova for clearing smaller packs inbetween kiting larger packs for focus pulses

[nimble shoal]

It's like warpath's 30% less move speed without actually lowering your move speed (cough wrongwarp)

[harsh abyss]

oh god wrongwarp will be insane with this. If only cast speed affected the pulse time

[worthy mirage]

one of the biggest things about focus though, is the fact its a channeling skill, and i never see anyone ever make proper use of that knowledge AND F*CKING RUN ALL RESISTS WHILE CHANNELING ON RELIC

[nimble shoal]

I agree playing without never late would probably be my aim, since I want to have LB help on clearing

[harsh abyss]

Dude I know. It's such a strong affix

[worthy mirage]

that affix + a shield all resists and you've pretty much covered all of your resists baseline and can do other affixes for your gear

or that affix on relic, + any weapon setup, and the all resists in focus

[harsh abyss]

My LB channel build uses that affix + glyph of dominion for crazy ward/sec and easy resist caps

[worthy mirage]

i used to always see people ignore that affix on relic and then try to put resists elsewhere on gear and it made my head hurt

[harsh abyss]

I also like it because it makes capping your resists while not channeling still have value

Because it's extra ward/sec while on the glyph, which you basically always are

[proper hawk]

Does scrivener's haste in Runic Invocation not grant ward if you are already at max runes? I'm fairly sure it doesn't based on the wording but I thought I'd double check

30% of max mana as ward every 0.5 seconds sounds incredible lol

[harsh abyss]

I don't think it does

Because your number of runes has to increase

[proper hawk]

I feel like theres something with mana guide + runic fortress + scrivener's haste, that seems like a huge amount of ward even if you need to clear the runes repeatedly

[worthy mirage]

mana battery mages using mana guide entirely to funnel focus onto 1 gigachad mana consumption player as they all trot behind them

i actually did that start of S1, playing mana funneler to 2 friends new to the game and they would just be cackling nonstop at infinite mana

[proper hawk]

lmao thats a hilarious mental image

[worthy mirage]

but mana guide lets you keep it up on teammates while also keeping up with them

[proper hawk]

just non-stop meteor casts

[worthy mirage]

lol

[unreal blade]

if you can get damage elsewhere, focus can give you incredible tank. not sure if automated lightning blast will be enough, or whatever else we might be able to automate while holding focus. meteor belt is a possibility if mana generation can keep up. just these 3 nodes are 58% DR factored multiplicatively, then add lightning aegis from lightning blast, armor and stuff like sphere of protection and red rings perhaps. add aegis/sphere/2 rings and you are up to 76.4% DR without armor.

[queen dew]

Any decent alternatives to Glacier for sorc levelling?

[harsh abyss]

FC, Ele Nova, Lightning Blast, and Fireball are all pretty good

[viral fox]

guys do you think ignite frostclaw can be good as frostclaw pure dps?

[worthy mirage]

Oh you dont even need that, ive afk solo'd t4 julra without that

[worthy mirage]

Sure, frost claws always a jam

[scenic sail]

I don't think Glacier is good until about level 75+, Glacier feeds on having lots of mana, which is hard to get when you're low level. I always recommend leveling with Fireball, it auto-homes on enemies and can have its cost reduced to 0 quite easily

[viral fox]

nice thanks

[worthy mirage]

Easy fix, get 3 buddies all with mana guide and have them focus funnel you mana while you run around spamming glacier >:D

I have 1 friend who loves running aurabots and the moment he saw mana guide he was like "i need you to play a high mana cost carry this next season"

[viral fox]

isnt there some unique gear that boost fire damage? i can only see gear tha tboost ignite builds

[harsh abyss]

A lot of fire builds focus on ignite, but if you're looking for a crit damage fire build, anything that boosts crit and crit multiplier is going to be good for it

[viral fox]

alright thanks

looks like im gonna have to do a build from scratch

[dense juniper]

Im thankful enough that you can re-spec easy in this game without a cost

and leveling skill level isn't a problem once you are in like lvl 75+

[unreal blade]

i like glacier for leveling but only with 3rd explosion disabled so i can spam it. i don't like having to manually group up mobs so i make sure they all die with my full mana bar per cast glacier. it also takes a long time to animate and get that 3rd hit off. 2 hit glacier is cheap and responsive and does plenty of damage for early leveling before switching to whatever you want to play.

[scenic sail]

Yes, I should've mentioned, "Lesser Glacier" is great for leveling to reduce its mana cost, but you would also want "Static Collapse" in my experience which also means that glacier doesn't do much damage. I always use a harbinger of stars belt which goes great with this setup as well.

[harsh abyss]

I know I'm weird, but my leveling go-to is spark charge ele nova + teleport w/novas

[unreal blade]

oh i never get that far in the glacier tree before i've swapped to my real build

i go lesser glacier -> moderate destruction -> morditas' bane and i'm usually swapped by then

[scenic sail]

Elemental nova is super fun to level with as well, it does a lot of damage to low level enemies, a combo of nova and fireball is what I used the first time running through the campaign

[unreal blade]

i always found ele nova to do underwhelming damage and the range is small before investment. i suppose it's ok to have as backup if you are using a single target skill and get overrun by a bunch of riffraff.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, nova by itself is small and meh, but you can go right into spark charges, which give it decent damage and then into AOE after that. Once you've got 100% spark charge application, you can use it for boss damage decently as well during the campaign.

And then when you get the 3 teleport nova nodes, it basically clears screens because by that point you have huge AOE and are applying tons of spark charges to everything it can hit

It definitely won't carry you into empowered monos by itself, but for the campaign it'll get you there until you get whatever else you want online

[unreal blade]

i'm looking slightly above julra requirements. she's kind of a joke if you have decent defenses.

[worthy mirage]

yea, people give her nuke too much credit, you CAN face tank it repeatedly

it doesnt do 9999999 damage lmao

you can stay in 1 timeline and eat the nukes

[viral fox]

how can i reach higher corruption? do i have to go 6 by 6?

[scenic sail]

If you have a harbinger needle, equip one when you defeat a timeline boss, that will give you gazes of corruption. When you defeat a shade you’ll get an increased 12 corruption per gaze up to a max of 4, which means you can get around 60 corruption per shade kill. Then once you’ve gotten above 200c in on timeline any other timeline at 100c will automatically spawn a “catch up” shade fight once you complete a single monolith in that timeline. It’s fairly quick to do once you understand the process, you can get to 500 corruption in a single day.

