So I’ve been playing arc lash from 1 - 68 now, I’m following maxroll guide and I’m not feeling bad about arc lash, I can tank infinite packs of mobs, ulting like 2 or 3 times per pack if they are big. My concern is about the end endgame. Is this build viable till level 100 and doing high nightmare dungeons? Or is it a must to make a switch to ice shards?
Yes it’s 1 of 2 working builds. Have fun.
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Lv88 Arc Lash sorc here. If your goal is to push nightmare dungeon, I don’t think it is worth it to switch. If you look at maxroll, both builds are rated B tier for pushing NMd while every other class has an S tier build for the same thing. I currently managed to do tier 53 and can probably go a bit higher. I think ice shard build can probably do a few tier higher but that’s about it. That said, if you just want to have fun with a different build, please go ahead, just don’t expect too much of improvement from it in terms of doing difficult content.
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I was pushing 30 nm keys as arc then we started grouping and that’s where the build started falling apart. Mob scaling to 4 players was getting 1 shot through my barriers. I’m now 85 ice I roll high 40s carrying a full group or not. Doesn’t matter. Highest key is a 55. Arc was fun and flashy but I feel I have more versilitility as ice. Still stash arc gear just in case. It was a cool build. I’ll leave the melee to the op barb and druids.
Ive done all the main specs. Firewall arc and shards. I got a bud doing blizzard to good effect as well.
Do what’s fun till it teeters out
Im a full time solo boy here. Ive been Arc since maybe the 50’s, i was shotgun build before that. I love the build, it can be difficult at times, but if you got your stats and aspects in line, its a pretty fun build. Gotta be a gamer though, none of that pansy stuff. Things do get hairy, but when its time for bursty mc burstyson, this build pews like theres no tomorrow. My max solo at 83 has been 52NM, but i can see this build will be troublesome at 70+ but its all fun. Play what you like, screw the meta, if NM gets too hard or not fun anymore, helltides are super fun still.
Level 100 arc lash sorc here.
You can get to level 100 with the build. But don’t expect to do sigils past 55-60 or to do Uber Lilith.
Enjoy getting one shot off screen by quill beasts and skeleton bows.
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I leveled to 100 with Arc Lash and switched to Ice Shards after that. Both are great but Ice Shards is our best build at the moment for Nightmare Dungeons.
you can’t really get close at higher-nm. Even with rainments teleport stun and frost nova you still die instantly sometimes despite using defensive skills.
It plays a lot like inferno difficulty before D3 was patched, you’re basically forced to stay range or you die instantly, rinse and repeat. Great game.
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For the higher level Nightmare dungeons; like level 70 to 100 you must be able to kill within your stun locks. You will need to change your build a little and maybe use control glyph and a 2 hander staff with the 70% damage to immobilized, stunned, or frozen enemies. Also make sure you have flame shield enchantment on boots that lets you immobilize enemies or the meteor whichever works best with your play style. Once you add the control glphy, the 70% enchant to a 2 hander, and the flame shield enchant on boots or meteor to build you will have excellent stun lock damage with the 70% damage to stunned, 70% damage to frozen, and 70% damage to immobilized. Those big crits will help you to clear higher level nightmare dungeons. I hope this helps.
You get one shotted with any build. Arc will give you more defense, but sorc gets one shotted in any part of the game. PVP, PVE, it doesn’t matter.
I will say that playing sorc at lvl 100 it feels like an extreme version of POE. It’s like one shot heaven. The most frustrating experience ever. I am starting to wonder more and more, why do I keep coming back.
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just delete sorcerer before wasting more time on it. It’s by far the worst class in game.
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Viable is a big word. U can do it, but other Builds perform so much better.
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Definitely viable in PvP 
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Surprisingly viable in pvp.
Spent last night in the fields of hatred and sure I got rocked by some hota builds, but the stuns are insane, and give you plenty of time to drop some damage and bring your shields off cool down.
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As an Arc Lash Sorc I’m just not sure how much damage reduction I truly need to not be one shot by EVERYTHING… 14000 Health, 6100 armor, and ~60%+ close damage reduction. Still getting one shot in melee range by non elite adds in NM60… How. What more damage wise can I give up???
Has anyone tried a full barrier generation setup (even though the two second barrier on cooldown would feel a lot better if it lasted 4-5 seconds…)
I have near perfect rolls on everything, unless I immobilize, stun, freeze my damage is pretty mediocre. And this is praying my Frost Nova doesn’t stun lock me [bug] and my ball lighting orbits don’t collide and disappear [bug]).
An efficient run of high nightmare dungeons is a pipe dream for an Arc Lash Sorc.
