Bear’s Arcane Elemental Blast
Introduction
Want to destroy your enemies with one element? What if you could destroy them with two?
Oh no, that would be too casual. How about… three elements? Hell, why stop now. Embrace your inner sadist and disable your victims with some ailments: chill, freeze, ignite, shock, stun, slow, and blind. Now we’re talking. And all in one package - in one spell - to defeat them ALL (Ok, bosses get off disables more lightly).
Arena
Change Log
Change Log
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5/7/2021 - Quite a few changes to the build. Some nodes moved and gear has changed. Overall effect is increased defences with about 40% dodge and 40% block + damage reduction.
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0.8.2 - The build is largely unaffected in 0.8.2. The following are buffs and nerfs:
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Prophecy Wand is now the main weapon of choice to help compensate for the mana changes. It’s slightly lower damage should have no noticeable impact but it’ll give you slightly longer ability use before having to use Focus.
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Buffs:
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Elemental Nova granted Melting Nova. We lose 1 point in Infernal Prism and Fiery Destruction but are given increased critical chance and armour shred. While unfortunate to lose some points in damage nodes, the build now has a way to do armour shred without using a suffix slot on the glove/amulet slot. This should more than make up for the misplaced points and increase the damage of the build further.
-
There are now 4 more slots for idols allowing us to increase the tankiness of the build further. There are 1x1 idols here that have ward retention + health, or ward retention + cold resistance you can put in here. On my build personally, this has lead to an extra 300 ward.
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Nerfs:
-
Mana regen has taken a hit being reduced from 10 to 8 per second. When using the Focus bonus for 100% mana regeneration, this means it has been reduced from 20 to 16 per second. It’s a slight nerf but is hardly noticeable. Since we mostly use Focus for the burst of mana we’re generally in Focus for about two seconds at most.
Build Philosophy
Build Philosophy
Firstly, it’s important to mention my philosophy when approaching builds is that they should be incredibly tanky while throwing decent damage. What I mean by tanky is that the HP/ward pool is so high it puts you out of risk of being one shot randomly by almost every attack in the game. My goal is to go through an entire monolith run without being randomly bursted to death by an attack. This build can do anywhere between 70k-500k DPS (somewhere inbetween is more realistic), but you could sacrifice a lot of the defensive capabilities to do 3x the damage. In my tests I was often doing 200k crits with EN five times a second. Unfortunately, my survivability tanked and I’d often get one shot by something multiple times in a monolith. Leech can’t do much if you get one shot randomly so turning it into a high ward build reduced my deaths to basically nill and still allowed a decent amount of damage dishing.
Videos
Video Spotlight (Not informative)
Last Epoch - Bear's Arcane Elemental Blast Sorcerer Build - YouTube
Gameplay - Long Length (boring)
- The build for Lightning Blast has changed since the making of these videos. LB is now 2-3x more damaging bringing it almost as strong as Elemental Nova.
Gameplay - Arena 405 Push
Last Epoch - [0.8.2]Bear's Arcane Elemental Blast Arena 405 Push - YouTube
How it works
How it works
The Arcane Elemental Blast relies on Elemental Nova (EN) as primary damage. It’s been specced to enable Fire, Ice and Lightning Nova in a channelled format. Arcane Ascendance (AA) supplements EN by introducing and exiting each of its casts. A gem node in AA called Superconductor allows Lightning Blast (LB) to be cast alongside turning your primary damage into a lethal concoction of EN/LB. LB has been specced into a channelled form with a goal in mind to supplement damage and proc Lightning Aegis for extra protection and damage. We also pick up Flame Ward (FW) as a panic button when you need emergency protection and Focus to regain mana. Mana management will be important and timing when to use Focus will be crucial and become a dance. LB will not be in our active skills and instead Teleport will make up the 5th slot for extra manoeuvring.
The tanky part of the build relies on Exsanguinous and Last Steps of the Living to become ward based instead of HP. Idols, blessings and passives increase the ward pool. Dodge and block are decently high and provide an extra layer of protection.
The huge amounts of shock being stacked on enemies reduces their stun avoidance, as a result a single stun affix on your weapon will stun-lock every mob in the game apart from bosses.
Build Analysis
Build Analysis
Blessings
The chosen blessings maximise your ward pool and survivability. Grand Shadow of the Eclipse and Grand Swiftness of Logi play big parts into giving decently high dodge. Grand Bones of Eternity bulk up our block effectiveness substantially. The end result should be around 35-40% dodge, and a 35-40% block chance with up to 50% block effectiveness.
Equipment and Idols
The build revolves around two uniques (Exsanguinous and Last Steps of the Living). Although they’re not required, they take the build to the next level.
The two uniques turn your HP pool into ward which can boost a 2k HP pool into 5k+ ward.