[worthy coyote]

Is it important to grab the volka node if you are trying to maximize damage for shatter strike?

I’m confused how it work it doesn’t scale with my damage how does it work?

Is it dot damage?

[nimble shoal]

The what node?

Oh

If you're looking at the tooltip it just won't show, but it's a straight multiplier to your SS damage as long as it costs 10 or more mana

[left hill]

is Wormhole (Teleport) just bad? 5% CSR seems really tiny

[nimble shoal]

It's not great, that is for sure

[left hill]

Ok, glad I'm not missing anything 😅

[proper hawk]

I'm a bit confused now, halo effect is not working for me. Which patch fixed it?

[harsh abyss]

It's going to be fixed in 1.2

[proper hawk]

oh RIP lmao you were talking in past tense so I thought it was already fixed by a prior patch

[subtle ibex]

I read this as vodka node and said yes

[verbal palm]

can all elemental skills be transformed into another elemental skill? (for example disintegrate can be changed purely into either fire/lightning just from skill tree, lightning bolt can be changed purely into cold from passive, meteor can be changed purely into lightning with vilatra's which is a set item)

[nimble shoal]

No - most skills do have at least one damage type conversion, but not all of them do. A few examples of skills without conversions are static, glacier, and ice barrage. But someday maybe they'll get a conversion, like it would be pretty cool to get a fire/volcano looking version of glacier someday.

[scenic sail]

Yea, I would love to see glacier have a fire alternative, the boss in Spirits of Fire send out those huge rolling lava fireball things and they call those "Glaciers" when they kill you, so I would LOVE to see the ability to convert Glacier to those in v1.2. That would make me go back to playing mage again

[verbal palm]

thanks, apparently you can search the keyword convert in lastepochtools skills section and it lists u convertible skills

[harsh abyss]

Lol nah I'm just excited because it enables my favorite build

[unreal blade]

what's so exciting about halo? seems like a worse, non-scaling spark charge.

[harsh abyss]

It's a 100% chance with 4 points. I pair it with the channeled version of LB, which casts a TON per second (I think it's like 8-10 casts per second), but it can't chain. But Halo Effect casts on every single cast of the channeled LB, giving it excellent clear and single target damage.

I'm not totally sure about this part, but my understanding is Spark charge actually scales worse because it's got the weird "an ailment that casts a spell" thing going on which means it doesn't inherit modifiers to the damage of the spell that casts it. Most triggered non-slottable spells inherit modifiers to the parent spell's damage, which means that Spark Nova is effectively doubling the damage of your channeled LBs. Even if it doesn't inherit all the modifiers, it gives you excellent clear.

Also, Spark Charge has the delay, which doesn't feel as good for clear purposes

[unreal blade]

spark charge has high spellpower scaling with enigma though

[nimble shoal]

Spark nova is a true subskill of LB, so it does inherit everything that subskills inherit (including spark charge chance if you spec that)

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but the build that I do doesn't use enigma. It's totally different

If you focus on Enigma, your actual LB doesn't do any meaningful damage 😝

[nimble shoal]

probably doesn't inherit the damage vs shocked/chilled node for example

[harsh abyss]

And since the channeled LB reduces the ailment application chance, I assume it reduces the chance to apply spark charges. I haven't actually tested that though.

[harsh abyss]

I think Mike confirmed that it doesn't inherit that node at some point. I remember it popping up

Because of conditional applicators on the target not applying to inherited spells

Spark charge LB is a completely different build than what my favorite build is. It might be stronger on the high end, but the overlap between them is pretty minimal.

I like my build because it removes the need for you to scale Mana and Cast Speed entirely, so you can take the opportunity cost from ignoring those and spend it on more other types of damage.

[nimble shoal]

wait what? it doesn't mention anything about that

oh wait it does

but not in the stat lines lol

[harsh abyss]

yeah

It would be busted if it didn't do that though.

[nimble shoal]

Do we know what rate the channeled LBs proc at?

[unreal blade]

yeah i wasn't saying you'd use both. just wondering why you'd choose novas instead of charges with charges having high scaling.

so nova benefits from things like shattershock and frontloaded or focal blast?

the more modifiers would definitely help, but low spellpower would keep them down, i would think.

[nimble shoal]

Since apparently the channel node halves your ailment chance, you get half the spark charges

though idk if that really works or not, like does it even stop your mana regen?

[harsh abyss]

Well, you build it differently than Spark Charges. You rely on +intelligence for spark charge scaling, but with Spark Novas you can use a staff or high flat damage weapon to get decent spell power.

[unreal blade]

supposedly any reference to stopping regen is tooltip error

[unreal blade]

yeah i guess it's specific to this case with channelled LB. i was thinking more generally, comparing the 2 subskills.

[nimble shoal]

Shattershock is a nope, but frontloaded is up in the air (normally it'd be a yes, but it's an unusual effect so I'm sus)

[unreal blade]

i've been working through some iterations of a mana guide build, so i was curious about the spark nova interest.

[harsh abyss]

I haven't checked on the 'not draining mana' bit, but my general use of the build is to drain mana to zero and channel infinitely with Innate Conduit, so it deosn't matter for my build

[nimble shoal]

Oh neat, I wouldn't have expected that to work

[nimble shoal]

For mana guide, I was thinking about convergence instead of spark novas, but idk yet. Spark novas plus actual chaining might be a nice balance for clear

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, it's actually really cool. If you want to look at the build guide I made (super out of date obviously since halo effect has been broken forever) https://www.lastepochtools.com/build-guides/liaths-endless-lightning---infinite-lightning-blast-runemaster

Channel LB to 0 until you need to move -> Teleport (Mana Tunnel) -> Runic Invocation (Double mana restore due to Mana Tunnel + Author of Arcana) -> Glyph of Dominion -> Flame Ward (if necessary) -> Channel LB

It's a really nice rhythm once you get used to it

Planning to play it again and update the guide, there's a lot of new uniques and stuff that can boost it.

