any thoughts to make my witch arc build better ?

hi, i'm a witch with Arc build, & really like to get a better build to run Apex of sacrifice/hall of grandmasters/Abaxoth, The End of All That Is. without dying 1 million times,
don't know what is best to run, high life or pure ES.

my gear is

life: 4008

Resist:
Fire 72% (72%)
Cold 75% (87%)
Light 75% (102%)
Chaos 10% (10%)

Armour:444
Evasion 14%

DPS: 19425.1
Cast speed: 5.3
Crit chance: 8.8


Passive skill tree build

i have lot of Orb of regret to change my passive tree

Tree - Would use something like this for really challenging content. A lot more life, VP, more mana regen and almost the same damage.

Can't see your Arctic Armour anywhere. You should have enough mana regen to use it at lvl20. That should help you a quite a bit. If you still had problems with dying a lot, you should consider using Cloak of Defiance instead of your current chest, although getting a six-linked one might be difficult and not everyone likes the MoM mechanic. Also, you still can get a lot more life on your gear. Rare Amulet and Helmet instead of the uniques with life and resists.

Other than that, for Atziri and Abaxoth you pretty much have to use Saffel's Frame instead of one of your wands. Unfortunately, as a non-crit character those fights will always be harder for you because of no surgeon flasks.

Mainly though, I can't see any advantage in playing Arc as non-crit. If you really wanted to tackle absolute end-game content on regular bases you should probably switch to crit arc and use one of many already posted crit arc builds. Life based ones.

sometimes ball lightning is better

I have a quality 20 lvl 20 increased critical strike chance and quality 20 lvl 20 power charge on crit. Should i use that ?
But. What is the Best ARC crit Build then ?

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DBM92 wrote:

But. What is the Best ARC crit Build then ?

It depends on what exactly you wanna do with it. Generally, there are two ways which you can go:

1. DPS - Arguably the most fun, highest clear speed, best for gem xp, best for map MF.

2. Safety - If you wanna seriously progress past lvl90, better against most bosses and better against Atziri, Uber Atziri, Vaal Temple Trio, and best for running double Beyond maps.

The main difference between the two is that to be safe you need to take Vaal Pact and either run Life Leech gem and a leather belt (the safest option), or get 2% elemental leech on your wands (or Catalysts) together with 1% on the Doryani's belt.

These would be approximate trees for each version: DPS, Safety

DPS: 140% Life; 54% Cast Speed, 411% Dmg, 395% Crit Chance, 136% Crit Multi
Safety: 182% Life; 39% Cast Speed, 329% Dmg, 355% Crit Chance, 80% Crit Multi - Additionally, you get Vaal Pact, some Stun Avoidance and higher mana regen to run lvl20+ AA

The trees are roughly what you should get but it is expected you might make some tweaks based on your personal preference. Also, those trees are for when you are dual wielding wands. If you'd prefer to go with a shield, don't take the Dark Arts cluster and take either Nimbleness or Mental Rapidity.

When going for the safety version, you might think about using the Cloak of Defiance. If you would, you might want to take more increased Mana nodes to make the MoM mechanic more effective. Whether or not CoD is really the best option is debatable, though. On one hand, it effectively gives you 250-450 extra life, on the other hand - compared to a rare chest - you lose mana regen (400ES is roughly the breaking point when the extra ES starts beating the extra regen on the Cloak), resists (so it's gonna be much harder to be overcapped) and any extra mitigation the rare chest might have. The extra life from the Cloak also won't work against damage over time and some people find the momentary loss of mana at the most critical moments too dangerous.

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DBM92 wrote:

I have a quality 20 lvl 20 increased critical strike chance and quality 20 lvl 20 power charge on crit. Should i use that ?

Critical Strike Chance gem is not worth it. PCoC again depends on preference. The dps difference between 0 power charges and 7 power charges is about 35%. Using PCoC you will be at 7 power charges most of the time, and most importantly even when fighting separate room or single bosses. ICD gem, on the other hand, gives you about 25% more damage permanently and then on top of that you can get power charges using the HoT+CoH+Ass Mark combo. Of course, that way of power charge generation isn't nearly as universal or reliable, and it takes some gems slots you could use for something else, but then again because you are already only 10% of damage behind even when having no power charges, it isn't that crucial to have all of them up at all times. Then there is also the question of crit consistency. Charges will get you from about 40% crit chance to about 55%+. You will probably find whether or not you feel it's worth it only by playing the build yourself.

Nice wands but i dont understand chest, rings, ammy, belt, gloves or boots.

Chest you're not CI and that one has low ES anyway why use such a low ES chest. I'd wear a Armor ES chest or CoD for MOMs defenses. Or if you really want sick phys mitigation - lightning coil.

Ammy no DPS no life i'd get one with DPS and life e.g.


Rings - you're not crit you dont benefit from crit rings. Rings have low/no life no cast sp.
rings should have
life - goes up to 79
mana regen - goes up to 69
a stat like dex so you dont have to select DEX on tree like you are doing
cast sp - goes up to 7
and resits base ring - 30 for cold/fire or lightning

Belt - you dont do physical damage why wear a physical damage belt?
Get a life belt or use doryanis lightning

Gloves and boots should be hybrids. AR/ES or EV/ES to feed mana pool and provide decent defenses.

Typically as a EB caster I pick one AR/ES for easy to 4R for CWDT setup

Then one EV/ES to complement fat EV on Vertex and coil/cod/carcass jack.

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DBM92 wrote:

I have a quality 20 lvl 20 increased critical strike chance and quality 20 lvl 20 power charge on crit. Should i use that ?
But. What is the Best ARC crit Build then ?

The best all around arc is fox tactics/mings righteous fire arcer. can do uber. only about 25K DPS but 100% resits and Lightning coil is super tank.

See later pages for mings adjustments after fox stopped supporting it.

The best crit arcer is probably Pledge of hands crit arcer. I get 90K in arc with again fox's build. Crit arcer is glass cannon though. reflect and low defenses pose problems in games hard content.

So what is the Best/funniest build to do those Maps ?

Crit Arcers can be pretty safe (i refuse to say tanky) if done right - i can easily do -max GMP dual Palace Dom and other similarly dangerous stuff without dying.
Only Reflect can be an issue in some edge cases (f.e. beyond reflect rare spawning in the middle of a large pack/shrine), but with a bit finetuning between damage and life you can eliminate that problem.

The best way to go crit arc is dual wielding wands/sceptres, they flat out beat Pledge of Hands in terms of cast speed and crit and therefor crit consistency.
The trees Cabesi provided are good, you could also take a look at my own Crit Arc guide (shameless self promotion) if you wanna get more ideas about gear and gems.

Nice guide mate. I wont argue which is best because Im spec cold wiz with my supernova build but i just checked slotting arc I get 40K pretty easy untwinked. I was getting close to 90 flask twinked when i played arc PoH and lightning tree. But yeah sure rares will always be better if you can find the best and can assume cost. I think there is a rare staff AXN has that give like 125K DPS arc. But for accessible PoH is where its at IMO.