As I got more experienced with the game I realised how important dodge can be. Previous iterations of the build used ever higher amounts of armour. Unfortunately, armour is rather limited as the highest amounts were possible while stationary and channelling and isn’t as effective against non-physical damage. The nice thing about dodge is it’s effectively 100% damage reduction on a successful proc. Thus, dodge is picked up where possible and gets decently high with equipment and blessing upgrades.
Apart from that, equipment will reach 75% resistances all around. Most equipment and idols have ward, int, or health to maximise your ward pool. Two idols have cold resistance to reach the 75% cap. The Prophecy Wand has a stun suffix which will allow you to stun all mobs (including rare mobs) apart from bosses. It also includes a Blind suffix which is a flex pick that I feel may suit Slow on Hit better rather than relying on AA to proc Slow on Hit.
Skills
As mentioned previously, The Invoker set bonus grants almost all our skills +1 to +3 points.
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EN - You want to go into Lightning Nova to turn it into a channelled ability and grab some critical chance since we don’t use equipment with base +% critical chance. Next, you want to go into Fire Nova and make it into a cast at target location ability. There’s huge damage nodes here with Infernal Prism. Next you want Ice Nova and 3 points in Shatter Nova and two points in Glacial Might. Shatter Nova turns the damage output of EN into a monster and Glacial Might supplements this. With Shatter Nova, notice that it provides MORE damage instead of increased which is significantly better. Each of those modifiers basically become x1.3 damage per chilled, frozen, shocked and ignited ailment on the enemy which we’ll be able to stack easily on enemies.
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LB - This spell will never be directly cast by us so don’t worry about putting it in your skill bar. You want this to be a channelled ability through the Insidious Conduction node so that it easily procs Lightning Aegis through the Lightning Attunement node. Lightning Aegis increases our damage and reduces damage taken. Make sure to take Shattershock as well which gives MORE damage with shock and chill ailments which will always be present on enemies - it triples the damage output of LB. An interesting note is that when this spell is cast by Arcane Ascendance rather than directly it seems to cost significantly less than when it is cast directly. Using LB to be cast through AA when you attack with EN makes your mana last longer than casting LB alone through AA.
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AA - Arcane Ascendance will make our channels less mana hungry and provide extra damage. This will be casted every time you deal damage with EN. Acuity is important so AA doesn’t drain mana and since EN is a channel spell, it only counts as one activated spell in Acuity. Superconductor is a mandatory node to proc LB. What it allows is your LB to be channelled whenever you activate AA and deal damage, allowing you to proc Lightning Aegis. There’s some other nice nodes we can pick up such as Power Sprint for haste and Rebuff for 300 ward every time we activate AA which will be often.
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FW - This is our panic button or when you anticipate heavy damage. Spec into Barrier and Frostguard for maximum defensive ability and Dual Aegis so you have two charges.
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Focus - Whenever you are low on mana use focus to get back to full. Since it’s a channel ability you gain defensive bonuses from your armour blessings. Spec into better mana regeneration and ward retention and the rest don’t really matter. The ward retention benefits are fantastic when you’re expecting to receive heavy hits - it allows you to go into a defensive stance and build up some quick ward.
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Teleport - We won’t be specialising into this spell but it will be on our skill bar in place of LB for better manoeuvrability.
Passives
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Mage - 22 Points - There’s a lot of temptation here for damage nodes; don’t worry, pick HP and ward retention once you have ward uniques otherwise you can go for increased damage if you’re stuck with a leech build. Make sure to pick up the resistances on Arcanist.
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Sorcerer - 85 Points - If you have a ward build then the same applies as before, go for all passives that grant Int, vitality, HP or ward retention to maximise your ward pool. If you’re stuck on a leech build make sure to grab LavaMancer, Chill to the Bone, and Rift Bolt for the extra leech. Dragon Mage at the the top is a great damage boost but Dragon Breath is not required if you have The Invoker set. If you’re missing the set you can put a few points in here so you’re stacking ailments for Shatter Nova. Grab Recollection in the top left while you’re at it for the faster cooldowns. It makes using AA and teleport more smooth. Elemental Ascendance will grant you some resistances so don’t forget it.
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Spellblade - 6 points - Just 6 points into Elemental Affinity for the resistances here.
Closing Words
Closing Words
- I have done a lot of testing with this build. It has evolved a lot over time and originally began as a leech build. I wouldn’t recommend staying there into 100 monoliths and high arena because leech just can’t compete to the survivability of a high ward base.
- Combat with AA can feel a bit janky at first but you just need to activate it in and out of your movements with EN.