[unreal blade]

this is my latest iteration https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/QDPJR4PQ

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 100

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (21) / Sorcerer (65) / Runemaster (27)

General:

▸ Health: 1,103, Regen: 20/s
▸ Mana: 2,151.61, Regen: 32.4/s
▸ Ward Retention: 291%, Regen: 241/s
▸ Attributes: 1 Str / 1 Dex / 75 Int / 1 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 65% / 81% / 40% / 54% / 60% / 86% / 57%
▸ EHP: 2,230 / 2,453 / 1,817 / 2,416 / 2,133 / 2,453 / 2,079

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 32%, Threshold: 221
▸ Armor Mitigation: 39% (2,157)

Damage Types:

▸ Lightning / Spell

Buffs:

▸ Haste, Focus, Lightning Aegis

Used skills:

• Focus (24)
• Flame Ward (22)
• Static (22)
• Lightning Blast (22)
• Static Orb (22)

Used unique items:

• Fractured Crown
• Wrongwarp
• Oceareon
• Oceareon
• Unstable Core
• Knowledge of an Erased Mage
• Yulia's Path

[unreal blade]

ugh i forgot it did that

[nimble shoal]

Cool, I might use this for inspiration when I inevitably make a sith lightning build

[unreal blade]

basically zooms around and drops 700 mana static orbs for bosses.

[nimble shoal]

You can put a ~ in front of the link to suppress the bot

[harsh abyss]

It's the first build i'm planning to play in 1.2 so hit me up if you're going to do something similar. If the 'mana regen suppressed while channeling' is lie, it might open up some interesting potential for it

You can probably get reduced cost and increased mana regen to get to positive mana regen using Countenance of Mana, which would make things a lot more comfortable.

[unreal blade]

easy enough to test in game. i will try to remember to do it when i get home if you haven't yet.

[harsh abyss]

Eh, I'm trying not to log in until 1.2 happens

I'll test it while I'm leveling the build, heh

[nimble shoal]

Ah, going fractured crown route, interesting

throwing around some static orbs here and there for boss damage definitely has meta build potential

the ability to 1-shot bosses on what's essentially an immortal warpath build...

[unreal blade]

yeah seed until a good crown can be made

[harsh abyss]

Crown + Mana Tunnel is probably going to be incredible. Focus is gonna be so tanky

[nimble shoal]

Seed is pretty late game itself, unless you plan on running MG

yeah I'd run mana tunnel -> static orb for sure

[harsh abyss]

You could also use Triboelectra instead of wrongwarp to cast static orb when you evade

[unreal blade]

not too worried about recouping the mana with 32+ mps and not needing to cast it that often.

[harsh abyss]

A well rolled one of those giving you +3 to all lightning skills is solid

[unreal blade]

yeah could be nice, but implicit mana and the haste and dmg from move speed is big

[nimble shoal]

I might even drop static depending on how it performs

I'll definitely try static out, but I don't want it to either eat my mana or do nothing

[unreal blade]

yeah just a filler extra source of lightning blast. could replace with frost wall casting LB, but i'd rather be lazy and just hold focus and zoom.

[nimble shoal]

I'm also planning on seeing if we can pop AA and still move around with focus

[unreal blade]

AA itself roots you, no?

[nimble shoal]

I think evade lets you move during AA without breaking it? not sure on that though

[harsh abyss]

Depends on how AA works in the back end I think. Set move speed to 0? No. Immobilized? No. Block movement inputs? Maybe

[worthy mirage]

Focus already IS incredibly tanky, lol

Focus builds eat t4 julra nukes for breakfast, are you making it tankier?

[harsh abyss]

Well, main reason I'd want a crown on the build is the crit multi. Everything else is just a bonus

[harsh abyss]

If you can get one with 25%+ max mana and 110%+ crit multi, I feel like you'd be hard pressed to get a better helm.

Plus with the new unique/set reroll mechanic, that might actually be feasible to roll.

[worthy mirage]

have the set shards been explained yet?

[nimble shoal]

Nope, though sets have been included in with unique and WW items mentioning a new "potential tier" wording. Could mean nothing for sets of course, but also could lol

I like how in the trailer the set items magically move to the shatter inventory without any tooltips displayed from mousing over them

[harsh abyss]

I DO NOT like that, heh

[nimble shoal]

hah it's okay, there is a dev blog incoming this month for the set rework

[proper hawk]

Interesting. I was playing around with the build on a new character before I realized the halo effect patch wasn't in yet. I was using traversal focus so my teleport wasn't blocked at zero mana

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I know, but REEEE

[proper hawk]

also the % of armour as ward after 2 seconds of channelling provides a hilarious amount of ward off focus

[nimble shoal]

I think any day after the 4th is fair game

[harsh abyss]

If you get a bit of mana regen increase, the moment you stop channeling, you'll be above zero and can cast teleport into mana tunnel RI, which restores enough mana to do whatever else you need. Thats how I played it. But if the channel doesnt stop regen, it should be easy to get your regen above the channel cost.

[proper hawk]

I can confirm the channel does still suppress mana regen

[harsh abyss]

I thought it did, yeah. So zero mana build is still the way

[nimble shoal]

Interesting. When Mike was asked about it he couldn't find the mana regen disable in the code, so it must be janky lol

[proper hawk]

also for some reason despite having zero channel cost you can't channel if you are more than ~8 points negative on mana

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I've noticed that too.

[proper hawk]

odd bug

I reported it though

[harsh abyss]

The weird part is that the channel takes you to negative mana at all

Probably a problem with tick rate

[proper hawk]

yeah I dont find that part weird, it takes a moment for it to adjust the cost. What's weird is that it won't let you channel while very negative when the cost is very plainly 0

and you do this weird stuttery thing too

[nimble shoal]

Usually channeled skills have a hard minimum 1 mana cost to start channeling, so kinda weird it would let you start even at low negatives

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, the way I've gotten around that is to make sure I have a staff/wand with -mana cost and a bit of increased mana regen. Having that makes the stutter and negative mana weirdness not occur so much

[proper hawk]

I mean I've only had to worry about it when I go extremely negative, I was running around with 200 mana cost static lmao

I figured I could just continue to blast while recovering but nope

[harsh abyss]

Ah yeay

[proper hawk]

also another reason traversal focus was useful lol

[harsh abyss]

Yeah I mean that's like the main thing I love about LE. We have a bunch of skills that overlap but we use them completely differently

Also IDK who asked about Grand Prism Nova and then deleted their question: Right now without the unique it's not really worth building around, but with the unique it might be.

[eager wharf]

I was thinking about it but it being in the offhand limits options a bit? Since you can't use it with the staff that usually buffs invocations a lot

[harsh abyss]

600% damage effectiveness is good, but 3-rune invocations that don't have an easy way to make sure they cast the right invocation are kind of annoying to set up. That unique making it so that it's the only invocation you cast makes it easy to ensure that you get Grand Prism so it'll be easy to build.

