🧙┃mage

[weary hamlet]

also as long as the lightning conversion doesn't convert Craterborn I will not stop being butthurt about it

cause they make like 50 items to do lightning meteor + lightning fireball

the synergy node between the skills doesn't work

EHG logic

[proper hawk]

I had more been referring to the set bonus in general not meteor specifically

[weary hamlet]

We don't have all the info yet but I would be really surprised if the set bonus is not nerfed into the ground with the new set mechanics

it would be a very easy pick for any lightning based build

since even if you have to use a staff, you can use a good staff instead

and yeah it does occupy head slot which is inconvenient but as long as Twisted Heart is in the game you can make do

[proper hawk]

Even a good staff locks you out of a crit off hand, I don't think it's quite as much of an auto pick as you are saying. It will definitely be very good though

I would be very surprised if they pre-nerfed one of the most exciting beneficiaries of the new set changes

[proper hawk]

yeah that one is pretty annoying lol

[weary hamlet]

sure but a ton of mage skills have crit in their trees, compared to something like idk primalist

also with the general power creep we now have a lot more sources of flat crit than before, so you have options. I agree that it's not obvious that these options are going to be stellar, but still

[proper hawk]

and yet, the vast majority of mages don't use a staff, despite having double the flat damage

[weary hamlet]

they are also introducing more idol affixes, chances are there will be crit somewhere in there

without vilatria staves generally lose to catalysts, nobody is arguing that

[proper hawk]

I think vilatrias will make staves for lightning builds very good, don't get me wrong, I just don't think it will be even close to strong enough to be pre-nerfed

[weary hamlet]

I guess we'll see, it's definitely a different build paradigm than now so it's easy to dismiss it just because it doesn't fit what is currently good

also I hope they do something to address the catalyst base problem and wrongwarp, although I'm not holding my breath for either

both look like items that I wouldn't put into the game to begin with cause they are just so obviously problematic, but clearly they have a different opinion

like what is the logic here, let's make 15 catalyst bases but only 1 of them is any good, sounds great, ship straight into the fuc king production

[proper hawk]

15 is a little unfair, obviously some of those are lower level bases that are supposed to be superceded by higher level ones, but I do wish some of the other high level catalyst bases were more competitive

[weary hamlet]

I mean about 5 of them are clearly low level so we can discount them, and ofc I'm well aware that the balance of many other item types is also not stellar when it comes to bases, but catalysts were one of their most recent reworks. Could have used the accumulated experience or something

[nimble shoal]

It was answered, depends on the affix

[viral fox]

hi all, what is currently a good fire mage build?

[proven haven]

Fire Frost Claw, lmao

[viral fox]

with black hole can work? ignite

[proven haven]

Idk if there's much Black Hole synergy there but ignite yea

[weary hamlet]

it's a real shame that frost claw is fireball but better, lightning blast but better and ice barrage but better all in one skill

[weary hamlet]

it's really a meme because the damage is pretty bad, the uptime is pretty bad, and the area is pretty bad too. If you want a very similar build that doesn't suck (as much), just play ignite glyph of dominion

[nimble shoal]

It can work, technically, but it isn't good (as mentioned above). Something else ignite is probably your best bet. Or you could run meteor (w/ or w/o the belt), also definitely not meta, but fun.

[viral fox]

can work if im sorcerer?

[gritty pagoda]

meteor + black hole? its not great but it works. Your slurp all the enemies into the black hole then they get obliterated by meteors

[weary hamlet]

you can only play black hole on sorc

[viral fox]

right

maybe i should just drop black hole and try something like frost claw / meteor?

[weary hamlet]

yeah black hole is a meme in general

[nocturne temple]

What some easy ways to get haste on mage

Or just in general

Can’t use wrong warp anymore with what I was planning

[harsh abyss]

The weaver boots are an easy way

[unreal blade]

shattered worlds relic in 1.2, kestrel or wings of argentus or quicksilver coil if doing melee stuff

[harsh abyss]

Could also spec focus to give it to you and then keep refreshing it with teleport

[unreal blade]

https://www.lastepochtools.com/ailments/haste/sources

[gritty pagoda]

while shattered worlds does just give it, I'ma argue that an uber exclusive drop doesn't count as easy

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I mean that relic is gonna be BIS for basically everyone

[gritty pagoda]

other than like cyborg's pen nib shatter strike

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, excepting builds that rely on a unique relic obviously

Same thing for those gloves

[gritty pagoda]

other than maybe a low life ward build yeah

would need to do the math

tho granted frostbite shackles are still nerfed

[harsh abyss]

Honestly I'm just glad there's something OTHER than frostbite shackles

[gritty pagoda]

true

or the mimic bros for a not ward build

[harsh abyss]

The DoT defense and the damage from bosses as DoT is huge

Plus the insane base armor on the item

[gritty pagoda]

the damage taken over 4 seconds doesn't get affected by dot defense (like armor applies to dots)

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but presumably it applies your normal armor to the initial hit

[gritty pagoda]

yeah

sorry read dot defense and dmg from bosses as dot as meaning apply dot defense to the portion of hit dmg taken as a dot

[harsh abyss]

I just mean it's huge because spreading that damage out is a massive surviability boost

[gritty pagoda]

100%

[harsh abyss]

And Ward/sec builds are gonna love that

[gritty pagoda]

same with life leech builds

or I guess just life builds

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, that piece is insane for endurance stacking builds in general

Leech, bonus endurance effectively, the DoT effect, it's all big

Basically screams "did you want to be unkillable?"

[gritty pagoda]

yea

[unreal blade]

just depends on what you mean by easy. easy to activate and maintain, it's the easiest. acquiring it is just a matter of time.

[gritty pagoda]

fair

[nimble shoal]

It's kinda worse for ward builds in a way. Or weirder, at least. Since losing more ward means you start losing less ward from natural decay

[harsh abyss]

Sure, but Ward/sec builds specifically are going to love it. Because of the way ward/sec acts as "regeneration" for ward, it will be a perfect counter for that type of DoT

Other ward builds won't like it as much because they rely on casting/hitting/etc to generate ward, definitely

[nimble shoal]

It should be relatively the same between the two

[gritty pagoda]

ward gain on hit builds is still some amount of ward gained per second

[nimble shoal]

Probably the loss in ward due to extra ward decay between taking 100% and 80-70% instant damage is not too significant

[gritty pagoda]

I think that point is more for if you get smacked multiple times and are low on ward

you decay less ward per ward when low on ward so when you need it the most the hit into dot part is extra helpful

buuuttt you still gotta math out if thats better than just more ward retention

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, the new gloves are really strong for sure

[gritty pagoda]

also good luck getting a ward per second slam onto them

[harsh abyss]

Well, most of my Ward/sec is going to come from Gon runes, I'll probably go for other affixes on gloves

But I feel like for those gloves it's more of "good luck getting those gloves"

It's gonna be: toss them in a nemesis egg and accept your fate

[nimble shoal]

+1 dex 😔

[shell sparrow]

small question, are the gate staff and arcane ascendance the only way to increase manacost globally?

[harsh abyss]

That's all I'm aware of, it's kind of a undesired stat for most things.

[shell sparrow]

I was looking for a way to get lightning blast to 40 mana, but both is only 30 mana 😦

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, some spells might not make it up to 40

[harsh abyss]

Better than NOT +1 dex!

[unreal blade]

horns of uhkeiros

[harsh abyss]

That's just a gate staff but worse

[harsh abyss]

Hmmm.... Cleaver Solution + Bastion of Honor Focus Mana Guide build

Would be fun if it wasn't a huge PITA to get strength on mage gear

[nocturne temple]

found u can also do flameward to grant it then refresh with teleport

[harsh abyss]

Yeah that's another good one

Static is another way to get it triggered that you can refresh with Teleport

[nocturne temple]

u gotta be quick with teleport lol, almost impossible to refresh if u dont have cdr in multiple places

[harsh abyss]

It's pretty easy to get teleport below the threshold

Default CD is 5 seconds, you'll get 20% ICRS for just taking the teleport haste nodes, Sorc and Runemaster have easy access to ICRS on their passive tree

I don't think you even need any on gear to make it so you can have permanent haste uptime

As long as you aren't taking Mana Tunnel, at least

[nocturne temple]

im not, with some of the passives checked u can have it up 100% just gotta be quick with it

ideally im just flamewarding in the beginning, holding down focus and teleporting off cd until mono complete

monkey build

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, another way you could likely do it is with Static since you'll generate charges while you move while channeling

And it's instant to cast, so if you can generate enough charges every 4 seconds, you could just cast it over and over without interrupting the channel

Get a couple of the "gain static charges per second" idols, plus increased charge gain while moving and hit, etc

You could also make use of Stormchaser to double the charge gain while moving since you'll be moving while channeling

IDK if you can generate 200 charges every 4 seconds though

[nocturne temple]

it prolly be too much investment

teleport also gives armor and ward retention

bummer that the stats gained from teleport node doesnt effect the haste gained

[naive sequoia]

Runic fortress passive (runemaster) threshold (2s) seems not matching with other skills.
Could you please change the time threshold from 2 sec to 1 sec? You may decrease a bit the ward amount.
Flame rush has 1.5 sec with cd reduction gear, Focus has 1 sec threshold to gain mana and ward burst.
And the game punishes you when you stay still for a long time (even 2 sec).
I believe this fix will be easy because you need to change only numbers but not the code.

[rapid hinge]

bro this is not suggestion channel

😂

[proper hawk]

you probably want to put this over in #1210289045310017536 lol this is just a channel for player discussion

[naive sequoia]

Yes. Do I need to repost it there or can some admin move it?

[proper hawk]

also with the new patch, you can use the unique mana guide amulet to move while channelling focus, so that would make using the passive a lot easier

[proper hawk]

pretty sure you just need to repost it

[raven sundial]

hey I am reading a guide to plasma orb runemaster on maxroll right now. I am level 70 already but I dont know how to "become" a plasma orb

[gritty pagoda]

Plasma orb is a runic invoke right

[raven sundial]

I dont know xD

[gritty pagoda]

Ok yeah that’s Rah Gon Rah

[raven sundial]

😅

[gritty pagoda]

You know how to use runic invocation right

[plain garnet]

Thoughts on a purely proc-based Spellblade using Essence Weaver?