Old Build Variant
Change Log
Change Log
- 0.8.2 - The build is largely unaffected in 0.8.2. The following are buffs and nerfs:
- Prophecy Wand is now the main weapon of choice to help compensate for the mana changes. It’s slightly lower damage should have no noticeable impact but it’ll give you slightly longer ability use before having to use Focus.
- Buffs:
- Elemental Nova granted Melting Nova. We lose 1 point in Infernal Prism and Fiery Destruction but are given increased critical chance and armour shred. While unfortunate to lose some points in damage nodes, the build now has a way to do armour shred without using a suffix slot on the glove/amulet slot. This should more than make up for the misplaced points and increase the damage of the build further.
- There are now 4 more slots for idols allowing us to increase the tankiness of the build further. There are 1x1 idols here that have ward retention + health, or ward retention + cold resistance you can put in here. On my build personally, this has lead to an extra 300 ward.
- Nerfs:
- Mana regen has taken a hit being reduced from 10 to 8 per second. When using the Focus bonus for 100% mana regeneration, this means it has been reduced from 20 to 16 per second. It’s a slight nerf but is hardly noticeable. Since we mostly use Focus for the burst of mana we’re generally in Focus for about two seconds at most.
Build Philosophy
Build Philosophy
Firstly, it’s important to mention my philosophy when approaching builds is that they should be incredibly tanky while throwing decent damage. What I mean by tanky is that the HP/ward pool is so high it puts you out of risk of being one shot randomly by almost every attack in the game. My goal is to go through an entire monolith run without being randomly bursted to death by an attack. This build can do anywhere between 70k-500k DPS (somewhere inbetween is more realistic), but you could sacrifice a lot of the defensive capabilities to do 3x the damage. In my tests I was often doing 200k crits with EN five times a second. Unfortunately, my survivability tanked and I’d often get one shot by something multiple times in a monolith. Leech can’t do much if you get one shot randomly so turning it into a high ward build reduced my deaths to basically nill and still allowed a decent amount of damage dishing.
Videos
Video Spotlight (Not informative)
Last Epoch - Bear's Arcane Elemental Blast Sorcerer Build - YouTube
Gameplay - Long Length (boring)
- The build for Lightning Blast has changed since the making of these videos. LB is now 2-3x more damaging bringing it almost as strong as Elemental Nova.
Gameplay - Arena 405 Push
Last Epoch - [0.8.2]Bear's Arcane Elemental Blast Arena 405 Push - YouTube
Build Planner
Build Planner
Bear’s Elemental Nova Blast - set build
Bear’s Elemental Nova Blast - no set build
- Item affixes in the build planner are given Tier 5 if you should prioritise them during the crafting process over Tier 1 affixes.
- The set build has about 5,000 ward and 2x the damage of no set build
- No set build has about 6,000 ward, +75% poison resistance but about half the damage of the set build
How it works
How it works
The Arcane Elemental Blast relies on Elemental Nova (EN) as primary damage. It’s been specced to enable Fire, Ice and Lightning Nova in a channelled format. Arcane Ascendance (AA) supplements EN by introducing and exiting each of its casts. A gem node in AA called Superconductor allows Lightning Blast (LB) to be cast alongside turning your primary damage into a lethal concoction of EN/LB. LB has been specced into a channelled form with a goal in mind to supplement damage and proc Lightning Aegis for extra protection and damage. We also pick up Flame Ward (FW) as a panic button when you need emergency protection and Focus to regain mana. Mana management will be important and timing when to use Focus will be crucial and become a dance. LB will not be in our active skills and instead Teleport will make up the 5th slot for extra manoeuvring.
The tanky part of the build relies on Exsanguinous, Strands of Souls and Last Steps of the Living to become ward based instead of HP. Idols, blessings and passives increase the ward pool.
Offensively, The Invoker’s Scorching Grasp, The Invoker’s Frozen Heart, and the Invoker’s Static Touch turn EN into a monster spell with extra levels, damage and ailment effects. Not only that, the bonuses also carry over to other spells in the build as well. Almost every spell is guaranteed an additional level.
The huge amounts of shock being stacked on enemies reduces their stun avoidance, as a result a single stun affix on your weapon will stun-lock every mob in the game apart from bosses.
Build Analysis
Build Analysis
Blessings
The chosen blessings maximise your ward pool and survivability. Grand Bulwark of the Tundra and Grand Patience of Herkir are fantastic in this build as you’re channelling almost all the time to enjoy the large armour boost.
Equipment and Idols
The build revolves around three uniques (Exsanguinous, Strands of Souls, and Last Steps of the Living), and a set of three (The Invoker’s Scorching Grasp, Frozen Heart, and Static Touch). Although they’re not required, they take the build to the next level.
The three uniques turn your HP pool into ward which can boost a 2k HP pool into 5k+ ward.