It won't do quite as much damage as Meteor, BUT if you scale the AOE of it big enough, you might be able to use it to just clear screens

[eager wharf]

if its such a big aoe maybe its good for the deception brand

[harsh abyss]

The way I'd probably built it is make Flame Rush cast it

[eager wharf]

yeaaah I thought so too but the item said it has to be directly cast iirc

[harsh abyss]

oh that's true

So flame rush to generate runes and then self-cast 😝

[eager wharf]

so yeah it's kind of hard to come up with something I feel like

[harsh abyss]

You could pair it with Mana Tunnel, and use RI to generate runes while you channel focus, then cast GPN whenever you feel like it

Your focus wouldn't be as much damage as a Sorcerer version, but GPN would be some big kaboom

[eager wharf]

maybe with the little leap that casts the smaller invocations too?

I guess it would be L-L-L in that case

[harsh abyss]

Nah, I'd go down the Runic Energy branch

Because double casting GPN would be massive

[eager wharf]

oh

double nova sounds nice yeah

elemental starfield for even more novas 😄

for sure would be nice to look at least

[harsh abyss]

Yeah

I like LLL for RI, but that's just because I like lightning skills

[eager wharf]

Hoping some underused invocations get buffed

so we have more good options

[harsh abyss]

Alternatively, you could pair the offhand with Unstable Core and Crest of Unity, then you'd spec teleport to cast elemental novas, cast them yourself and use GPM whenever you feel like it. You'd always have all 3 elemental types because of Crest and could use teleport to clear packs and GPN to burst bosses and stuff

The good news about Gordian Prism is that it's super low level so it'll probably be very common to get LP on it

Even if the item itself is kinda meh

[eager wharf]

yeah that's a good point

[harsh abyss]

Personally, I'd still probably chose to go mono-element for your GPN because it converts the base damage (normally it's 40, 40, 40) so an LLL one would have 120 base damage, which is super high. And mono-element means you just have to scale lightning damage or whatever, which is always easier to get big numbers on

[eager wharf]

oh right, and with so much base damage you're okay if you don't have reowyns fortress

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, and 600% added damage effectiveness is very strong. Again not quite as big as meteor, but if you consider that you'll almost always double cast via Runic Energy, it'll be tons of damage

[eager wharf]

maybe the %chance to not consume runes when invoking per unique rune scales higher and you can actually chain cast RI

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but 30% chance isn't high enough to make it reliable, so I'd rather just ignore it

[eager wharf]

yeah and the double cast charges which don't stack up fast enough

[harsh abyss]

Elementan Startfield build with Credit of Unity + Unstable Core is probably going to be strong though. I wonder if Starfield will double up if you also double cast from Runic Energy

You also can stack up runic energy super fast if you use Rune Powercore with that build, because casting ele nova over and over will always change your rune combination.

[eager wharf]

hmm i'm not sure that works with triggered skills

[harsh abyss]

Since it's always 3 elements, it'll rotate which rune it gives you, wh ich will always give you 1 runic power per cast

[eager wharf]

wait no that was arcane battery nvm

[harsh abyss]

As long as your ele nova costs 10+ mana, you'll get one energy per cast with that too

So you'd be gaining a lot of runic energy really fast, then spending it to double cast, etc

[eager wharf]

so, you cast nova for different combinations, get a big RI nova and even more novas from starfield?

[harsh abyss]

yeah

[eager wharf]

hmm yeah

[harsh abyss]

And then you cast more novas then then get another big GPN

[eager wharf]

would be cool to get spell cascade in there too

😅

[harsh abyss]

Unstable Core is also gonna give you +3 levels to RI since it'll be a tri-element skill

And your Ele Nova will get a TON of bonus levels from that and Crest of Unity

[eager wharf]

so many novas

[harsh abyss]

Yo dawg I herd you liked novas, so I made your nova cast a nova of novas

If you do it right, you could make Spell Cascade always cast elemental nova

So you'd cast 3 elemental novas from that too

[eager wharf]

I mean it sounds like a meme, but might it actually be good?

I never played an elemental nova build before

[harsh abyss]

Make it so your only non-RI non-channeled elemental skill is elemental nova. Use Teleport, Focus, Elemental Nova, RI, and maybe slot another Focus

You'll always use 3 different runes because Crest of Unity, which means Spell Cascade will choose 3 "random" spells one with each elemental type, which will just be... ele nova, ele nova, and ele nova lol

Honestly? Might be super solid

Casting runic invocation would cast 6 ele novas and 2 grand prism novas?

While you're ALSO casting more ele novas to recharge your grand prism novas?

[eager wharf]

hmm you wouldn't really need the grand prism nova for this to work right?

[harsh abyss]

Not technically, no

But having guaranteed GPM would probably feel good

You could test it out without the new unique though if you want to see how it feels

Your biggest problem might be mana generation

[eager wharf]

I prefer to wait until the new league so I don't get hooked again and burn myself out

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, that's where I'm at too

But it's still fun to think about

[eager wharf]

but those are some cool ideas you gave me, thanks!

[harsh abyss]

I think one of the biggest things I'm excited about this league is actually the reroll mechanic. Being able to take two shitty-rolled uniques and have another chance to get a good roll is going to make it SO much easier to get things with decent rolls.

[eager wharf]

wonder what can happen if you put a legendary in as sacrfice

if it just copies the affixes or if can brick in various ways

[harsh abyss]

I think it will still reroll. Based on what the trailer said, you have to use something of "the same or higher tier" so you could potentially sacrifice a 2LP legendary to reroll a 1LP or 2LP item that hasn't been upgraded yet. We don't know for sure, but I bet that'd how it'd work

So if you get a crappy "dead" item that got shitty affixes, it's still worth keeping to use as reroll fodder to try and get better rolls for future tries.

[eager wharf]

right yeah

[harsh abyss]

They've got a big focus on making everything valuable, so using it like that to make it so your bricked items still provide some value is really smart

One kinda cool thing you can do with this build is: You can use Runeword:Avalanche, Runeword:Hurricane and Runeword:Inferno and get all of the benefits from all of them, which is something most builds can't do.

Same thing with all three Decree nodes

Because you'll always have all 3 rune types

[eager wharf]

yeah thats neat, another source of flat damage

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, +30 flat damage is definitely meaningful

Here's a super quick and dirty build ~https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/om24Dg4A

[eager wharf]

would you cast ele nova 3 times or 6 for the big unstable core in this case?

