Is any Arc build viable for end-game?

I want to raise topic about Arc Lightning.

I currently have a crit arc shadow. My stats:
90lvl
60000+ dps
66% crit chance with 6 power charges
339% crit multi
8.2k es
capped resistances
for physical mitigation just an arctic armour

When a say end-game I mean: running most map mods, running all map tiers, able to kill uber izaro on will and not by luck and maybe atziri normal/uber(I know arc cannot be used in the split phase, maybe i can use storm call just for that time).
My problem is not the damage. I may be a little slow but that's fine by me. The problem is survivability. I'm dying way to easy. I mean, when I go to MERC lab I don't know if I will be able to finish it. I DIE ON MERC LAB for crying out loud! Are my stats that terrible? I see people run uber lab like walking in the park. I know, maybe if a had about 100ex I could do it also. But I don't want to be that easy, no problem. I just want to entering the lab and know that I will come out alive.
I have thought some things to increased my survivability but this means that my damage will drop drasticly.
And that's my question:
Can an arc build be viable for end-game and how?

Do you have any leech?

Arc is one of those things thats insane for clearing but not soo great for single target. You should consider skill swapping when doing single target fights because they generally are extremely difficult for Arc because its damage is reliant off chaining.

If you havent tried soo already adding a Call of The Brotherhood and using Herald of Ice can make that clear much faster, in addition to that the freezes will make it much more safe in maps.

I cant see your character either or anything soo i cant comment on defensive setups. I do know that without Regen/VP/etc as CI you will definitely struggle in labyrinth because the fights arent really designed to give you breathing room as a FS/ESR build.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Do you have any leech?

Of course + ghost reaver + vaal pact

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

Arc is one of those things thats insane for clearing but not soo great for single target. You should [....] breathing room as a FS/ESR build.

Yeah I know, clearing speed is more than quick. If I decide not to pick up any drop I clear fast enough. No complains. But the single target. O M G. Arc is totally useless. And I have tried some other thing, by other things I mean ball lighning and vaal storm call. I can't think of any other skill that scales with lighning damage. Maybe regular storm call?
I have call of the brotherhood and I had HoI. I drop HoI in exchange for discipline. 6.6k es is way too low I think. Generally I changed some stuff in trade for survivability.
I understand what you say, that without Regen/VP/etc as Ci can struggle in lab, that is why I raise this issue. I think that lab is not for every build and that's a bad thing. And generally I believe that life builds have way more advantages than es builds and I wish this can reach developers' ears. When I raise those issues in chat? Oh boy, what I hear, "stop crying, get better" and shit. But the problem is, a build cannot be called balanced if you need to spend 100ex to be viable.

PS I enabled viewing my characters

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kalkas wrote:

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dudiobugtron wrote:

Do you have any leech?

Of course + ghost reaver + vaal pact

"

Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

Arc is one of those things thats insane for clearing but not soo great for single target. You should [....] breathing room as a FS/ESR build.

Yeah I know, clearing speed is more than quick. If I decide not to pick up any drop I clear fast enough. No complains. But the single target. O M G. Arc is totally useless. And I have tried some other thing, by other things I mean ball lighning and vaal storm call. I can't think of any other skill that scales with lighning damage. Maybe regular storm call?
I have call of the brotherhood and I had HoI. I drop HoI in exchange for discipline. 6.6k es is way too low I think. Generally I changed some stuff in trade for survivability.
I understand what you say, that without Regen/VP/etc as Ci can struggle in lab, that is why I raise this issue. I think that lab is not for every build and that's a bad thing. And generally I believe that life builds have way more advantages than es builds and I wish this can reach developers' ears. When I raise those issues in chat? Oh boy, what I hear, "stop crying, get better" and shit. But the problem is, a build cannot be called balanced if you need to spend 100ex to be viable.

PS I enabled viewing my characters

So it's a bad thing that not every build can do Blood Magic maps? What about the other mods, like no regen, less recovery, reflect, and other mods meant to counter specific builds.

