Arc - Are you sure that there isn't a problem GGG ?

Some valid points here...

As a relatively new player with trying to take everything in and make sense out of all the stuff is tiresome and exiting at the same time. But to having to figure out why one cant even level in peace without being gang-bashed by npc out of nowhere is discouraging at best. Of course i gone end up playing the spell that face-rolls most packs.
I wanted to play frost-dot and really looked forward to chilling my way to endgame, until i partied with a friend who started a Arc-witch... it felt like a wet dog running behind him to pick up some leftover loot. Of course i switched my spec to Arc a day later and have fun since... what i try to say is, Arc is ridiculously "lulz" compared to anything else what i tried so far... its fun, dont get me wrong... but i am a Altoholic and already fearing my next character and specc...

biggest problem with Arc being 'good for leveling' that it is actually pretty damn hard to beat it 'in the endgame'

root cause of the current problem POE faces is monster density. if we had 2-3 mobs per screen then there would be a valid choice. with 50 mobs per screen there is NO choice whatsoever

lazy playstyle comes down to it the most
who wants to play a build that actually has to target mobs when arc does it for you and it chains wow why would anyone ever play melee...

I dont get why ppl complain about arc.
Its not an ARC problem that most of skills suck hard.
Its bad skill design. take a fireball as example, it barely have any damage, no aoe no anything in lower levels. and wont have any of it in higher unless you invest so heavily in it that it would make you gimp in everything else.

Arc is not OP, its an axample of GOOD skill design right now.
Its was laking damage whole time since release. thing got addresed and now its good.
other skills need same treatment.

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sckiff wrote:

I dont get why ppl complain about arc.
Its not an ARC problem that most of skills suck hard.
Its bad skill design. take a fireball as example, it barely have any damage, no aoe no anything in lower levels. and wont have any of it in higher unless you invest so heavily in it that it would make you gimp in everything else.

Arc is not OP, its an axample of GOOD skill design right now.
Its was laking damage whole time since release. thing got addresed and now its good.
other skills need same treatment.

Nope, it IS a problem, because it is a skill with auto-targeting, that also has insane number of chains and deals tremendous damage after chaining a bit.
It's a no-brainer skill that doesnt even need targeting to plow through hordes of enemies. IT's precisely because of opinions like yours, PoE ended in its pitiful state.

When ONE skill dominates over 30+ others, developers can either:
1. Nerf that single OP skill.
2. Buff every skill among those 30+, then also buff HP for all enemies.

Guess, which option is more logical and easier to implement?

they buffed arc a lot, some patch ago, but they forgot to buff all the other spells, fireball, freezing, tendrils, etc, etc.. so the other spells are pretty useless (the most)

Arc (with a proper setup) allows to skip/ignore mechanics of what ..... 99% of the enemies in PoE ?
And this without targetting, with very little risk, and without significant investment ...
Yeah, that is a problem.

Not just arc, likely traps too, pre-loading that much damage against bosses is just stupid honestly .... (and it's just one thing)

"

Demhu wrote:

I wanted to play frost-dot and really looked forward to chilling my way to endgame,

If you are interested, there is a streamer playing thay atm, and his setup seems really strong :
Nugiyen

i'm currently running arc totems with arc traps and cwdt arc and cws arc.

i'm not joking and it's fucking hilarious. i have zero defenses/gear/survivability and died 104 times, already. but MEME POWER.

i guess i should stick BV somewhere.

"

BndrIPL wrote:

Ofc.

Now everyone whining about Arc being broken (Armageddon or other Brands are FAR more broken), so naturally, with the next league, Arc will nerfed to Fireball like levels, a skill noone ever uses at all.

Why not just be quiet, and let people play the game with skills even if they are in one persons opinion "OP".

Nerf everything then, everything can potentially be OP if you invest thousands of chaos into it.

Just let me play my "good" Arc skill on SSF, please. It's not OP, it's just RIGHT.

The brands are solid clearspeed skills with medium bossing capability. They're maybe a bit better than self cast arc for bossing, and maybe a bit better than self-cast arc for clearspeed.

But self-cast isn't how arc is getting abused. Arc is getting abused on traps/mines/totems. Any of those offers dramatically higher boss damage than brands, and traps/mines both offer comparable clear speed to brands.

Storm brand inpulsamentalist does offer better clearspeed than any arc variant I believe. But that's just the nature of inpulsa, and not really anything to do with the skills themselves (other than the fact that brand recall is instant cast).

I rolled storm brand inpulsamentalist this league, because I like trying new skills. It is good, but it is basically the same as any other inpulsamentalist. Prior to getting inpulsa, the storm brand clearspeed was on par with arc traps, but way less boss damage than arc traps offer. With inpulsa it is obviously faster than any arc build, but the boss damage isn't even close to arc traps/mines/totems.

Brand builds can supplement their boss damage with other skills, of course. I'm using lightning spire trap in a 7-link shaper helmet (hypothermia, trap and mine damage, inc AoE). That's pretty good, if the boss isn't very mobile.

The issue with arc is that it is good at everything. Yes there are skills that can surpass it at clearspeed, but those builds compromise on boss damage generally, and cost a lot more (inpulsa is 6 ex currently on betrayal SC).

If you want great clearspeed, great boss damage, all at very low cost / SSF, there's not really any way to beat arc traps/totems/mines.

We are all playing Arc for one last league before they nerf it.

Because nerf it they shall - no question. But not until next league I would think.

So, until then, enjoy! Kind of like when we all went balls out on double dipping before the change. Sigh.........