[raven sundial]

not really xd havent used it yet

[gritty pagoda]

So with it on your skill bar you get an orb based on the ele spells you cast

Plasma orb is the fire lightning fire spell

So if you cast fire ball -> lightning blast -> fire ball -> hit runic invoke you then cast plasma orb

Order matters for this unless you grab one of the nodes in runic invocations tree that locks you into a single invoke

[raven sundial]

oh ok

[gritty pagoda]

There’s like 40 invokes

[unreal blade]

probably playable, but probably not great since you can't use it with spark charges (enigma), and it's not a staff (no vilatria)

[plain garnet]

9 spells every 3 sec with that much bonus spell damage seems really strong, especially if we scale Frost Claw via the tree. Getting a T7 lightning damage roll via weaver's will is potentially over +1100% increased damage if I'm reading that correctly

[gritty pagoda]

True

[unreal blade]

glamdring would be the play with it. could be alright.

[gritty pagoda]

I’m angry it says when you use a melee attack

Rip warpath shenanigans

[unreal blade]

probably firebrand with spell conversion for crit multi, get frostclaw cheap as you can and have some mana regen, or take the mana proc node on passives.

[plain garnet]

Glamdring is a bunch of flat damage too, sure. I don't know if you'd go spark charge with this

[unreal blade]

not without enigma

[plain garnet]

You'd probably need to use mana strike, right? That many procced spells is going to tank your mana pool

[unreal blade]

you can get frostclaw to be pretty cheap

and you can get 3 mana every melee hit (spellblade node), and 15 mana every 3 seconds (runemaster node)

[gritty pagoda]

Smite is free by default

[plain garnet]

Is it? Hm.

[gritty pagoda]

Yea

[harsh abyss]

So is Storm Bolt

[gritty pagoda]

So get frostclaws cost down then your gaming

[plain garnet]

I was seeing 3 mana, and storm bolt says it's 10. Website could be wrong, though

[gritty pagoda]

Oh smite is 3 mana base

[plain garnet]

You'd still want Volley of Glass for damage, though, I assume? Which raises the cost a bunch

[harsh abyss]

Storm Bolt says 10, but I can tell you from testing a beastmaster using Gathering Storm that that's a lie.

[gritty pagoda]

Oh wait right time and faith + smite is why I think it’s free

[harsh abyss]

Also, it might be because mana costs for triggered spells only happen if they say they'll happen, which alt-text would show us but we don't have

[gritty pagoda]

True

A dot build could be neat

[proper hawk]

yeah we need the alt text for this one to see if it skips the mana costs

[gritty pagoda]

Given the amount of random bs that’s beeing cast

[proper hawk]

youd want to keep frost claws cost down anyways because of your other procs though

[gritty pagoda]

Ye

[proper hawk]

should be about 4 mana cost after volley + cost reductions

[plain garnet]

I was assuming I could use mana strike for this, which would feed me more than enough mana

Maybe that's not the play, though

[proper hawk]

dont think you actually need the mana from mana strike unless the procs from the unique cost mana

[plain garnet]

I was operating under the assumption that the procs would cost mana, yeah

[gritty pagoda]

Ok but can we make this into a pen nib shatter strike build

[proper hawk]

the costs are low enough actually that even if it does charge the cost im not sure you need mana strike

[nimble shoal]

Ranged mana strike, don't really need to care much about FC mana cost

[proper hawk]

firebrand would give nice buffs though

[nimble shoal]

Firebrand is way too slow

[plain garnet]

Mana Strike also offers Rune Sap, which if you're attacking fast enough is a lot of bonus spell damage

I considered shatter strike but concluded it would cost way too much mana without also using mana strike

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, and not really much benefit to SS here

[proper hawk]

I feel like the crit multi from firebrand is enough to justify the slower speed

[unreal blade]

something like this as a starting template ~https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BgnZKKxQ

[proper hawk]

plus the flat damage

[unreal blade]

frostclaw is 5.7 mana plus it has a chance to restore 12 mana, so it's effectively less.

[plain garnet]

The restore 12 mana is only on direct cast, though, right

[unreal blade]

no

[plain garnet]

?

[proper hawk]

yeah its only on direct cast

[unreal blade]

the node works

[proper hawk]

is it bugged? they specifically changed that

[unreal blade]

i know it says direct, it works

[proper hawk]

what the hell

[plain garnet]

That's a bug, then, and I'm not gonna rely on it

[weary hamlet]

remains to be seen but it's gonna be hard to compete against the claw+offhand in a proc build

I'd say it's just strictly worse in all situations

[unreal blade]

then you have 15 mana every 3 sec from runemaster, and 3 mana per melee hit from spell blade. it should be plenty without mana strike.

[plain garnet]

Would be a shame if it was just outright worse.

[weary hamlet]

its a unique so you wouldn't be putting set shards on it anyways

[unreal blade]

yeah i know

triple the implicit will result in pretty high spell damage via glamdring

[weary hamlet]

at that point you might as well use mana strike and static to dump that mana, at which point you are firmly into the ole good static build that wouldn't want this

[unreal blade]

could go full utility on firebrand and pick up the ward/armor nodes instead

[plain garnet]

Feels like you wouldn't want to scale the damage of firebrand in this scenario? You just want a fast utility melee attack to proc the spells off the spear and the 50% chance to cast frost claw via melee through the tree and skill nodes

I'm no mage expert, just spitballing here

[unreal blade]

well you do have the implicit melee damage for firebrand to work with. just depends if you'd rather have some armor and a bit of ward gen or a bit more damage from your utility skill. depends on how defenses feel.

[plain garnet]

If it turns out I need less mana returned from Mana Strike I can always shunt a bunch of that into ward generation via the skill tree

[unreal blade]

90 crit multi is hard to pass up on firebrand vs mana strike not really doing anything.

rune sap is nice and all, but vs the flat/multi

[plain garnet]

I guess it comes down to the mana costs of the procced spells and if I can get enough attack speed elsewhere

[harsh abyss]

You can also spec Firebrand to refresh all stacks with one attack, so you can firebrand once and then use a different ability a bunch of times and maintain the buffs

So you can juggle mana strike and firebrand to do both

[plain garnet]

Could, yeah. Feels like I'm low on available skills to do that, though

[unreal blade]

why do you say firebrand is too slow? both skills with max AS on tree mana strike is only 8% faster.

[unreal blade]

yeah it's possible but i hate buff maintenance. it's why i don't include firebrand on my spark spellblade, plus i'd have to drop spec on flame ward to do it.

[harsh abyss]

Mana strike has a faster base attack speed, according to LEtools : 1.692 vs 1.467

Maybe not that much of a difference, but that probably scales with all sources of attack speed to it may end up being meaningful

[harsh abyss]

Oh totally, same, but it IS a thing.

[unreal blade]

yeah i calculated it. it's 2.03 vs 1.86

[harsh abyss]

That's just with the tree though, there's also a lot of other sources of attack speed that you can snag

[proper hawk]

thats not super helpful, that gap will widen with more ias from other sources

[unreal blade]

how does the weapon speed play into this? it's a slow 2h which would bring differences closer, right?

[proper hawk]

no, base weapon attack speed is a multiplier

[unreal blade]

right it's 0.94 so it would bring down the total speed

[proper hawk]

yeah but it brings them both down by the same proportional amount

it wont change the gap between them

[unreal blade]

sure, just when the numbers get small i don't really care anymore.

[nimble shoal]

Also I'm not sure why LE Tools lists the default attack speed for firebrand. Its use duration is 1.5 seconds. It's slow as hell last I remember trying it.

[harsh abyss]

I feel like with small numbers the difference would feel MORE meaningful

[proper hawk]

uh.... what? its not even close to that slow

mana strike is just fast

[harsh abyss]

Use duration .65 vs 1.5

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, idk how LE Tools calculates base speed

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, not sure why the base speed for firebrand says 1.4 uses per second, that makes no sense

At that difference though, you're getting more than 2x as many mana strikes

[plain garnet]

I don't know if I understand the correlation between use duration and attack speed

[unreal blade]

took the AS from my spark spellblade and factored the AS from firebrand and mana strike both at their tree's max speed.

[proper hawk]

yeah thats more accurate

[nimble shoal]

Use duration is related to how long it takes to use the skill one time

[proper hawk]

1.5s use time is so far off its not even funny. Ive used firebrand a fair bit, its not 1.5s lol

not even close

like literally just use the skill one time and youll see thats not the case

[nimble shoal]

How exactly it's related, not sure

[nimble shoal]

tbf you'd need to use it at least 2 times

[proper hawk]

sure, point is its very obvious its not 1.5 seconds, thats absurd

[harsh abyss]

Well, some quick testing hopping in game, the attack speeds do feel pretty similar

1.5 seconds is definitely not truth

Though maybe that has an effect on the amount of scaling you get from attack speed?

[nimble shoal]

Yeah so maybe the base speeds are the right ones

[proper hawk]

maybe the 1.5 seconds is total animation time if you dont cancel the end of it with another action?

[harsh abyss]

Okay, VERY rough testing, tossing on a 20% Increased Attack Speed piece of gear has a larger affect on Mana Strike attack speed than Firebrand attack speed

[proper hawk]

i think its going to be very hard to determine something like that accurately without recording and counting

[harsh abyss]

I'm doing that right now

[proper hawk]

oh nice, im curious what your results are

[plain garnet]

The goal, realistically, would be as much attack speed as possible to ensure uptime of the elemental essence stacks

Ideally a high melee attack speed roll via weaver's will on the item

[nimble shoal]

If the base speeds listed are right, all else equal, you'll get 15% more mana strikes than firebrands

[proper hawk]

yep, though firebrand gets ias on tree slightly easier so the difference will likely be a few percent smaller most of the time

like niches calculation above

[plain garnet]

20% vs 27% on their respective trees

[proper hawk]

yeah only a couple of percent

[harsh abyss]

Mana strike can also get 28%

if you go for Mana Storm

[proper hawk]

oh yeah i forgot about that

but you wouldnt go for mana storm just for 8% ias i dont think

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, but those increases on the tree are additive, so pretty minor

[harsh abyss]

I mean, you'd also go for it for an additional spell on every attack

[nimble shoal]

I didn't bother with mana storm on my planner, but mainly because I focused on cold scaling

[harsh abyss]

Fair

[plain garnet]

With the amount of flat spell damage and elemental damage available on the spear it's definitely worth taking mana storm

[nimble shoal]

It's not a ton of flat spell for stuff that's not frost claw, though I guess it's not bad still

[plain garnet]

We don't know the ranges yet, but 51 flat damage is close to what you'd see on a high level wand or scepter base

[harsh abyss]

Damn it, I think I'm going to have to farm a world splitter for my mana stacking mana strike build

[nimble shoal]

Is it possible to give mana strike a mana cost?

