Dual arc totem character - hitting a wall at Merc Weaver and his endless adds

I'm playing a self found CI dual arc totem templar in the 1 month bloodlines / torment hardcore league who has struggled in a couple of battles with Merc Weaver. The arc totems and supporting damage can't take his adds out quickly enough to prevent their numbers from rising. Both battles have ended with me leaving the game for the "choose character" screen.

I was wondering if, in the future, I should level up lightning tendrils or ball lightning or another spell, in parallel with arc, to be better able to handle bosses with either no adds or an endless supply of them. I'm also not quite certain how close my templar is to being one-shot by Weaver on a crit roll, as his ES total is quite low. Here is some information about Coppershock ...


ES - a bit over 2100
armour & evasion - not so very much of either
resists - 75/75/66/100 (fire/cold/lite/chaos)


Passives




Gear

Spoiler


Edit: I was remiss in not mentioning that Coppershock is following a "No regrets" constraint, meaning no refunds for passives (ie: all passive points spent are permanent decisions). Infused shield will receive the next passive point.
Now that prestige classes will finally leave lab in 4.0, will GGG get it right this time or will they find new ways to repeat old mistakes?
Last edited by EnjoyTheJourney on Apr 16, 2015, 7:33:52 PM
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I'm playing a self found CI dual arc totem templar in the 1 month bloodlines / torment hardcore league who has struggled in a couple of battles with Merc Weaver. The arc totems and supporting damage can't take his adds out quickly enough to prevent their numbers from rising. Both battles have ended with me leaving the game for the "choose character" screen.

I was wondering if, in the future, I should level up lightning tendrils or ball lightning or another spell, in parallel with arc, to be better able to handle bosses with either no adds or an endless supply of them. I'm also not quite certain how close my templar is to being one-shot by Weaver on a crit roll, as his ES total is quite low. Here is some information about Coppershock ...


ES - a bit over 2100
armour & evasion - not so very much of either
resists - 75/75/66/100 (fire/cold/lite/chaos)


Passives




Gear

Spoiler



1. Why don't you have Infused Shield? This is a must-have for CI characters. It's the biggest advantage that you have, surpassing even chaos immunity.

2. Why aren't you stacking ES recharge? You don't have leech, won't ever have sufficient regen, and ES gain on hit isn't an option until the next big update. Get Essence Surge and try to get Nullification in the Shadow area. This should give you enough recharge rate.

3. Dump the Templar life/mana regen nodes when you get ES recharge. Spend those points getting 6% ES in either the Scion ES circle or the Unnatural Calm circle.

4. Pick up the witch hybrid mana/mana regen nodes on her east starting branch. This gives far more than 15% regen from the templar.

5. Try picking up aura effect and reduced mana reservation and run Discipline, Clarity, and other auras to grant better bonuses. For instance, running Clarity gives tons of base mana regen, which means you need less on gear to have sufficient mana regen. This means you can focus more on raw ES, resistances, and other favorable mods.

6. Pick up Elemental Equilibrium and use a wand or weapon that does damage other than your totems. This is a free -50% to enemy resistance to the element your totems do, and with a curse it's sure to make most enemies weaker all the time. This is a huge damage boost.

7. Pick up Whispers of Doom. This allows 1 additional curse and this can help in both defense and offense.

8. Your helmet is useless. You aren't ever on low-life since you're CI. All it gives is 20% ele res.

9. Your boots are hurting you. Inc Duration makes Lightning Warp detrimental, when it should be beneficial. Here are a few example links you should follow:

Immortal Call + Inc Duration + Enhance + Faster Casting (maximizes duration and cast speed)

Lightning Warp + Reduced Duration + Faster Casting (almost instant movement)

Enduring Cry + Spell Echo (until the major update)

CWDT (level 1 for procs almost every hit) + Enfeeble + Temporal Chains. This will slow enemies down a lot and lowers their DPS by 39%. It will help a lot for your survivability.

CWDT + Frost Wall + inc Duration. This stops all non-piercing projectiles, non-leaping melee enemies, and most everything else. It won't hurt you since you're AB.

