Enki's Arc Witch Memorial Page

@Nhmrath: Do you have a Watcher's Eye with Wrath Mana Leech already? If not, that could fix the problem. If you got one and the problem still persists you could try getting more mana regen % on gear or passives, or boost the mana pool itself, or both.

@inthedark72: Thanks! :)

@Weist87: Monsters can only have 75% Lightning Resistance at most, everything beyond that goes to overcapped resistance and doesn't affect your damage output in most cases. We counter this through Lightning Penetration, which directly reduces the resistance, ignores overcapped resistance and can even put values into negatives. This build has 65% Lightning Penetration in endgame, so in worst case monsters can counter our damage with 10% resistance, but usually you will get them into negative values which acts as a direct more multiplier.

Good luck in Flashback everyone!

So you mention block as a main defensive mechanic of the build, but it doesn't look like we're really stacking block chance here. Doesn't tempest shield feel suboptimal? I am new so I could be missing something. Could we swap it for say warlord's mark and try to keep endurance charges up?

Also I should say I'm loving the build so far, just a bit concerned about survivability as I progress into higher tier content. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

@nogoodgamesintheworld: Tempest Shield is just an additional 3% to stack block chance, most of our block comes from shield and Rumi's Concoction buffed by the Alchemist nodes. That alone gives roughly 50-60% block, and can be further increased by endgame gloves/amulet or jewels if needed.

Admittedly this isn't optimal as a large part of our block is relying on good flask uptime, it's something that i'd like to improve on for next patch but atleast currently all other ways to gain that block would come with a large investment, or even bigger downsides.

Swapping TS for Warlord's wouldn't work well as we already run Enfeeble, and there's an active curse limit of 1. That limit can be increased, but the investment is not worth the gain for us.

Hi Enki, this build works great in the flashback event. I would like to know if this build absolutely needs a scepter or a wand? can i switch to a sword or dagger? The reason I wanted to switch is to use whirling blade instead of shield charge, it seems like shield charge couldn't penentrate through monster surrounding and I died a few times because I was too confident! hah.. thats what I do with my cleave jugg before.

EDIT: Another question pop up in my mind - what is the role of orb of storm here? is it just to trigger arcane surge? The damage seems quite low for orb of storm. I'm asking because I am currently looking for quality gems, and would like to find out the priorities. :)

Thanks!

@Weist87: Hey there, glad to hear that! A dagger would work, just orientate on the same stats as we want on a sceptre. That said, usually it's easier to proc Fortify with Shield Charge due to its AoE, so maybe try both first before investing into a good dagger.

Orb of Storms is used to conveniently proc Arcane Surge, Elemental Overload and Blind with a single cast. Quality isn't that relevant on it, you can just do the recipe once it hits Lv20 or even completely ignore quality there. Check out the Path of Building link in the passives section, i've included quality on all gems where it's impactful in there.

Thanks Enki!

I have another question on shock and its effect, regarding using elemental focus on Storm Call
. I still do not understand the mechanism after reading the wiki page.

Wiki says

"

Increased damage from shock is capped at 50% at 10% of the target's maximum life dealt by Lightning damage, scaling down to 0% at no damage. Hits below the minimum threshold of 1% effect are discarded,[1] effectively requiring a hit of 0.2% enemy maximum life.

Increased shock effect will reduce the threshold required to reach the cap. For example, with 100% increased Shock effect, a hit that deals 5% of the target's maximum health or more in Lightning damage will apply shock for 50% increased damage.

If I interpret correctly, without any buff, the minimum HP reduction to get shock is by 1 shot 0.2% of targets max life, which in this case, we get 1% increased damage from all source.

With 100% shock effect, if I 1 shit 5% of target's max life with skills that cause shock effect, he will take 50% increase damage from all source. The minimum threshold is now 0.1% of target's maximum life. The maximum increase damage is always 50%.

Did i interpret correctly?