[harsh abyss]

I'm not sure if Mana Storm counts, but the main thing would be the +1% crit multi per 10 max mana

As far as I can tell it's the only way to scale damage off of max mana

[nimble shoal]

Ahh yeah

[proper hawk]

mana storm will consume mana, but no you cant get an actual mana cost

[nimble shoal]

Yeah I am pretty sure it's just a mana consumption

[harsh abyss]

yeah

[plain garnet]

How is spell damage calculated? I assume it is:

((base spell damage + flat spell damage) * total amount of increased relevant spell damage) * each individual source of more damage

[unreal blade]

12% was the difference using my already geared character as a reference.

[harsh abyss]

Don't forget to multiply by damage effectiveness for added damage

[plain garnet]

Right.

[nocturne temple]

was using the ehp calc after u mentioned this, telfuns with 2 t5 dodge affixes (helm/body) gets u easily to like 25%, added 10k ehp lmao

nice recommendation ❤️

[harsh abyss]

Yeah dude, it's a hella underrated unique. Plus you can add dodge rating in places you can't add armor (rings and amulet) for easy adds when you solve your resists and stuff elsewhere.

[nimble shoal]

Mana strike has a 15% "more" attack speed modifier, effectively

[plain garnet]

Dodge is a great defensive mechanic, you just can't rely solely on it

[nocturne temple]

yea alotta suffixes are just useless when u get all res from elsewhre so dodge slots perfectly into it

[nimble shoal]

Other stuff can mean the different attacks peak slightly differently of course

[plain garnet]

It couples very nicely with other mitigation methods to smooth out the damage you take

[harsh abyss]

Yep, I love ways to get 20-30% dodge on builds that have other main defenses

[nocturne temple]

idk if this is good or not

[unreal blade]

i doubt you can sustain the mana for that if you go ranged. probably ok if you keep it melee range.

[plain garnet]

I learned the hard way in PoE that 95% evasion =! 100%

So you need some other kind of way to not die on top of your dodge

[nocturne temple]

does DR thats not armour apply to DoT/

[plain garnet]

This is a valid point for sure.

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, unless it specifies otherwise

[viral fox]

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/BMqYYl3B what you guys think of this build? still working on blessings

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 93

:white_check_mark: This character build is verified

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (25) / Sorcerer (56) / Runemaster (25)

General:

▸ Health: 1,081, Regen: 19.02/s
▸ Mana: 383.6, Regen: 16.24/s
▸ Ward Retention: 336%, Regen: 84/s
▸ Attributes: 9 Str / 1 Dex / 90 Int / 1 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 167% / 59% / 57% / 154% / 89% / 94% / 63%
▸ EHP: 1,520 / 1,311 / 1,288 / 1,777 / 1,520 / 1,520 / 1,357

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 216
▸ Armor Mitigation: 36% (1,822)

Damage Types:

▸ Fire / Spell

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Meteor (20)
• Frost Claw (20)
• Teleport (21)
• Flame Ward (20)
• Focus (20)

Used unique items:

• Rule of the Simoon
• Throne of Ambition

[unreal blade]

the base rate yes, but firebrand can get 27% on tree, MS 20% (not counting mana storm nodes)

[plain garnet]

If I can get enough attack speed elsewhere and the mana isn't a concern, firebrand is probably the better choice here. A bunch of flat spell damage and crit multi, good ward on hit/ward per sec

I am curious about the ward/hp balance this patch. One of the devs mentioned they were addressing that.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, we don't really know. Maybe tweaks to ward generation/formulas, or just improvements to health-related stuff

[plain garnet]

I'd like to see a lot of buffs to hp builds, because ward is outright better in every way right now

[harsh abyss]

My guess would be nerfs to "missing health gained as ward" stuff and then buff to hp related things

The new ward formula is pretty decent and not that overpowered

[plain garnet]

Yeah I'm expecting Exsanguinous to be nerfed

[unreal blade]

ward is in a decent state right now, life needs buffs.

i watch people playing sentinels with 4k+ life and still get hit for 75% of their health regularly. they leech it back, but man that is a yo-yo i don't like playing with.

[harsh abyss]

This is gonna be important if they buff hp values at all. Otherwise we'll just be back to crazy ward numbers

[plain garnet]

You just need so much more investment into hp via affixes to match what ward can get by just stacking int, which also increases damage (usually)

[unreal blade]

i'd like to see endurance buffs. life totals could probably use a small bump also, but endurance i think is the better place to focus.

[plain garnet]

To get good HP numbers you need %life everywhere it is possible to get it

Ward builds can instead use those affixes for int or other utility

[unreal blade]

also endurance doesn't work on ward, so it's a fine place to tune

[plain garnet]

I'd agree that Endurance is a good place to look

[harsh abyss]

I'd like to see endurance threshold specifically buffed

[plain garnet]

I ran a marksman build last league that picked up a ton of endurance and endurance threshold plus ~50% dodge and it felt really solid.

[unreal blade]

a life build with a good amount of dodge and foot of the mountain feels as tanky as a good ward build. they just need to make that accessible without the boots/dodge.

[nimble shoal]

Actually, is firebrand's attack speed additive or multiplicative?

It doesn't say, so I assumed additive, but if it's multiplicative that's a big win for firebrand

[unreal blade]

isn't all AS multiplicative?

[nimble shoal]

No

[harsh abyss]

I'm pretty sure it's additive

[plain garnet]

I have no idea how the attack speed calculation works

[unreal blade]

how do you calculate it then if it's additive

1.692 + 0.27?

[harsh abyss]

It's like anything else. Add all additive increases together, then multiply by multipliers

[nimble shoal]

You add all your "increased" speed modifiers together before multiplying, same as damage calc for "increased damage"

[plain garnet]

My assumption would be:

(Base speed * all combined sources of increased attack speed) * weapon speed

[unreal blade]

err i guess it'd be 1.467 + 0.27 for firebrand. used mana strike base by accident.

would all AS be additive though?

[plain garnet]

No idea

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, basically like this. And then each multiplicative speed modifier is multiplied by itself

[harsh abyss]

anything that's more probably specifies it, except weapon attack speeds. Those are a multipler (and averaged if you have 2 weapons equipped)

[nimble shoal]

Weapon base attack speed is a more/less attack speed multiplier wearing a hat

[plain garnet]

Yes

[unreal blade]

yeah that's a bit different than nodes or gear affixes with AS though

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, almost all attack speed you stack will be additive, which means diminishing returns

[plain garnet]

the tools calculator includes all of the attack speed together as an additive, including any rolls on the spear itself

[nimble shoal]

Which is why the 20% increase vs. 27% increase doesn't matter much once you have a lot of increased attack speed

[unreal blade]

oh i was already doing it additively, combining all AS improvements then multiplying them against the base. it never crossed my mind that you'd multiply each AS improvement with each other.

as i see it, you have 3 parts of the calculation: weapon speed * skill speed * sum of AS improvements

[harsh abyss]

With any other More modifiers if the specific thing has them

[unreal blade]

can you show me an example of a more multiplier for AS?

[harsh abyss]

Not offhand but I think there are a few out there

[unreal blade]

mana strike and firebrand both say increased

[plain garnet]

Flurry has some more attack speed multis.

[harsh abyss]

I think Puncture does too

[nimble shoal]

They are pretty rare outside of the one attached to your weapon base speed

[plain garnet]

Unless my math is super wrong I'm seeing like 4.5 attacks/sec with firebrand if I have a perfect T7 attack speed roll and all the attack speed passives on a 0.94 attack speed spear.

Mana Strike with the same setup is 5.21/sec

[nimble shoal]

That one harbinger hammer has one, too (less speed)

[unreal blade]

so in this example, with say 200% increased AS, it'd be:

0.94 * 1.692 * 3.2 = 5.08 attacks per sec (Mana Strike)
0.94 * 1.476 * 3.27 = 4.51 attacks per sec (Firebrand)

a difference of 12.6% in favor of MS

now we have to keep in mind the weapon's stacks are rate limited

you can only get 3 stacks per second, and the 'barrage' only goes off every 3 seconds minimum

[plain garnet]

Right. Max of 9 charges/3 sec

[gritty pagoda]

replacing the flat endurance threshold affixes with %of max life gained as endurance threshold would be a good starting point imo

[plain garnet]

That wording suggests to me that you can frontload the charges; you're not limited to 3/sec, just 9 every 3 sec

[gritty pagoda]

I'd assume it works like the sentinel chance to smite on throwing hit (max 10 per 2 seconds) idols

[unreal blade]

maybe, but nothing will happen until the 3 sec cd is over.

[plain garnet]

The spear won't gain charges until the cooldown expires, yes.

There's other reasons to care about attack speed, though, like proccing frost claw natively

[unreal blade]

would make it a little better for dodging hits/etc. but if you are standing there blasting, the rate gain is academic.

[plain garnet]

Yeah you're constantly moving, you're very rarely standing still blasting

[harsh abyss]

With 5 attacks per second, you could feasibly have 2.5 native frost claw procs per second

[plain garnet]

That's a lot of claws

[unreal blade]

depends. i try to make my builds tanky enough to face tank all but the worst attacks.

[nimble shoal]

Maybe a question to look at is how much investment do we need to hit 3 aps for each skill

I'm too lazy to calculate that on my phone 😂

[plain garnet]

Not a ton if you're also using enchant, I'd say

[harsh abyss]

Yeah

Plus passives and weapon tree stuff, probably not too much

[nimble shoal]

Without enchant weapon up, unless you have 100% uptime on it, or close

[harsh abyss]

I feel like anyone is going to try and get that uptime to 100% just for QOL

[unreal blade]

just with enchant weapon active you're at 2.38 per sec with mana strike. wouldn't need too much more.