Swap Cold Snap for Conversion Trap + Multiple Traps. This can turn enemy totems to your side (like "allies cannot die") and gives enemies something to attack. Cold Snap won't always freeze; CT always converts everything except bosses.

As for an attack to use Ele Equilibrium with, I'd suggest the following:

Barrage + Chain + Curse on Hit + Conductivity + Elemental Weakness (or TC and Enfeeble. Also don't use CoH if you use CWDT + Curse + Curse)

Kinetic Blast + GMP + Chain + CoH + Curse + Curse

I'd favor KB, as it covers a larger area. And right now you only deal phys/cold with your wand, so you can easily plug it in.

Oh, and drop zombies. Frost Walls don't die, zombies do. CWDT + FW will do more than Raise Zom + Minion Life.
Thank you for your feedback. I hear all your suggestions about how to improve gear. What you're seeing is the best gear combination I was able to put together, while still keeping some currency to prep for maps. I'm hoping to buy CWDT from a master or to pick it up in A3 merc, whichever comes first, and put frost wall on it (+EC, at least until 2.0). At present, I don't have CWDT. I don't have multiple traps, either, although it would be very nice to have it.

I agree about Lite Warp. I use it for strongboxes and I should have put it somewhere else.

My longer run plan is to get about 5.8% life regen, backed by Zealot's Oath, which with a reasonable ES pool makes for a decent amount of resilience.

I've gone back and forth on getting aura nodes. Not having it means I can't run a purity aura with discipline and clarity, which adversely impacts totem survival later in the game. I decided instead to build up crit later in the build, just to see how that plays out.

At least, that was my plan. I may have hit a wall with Merc Weaver, though, because I'm struggling to handle his adds. I'm considering taking arc off the totem, just to see how that goes, and putting something else temporarily on a totem instead.

If this really is where Coppershock stops his forward progress, then I'd like a better plan for whichever dual totem character follows him. Going back to the OP, would lightning tendrils or another skill, leveled up in conjunction with arc, be a good choice for handling bosses with either no adds or endless adds?
Now that prestige classes will finally leave lab in 4.0, will GGG get it right this time or will they find new ways to repeat old mistakes?
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My longer run plan is to get about 5.8% life regen, backed by Zealot's Oath, which with a reasonable ES pool makes for a decent amount of resilience.


That helps with recovery, but it does nothing to stop incoming damage. I've found that avoiding damage and then having a burst of recovery is better than trying to simply out regenerate it.

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I've gone back and forth on getting aura nodes. Not having it means I can't run a purity aura with discipline and clarity, which adversely impacts totem survival later in the game. I decided instead to build up crit later in the build, just to see how that plays out.


Crit might not be worth it. It helps with offense, and not so much defense.

If your totems survive, and so do you, then crit is your best option.

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If this really is where Coppershock stops his forward progress, then I'd like a better plan for whichever dual totem character follows him. Going back to the OP, would lightning tendrils or another skill, leveled up in conjunction with arc, be a good choice for handling bosses with either no adds or endless adds?


This is the thing about each spell in the game. They all perform one function really, really well, but have horrible performance in all other aspects.

Your Arc will hit up to five targets right now, so it has a small "AOE". Ball Lightning would deal far less damage, but could hit each target up to two times. Lightning Tendrils would only hit targets in a small area, but up to four times.

Spark could hit up to three times, be it the same target or different targets.

Your best bet with lightning might be Ball Lightning, mostly because it has a ton of range and will hit more targets than any other skill.
Thank you again for your thoughts. I swapped the places of lite warp and conversion trap, thanks to your earlier feedback. The current arrangement makes much more sense.

I tried again with Weaver, after a couple of gear adjustments. He fell this time without too much fuss.

I spent a few chromes to re-color these gloves:



... so I could drop in Vaal Nova as a trap, to use the clear Weaver's room. I couldn't re-fill souls to use it again because Weaver's adds don't add souls to Vaal gems. It still seemed to help quite a bit, though, as over half of Weaver's life was gone after it was cast.

These gloves also brought Coppershock's ES total to just over 2300. That's still a very low total for A2 merc. But, it's still better than 2100ish beforehand.


Now that prestige classes will finally leave lab in 4.0, will GGG get it right this time or will they find new ways to repeat old mistakes?

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