[harsh abyss]

You'd probably cast it 3 times, but you'd still get the big nova from 6 casts because you wouldn't be taking a 2 second break

if you do N-N-N-RI-N-N-N you'll still get the big boom

It's also a bit silly because the Inovker set is kinda meh, but I like that you'd get all the bonuses from it: fire cast speed, cold cast speed, flat lightning damage, shock, ignite and freeze, on ALL your spell. Then the +3 levels to RI and Nova are big

But +3 levels from Unstable Core is also big. And this is without legendaries, so you could feasibly get +4 more levels to RI and Nova, plus more levels from a well rolled Triboelectra and Crest

[eager wharf]

so many + levels

casual lvl 33 nova lol

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I think we calculated it out at one point in this channel and you can get Nova up to like 42 levels or something stupid

But between Shatter Nova, Glacial Might, and Fiery Destruction, you have a LOT of damage going out with it. Not to mention all the penetration that Crest of Unity is going to give you.

Plus you can use things like Throne of Ambition and Trinity of Flames

[eager wharf]

why did you pick the mountain boots?

[harsh abyss]

-mana cost, mostly

[eager wharf]

ah right

[harsh abyss]

Mana is going to be a PROBLEM when you cast RI and it casts 6 ele novas, lol

It might be better to just not get arcane battery and try and get your nova mana cost down super low

Yeah, thinking about it that's probably stronger. You're never going to want to be past 12 energy anyway

But getting to 12 energy is going to take like 8 seconds or so, depending on how many regular novas you cast

Hmmmm....

You'd probably cast more than 3 novas, but with enough increased cast speed you'll be able to hit that 12 energy mark pretty quick.

Probably just a "see how it feels" situation

[eager wharf]

yeah

[harsh abyss]

You may never end up using Spell Cascade in practice because you don't get that much energy

[eager wharf]

I like cosmic mind in that build too for defense

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, especially since you'll ALWAYS be using 3 different runes

The EN-EN-EN-RI flow is probably going to take you less than a second, so spell cascade is unlikely to ever really happen, heh

[eager wharf]

hmm or nah we wouldn't scale that much in right

switched up spark charge int scaling with ele nova lol

[harsh abyss]

Actually, Int is going to be super good, because it's generic increased spell damage. We won't scale too much Elemental damage because it has the same affix bonus as Spell Damage

[eager wharf]

int is just always nice i guess

[harsh abyss]

Plus, Int is your primary source of Ward Retention

[eager wharf]

i dont see many other ways to generate ward if we go full damage on nova anyways

the ring maybe too

[harsh abyss]

Edict of the Scion is going to generate you a bunch of ward for every spell you cast. Plus ward/sec from Transcendence and Decree of the Eternal Tundra, Jagged Veil, Celestial Doom

Lots of little bits of ward here and there

Every GPM you cast is going to give Brand of Deception on everything it his, which is going to give you ward when you hit rares/bosses...

And you obviously want that because Order's Imposition is 12% more damage just in general

Everything actually comes together pretty cleanly for the build tbh

[eager wharf]

where's that again?

the imposition

[harsh abyss]

The bottom row of the Runemaster passive tree

Brand of Deception + Order's Imposition are worth taking on every build that uses lightning damage

[eager wharf]

huh it reads "for damage over time" in the description but in the main tooltip it just says "damage to branded enemies"

" more damage over time" i meant

does that actually work?

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but you're going to be applying brand of deception which is 400 lightning damage per second base

It's a lot of damage on its own

[eager wharf]

but yeah I feel like there's a build here too!

[harsh abyss]

It also enables Celestial Doom which is 100 ward on boss hit to branded enemies (1s cooldown) and 7% more generic damage to branded enemies

[eager wharf]

just gotta wait a month before we know for sure 👀

[harsh abyss]

So even beyond the brand of deception itself, it's worth it for the more damage and defense

[eager wharf]

I see yeah

take all the ward you can get (and damage)

[harsh abyss]

Any RM wants to get a brand going, and Brand of Deception is super easy to apply with any RI with a gon rune

Definitely on my list to experiment with if I end up finding the unique

[eager wharf]

alright I gotta go but those are some cool ideas for sure something to test out!

[harsh abyss]

👍 Good chat, always fun to theorycraft about new stuff

[eager wharf]

runemaster is such a cool class

[unreal blade]

tested Overcharge on Focus and the bonus mana doesn't add to the damage on the lightning waves. max mana on the character sheet stays normal, only the mana globe on the UI goes above your actual mana. disappointing. also damage without unstable energy is awful, and only decent with it, so we can't use mana defense and lightning blast needs to be free, no big mana cost static orbs either (at least not without mana tunnel).

[nimble shoal]

If you use the mana overcharge, you should be able to tolerate a mana cost on LB as long as it doesn't dip you below max

hoping mana guide casts free LBs, but probably will cost mana unfortunately

[unreal blade]

way too many points to get both unfortunately

need a +4 helm, +1 chest and a +1 relic to get everything, and the gear setup i had planned needs resists badly, so it needs 3 points in the all resist node.

[nimble shoal]

You only need 1 point in mana overcharge to offset LB's cost

[unreal blade]

yeah that's true. was still thinking 5/5, but not necessary

lose the 10% DR i had from chill node, but it's possible

[unreal blade]

mana defense is still a problem, so i guess you have to dump that for a ward setup.

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, gotta go straight ward unless you go RM and go with a life and endurance build with ward on top

which could honestly work pretty well, too

[rapid hinge]

fractured just like the old days?

[harsh abyss]

If you get 2 or 3 points in overcharge, you'd probably be able to use mana defense Mana Guide. The 5:1 Ratio damage to mana should make it not too bad, especially since you can use channeling defenses, like the 450 armor while channeling from RM, or all resists while channeling on relic

[nimble shoal]

Focus can already provide a ton of defense, so I'd probably avoid damage to mana if I can

I won't be aiming for anything too far beyond 300c unless S2 gives a reason to go there

[harsh abyss]

Fair

[scenic sail]

The drops are way better in 1c, 2c and 4c, and each step is noticeable as is. With the amount of added endgame content in v1.2 I'm pretty sure this will still be true in that case as well.

[dense juniper]

but how is it noticable from 500c (common for Abe) vs 1000c (which a few go for)?

[rapid hinge]

if you play COF exp scale from 336% inc to 476% inc

from 500c to 1000c

which is around 32% net exp increase

for roughly x2 mob health/dmg increase

[dense juniper]

how about droprate?