[plain garnet]

Uptime on enchant is not hard to maintain tbh

[harsh abyss]

I mean, you need just over 100% total IAS

[nimble shoal]

If enchant weapon isn't needed to hit the cap, might just drop the spec entirely

[harsh abyss]

Because if you have 1.6ish attacks per second base, 100% IAS is 3.2 attacks

[gritty pagoda]

do this on sorc with the meteor on crit belt

c:<

[nimble shoal]

True, we can hit that with a good WW hit and passives

[gritty pagoda]

trigger ALL the spells

[unreal blade]

and be permanently oom

[harsh abyss]

Mmmm mana stacking lightning meteor vilatria mana strike builld

[plain garnet]

I think with good enough gear you just drop enchant weapon entirely and go whole hog on procs. Take the 42% chance for frost claw to cast elemental nova and take the elemental nova tree, too

[gritty pagoda]

thats a future me problem

currently I"M BLASTING EVERYTHING

[harsh abyss]

If only we could freaking roll IAS on staffs 😢

[plain garnet]

That said, enchant also offers a chance to cast icicle on hit too

[unreal blade]

the flat melee in enchant weapon does get added to frostclaw via glamdring, but it is a relatively small amount, considering how much flat will be present already with triple weapon stats.

[plain garnet]

Does it? I never considered that.

[gritty pagoda]

🤔

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, the FCs procced by the spear get >400 flat just from the spear itself

[unreal blade]

you can access 25 flat fire while getting the other good stuff in enchant weapon

[plain garnet]

Right, so Frozen Sparks in the Enchant tree would add to this

Or the 25 flat fire

[unreal blade]

you'd only be able to access 20 flat lightning or 20 flat cold

[gritty pagoda]

dex stacking with those boots that give flat cold dmg from dex?

[unreal blade]

yes if you can manage the negative resist

[nimble shoal]

No need for more flat, we want %inc and crit stuff

[unreal blade]

and it probably double dips for glamdring frostclaw

[harsh abyss]

I just wish Glamdring interited flat attack damage from the triggering melee attack if it was triggered. That would be awesome and I could use it for my mana stacking mana strike build

[plain garnet]

Unless I'm reading this wrong, don't you get both?

[gritty pagoda]

moar flat!

[nimble shoal]

Yeah it does

[gritty pagoda]

but also the weapon itself can give us all the %increased we need

[unreal blade]

there's no physical dmg on the spear

[nimble shoal]

You get none, the spear has no phys

[plain garnet]

Ah, damn.

[harsh abyss]

That node really needs to get updated

[gritty pagoda]

can someone re-link the spear

[nimble shoal]

Yeah mega outdated node lol

[harsh abyss]

It's horrible since the implicit change

[gritty pagoda]

oh god I didn't realize that node doesn't work with adaptive damage

[unreal blade]

it's pretty bad regardless. the ratio is um.. not great.

[harsh abyss]

yeah

Power crept to death

[plain garnet]

God that sucks lol

[nimble shoal]

It was always bad, but nowadays it's not even worth picking up as a cute 1 pointer

[unreal blade]

yeah i value 1 point in chill over it

[gritty pagoda]

ok yeah the spear with lets say we get 100% increased ele dmg with spells as a weaver roll, thats 600% increased with the triggered spells

[plain garnet]

Can't get ele damage on a spear atm

[gritty pagoda]

shit

wtf can a spear roll

[plain garnet]

Can roll individual elemental increased though

lightning% or cold%

[harsh abyss]

Increased poison damage, every mage's favorite 😝

[nimble shoal]

Nothing great, just attack speed and individual elements

[unreal blade]

i'd take attack speed and t5 or higher crit dmg reduction 🙂

[nimble shoal]

And crit multi, which is probably what I'd want

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, crit multi is always good

[nimble shoal]

Or even flat cold

[gritty pagoda]

that does make me think about a dot build with it

[nimble shoal]

But tripling the crit multi from it 🔥

[plain garnet]

480 crit multi for spells procced from the essences lol

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, that would be insane

[unreal blade]

hm yeah i guess you'd prioritize stuff that affects the casts, so not AS

[nimble shoal]

No ele DOT btw 😅

[plain garnet]

I'd argue you still want a fat IAS roll.

[harsh abyss]

You'll prioritize whatever the weaver gives you and you'll LIKE it

[unreal blade]

crit multi and defensive crit multi plz 🙂

[nimble shoal]

Weaver Discord emote when?

[plain garnet]

But realistically anything that gives damage would be nuts. Imagine 480% crit multi and an extra 1152% increased lightning damage

[gritty pagoda]

nah get chance to ignite on hit with the spear

[harsh abyss]

Getting high WW on these items is probably gonna be a huge pain though

[gritty pagoda]

T7 of that is like 200% -> triple that -> 600% on the triggered spells ez

cause its just chance to ignite on hit not chance to ignite on melee hit

[unreal blade]

600% on a proc with 5 projectiles 🙂

[nimble shoal]

Oh yeah, or armor shred for frostbite, or whatever peeps are doing these days

[unreal blade]

oh jeez

[gritty pagoda]

wait

spears can get damage over time

[harsh abyss]

Just a casual 1920% frostbite chance

[plain garnet]

correct

[unreal blade]

oh no

spears don't have shred lmao

[harsh abyss]

Yeah they do, it's a suffix

[plain garnet]

I'm glad I started this discussion.

[gritty pagoda]

suffix for armor shred

[unreal blade]

i'm looking at suffixes on LEtools

it ain't there

[harsh abyss]

Did you actually click on a spear?

[unreal blade]

oh you have to click on a base first

[harsh abyss]

It won't show if you don't select the item

yeah

[gritty pagoda]

my new plan is T7 Dot damage and T7 ignite chance and we be setting the world on fire

cause with a dot I really don't care about which of the 3 spells get triggered

[plain garnet]

I think there's a lot of incredible meme builds you can do with this.

[harsh abyss]

You DO care though, because you can make frostbite hit 25 times (probably less in 1.2 but whatever) vs the others that you can't specialize in

[unreal blade]

that's 100 frostbites per frostclaw proc

[gritty pagoda]

*I care less so about which spell gets triggered

[unreal blade]

900 frostbites in a barrage

[plain garnet]

wtf

[nimble shoal]

That's more than 5 frostbites for sure

[plain garnet]

Also note spears have lightning/cold pen available on them, too.

[gritty pagoda]

actually

if theres some way to convert all this dot chance to time rot chance I feel obligated to try this on vk

[plain garnet]

Perfect T6 roll, tripled, is 100% ele pen

[gritty pagoda]

given one of the devs said using time rot for a dot build is gonna be a thing

[nimble shoal]

Depends on how the time rot rework goes, if it still has 12 stack cap there might be better options

[gritty pagoda]

fair

[nocturne temple]

health per second =/= health regen right?

for example, the focus node that heals 6 per sec, that healing wouldnt apply to vessel

[harsh abyss]

The focus node is a heal, so healing effectiveness from any source applies

But yeah, you're correct, healing is different from health regen

[nocturne temple]

dang

[weary hamlet]

it should be the ole good trololo emote with spider legs

[vapid rune]

With S2 pretty close does the Mage and it's masteries get a lot of changes, too?

[rotund bloom]

Won't know until patch notes, but I wouldn't expect much

[weary hamlet]

we don't know but hopefully they address some of the more degenerate builds

some of the current sorc stuff is downright silly

[plain garnet]

What are the contenders for nerfs, you think?

I can't speak for sorc builds, but ballista falconer is super degenerate

[weary hamlet]

SO, FC, Arcane Current (just delete it), Fragment

yeah ballista falconer isn't any better

[plain garnet]

4 of the top 6 here are ballista falconers:
https://www.lastepochtools.com/ladders/

[harsh abyss]

Yeah arcane current is terrible. Not only busted for multi-hit stuff, but also mega bad performance. I tried it on lightning meteor and just had to unspec it because of the lag every time I hit a pack

[nimble shoal]

I think arcane current is largely a frost claw problem... though that performance thing does make it prime for a hit

I still have no idea why FC changed to multi-hit gets halved freeze rate, but still full ailment chance

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I feel like all of the mage-related nerfs you mentioned are related

FC is mainly a problem because 25 hits (spark charge). Arcane Current is a problem because VO and high cost FC. Fragment is a problem because of high spark charge application (Arcane Current)

[rapid hinge]

i think the nerf to multihit spell spark charge is fair

but i'm afraid if you nerf everything related to it, then spark charge will become shit

[plain garnet]

I don't think I understand what makes arcane current so busted.

[rapid hinge]

it's strong for relatively low investment, but imo it's not busted since its ceiling is no way as high as the truly busted things in the game

for example ballista/wraithlord...

[plain garnet]

OH there are two skills named arcane current lol

Base class Mage has one, and there's a second deep in the Sorcerer tree, ok.

Yeah it does kinda feel like FC shouldn't be able to apply ailments as easily as it does

[rapid hinge]

that is true, FC is the absolute best skill in the game in the category of "fast multihit skill"

and it's not even close

[nimble shoal]

Yep, I truly believe it not getting a "50% less ailment chance" effect was an oversight

[rapid hinge]

hmm maybe not sure, i dont have much experience with primalist and acolyte

[harsh abyss]

I think the "25 hits per cast" is setup probably the biggest problem

[unreal blade]

tie it to the first of the multi cast nodes and it'll be decently balanced.