And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it against, I HATE crackling energy. You have to pick a mediocre paragon board (with a significant commitment to get both the legendary and Glyph from that board), use a Glyph slot for ONE mechanic of your playstyle, AND use an offensive aspect to buff it’s chain (which is a big hit because offensive aspects are critical). All to chase around blue orbs while trying not to be one shot by anything ranged and most melee things. Change this to a fury style build up where this isn’t an additional mechanic of running around to pick them up, as well as a damage multiplier based on your CE bar and it would feel a lot better. The only ability being buffed by your CE bar being full is lightning spear and it’s just a passive ability that goes off with your ultimate (no one in their right mind is slotting that as a skill or picking that as an enchant.)
Additionally passives for Arc Lash Sorc’s are very mediocre.
Increased crit % with each hit? If you’re playing arc lash right you’re at or above 50% crit and resetting this passive near instantly giving it no real buff to your setup.
Movement speed buffs? Sure for a fun factor and for the crit boots but I don’t feel like I can play with ONE evade with the amount of creatures that explode on death…
% Stuns? We’re already stunning CONSTANTLY (well definitely for Ball lighting Arc Lash Sorc’s) a lucky hit chance to stun really isn’t helpful for us.
Shocking impact? Not enough damage to justify the passive points and stuns have durations so loses passive damage from the wait time to reapply stun (as well as unstoppable elites)
Mana on CE pickup? I’m Arc lashing ( no mana) and Ball Lightning when I can, ball lighting stuns with the legendary nodes takes care of mana for the most part so it’s not worth the points (and chasing orbs means losing time to damage).
Chance to spawn CE as a lucky hit? If I want CE I’m getting CE reliability, this passive isn’t worth the points.
I’m an Arc Lash Sorc with NO points into Arc passives. They are pathetic…
Devouring blaze, glass cannon, hoarfrost, conjuration mastery etc are way more valuable than any of the Arc passives… They ALL need a rework.
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Sorc lvl 100 here, I breezed through a NM57 with rearranging the paragon board. I can probably optimize it much more. If I take it seriously I believe it can be pushed up to mid 70 NM.
Should probably try to fit in territorial somewhere but find it difficult.
I use crackling to lower cooldowns of teleport and unstable currents and are not using the CE board.
I realized you get enough CE from ball lightning if you take all attack speed from Elemental Summoner board Burning Instinct + max attack speed on gloves.
Barrier up almost non stop from cooldowns and ice armor. Really good flow of the build, I just run pack to pack and only dies to on death explosions on sub NM57
My teleport is on lvl 10 and is down to 4.3s with overall CDR. with CE it is basically 2s.
Survivability on 60+ will for sure be a challenge still…
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So I also don’t run the CE board (not worth it in my opinion). But I only run unstable current as far as an Arc skill that has cooldowns (I run ball lightning instead of teleport and use the teleport enchantment). And to me shaving UC down by 10 seconds isn’t worth it (higher tier content you’ll have enough time between large pulls with the way we’re forced to play) so I run the other Arc key passive for extra damage multiplier and close damage reduction.
That being said… If you’re not speccing into CE bonuses I already know the damage is beyond mediocre from it. And that’s my whole point. You’re darned if you do darned if you don’t. You spec into it and you’re losing a glyph and board for bonuses to EVERYTHING. You don’t and it’s just tickle damage.
Ball lightning does insane damage whenever it procs the static ball under the enemy and just blast off constantly especially with the 40% increased crit chance from aspect. We will see how often I can get it to proc with increased basic attack speed on focus which I am currently missing.
The problem most people have with CE is that their crit chance together with attack speed is not high enough and ball lightning enchant is a must have to proc enough CE. standard arc lash does not generate enough.
Will have a go today and push current build as high as I can. I don´t use any elixir either… just imagine what you could do with some clever use of elixirs.
I still wonder if I could get 45% basic attack speed on amulet instead of immobilize to get ball lightning proc even more… but don´t dare to do anything to current amulet and have not found another 30% attack speed aspect…
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Level 100 arc lash sorc here.
Short answer, no it’s not going to clear high NM or have the damage to even threaten Uber Lilith.
But if you just want to farm open works things or mid tier nm it works fine.
Have been a lvl 100 arc lash sorc for a bit now.
I clear T50-60 NMs w/o difficulty.
My current top is T73. Suspect T75 (next achievement) → T80 is possible with better gear, a better sigil and much more patient play.
But a 3 minute T100 clear? Not seeing that without substantial changes/fixes.
Note: I’ve made a number of changes from the std build (and am still hunting for further refinements).
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