[rapid hinge]

inc rarity equals inc mob health/dmg

[scenic sail]

The items that drop while you're in higher corruption are noticably better than they are when you're in lower corruption, whether you're getting items from prophecies or just the drops around the mono. Experience definitely tapers off, but it's also higher. Both are noticeable but certainly the item rarity is more noticeable and it's just a number that shows up underneath the minimap. It's certainly worth doing if you want better items (and who doesn't)

[unreal blade]

if you want to do damage with focus, you can't get any defensive nodes really (other than int/armor). the external stuff like RM armor means you give up damage not being Sorc, and armor/res while channeling is nice but not significantly better than a normal build. and ward generation while channeling isn't very good either. i'm not seeing this defensive advantage.

[nimble shoal]

You do get a big chunk of armor automatically, and just with some points in the chill node and 'while channeling' stuff you're pretty well-off. I have 4/5 points in the chill node atm and I'll probably look to max it out and maybe even look for more focus levels, too.

[next lance]

How do you guys play your plasma orb runemaster? Trying to cast all the runes in the right order plus runic invocation to keep dps up feels hard, when other classes do the same or more while holding 1 button. Is my brain too smoth? :/

[harsh abyss]

Try to get the "right" amount of cast speed so that you can get into the rhythm of casting it. That may mean that you dont want too much so that cast too quickly and it doesnt feel right.

[little grotto]

is spellblade any good?

[little grotto]

?

[tame sun]

Yes. Shatter strike.

[little grotto]

1 skill?

[unreal blade]

spark mana strike w/dragorath also. firebrand/flamereave is still fine if not a top tier build, and firebrand spark vacuum is funny (see recent Dr3ad video)

@nimble shoal been working on some focus theorycraft. do you mind if i DM you?

[little grotto]

np

[steel wigeon]

What’s the most brainded mage build

[nimble shoal]

Feel free

[weary hamlet]

firebrand is completely redundant for Reave after the latest SB updates, you can easily crit cap anything with Prodigy (and you never needed extra flat cause you get a billion flat with the staff node that you can't avoid). You now just run a spam FR build with optional mana strike, it's a lot better than old builder-spender builds

[next lance]

Is the vacuum one the one where sparks(or was it reave) blackholes everything in before spark charges blows them up?

[next lance]

When you say mana strike is optional, does it mean FR doesn’t have mana problems? How did that get fixed?

[weary hamlet]

I mean with enough skill levels you just have enough leftover to take the mana cost node

and I'm pretty sure that the mana return on melee hits passive was buffed a bit

[unreal blade]

been working on this thing lately, a hybrid spell/melee and it's been working very well so far. bumped it over 300c last night and still going. damage is pretty good and i'm mostly clearing with firebrand + procs, only popping reave on rares/bosses. gear is decent but nowhere near finished. ~https://www.lastepochtools.com/profile/niche/character/FireBlade

[unreal blade]

yeah reave with infernal calling

[wooden skiff]

il y a des francais ici ? 🙂

[harsh abyss]

We had a discussion about Firebrand around another build a while ago, using it to buff FR isn't great, but you can make the firebrand buffs give you a TON of extra crit multi and you can make all stacks refresh their timers, so it can be decent to slot into any build just for all the buffs you can get for maintaining a bunch of stacks.

[next frost]

I made this bug report about Sap Warmth, in Snap Freeze, 4 years ago : #👨┃ask-the-devs-not-support-no-bugs message
It was still bugged 1-2 years ago, so figured i'd test it again today, and it is still bugged, giving nothing.

[harsh abyss]

To 'encourage' them to fix the bug with halo effect, I made a post about it on the forums, did as much investigation as I could, and then kept responding to the forum post every month so it never got auto-closed.

It's easy for bugs to get lost in the scroll if they're closed out

[next frost]

Someone else made a similar report last year (https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/snap-freeze-sap-warmth-not-working/67351), even quoting mine.
He never got a single answer.

[nimble shoal]

I recommend reporting using the in game bug report tool, it's got a much better chance of them seeing and tracking it it seems. You can re-report every major update if you feel like it.

[harsh abyss]

I kept my thread open for like 6 months by replying to it each month before I got a dev response that it'll get fixed in 1.2 🤷‍♀️ I dunno what the best method is.

[next frost]

I'll be honest with you, I dont really care if that specific bug is ever fixed or not
The sad part, however, is that LE is still a bug fest, and is getting worst every release
I remember when the falconer got out last year, so many nodes were broken it wasnt even funny anymore, and it felt like they didnt even test things were working as intended.
So i'm torn between believing they didnt even test each node and their interactions, which would be really weird considered their own tests and the private community ones, or they knew it was super buggy but chose to release it as is anyway, which is more likely considering they even entirely disabled an important skill node right before release
Which is the part that concerns me regarding 1.2 - how much will actually work as described and intended

[harsh abyss]

I feel like they've said they're making a big push to fix bugs for 1.2 and ensure that things do what they say they do

That bug may even be fixed in 1.2

[next frost]

I want to believe you, but they also said that last year for 1.0

[harsh abyss]

🤷‍♀️ We'll have to see

[mortal oxide]

forget fixing bugs, they cant even prevent gold dupes/exploits from happening p much every league lol

[harsh abyss]

That doesnt bother me too much, theres only been 2 leagues so far really.

[pine lintel]

Quick question that I think I know the answer to but want to verify. Damage conversion does not affect sub-skills correct? For example in the case of Volcanic Orb using Lament of Lost Refuge which converts it to void damage. That won't convert things like Explosive Ground or Explosive Orb to void as well. Those sub skills will stay as fire damage.

[nimble shoal]

It varies from skill to skill. iirc volcanic orb's subskills convert (you should see them visually change). For sure the shrapnel does and pretty sure the glyph does, but never messed with the explosive ground.

[harsh abyss]

Definitely one of the things that I wish was a lot more clear

[nimble shoal]

Same

[pine lintel]

Hmm… ok thanks! I haven’t quite hit level yet with my sorc to try it (been playing a spellblade, which volcanic orb isn’t great on) but if I remember I’ll reply back with findings.

[granite skiff]

technically it should. Because explosive ground is fire damage, which gets converted

explosive ground scales with fire damage and spell damage. idk hwy it wouldnt get converted

[harsh abyss]

It really just depends on how things work on the back end, they have lots of abilities that are coded differently so they react differently to things like conversions.