[nimble shoal]

I mean yeah, that contributes. That probably shouldn't be so sustainable

[nimble shoal]

Reason I mention it on the multi-hit is because that node halves freeze rate

But I don't really care how they fix it, as long as they fix FC

[plain garnet]

We were talking yesterday about using the new essence weaver spear to proc a bunch of FC casts (and smite/storm bolt) that each have like +600% chance to ignite just from the spear alone

[rapid hinge]

give FC a reduced ailment effectiveness, AND BUFFING OTHER SKILLS is the most reasonable thing to do imo

the 1.1 mana recovery nerf was a very good direction

[harsh abyss]

I say go nuclear and make Volley of Glass incompatible with On Through the Snow, but I'm a frost claw hater

[rapid hinge]

you might be letting the hatred take you over 😂

[spare pendant]

channeled lightning blast has 50% less chance to apply ailments for some reason 💀

[plain garnet]

If you roll 3 FC casts with the spear, that's 15 hits that all apply 6 ignites, plus the storm bolts + smites, for a total of 126 ignites from JUST the spear with a T7 ignite chance proc on it

[nimble shoal]

Yeah, that is so silly. Doesn't even get a stat line below the description, I missed that on first read

[harsh abyss]

I don't mind that because it's effectively a 400% cast speed increase, but it definitely make FC feel like big power creep

[rapid hinge]

it surely is

😂

[weary hamlet]

that's the point though, it isn't. Remove it from FC and it's still more or less the same on IB or VO or any number of other skills that hit a lot.

spark charges are not and had never been balanced around getting applied 50 times per second

or they would have the damage of ignite

[unreal blade]

that node already has 2 different downsides, so i'd rather see it on on through the snow. edit - actually 3 downsides.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I don't think Enigma would even need nerfs if FC wasn't applying so many of them

[weary hamlet]

nah enigma is stupid by itself, it already was a problem before they even made AC

[plain garnet]

Enigma is for sure a problem imo

[weary hamlet]

it hits 8 times per second! 8 times more than non-channeled lightning blast!*

[nimble shoal]

Enigma definitely is a bit strong. I wouldn't hate to see it turned back to its intended function, +1 per int

[weary hamlet]

*non-channeled lightning blast with literally zero points allocated in its tree

[plain garnet]

Adding that much flat damage to spark charges alone is what makes it bonkers

[harsh abyss]

Nah, base cast speed for LB is 1.5 casts per second

[weary hamlet]

in my mind volley is itself problematic because it makes FC infringe onto the design space of other skills like fireball a bit too much, including as ailment applicator

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I can agree with that, it reduces the flavor of the skill

[rapid hinge]

this is true

[plain garnet]

It isn't unreasonable to have like 130 ish int on a good build, and it's possible to go way higher than that. 260 flat damage to spark charges is insane

[harsh abyss]

Also 5x hits from one node for minimal downside is alway kinda iffy

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but spark charges have a lot of other problems, most that are solved by maximum application, but their scaling is wonky and they don't inherit 'more' modifiers from any skills

Kinda limits the build space for them

[weary hamlet]

I mean they are probably comparing it to the whole bottom left tree so they think like "eh it's 5 times per cast vs 4 times per cast", except this ignores, well, everything else

[unreal blade]

enigma is somewhat balanced by the catalyst having no crit, forcing a lot of prefix budget on increased crit, or wearing kinda not great items like prismatic gaze.

[plain garnet]

There definitely needs to be a way to build spark charges, but putting a huge chunk of the power budget for them into one unique

Feels like bad design

[harsh abyss]

It's a pretty niche build in general, the unique keeps it from being too much of an auto-include

You can still totally have spark charges on any build, but they don't become the focus without enigma

[weary hamlet]

it's widely applauded by poe players so the developers aren't going to budge on this

[unreal blade]

double mana cost, removal of aoe, and half freeze rate are decent downsides for 5x projectiles. maybe it should be only +1 proj on hand of morditas.

[weary hamlet]

enigma and criterion are pinnacle unique design in their eyes, mike said as much

[harsh abyss]

Except it doesn't remove actual AOE effectiveness because the projectiles pierce. It still clears with zero issue

[plain garnet]

Spellblade build solves this entirely. 5/5 Prodigy gives you 1% base crit per 15 int, and 5/8 Calculated Destruction gives you 3% spell crit chance per int

[unreal blade]

well aware, have a practically bis one.

[harsh abyss]

At least the LP system makes it so "BIS" is ever-evolving

[unreal blade]

but the ceiling is much lower for spellblade spark than sorc spark

[rapid hinge]

ceiling is not that high for sorc spark either

that's why ultimately spark build needs static orb setup for bossing

[unreal blade]

killing aberroth with veterans boots is not high?

[rapid hinge]

else the boss fight would just take 2 hrs

[rapid hinge]

aren't we talking about ceiling?

abberoth and build ceiling doesnt belong in the same sentence man

[unreal blade]

yes the limit of the build is much higher than spellblade version

do you know what veterans boots are

[rapid hinge]

i do

im curious what make you think the limit of FC sparkcharge for sorc is much higher than for SB?

im genuinly curious no trolling

[unreal blade]

sorc version has far higher defenses and damage than spellblade version. spellblade version is just extremely easy to play. no management just attack.

[harsh abyss]

25 spark charges per cast

[rapid hinge]

ooooh tru i forgot about that

😂

sry im dumb

[weary hamlet]

sb defenses in general are super sus, it's the typical LE problem of completely relying on one or two key items for tons of ward

except that it has a choice of another one or two items to use

depending on build

[rapid hinge]

what about defense?

what makes sorc defense much higher than SB ?

[unreal blade]

the defenses of spellblade spark is actually pretty good, sorc is just even better.

i run 9-10k ward on my SB with 50ish% armor DR and a few other sources of DR. i can face tank aberroth except beams/ground dots. sorc is just better.

[unreal blade]

far higher ward generation and mobility. spellblade can't move, while sorc only tosses out a frostclaw that auto aims and can move while mana regens a bit.

and you get 1 sec immunity from wrongwarp

[plain garnet]

I feel like a lot of the fix for this is in making On Through the Snow incompatible with Volley of Glass

[weary hamlet]

the fix is removing volley of glass

[unreal blade]

i've built an incomplete version of frozen's FC spark just to give it a try and i could see the power right away, both offense and defense. i just didn't like dealing with mana (meteor or focus) and having to moderate casts (to stay high on mana).

[weary hamlet]

FC is already one of the most bloated skills in the game design wise, it doesn't need to invalidate even more other skills by its mere existence

[unreal blade]

that would delete that whole branch, but certainly something needs to be done. why pay 30+ mana for cast + recasts for the same projectiles as volley that you can make pretty cheap.

[plain garnet]

I'd say leave it in but give Volley of Glass a 50% ailment chance modifier

[weary hamlet]

they could also give meteor shrapnel homing so it all hits one target while they are at it

fair and balanced

[spare pendant]

lol dude

im just about to be finished with a meteor zero to hero

its like, truly meteocre

good enough but not something id recommend

[harsh abyss]

🪦

I like Meteor a lot, but it's definitely not as good as some other skills at this point

[weary hamlet]

I played plenty of meteor throughout the patches and it's always been kinda mediocre

cause FC is also a better meteor than meteor

[harsh abyss]

I wish it was worth building in other ways than the "meteor storm" version

[unreal blade]

wow...

[harsh abyss]

Like if the Stardust branch had other more modifiers that prevented having additional meteors or something

[weary hamlet]

you can do that! On bear

with the belt

[unreal blade]

what we need is on through the snow for meteor. 25 meteors per cast!

[weary hamlet]

just bake the belt into baseline meteor

50% chance to recast for free

sounds about balanced

can proc off itself of course

[harsh abyss]

I want like... a node locked behind 3 points in the bigger aoe node that makes it so you can only cast 1 meteor but it does significantly more damage

[weary hamlet]

they already have that in fireball and chaos bolts

guess what

[unreal blade]

would need to make it target your cursor also. isn't aiming an issue with meteor also? tbh never tried it as a main skill, so not sure.

[weary hamlet]

nah the aiming is fine except for extra meteors from the meteor shower

[harsh abyss]

Nah, targeting is fine, especially when you take the big AOE node

[weary hamlet]

but their fall area isnt really that bad

[harsh abyss]

It hits basically the whole screen anyway at that point

I prefer to build 1 meteor instead of meteor storm just because I like it better, but the meteor storm is just too good to not get unfortunately

[frozen lodge]

Ward still gonna be the only viable defense in this next expansion?

[unreal blade]

life is getting buffs

if nothing else, from idol crafting, but probably more

[harsh abyss]

They specifically said that other defenses are going to be improved, but we don't know by how much else

[frozen lodge]

Thats good to hear

[harsh abyss]

We'll have to see patch notes to know for sure

[frozen lodge]

I always try meteor every patch but end up dying to lag or whatever before endgame

Buuut doesnt seem too good from what everyones sayin

Unfortunate

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I like meteor as well but it often doesn't feel super good

[unreal blade]

ward probably remains main defense for mages in general, as it should be, but maybe some life builds come back. mana defense builds should get a buff from idol crafting also.

[proper hawk]

honestly mage's best defense is hybrid, reactive ward is nuts

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, reactive ward is great

[proper hawk]

also meteor actually seems pretty good, dr3adful is doing another zero to hero build with it

[unreal blade]

he said above he wouldn't recommend it, but it wasn't awful

[harsh abyss]

It's probably better if you optimize it more. Zero to hero builds are pretty streamlined

[proper hawk]

oh i should have scrolled up

yeah maybe I have a lower standard

[spare pendant]

Nah nah nah

[unreal blade]

Z2H builds also rely a lot on skills/passives. they don't get to a great level of gear.

[spare pendant]

Guys

Remember I am basing it on day 1

This is entirely for cycle starter stuff

[harsh abyss]

Yeah

[spare pendant]

I've seen good Meteor builds

Just don't play it day 1 and your fine 💀

[frozen lodge]

Ah thats not so bad then

[harsh abyss]

Wait until you craft a Vilatria reforged staff 😝

[proper hawk]

also tbh it just looked really fun so that might be skewing my impression of it lol

[unreal blade]

and then realize glamdring frostclaw is a better use for such a staff 😉

[spare pendant]

Remember I have an insanely high standard for this. It has to get to 10/10 harbingers while also doing decent damage while also not being squishy while also having good clear while also on a shoestring budget where I usually don't spend my favor, I end up with like 80k in the end

And also within like 8-14 hours of total gameplay

[frozen lodge]

Mages builds zzzz something something frostclaw

[spare pendant]

This is the strictest of the strictest

Remember if I have a mediocre time with the build, imagine a new player who is prone to mistakes and lack of knowledge

If I'm not doing well with it, it's gonna be straight up awful for a new player

[harsh abyss]

I'm curious how my channeled LB build is going to fare in the endgame, I've never really tried to push it that far

[proper hawk]

yeah I'm very curious to know how that build ends up going

[unreal blade]

standing still and relatively low ward gen is probably an indicator of it not going super far, but it's probably decent

are you doing runemaster for fortress armor/ward?