The lab counters builds that cannot either avoid, mitigate, or regenerate back lost hit points from traps. That's the entire point of traps. If traps don't counter something or pose a threat to something, then they have no purpose.

The problem between life, ES, and CI is the same as the issue with melee attacks, ranged attacks, and spells.

Life is inherent and easy to get going because it is inherent. You can easily stack armor, evasion, and/or ES with life, but it is very difficult to stack armor and/or evasion with ES, and ES is hard to stack in and of itself. This is because of how gearing works in PoE.

Life builds do not have more advantages than ES or CI builds. In fact, I'd daresay that ES has more options. ES can go either BM or CI. BM or non-BM allows them to reserve life AND mana for auras and heralds, granting more options in that regard. CI completely negates one of the five damage types in the game. ES can also very quickly recover to full after avoiding damage for a few seconds, without any investment.

If anything, a CI build has the most advantages. It can take Ghost Reaver and Vaal Pact without worrying about regen. You get hit by one trap and just avoid another for a few seconds, and you're back to full. You also get Melee Damage on Full Life, which is basically a second Melee Physical Damage. There are plenty more out there.

AoE skills with conc effect usually give the best single-target damage.

Storm call has really good single-target damage if the enemy is not moving.

Lightning tendrils is pretty good too as long as you can tank OK (with Vaal pact and 60k dps this should be no issue in most situations).

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Other things to consider:

- Using a spell totem or a supported orb-of-storms to augment your single-target damage.

- Swapping added lightning damage out for inc crit strikes. Your tooltip dps will go down, but you will freeze and shock enemies more reliably, so survivability and effective dps might actually go up. This won't be any use if it means you can't shock bosses though.

- Link Orb of Storms to controlled destruction, and use it to help proc power charges using unstable infusion. You might be able to do without PCoC.
(edit: or, just link it to inc crit strikes and PCoC... not sure why I didn't think of that before!)

-Link Herald of Ice with Curse on hit & assassin's mark would also help keep your power charges up vs packs. Maybe then you could swap out PCoC for inc crit strikes.

Your gear has room for improvement and your tree is very damage-greedy with some inefficiencies. Like going down for Foresight ES notable, that's 6% ES per point, you have better options than that. Also not picking up 2-point jewel sockets, as a level 90 char you should easily be able to afford 3-stat jewels and get some more defenses, like Nullification and ES in Witch start while dropping some of the lackluster damage nodes.
You could switch to a dagger from the sceptre and get Whirling Blades - Fortify for better defenses.
Getting rid of Chayula would also be huge. You have all the interruption resistance on the tree, do you feel that's not enough? There's also a boots enchant from labyrinth that gives a lot of stun avoidance if you've killed recently, maybe you could consider that one.

You should level your Immortal Call if you're gonna use it with a high CwDT for longer immunity duration. You could also try squeezing in an Enduring Cry for when you can't get charges back quickly. Immortal Call is great help to give you time to leech back your ES to full.
Trying Storm Call for single target with Conc Effect also sounds like a good idea.

your single target is going to be worse because you are using call of the brotherhood and hence not using lightning penetration.

I feel like you just dont have enough survivability. 8.2k es is decent but with only arctic armour to back that up? It sounds fairly vulnerable.


I have a crit arc build but I dont use cotb, I have lightning pen, its a hybrid with 5k life and 5k es, ghost reaver with instant leech from the atziri gloves. I also have 5k armour with 4 endurance charges and Im an occultist with wicked ward and vile bastion, and I have life regen on my life. Imo its still a relatively squishy build, as casters tend to be.


Foxtactics had some kind of elementalist thing going on with 7k life, lightning coil, I think thats probably still one of the best defense choices around for casters. Personally I got sick of lightning coil being the answer to every builds defenses ages ago, I stick to trying to make es work in various forms. It needs a fair bit of layering before its even functional tbh.

More than viable but it wont 1 shot a screen due to its crappy mechanics.

How did u died in lab?