Ideally yeah everything works the same way, but in reality? heh

[weary hamlet]

yes all VO subskills convert both to cold and to void with the spear. But it's really a shame that there is no rhyme or reason to how this works. For instance ravaging aura on VC doesn't convert to fire and it's not stated anywhere that this shouldn't happen

[harsh abyss]

I'd love to go through all the skills and do a "clarity pass" to make sure they all tell you what they affect 😝

[nimble shoal]

The rule is supposed to be, if it doesn't say it, it doesn't do it. But clearly that isn't a hard rule, more like a suggestion.

[weary hamlet]

when there are more exceptions than rules, it ain't even a "suggestion"

[nimble shoal]

I actually haven't looked to see which is more common, so I'm not sure

[harsh abyss]

You'd have to test every interaction, which is one of the things I'd love to see improved

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, that's effectively how it is now. I guess tbf that also goes for many subskills in general, hard to tell what some of them do without speccing into them to try them out. Much harder to change that than just making the conversion descriptions right, of course.

[harsh abyss]

I'd love to see alt-text on nodes that just says what they affect. Like an "Affects subskills <subskill icons>" that is shown for expanded tooltips

That would work for everyting. Conversion, more damage, other stuff

[hexed lily]

only so much you can put in a tool tip

[harsh abyss]

You don't really need that much more than what we get now

[nimble shoal]

As long as they don't that too literally...

[next frost]

@harsh abyss tbh, even with a text description, we'd still have to test everything, considering the number of times I theorycrafted something and had to heavily rework it because what happens in-game is just different

[harsh abyss]

I mean... that's what I mean about them just being incorrect. What happens in-game shouldn't be different than what the descriptions say they do

[next frost]

I agree. Hopefully 1.2 will mend that broken trust between what it should and what it does...

[nimble shoal]

We'll see. I know 1.2 has a big focus on bug fixes, but it may take a few patches like that.

[nocturne temple]

quick question / feedback on an idea. i like the new mana guide unique. Would to basicially just pop static orb varition that generates static charges with orbitals, static to lightning blast(unlimited power node), float around in focus blastin lightning everywhere or is the single target gonna be trash?

i was looking into the theory build posted here earlier with using static/focus for lightning blast and static orb for boss nukes

rotation would basically be static orb-> focus -> flame ward when applicable

[harsh abyss]

Static Orb is always going to be good boss damage, especially if you're stacking mana

[nocturne temple]

i have a feeling mana stack sorc will get tuned though

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, lots of unknowns until we get patch notes.

The theory is good though

[nocturne temple]

nice ill get busy in the planner then, focus just gives an unfair amount of defensive and if ur spending most of your time channeling that has some goooood gear mods for all res etc

[unreal blade]

this is my latest version, swapping to runemaster. assumes mana guide amulet and shattered worlds relic. ~https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BGLPNWno

[nocturne temple]

ill take a look thanks

[unreal blade]

the sorc version might still work, but it ran into some issues, particularly defense.

[nocturne temple]

how so, i feel like if you are channeling a majority of the time it shouldnt be an issue

and spec out focus to be DR mainly

[unreal blade]

you need to stay at 'full mana' for lightning waves to do real damage

[nocturne temple]

oh i wasnt really planning on utilizing that part of the focus tree

[unreal blade]

so if you only have a point or two available for overcharge, you don't have a lot of room to work with for mana defense

[nocturne temple]

im worried about damage tbh

[unreal blade]

i put together a mockup of the build in an arena so i could funnel mobs into a stationary position with gear thrown together from my stash and it seemed to work alright. https://imgur.com/gJfWuUE

[proven haven]

you can also cheese a really high regen by going negative before starting focus channel, then with a partial damage taken from mana before health + some leech you can get a lot of EHP

[unreal blade]

if you have a planner i'd be interested to see what you had in mind.

[nocturne temple]

~https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/ozDVJMaQ

havent finished gear or passives, concerned this wont even work

been since early access when i played sorc

and think it was different then?

also would focus as traversal + nimble walk make all of your indirect LBs have the base crit?

[unreal blade]

no, and likely the focus wouldn't snapshot that either, but that's easy enough to test. i tested vaion boots effect with warpath and that did not snapshot either, only buffing the first hit with the buff.

[nocturne temple]

dang

[harsh abyss]

3 LB casts per second might struggle with clear if you don't have any other source of AOE happening, but it really depends on how you build it

[nocturne temple]

well seeing how many static LBs i can get out aswell, also looking into sparkcharge?

[harsh abyss]

Well, Static will max out at 1 per second

[nocturne temple]

oof

definitely gonna need more

does spark charge require alot of investment?

[harsh abyss]

Sort of, it's one of those "all in" things where you kind of build for it entirely.

It wouldn't really work with the build because a 30% chance means you may go an entire second without getting a spark charge applied wth your LB

Which won't feel very good

[nocturne temple]

idea is cooked

f

[harsh abyss]

I don't think so. I think you just need to invest in the Energy Overflow nodes within Focus

They'll be good because you're probably mana stacking to make your static orb strong anyway

And that will give you better clear, with lightning blast being more for cleaning up things outside the Focus radius and things that survive a hit or two

[unreal blade]

40-42% with engima, which i would assume to be used in such a build

[nocturne temple]

well originally was using static orb to get charges but didnt read that line that is 1/s

[harsh abyss]

True, but still with only 3-4 casts per sec, you're not looking at a lot of spark charge application

[unreal blade]

yep, need more sources

testing never late and it seems to be working on focus, even though it's a channeled skill and without needing to take nimbus walk.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, someone was talking about that being a super easy way to cap crit on energy overflow focus (but the lightning blast from mana guide will probably trigger/consumer it)

[unreal blade]

character has 19% spell crit (22.5% for focus) and when i use it without the buff i get a crit occasionally. when i teleport first, i'm seeing crits at least half the time.

with never late it should be 82.5% crit

[unreal blade]

the talk i was seeing was saying you needed nimbus and make focus a traversal for it to work, but it just works with never late.

which is definitely a bug

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, that sounds like a bug for sure

[nocturne temple]

spec lightning blast for ward / aegis / chains, snapshot with nimbus and proc harbringer of stars?

[unreal blade]

put in a bug report for it

[harsh abyss]

Might be good, depending on how the set shattering stuff works. If you can put the lightning meteor conversion onto any staff, then it'll be really good.

[unreal blade]

tested with nimbus walk also and seems to work, but interestingly it doesn't consume the never late buff.