[spare pendant]

I think crit channeled LB could be fine

But you need to run another skill for clear

And remember

Cast speed does nothing for you

[proper hawk]

Zerax's build uses halo effect for clear i believe, it used to work

[spare pendant]

Also as well, we don't have anything like doedres tenure unfortunately

[unreal blade]

yeah spark nova should be decent clear. i saw the video in his build from before halo effect broke and it looked ok.

[spare pendant]

So a neat trick btw

Don't go telling everyone this OK

You can run the node that turns off lightning blasts mana cost when you are at 0 mana, and that makes the channeling free. Then you pair that with double font of the erased and now all of a sudden your not as squishy anymore

Just something interesting I've found

[proper hawk]

yeah the free channelling is the basis of Zerax's build, didn't know about the double font tech though

[unreal blade]

ok yeah zerax is going runemaster so defense and ward should be decent, if he recasts LB every 2 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwaUdgmxQhI

video from his guide

[spare pendant]

Not taking shattershock?

[harsh abyss]

Shattershock is next on the list when you havve more than 20 points. It doesn't affect Spark Nova, so Frontloaded is better for your damage overall

[proper hawk]

as a damage mod dependent on the enemies state, its not inherited by sub-skills unfortunately

[harsh abyss]

Indeed

I'm planning to rebuild the guide, there are a bunch of new things that'll affect the build, especially with set crafting and other funzies

I've been waiting for Halo Effect to be fixed before I do that

But, while channeling and standing on your Glyph of Dominion, you should be basically invincible

I really like the "hold right click and wave your cursor around the screen" play style 😝

[proper hawk]

I was thinking of doing a variant with focus and mana guide for the pop of ward after 2 seconds

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I have a feeling that build is gonna be strong. I'm probably going to experiment with it as well on the same character, since the passive trees will be mostly the same

[unreal blade]

my mana guide plan is something like this

[proper hawk]

like, traversal focus channelling for 2 seconds while moving between packs, channel LB on everything, repeat

[harsh abyss]

Font of the Erased isn't as good as Liath's Signet, because you're almost always channeling and get more ward/sec while standing on Glyph from all the overcapped resists the ring gives you.

[weary hamlet]

eh you arent even particularly invincible when doing this with disintegrate and that should still have better survivability on average cause of extra dr layers

btw they promised to buff it, might try it again next patch

[harsh abyss]

I'm hoping they change the Runes of Disintegration node to be a "less damage taken" modifier instead of ward/sec, and make it any channeling instead of JUST disintegrate

[weary hamlet]

it's only 45 ward per second from the signet

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, but Font of the Erased only gives you ward when your current ward is less than your missing health, which is... basically never

And %increased health and mana are useless for the build

And you don't get 'mana spent gained as ward' because once you hit zero mana (basically instantly), you don't spend mana any more

Oceareon or Red Ring are obviously probably better rings, but I didn't want to showcase rarer stuff. Part of the value of the build is that it's super easy to get started.

[weary hamlet]

eh the rings arent terribly rare tbh

maybe not cycle starter common though

but still

[proper hawk]

I think font is probably quite good for a hybrid build where it lets you recover very rapidly to a baseline level

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I'm going to try and focus and do a "starter" and "endgame" version of the build to showcase both. Not enough builds do that, I think

[weary hamlet]

ill probably be starting on sent anyways

[proper hawk]

rive FG looking kinda sweet rn, can't wait for patch notes to ruin my hype

[weary hamlet]

they already spoiled a real fire conversion for rive right?

[harsh abyss]

IDK patch notes are gonna likely be a huge win for almost all sentinel builds that don't want to be forced to use volatile reversal 😝

[proper hawk]

a fire conversion? I only know about the void conversion

I actually really like VR, i dont like it as a double damage button though lol

[weary hamlet]

ah yeah no that's for vengeance

triple damage button*

more like quadruple for dots really

[proper hawk]

yeah im glad they are fixing it I just hope they adequately compensate sent for it

[harsh abyss]

If the past is any indicator, sentinel is probably gonna be HELLA broken this patch

[proper hawk]

I have all the class channels muted except mage, maybe I oughta unmute the sent channel lol

[weary hamlet]

their idea of compensating it is probably adding 300% more damage at basline to all sent skills

[harsh abyss]

I mean... that'll do it. Though I feel like defense is the most needed

[weary hamlet]

300% more health, armor and block stats

[proper hawk]

Funnily enough quadrupling block and armour wouldn't even do that much

[unreal blade]

invoker ring?

[weary hamlet]

that's the point

[proper hawk]

ah

[harsh abyss]

If that flat lightning damage is the "Set" affix, we'll be eating good for sure.

But somehow I doubt it will be

[unreal blade]

i was mostly referring to the ward gain

[proper hawk]

I'm pretty sure the ward chance will be on the set affix tbh, but probably nerfed at anything other than t7, and maybe even then

[unreal blade]

i mean just wear the ring

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, that's decent as well. I don't put too much value on it because the Runemaster Ward/sec affix is so insanely strong. 150 ward/sec on your chestpiece is incredible.

[proper hawk]

LB channel is 8 casts per second right?

[unreal blade]

plus spark novas

[harsh abyss]

LB channel lasts as long as you hold it down

It's 8 casts per second, which is 16 hits per second with spark nova

[unreal blade]

surely this is more wps than liath's with glyph

[proper hawk]

so 120 avg ward per second with the ring, honestly less than I was expecting

[unreal blade]

though liath can get 3LP pretty easily

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, it really depends on the other things you get. The invoker ring is a great leveling/start ring but it'll be outclassed eventually by legendaries

[unreal blade]

the 13 flat lighting likely better than the 75% inc lightning on liath

[harsh abyss]

One interesting note is that Sorcerer could theoretically boost the build with another ~6 spark novas per second with Distant Spark

But then you lose all the fun RM boosts

[proper hawk]

thats neat but i don't see not going RM

[unreal blade]

i'd say invoker is significantly better than unslammed liath, and probably better until you get a really good liath slam.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, for the channeled LB, RM is just too good

I also like Ward/sec as a defense option, which RM is king for

[weary hamlet]

its only real good on proc sb when you are hitting like 50 hits per second

[proper hawk]

yeah mana strike spark charge was the last time I had experimented with it, absolutely insane

[unreal turtle]

What are the top like 3 spell blade variants right now ?

[harsh abyss]

Probably Frost Claw, Frost Claw, and ShatterStrike (Frost Claw)

[proper hawk]

lol

pretty sure crit shatterstrike is a top build on SB, not sure what others

[harsh abyss]

Bloody Nib shatterstrike is also pretty popular

[abstract scaffold]

Spark charge is pretty popular since Fragment of the Enigma exists. I tried a frostbite version of shatter strike, but crit is just objectively better. I also tried an attack speed circle flame reave and that was really fun

[proven haven]

I like how you can literally play direct cast FC as spellblade and its not bad because of all the free crit

[harsh abyss]

Lol yeah

[unreal blade]

Shatter Strike crit is a glass cannon with highest damage, not very durable, and slightly extended melee range. Dragorath Spark/Mana Strike is tanky, easy to play with solid damage and clear. Firebrand/Flamereave is lower damage than the others, slightly more clear and durability than shatter strike.

there's probably other variations of shatter strike that are probably still high dps, but i'm not familiar enough with them to talk about them.

[proven haven]

idk if just me but I always felt like SB kinda paired well with low life tech for tankyness

[nimble shoal]

I did bane of winter SS for 1.1, it felt pretty solid for regular game content. idk about pushing corruption with it, though

[unreal blade]

yeah i tried hybrid and even wall of nothing tech, and low life was just best.

[nimble shoal]

I think I just used a boneclamor or something and it was fine

[unreal blade]

we're talking higher corruption, more complete builds, or at least i am.

[weary hamlet]

eh its not particularly great on sb, historically sb mostly used vessel

these days in some builds you don't need to use either

[proven haven]

The thinking was more that you don't get as much of the spell cast -> ward, if you are doing that, you also don't get as much mana -> ward (I guess mana strike could scale but it feels meh), then you have the reactive ward synergy with LL you can manual proc with any spell + TH, or teleport convert, etc.

Plus you probably stack int which is ward retention, goes well with LL

But yeah maybe vessel is lower cost, LL is a couple items for 10k ish ward late game but idk 🤷‍♂️

You don't really do much health stack though so ehh. Idk it seemed okay to me

[unreal blade]

mage also doesn't scale health regen very well, so vessel seems questionable

[mental pulsar]

should i be swapping from frost claw to glacier instead?

