optimal 5th gem in a 5l for arc???

so far im thinking:

chain
arc
faster casting
life leech

and for the 5th socket:

increased crit?
increased crit dmg?
light penn?
elemental proliferation?

dont know which of those 4 would be optimal. thoughts?

Lightning penetration or ele proliferation because this makes shock either more damaging or spread to surrounding mobs.

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ibugsy wrote:

Lightning penetration or ele proliferation because this makes shock either more damaging or spread to surrounding mobs.

do you happen to know if chain works with arc? i am just now testing it and it doesnt seem like it does?

Chain works with arc. It adds two more chains to the existing 3.

I think it kind of depends on your overall build.

As an arc/summon witch my 5L is arc + faster cast + crit chance + item rarity + item quantity. I don't rely on spectres for damage, I kill stuff with arc (1700 dps tooltip at the moment).

Of course if you instead were a 4 spectre summoner relying on spectres to kill stuff, you'd want arc to spread shock around, so you'd go arc + faster cast + crit chance + ele proliferation in a 4 link, and then stick spectres in the 5 link with minion damage + minion life + GMP + item quantity.

IMHO chain is highly overrated. I've tested with and without chain and even against big groups chain doesn't kill faster, while against bosses or smaller groups it is noticably slower. The main problem is chain only adds 2 extra hits. If it added 2 extra hits per arc hit, for a total of 6 extra hits, it would be awesome (that's what it does with a lot of other skills, like ethereal knives), but it doesn't. 5 hits * 50% damage = 250% damage. 3 hits * 100% damage = 300% damage.

You get maybe 18% damage from chain's level bonus before you dex cap. Whatever gem you put instead of chain would give you way more damage, or another powerful bonus - in particular if the point of chain is to spread the shock around, elemental proliferation will do this much better. The shock duration will be longer because of higher damage, and it will hit more targets.

In summary, chain is great for EK (and a lot of other things), but meh for arc.

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ibugsy wrote:

Chain works with arc. It adds two more chains to the existing 3.

are you positive on this? im no seeing it hit 5 targets. also, does increased crit and increased crit multiplier gem work with spells?

sorry, new to casters, always play ranger :\

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SeP wrote:

are you positive on this? im no seeing it hit 5 targets. also, does increased crit and increased crit multiplier gem work with spells?

Yes, yes, and yes.

thanks you all have been wonderful. ele prolif is def getting included but now i dont know if i want to include chain now or not which also changes things a lot.

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magicrectangle wrote:

You get maybe 18% damage from chain's level bonus before you dex cap. Whatever gem you put instead of chain would give you way more damage, or another powerful bonus - in particular if the point of chain is to spread the shock around, elemental proliferation will do this much better. The shock duration will be longer because of higher damage, and it will hit more targets.
In summary, chain is great for EK (and a lot of other things), but meh for arc.

Are you certain that the bonus damage from chain applies to arc? Cause it says "+% to projectile damage", and chain is NOT a projectile.

I've thought about using chain on my arc as well, but 200% mana multiplier is way too much for my mana pool to handle.

Atm I'm running arc + faster casting + mana leech + lightning penetration/item rarity depending on where I'm at (only lvl 58)

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FAMO wrote:

Are you certain that the bonus damage from chain applies to arc? Cause it says "+% to projectile damage", and chain is NOT a projectile.

I don't have a leveled chain to check with at the moment, but according to the wiki it is just damage, not projectile damage.

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I've thought about using chain on my arc as well, but 200% mana multiplier is way too much for my mana pool to handle.

I wouldn't use it even if it had no mana multiplier. Like I said, I tested it quite a bit, and killed noticeably slower with chain than without - that's chain casting, I can actually afford to chain cast with chain (heh), but it doesn't matter, damage is still worse.