[nocturne temple]

yea was bummed to see that the conversion is limited to that staff

[unreal blade]

oh nvm it actually gives you another never late buff after you lift off focus. weird.

i guess it actually makes sense, since it says after using traversal you gain the buff, even if you channel a traversal focus for 10 sec, it only gives it to you afterwards. but it's also affecting the focus too, which is the bug.

not sure how impactful this bug would be anyway since it would only affect the lightning waves and that alone is probably not enough of a build. if you lean into the 16% crit to get waves capped, all your other spells would have low crit chance.

[harsh abyss]

Well remember the lightning waves have base damage equal to 40% of your max mana. So with 2000 mana, 800 flat spell damage is a shit ton

So they do the damage. The only bad part about the build is that it's slightly clunky, the AOE never feels quite big enough. Mana Guide will probably make it play waaaay bettter

[unreal blade]

i tested damage on a sorc with 1k mana and was getting ~250k crits on the boss dummy. i'm guessing a full build with 2k mana is around 750k crits, which is decent but not great.

[unreal blade]

you're def going to want lightning aegis from either static orb or lightning blast regardless of how the build turns out. also divergence doesn't do anything with convergence taken other than the 2 spell damage. arcing power is direct casting only, so you'd want to path through shock chance instead.

[nocturne temple]

for sure, didnt know those didnt interact but going down a different route now though i dont think the previous idea would work well

im liking the idea of using focus + mana guide to proc meteors

and think i could get some solid ward/s with lightning blast

kinda depends sets rework

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, set rework is doing to determine a lot of stuff

I expect we'll see a lot of Vilatria set users if it works like I think it does

That plus patch notes and bug fixes

[next frost]

not sure i read your guess somewhere
mine is that we'll be able to make exalted items work as set items, thus creating the choice of using a slot for a legendary or counting towards set bonuses

[harsh abyss]

My guess is pretty simple: Sets get shattered into shards, which give you affixes from the set pieces. Those can be crafted onto other items like any other affix, and then be legendaried like any other legendary.

[unreal blade]

mike said using them on uniques was unlikely

[nimble shoal]

I'll guess there will be some randomness component and no ability to have set effects on uniques

[harsh abyss]

I mean, even being able to get set affixes on exalted items is insane. I'm gonna spend all league trying to craft the perfect vilatria staff

[proven haven]

aegis kinda overrated. It gets popped immediately and you don't seem to get as much benefit from the cast speed from the idols here

[unreal blade]

in the case of LB it's being applied constantly in this setup, so I don't think it's overrated. Applied by static orb you have a point since you usually aren't spamming SO.

how does the "when you lose 25% of your life" work with ward? if you never take life damage, does it never pop except when it times out?

[harsh abyss]

Presumably if it gets popped instantly, it is popping when you take ward damage equal to 25% of your life, but that doesn't sound right. I've never actually tested it out.

[unreal blade]

seems frozen tested it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xVb0StZ_Q

does factor in ward, so static orb is less reliable source, but lightning blast 3 times a sec should apply it pretty frequently.

and since it'll only pop on big hits taken, it's more like 1 shot protection.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah so it'll be more valuable on a build that stacks health and/or endurance. I wonder if it takes "damage taken as mana before life" into account as well. It might work super well because of the 5:1 ratio for mana

[proven haven]

once you get to any amount of corruption though it's going to insta pop on any hit

its presumably fine for big hits, assuming the mitigation applies on the entire hit which I think Mike clarified in the dev ask channel

but if you get hit by a group of ranged enemies eg. axe throwers or some other shotgunning mechanic the first pops you and the rest do full damage

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, those axe throwers are definitely brutal

It's a pretty low opportunity cost to get the chance to proc it for LB though, even if it doesn't protect you from much.

[proven haven]

Yea it's true. You want stuff that works while channeling and LB is free with the unique so worth speccing

Probably flame ward since insta cast

If you stop channel there is a 1 sec charge up time, if you use Focus for damage this is relevant

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, that's one of the annoying parts of the build without Mana Guide.

Why it doesn't feel super good to play

[proven haven]

I just combined with wrong warp

1s immune counters the charge fairly well

[harsh abyss]

Well, it's less about survivability and more about just the delay before hitting enemies

Just doesn't feel good

So with Mana Guide, during that time, you'll at least trigger a few LB casts

[proven haven]

I think there is kinda two minds here

Either focus does the damage and LB is just utility, or focus is the utility and something else does the damage

Probably built very differently

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, for sure

I've also seen Focus does the damage + clear (with LB utility) and static orb helps with single target damage

So mostly you just run around focusing, t hen drop a mega static orb whenever you need it

[proven haven]

I think pure channel focus is probably suboptimal for mobility

Another interest thought but you should be able to cast arcane ascendance and just keep it up permanently while moving with focus

[harsh abyss]

Yeah if that works it could be super strong

[proven haven]

It should, I already made a build that did similar

Though it used flames of midnight for moving

Channel move could be different

[harsh abyss]

Yeah it just depends on if the channel move works

[scenic sail]

With v1.2 I do plan on giving that channel moving amulet thing a try with Focus and the 0 cooldown focus node just to see if it's a fun way to use Focus. It's my least favorite skill that I currently spec on my mage, but it's a necessary evil

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I bet a lot of people are going to be trying it out. I'm also looking forward to the catalyst that guarantees Grand Prism Nova

[weary hamlet]

yeah but the meteor conversion is on the staff, not on the set bonus. We'll have to see the exact implementation

[weary hamlet]

some people still operate on logic from back in beta when it was just bugged and reduced any overkill damage that popped the aegis

[weary hamlet]

I'm pretty sure that mike said that to be false, and it was stealth fixed in 1.0, but I'll need to look it up again

[nimble shoal]

No, it definitely applies to the entire hit that pops it

So it's great for certain bosses

Instant 33% more EHP against 1 shots

[proven haven]

Yea i think so, damage ranges make testing a pain though

[nimble shoal]

It's definitely manageable even though it is annoying. I'm glad they are disabling damage ranges on dummies at least in 1.2

Obviously won't help for testing damage taken though

[nocturne temple]

wondering how the chanel node / double cast node will work (if at all ) with mana guide

[nimble shoal]

Double/triple cast shouldn't work, not sure how the channel one interacts. Currently testable though, since it should behave the same as other procs like AA and static.

[nocturne temple]

yea i thought at first but it says ' doesnt work if cast by another skill or if its channeled '

focal blast just seems worse unforunatly

[nocturne temple]

does the unstable node in static up this? (zap hits more enemies)