[harsh abyss]

RM does have a node that mimics vessel (15%), so you can stack it with that, but no real flat health regen available definitely makes it meh

[viral fox]

hi all, what you think of this build? still working on blessings

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/QW2dez2A

[silk pewter]

Sorcerer, Level 94

:white_check_mark: This character build is verified

Game Cycle / Version:

Harbingers of Ruin / 1.1.7

Class:

Mage (25) / Sorcerer (56) / Runemaster (26)

General:

▸ Health: 1,075, Regen: 19.16/s
▸ Mana: 388.47, Regen: 16.24/s
▸ Ward Retention: 336%, Regen: 85/s
▸ Attributes: 9 Str / 1 Dex / 90 Int / 1 Att / 1 Vit
▸ Resistances: 167% / 76% / 57% / 116% / 89% / 94% / 63%
▸ EHP: 1,703 / 1,703 / 1,443 / 2,173 / 1,703 / 1,703 / 1,520

Defenses:

▸ Endurance: 20%, Threshold: 215
▸ Armor Mitigation: 48% (2,843)

Damage Types:

▸ Fire / Spell

Buffs:

▸ None

Used skills:

• Meteor (20)
• Frost Claw (20)
• Teleport (21)
• Flame Ward (20)
• Focus (20)

Used unique items:

• Rule of the Simoon
• Throne of Ambition

[obsidian agate]

this is just regeneration, and not like sources of mana gain on hit right

like from mana strike for ex

[harsh abyss]

Correct

[tribal veldt]

shadow wizard money gang, we may be entering a dark age...

perhaps the passive tree has gotten some goodies to compensate but ee-yikes

[harsh abyss]

Mages potentially in shambles

But we'll need patch notes to see for sure

[tribal veldt]

I was clinging on to pure ward like a rat on a drowning ship

now hybrid with Hp or even pure Hp is the way

[harsh abyss]

I think pure ward will still be possible. It's just not gonna be absolutely nutty like it has been in the past

It just won't be the default for every single mage build

[tribal veldt]

I'm probably less screwed than the nerf suggests because I don't really build around passive ward

but yeah gotta rewire my brain a little

[harsh abyss]

Mage might also not get hit that hard because they already capped some of the stuff that were outliers in the RM tree

I'm hoping (non low-life) Ward/sec builds don't get murdered, I feel like no one (except me) even uses them right now

[gritty pagoda]

EHG can try to pry a well rolled opulent focus from my hands

and then good luck cause i glued it to my hands

[tribal veldt]

friendship with opulent focus ended now guacamole bowl is my best friend

[gritty pagoda]

which one is guac bowl

[tribal veldt]

rotmind

[gritty pagoda]

ah

[tribal veldt]

you know the build is cooked when my bis starts being weird ass bad uniques

[rapid hinge]

huh what's the changes ?

[harsh abyss]

int gives 2% ward retention now

I think that's the main one

[rapid hinge]

💀

[harsh abyss]

Also they talked about moving major ward sources from the tree to gear, no details on that though

[rapid hinge]

kekw

[gritty pagoda]

ow

[tribal veldt]

they specifically called out Int as doing too much for just stacking a ton of it

which is fair, but a lot of bad builds are getting caught in the crossfire

[harsh abyss]

I mean that's fair, especially for some builds

Spell crit chance, flat crit, increased damage, ward retention, flat damage, cooldown reduction, ward decay threshold...

It's got a lot going on

[rapid hinge]

yeah int is very strong that's fair

[tribal veldt]

okay don't include increased damage that doesn't count lmao

[harsh abyss]

??? Increased damage is actually huge

Stacking 150 int is 600% increased damage

[tribal veldt]

yes but every class has it for their primary attribute

it's not an int specific benefit

[harsh abyss]

But it IS a benefit that it gets

[tribal veldt]

ugh semantics

[gritty pagoda]

shout out to vk getting flat dmg on void spells and not %increased

[tribal veldt]

I take no responsibility for the purple juice drinkers

[gritty pagoda]

but I love my void soda

[harsh abyss]

I just want patch notes ASAP so I can know what the changes are

[gritty pagoda]

several days

[tribal veldt]

🙏

[unreal blade]

and despite all that, there's what a handful of really solid endgame mage builds? and most of those are because of dps, not survivability, which is what got nerfed with this change.

ward seemed to be in a fairly good place, life just needed buffs.

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, we'll have to see what the total patch notes look like. With the new ward formula it may not even hit most builds that hard, as long as they werent stacking 100+ int

Maybe there will also be other ways to actually build mage now instead of int stacking being way overloaded.

[unreal blade]

isn't that every good mage build right now except maybe shatter strike which already has survivability issues?

[harsh abyss]

I guess my thought is maybe they had to reduce the value of Int so that they can provide power in other ways and T7 int wont be the BIS affix for every mage.

[unreal blade]

we'll see if they made up for it elsewhere but i'm not confident, since this patch is so endgame and sentinel focused

[nimble shoal]

It's both, really

Ward has been cracked for a very long time

[rapid hinge]

i think there'll be compensated ward retention from items now

[harsh abyss]

Also, potentially a lot of power from idol crafting

[rapid hinge]

oh yeah 4 affixes idols gonna be huge

[unreal blade]

well i tried to reply, but for whatever reason the server is blocking my post. just was saying if we don't see compensation somewhere (and we aren't expecting it), this leaves the good mage builds still capable of high corruption, while harming all mage builds that were decent but maybe had weak defense. seems like the opposite result of what was likely desired.

[scenic sail]

My mage build is certainly more defense than most, damage dealt to mana before health + seed of ekkidrasil + 60% endurance is still going to be super powerful. I use ward in addition to these defenses, but these changes will make multiple defenses more of a necessity.

I think reducing ward retention per intelligence is a mistake though, if they wanted to nerf ward, I would've preferred they nerfed the ward generation, not retention based on int. I guess this will mean int stacking is signifcantly weaker overall, which is fine for my build personally but I'm not sure it's better for the mage class, I think that's a big loss overall for an already weak class.

I guess other classes might have seen big nerfs as well though

[unreal blade]

i agree. this hurts marginal acolyte builds too (non death seal). build diversity for casters just dropped like a rock.

[proven haven]

yeah opportunity cost is probably the thing now

INT is damage + defense

When I level an int stacker I literally prioritize it above everything, including resists early on

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, I really think thats the thing. Make Int not BIS for literally every mage build

[plain garnet]

I think one of the core problems is a general lack of availability on the ward retention stat, except for Int which gives you tons of it

A 16-Int ring giving you 64% is crazy. The stat is basically unavailable except on specific uniques, the relic prefix for flame ward, and some mage idols

[harsh abyss]

Yeah, wouldn't surprise me if we saw new suffixes for rings that are like ward retention and/or decay threshold

[uncut comet]

Any opinions on the maxroll glacier leveling guide?

[harsh abyss]

It's a popular one, but I'd wait for patch notes before seeing how valid it is for 1.2. I don't THINK it will see too many nerfs, but ward as a defense is getting nerfed and we kinda need to know how bad before we know how good any mage builds will be.

[uncut comet]

True i was just reading about that. Kinda sucks cause i already started to level it. I gotta it feels fun to play 100%

[harsh abyss]

It may not be that bad since they said they want to move power from passives to gear, so we may see improvements in other ways, and int-stacking will just become less valuable.

[scenic sail]

It's ok advice, but not something that you should stick to like it's a necessity. Glacier is good all by itself and works with virtually any other skills in the mage skill tree. As long as you take the critical rejuvination point, which is the main appeal of the entire skill, everything else is subjective after that. If you need mana but don't want the skill to cost 40+ mana you can take Lesser Glacier. I always recommend static collapse which makes glaciers ranged, it makes the skill so much more versatile and more fun, then you can add damage with gear, spark charges or meteors with the harbinger of stars belt, which is what I prefer to do. Just keep in mind that spark charges should NOT be used in combination with harbinger of stars unless you have tons of potions and or tons of mana and meteors should strictly be on single meteors (not the multi-meteor option) until you have atleast 1,500 mana. I've posted a few videos on reddit of my build, I still think it's the most versatile, powerful sorcerer build in the game, and yes I've seen the FC builds.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/comments/1h30i5f/my_glacier_meteor_mage_at_1600_corruption_monos/

[proven haven]

honestly this looks really good but I don't think I see it being better than the FC Spark setup

for bossing it's just oneshot either way with static orb, so doesn't really matter

but for clear, it seems a bit more delayed and inconsistent

[scenic sail]

clearing monos it's way way better.

[proven haven]

I don't think so

also much lower stable ward / I think less defense

I guess you got the seed helm

[scenic sail]

Less defense?! LOL, dude, I'm at 2k corruption, what's your highest, I'm just curious?

[proven haven]

???

Is that your measure ?

going beyond 1K is pointless, so I don't

[scenic sail]

Yes, because if you're not capable of completig monoliths comfortably at high corruption, then what are you talking about?

It's certainly not pointless, do you not know of Item Rarity in this game?

[proven haven]

are you serious?

Yes I am aware of how corruption scales, I am the one that made the videos and did the math on most of that stuff

[scenic sail]

I'm 100% serious, what are you talking about? Item rarity is super important to improve the quality of the items that drop. The higher corruption you are, the higher the item rarity. Lower corruption means lower drops.

[proven haven]

are you MG?

[scenic sail]

Ok, so if you're build was better, you would be at higher corruption and you wouldn't have a problem with it, which was my point.

My build is far more defensive than yours without a doubt.

[proven haven]

How high did you get in HC?

[scenic sail]

70% damage dealt to mana before health means a lot when you have 2,200 mana and 60% endurance.

I can't play HC and I have no interest in it. my computer lags far too much with specific bosses to even remotely entertain that, plus I don't want to play HC, it's a complete waste of time.

[proven haven]

ah, well if you don't play in HC then you can't really talk about defense

I'm trolling a bit tbh with that one, because the 2K corr comment is a bit weird

the question though, are you MG or CoF?

[scenic sail]

It's not weird, if you could actually survive at that corruption, then you would, but you can't, so that's enough evidence I need that your build is far worse. I'm Tier 12 in both, though I strongly prefer merchants.

[proven haven]

my guy

[scenic sail]

defensively you can't even come close to my build, I don't even know what you're talking about.

[proven haven]

it's not about surviving

its about optimized farming

XP scaling is reduced to 0.05x after 1K corruption

[scenic sail]

Ok, and item rarity is not, so your point is moot.

[proven haven]

item rarity is almost irrelevant for CoF vs Favor gains

sure it matters for exalts, but you get more than enough

the limiting factor is mostly uniques with LP

at 300c or so yeah, rarity is absolutely not high enough

[scenic sail]

Didn't you just say earlier that corruption affects prophecies? If corruption affects prophecies then higher is better, why is this confusing to you?

[abstract scaffold]

Max corr isn't a very good measure of build strength. Any build that can reach 1k corr can get to 2k just by brute forcing it without really changing your build at all

[proven haven]

corruption does affect prophecy LP chance, yes

however there is massive diminishing returns

[abstract scaffold]

There's just generally no point in going beyond 1k corr other than just saying you have

[proven haven]

At 1K corruption I basically never drop below 8K ward

[scenic sail]

No, that's not true, 2k corruption is definitely harder for most builds, only a certain number of builds can get that high, and sorcerer has very few that can get there. For example, you really can't get fireball to 2k corruption, it's a leveling skill.