The three piece set boosts your offensive capabilities considerably. Each piece gives an ailment bonus on hit and considering you’re doing 5 hits of EN per second including LB, ailments stack fast. The set also gives a level to your skills for each element they have. Since EN is a fire, ice and lightning spell it’s given +3 levels which we invest to boost the offensive capability further.
Apart from that, equipment will reach 75% resistances all around except poison (least important). Most equipment and idols have ward, int, or health to maximise your ward pool. Two idols have cold resistance to reach the 75% cap. The Prophecy Wand has a stun suffix which will allow you to stun all mobs (including rare mobs) apart from bosses. It also includes a Blind suffix which is a flex pick that I feel may suit Slow on Hit better rather than relying on AA to proc Slow on Hit.
Skills
As mentioned previously, The Invoker set bonus grants almost all our skills +1 to +3 points.
-
EN - Getting 25 points on EN is easily achievable without exalted items. You want to go into Lightning Nova to turn it into a channelled ability and grab some critical chance since we don’t use equipment with base +% critical chance. Next, you want to go into Fire Nova and make it into a cast at target location ability. There’s huge damage nodes here with Infernal Prism and Fiery Destruction so I would recommend 4 and 3 points respectively. As of 0.8.2 Melting Nova comes prior to Fiery Destruction so 2 points will be placed in here giving access to increased critical chance and armor shred without the need to craft it on gloves/amulet. Next you want Ice Nova and 3 points in Shatter Nova. Shatter Nova turns the damage output of EN into a monster. Notice that it provides MORE damage instead of increased which is significantly better. Each of those modifiers basically become x1.3 damage per chilled, frozen, shocked and ignited ailment on the enemy which we’ll be able to stack easily on enemies due to The Invoker set and other nodes in the skills.
-
LB - This spell will never be directly cast by us so don’t worry about putting it in your skill bar. You want this to be a channelled ability through the Insidious Conduction node so that it easily procs Lightning Aegis through the Lightning Attunement node. Lightning Aegis increases our damage and reduces damage taken. Make sure to take Shattershock as well which gives MORE damage with shock and chill ailments which will always be present on enemies - it triples the damage output of LB. An interesting note is that when this spell is cast by Arcane Ascendance rather than directly it seems to cost significantly less than when it is cast directly. Using LB to be cast through AA when you attack with EN makes your mana last longer than casting LB alone through AA.
-
AA - Arcane Ascendance will make our channels less mana hungry and provide extra damage. This will be casted every time you deal damage with EN. Acuity is important so AA doesn’t drain mana and since EN is a channel spell, it only counts as one activated spell in Acuity. Superconductor is a mandatory node to proc LB. What it allows is your LB to be channelled whenever you activate AA and deal damage, allowing you to proc Lightning Aegis. There’s some other nice nodes we can pick up such as Power Sprint for haste and Rebuff for 300 ward every time we activate AA which will be often.
-
FW - This is our panic button or when you anticipate heavy damage. Spec into Barrier and Frostguard for maximum defensive ability and Dual Aegis so you have two charges.
-
Focus - Whenever you are low on mana use focus to get back to full. Since it’s a channel ability you gain defensive bonuses from your armour blessings. Spec into better mana regeneration and ward retention and the rest don’t really matter. The ward retention benefits are fantastic when you’re expecting to receive heavy hits - it allows you to go into a defensive stance and build up some quick ward.
-
Teleport - We won’t be specialising into this spell but it will be on our skill bar in place of LB for better manoeuvrability.
Passives
-
Mage - 22 Points - There’s a lot of temptation here for damage nodes; don’t worry, pick HP and ward retention once you have ward uniques otherwise you can go for increased damage if you’re stuck with a leech build. Make sure to pick up the resistances on Arcanist.
-
Sorcerer - 85 Points - If you have a ward build then the same applies as before, go for all passives that grant Int, vitality, HP or ward retention to maximise your ward pool. If you’re stuck on a leech build make sure to grab LavaMancer, Chill to the Bone, and Rift Bolt for the extra leech. Dragon Mage at the the top is a great damage boost but Dragon Breath is not required if you have The Invoker set. If you’re missing the set you can put a few points in here so you’re stacking ailments for Shatter Nova. Grab Recollection in the top left while you’re at it for the faster cooldowns. It makes using AA and teleport more smooth. Elemental Ascendance will grant you some resistances so don’t forget it.
-
Spellblade - 6 points - Just 6 points into Elemental Affinity for the resistances here.
Closing Words
Closing Words
- I have done a lot of testing with this build. It has evolved a lot over time and originally began as a leech build. I wouldn’t recommend staying there into 100 monoliths and high arena because leech just can’t compete to the survivability of a high ward base.
- Combat with AA can feel a bit janky at first but you just need to activate it in and out of your movements with EN.