Further Questions:
1. Can shock effect go pass 100%?
2. Unaffected by other support gems, can all lightning damage deal shocked damage, or its limited to certain skills only?
3. If we consider the passive 'beacon of ruins' (Shocks from your Hits always increase Damage taken by at least 20%), does that mean we will bypass the minimum threshold to cause a shock, in which the shock will always deal 20% additional damage, still capped at 50% additional damage?
4. What does 'chance to shock' role plays here? does it mean that on top of 1 shot 10%, we still need to apply RNG for the chance to shock? If I have 50% chance to shock, there is 50% of the time when I 1 shot 10% max life, and the target will not get shocked?
5. If my first hit applies 20% increased damage shock, and my subsequent hit applies 40% increased damage shock, will the shock effect be reset to 40%? What if its 20%, and then 10%. Will it only get reset with higher effects only?
6. Skills such as storm call stacks, does the damage count as 1 shot for multiple stacks?

Thank you so much for helping!

Such an amazing build. Anytime I'm in doubt, I go to this build because of how wonderfully it works! But I gotta ask this... I'm sure that someone has asked this before but would Spark also work in this build in place of Arc?

I was viewing threshold jewels and noticed one for Spark.

Thanks in advance for your answer. And again, it's a great build the way it is! :)

@Weist87: Yeah, looks like you got the basics about shock right. All Lightning Damage can shock as long as it surpasses the minimum treshold within a single hit and you either have Chance to Shock or Crit. Multiple quick hits, such as Storm Call aren't added together and each hit gets their shock application and effect calculated seperately. I'm not 100% sure, but i think the biggest shock will prevail for its full duration unless reset by an even bigger shock, smaller shocks won't reset it.

Chance to Shock and Crit are essentially the same for shock application, the former is just what the name suggests while the latter has a 100% chance to apply elemental status ailments, so you can rather take your chance to crit as effective chance to shock in that case.

Shock Effect can go above 100% if you find ways to stack it that high, we currently get 60% through passives, up to 40% from Inpulsa's and ~30% from Arc depending on its level, the ~30% from Storm Call is currently ignored due to Elemental Focus.

Beacon of Ruin works exactly as you think. All hits that would apply a 1-19% shock apply 20% instead, and above that it goes as usual. I'm going to experiment with this for the next patch, for now i've decided to go with Elemental Focus on Storm Call due to the "x% chance to avoid elemental status ailments" mapmod.

While not relevant for this build, there's also a few ways to break the rules of shock, namely Shaper of Desolation, Yoke of Suffering, Voltaxic Rift, Star-/Voidforge and Three Dragons. The first allows all damage to shock during Shocking Conflux without needing any shock chance or crit, the others enable or change damage types for shock calculation while still requiring shock chance or crit.

@Pracis: Thank you! I've recently tried a Spark build as potential Flashback setup, it wasn't based on this build but i can still give some insight on it. Spark is a little demanding to make it feel good now, you need Additional Projectiles, Skill Duration, Projectile Speed, Pierce and Cast Speed, and from this list we only really got the last stat.

The treshold jewel seems like a trap to me, it gives easy access to added projectiles but also directly reduces duration. You're probably better off using the +3 Spark Proj enchant and grabbing Potency of Will, this gets your Spark duration up to 2.175s which allows each cast to hit 3x. But that's only based on my quick tests, try around what feels best to you and keep in mind that each Spark cast (not projectile) can only hit an enemy once every second.

Projectile Speed and Pierce are easily gained through gems, best here is probably using some Elder gloves with Faster Projectiles mod and using the Pierce gem so you can keep your 6L for the single target setup, but that's again something to try around what feels best to you.

Hello everyone!

This Arc Witch build is my first step into PoE and I have a feeling that because of this phenomenal piece of Enki's work my begining in this game was way less brutal than it would be without it.

However, I'm still pretty new in this so I want to ask You for advice. I'm level 85, playing maps T7 to T10 and I have problems both with mobs and bosses. It's not big problems but I die more often than I should. I still can't afford for Inpulsa's but I think my problem isn't DPS but defence. I have pretty good resistances (had everything >109% before but I changed gear a little bit recently and now it's ~100%) but I think that I need to improve my flasks and mana pool. Or maybe something else?

@Grabarz_Powązki: Hi, can you please make your character tab public in your privacy settings so i can have a look?