[proven haven]

Also, there are guys running my build with worse gear than I have well past 2K corruption

its honestly trivial

I just don't think it's optimal

My optimization is based on max favor per hour

[scenic sail]

If your only defense is ward, then yes we have nothing to talk about, you have absolutely nothing to claim over my build in terms of defense. You just don't seem to understand the items in this game very well if you think you have good defense.

[proven haven]

how much armor do you have?

[scenic sail]

I honestly don't care at all, and I switch between the armor blessing and the endurance blessing regularly

[proven haven]

???

[proper hawk]

lmao

[proven haven]

you don't care?

[scenic sail]

endurance blessing if I'm wearing exile boots, since endurance is included with foot of the mountain

[abstract scaffold]

I know. I never said there was no difference. But that if you can reach 1k, you can brute force it way higher. A higher corr doesn't measure anything there

[proven haven]

I have something like 4K or whatever armor, which I forget but its like 50% DR or something

a lot.

[scenic sail]

It certainly measures good defense.

[proven haven]

And I have DR on the most deadly ailments

[unreal blade]

try aberroth with veteran's boots 🙂

[proven haven]

because unlike you, I DID play HC with this build

where defense matters

and I DID get rank 1 arena with it

and spent weeks speed farming 800C, in HC SSF

[abstract scaffold]

Zero def builds can brute force to 3k corr

[proven haven]

I am not saying that to flex or anything, it's not like this is competitive

[scenic sail]

Defense also matters a lot in the endless arena. It's a great test of defenses. If you want to go ahead and give your build a try, you can clearly beat my 650 waves because one player did with frostclaw.

If you can beat me there, then I will admit that you have better defense, but I highly doubt that you can.

[proven haven]

650 is not a lot

[scenic sail]

I guess you could just copy the #1 guys build, he's using the boots with int and basically everything with int.

[proven haven]

boots with int?

you mean exile boots?

[scenic sail]

Uhhh yes, it is dude, it's a shitload, I think it's like the equivelant of 3.5k corruption, which is a lot for a sorcerer

No, the mirage boots with dodge rating while channeling

[proven haven]

...? I already did 420 in HC before my build was even optimized

that build is still alive

650 in Softcore is not a lot

[nimble shoal]

There's someone with 1479 running that forgeguard reflect build lol

[scenic sail]

Well good, then go ahead and put your name on the list. Talk is cheap. All you've done is boast about being good at HC, big deal.

[proven haven]

Also the mirage boots suck unless you can really make use of the channeling full time

Blood boots give 12 STR aswell, which is 48% armor

I am not good at HC... That's literally the first ever HC character I made

my point is that the build is good

I am not that great

[scenic sail]

There are a lot of builds that have significantly better success at the endless arena for different reasons, but the reason why the mage class is the lowest is because it runs out of both damage and defense at the higher levels.

[proven haven]

it does, yes, but you can mitigate some of the more dangerous forms of damage

fire for example had some scary damage sources

so imo fire mitigation is higher value than say, poison

which FC cleanses for free

infinitely

Go record yourself getting more than 300K favor per hour with your build

or even close to that, and I would be immensely impressed

[scenic sail]

Yes, FC has lots of advantages and disadvantages, like mana generation, which is a major limitation when the enemies have 2x more health and deal 2x more damage, hence the 2k corruption to test the build. You're talking like, "oh it's not that big of a deal, I could do it if I wanted to" <-- Yea, be my guest, go ahead and see how well you survive at 2k corruption. I have only seen mediocre frostclaw builds at 2k corruption, flick showed me his and while he was honest in saying it wasn't ideal, it wasn't ideal for damage, it was really poor for defense and the issues you have at 1k corruption become significantly more clear with harder enemies.

[proven haven]

It's a good build for sure, but I don't know if it fits as "#1"

[scenic sail]

I've shown my build at 1,600 corruption easily clearing as fast if not faster than your build.

[unreal blade]

lol you are really stepping in it here.

[scenic sail]

190% movement speed is what I have when I put on my speedy gear. I can wear a number of weapons, armors, rings, gloves, etc and still be perfectly fine. I even showed my build doing 1,100 corruption with literally 0 LP items just to prove this point. Glacier + meteor is far more versatile and forgiving than frostclaw. You just see enemies and click on them, nothing is difficult and the items are not really specifically required, only the HoS belt is required for the meteors auto cast of course.

[proven haven]

Also the HC thing, I was just saying, if I can get to 420 arena in HC without even coming close to risking death 650C with unlimited retries is not much of a challenge

[scenic sail]

I clear 2k corruption with 190% movement speed, I've never seen a frostclaw build even close to that.

True, it should not be a challenge, you can probably take over the #1 spot on the arena ladder if you try hard enough, so don't just talk to the talk, give it a try!

[unreal blade]

do you recall when you were using leech and exanguinous together? This is another such case.

#🧙┃mage message

[proven haven]

I absolutely can, but I am not super interested in spending several hours putting all my various spread out items on legacy onto a character, then running arena, and uploading a video just to prove some guy on discord xD

[scenic sail]

https://lastepoch.tunklab.com/arena-scaling According to this, wave 650 is only 3,770 corruption, so if it's "not that big of a deal", then go ahead

[proven haven]

great, so I've already effectively done 2200C in Hardcore

[scenic sail]

You think you're better or smarter than you are.

[proven haven]

according to this chart

[scenic sail]

Why would you think I care?

What difference is HC to you?

[proven haven]

I don't. I am not mechanically great at the game, I don't have some secret knowledge

I just disagree that the glacier meteor is better

that's it

the HC to me is that you are talking about defense

with unlimited retires you can struggle your way to a bunch of corruption or arena waves

Also, in SC I didn't really play the pure FC version of the build

I did a hybrid

my HC character I went full int stack

Anyway, it's dinner time for me, good chat. Not trying to be hostile or rude or anything here, hope it didn't come across that way, it's just fun to discuss the nuances of builds we are passionate about

[scenic sail]

Like I said, I've shown my build speed clearing monos faster than your build with overall worse gear. I can clear monos at 1,100 corruption with 0 LP items and I've shown that as well. Seed of ekkidrasil, endurance, ddtmbh, and even the harbinger of stars belt has up to 18% damage reduction on it, but you seem to be oblivious to all of these things.

[proven haven]

cheers guy

[scenic sail]

Enjoy your dinner

[rotund bloom]

Not a random being an ass to Frozen 😭

[south yoke]

show me, i want to do that :p

send link for the build

[patent island]

I have a question about Runemaster. I haven't looked at any guides, just reading the skills and trying to make something work. Currently I am investing heavily into elemental nova... I have noticed that if you JUST cast elemental nova, you get the same cycle at the start of a map:
Fire, Lightning, Cold
Lightning, Cold, Fire
Cold, Fire, Lightning

My issue is that those three spells are fine and all... but I really prefer the other set of three that the elemental nova gets set into once you trip it with one spell.

So, currently, at the start of every map, I pay very close attention, and go exactly like this:
nova (Fire), then some frost spell, just to trip the cycle, so that I can cast the other three versions of the triple elemental spells:
Lightning, Fire, Cold
Fire, Cold, Lightning
Cold, Lightning, Fire

Okay, now that all of that is outa the way... is there a way (other than doing what I am doing right now) to set in stone the cycle that I prefer for elemental nova? I saw in the Runic Invocation skill tree that there's a point for Immutable Order... but my problem with that is I actually DO like to switch from AOE to single target.

Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is a commonly asked question, I looked but didn't see anything on it.

[harsh abyss]

So basically, you're asking: Is there a way to change the 'default' order of elements that ele nova gives you? There isn't, unfortunately

[patent island]

bummer

[proven haven]

damn I tried Arena, you were right, 650 was hard...

Hard to stay awake! hehe, just teasing you 😛

Here you go, I dusted off my ole FC Spark mage, haven't played it in probably 5 months https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZuefF1HeBA wave 1000

[scenic sail]

Wow, that is incredibly impressive! I'll never catch up to that with mage.

[scenic sail]

This is the speedy gear: https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/comments/1h30i5f/my_glacier_meteor_mage_at_1600_corruption_monos/

[proven haven]

tbh armor makes a big difference

my res wasn't even capped in that run, but I had 5K+ armor

60% ish phys DR

[scenic sail]

I have armor gear lying around, I can try it on and see how I do.

[proven haven]

check my planner, I do special setup for hard content

it wasn't super optimal, I realized I forgot to take the 25% cdr

which is a big deal

[scenic sail]

Was this in legacy?

I too haven't played mage much since November, I had a blast playing minions and ended up sticking with the falconer build, it's like a more extreme mage, endless potions and mana and way more damage, and less tankiness.

And yes, the endless arena takes hours every time, it does become a test of preparedness. I always die to what I can tell is enraged enemies, but I hardly ever see anyone else encounter these, which was why I was recently asking this in the dev chant. Apparently it's completely random, but I seem to see them quite often when using AA.

[rapid hinge]

650 waves is hard

😂

Nice joke m8

[spare pendant]

Frozen just dumped on him by getting to 1k lmao

https://youtu.be/RZuefF1HeBA?si=uq53fDl9thXpfUCu

[rapid hinge]

i wonder what he will try to sus out this time

[hidden moon]

xdd

[proven haven]

yea legacy, I used my 1.1 character, but I never played after the refresh. After basically maxing myself on SC and HC SSF (both CoF) I didn't have the energy to do it all over again with no balance patch

[scenic sail]

Hrm, interesting, well that might explain what I'm seeing as a big difference here. Unfortunately for the sake of a direct comparison this is clearly not the same as the cycle arena ladder. I could tell something was different when I saw your intentional death at the end, literally no one even attacked you and that seemed unrelatable to me. One major difference I can see for sure between these two is that your boss enemies have no ward, which is quite different obviously from what we see now in the arena. And for some reason it looks like none of these enemies ever get enraged, so maybe that's another modifier that doesn't get applied in legacy, I'm not sure.

I went through my gear last night and found my armor and for the most part my gear remained pretty much the same. I have about 500 less mana, but 2k more armor

[proven haven]

I'm not sure if you watched the video, but towards the end it is VERY clear when I fight an enemy with boss ward. Like VERY clear. We are playing the same game. And yes, Arena is inconsistent. You see plenty of times where I went from 11k ward down to 1K in that run