Arc or Ball Lightning for cast on crit bow build? Ice Spear or Arctic Breath?

So I've got a ranger that's pretty much focused on crit and crit multiplier and I started using cast on crit. I currently only have arc as an option, but I could probably get ball lightning. Arc has an extra chance to shock, but doesn't benefit from my multiple projectiles or any possible projectile damage I have (or plan to get). I'm wondering if ball lightning is the way to go.

I have absolutely no idea how to calculate the DPS...I had a bow with massively higher tool tip DPS but it it seems to do worse than the cast on crit one...which I don't really understand.

This is the current build (super glass cannon but it's an experiment build):



And while I'm at it, how about Ice Spear vs Arctic Breath? I chose Arctic Breath because it seems to do more damage plus an AOE and I have knock-back on crit with bows, so I'm hoping that arctic breath will push back enemies as well...while ice spear would just pierce. I figure I already have a high crit and multiplier so the extra on the ice spear wouldn't do much?

Annnnd...other questions, what about curse on hit? I've only got a poachers mark...is there anything better than that? Life/mana on hit is good (I get lots of hits, leech probably would be worse) and the extra flask charges I guess isn't bad. Don't think I really need to reduce evasion and not sure what frenzy charges really do for me.

Arc and AB are one of the most powerful if not one of the best combinations out their for CoC.

Ball lightning is just beyond terrible do not ever do that.

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Ball lightning is just beyond terrible do not ever do that.

Not exactly terrible in itself, but the problem is it scales with none of projectile supports you're probably using to soup up your trigger skill. It's a projectile that scales well with area, and the only decent area trigger skill is ground slam, which has a lot of limitations.

Maybe when we get that new wand skill, it looks like it spreads hits over time and would benefit from area.

For curse, poacher or warlord's mark, see which works better for you.

If I ever do get a 6 link, what would be the next best gem to use? Would chain make sense? The problem I see with Arc is that it doesn't work with multiple projectiles and thus hits a more limited number of targets. Perhaps adding chain will help with larger groups. I just don't know how that would affect everything else. Tried google, can't seem to find what happens to Arctic Breath...since it normally explodes on contact.

I played mostly in early beta, but even then I was never a good player and had pretty poor currency/gear. Trying to get back into it and learn all the new stuff while picking up more of the advanced mechanics and interactions. Somebody was kind enough to share this gear/build with me and it's been very interesting to play around with...but it's very unorthodox compared to what I did previously. The damage and interactions of skills is somewhat hidden, the tool tips don't really help with a build like this.

And a somewhat off topic question, whats up with the damage effectiveness on gems like Arc? Does that mean the entire attack, my arrows, and Arctic breath all do half as much damage...or just that Arc itself does half the damage listed? But then why not just make the gem do half as much without the reduced effectiveness.

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EliteRetard wrote:

And a somewhat off topic question, whats up with the damage effectiveness on gems like Arc? Does that mean the entire attack, my arrows, and Arctic breath all do half as much damage...or just that Arc itself does half the damage listed? But then why not just make the gem do half as much without the reduced effectiveness.

Arc base damage is what you see on the gem, but any added flat damage will be multiplied by damage effectiveness. It would be kinda OP if a fast spell like incinerate got the full amount of added chaos on every hit, wouldn't it?