Archmage Shock Nova of Procession - UPDATED FOR 3.29 Curse of the Allflame - MAYBE A BAIT?

CHANGES FOR 3.29 SHOCK NOVA OF PROCESSION SKILL GEM CHANGE -Shock Nova of Procession: Now deals 105 to 948 Lightning Damage at gem level 20 (previously 263 to 790), and the base Mana Cost has been increased by 25% at all gem levels. -Archmage: Now has Supported Skills gain Added Lightning Damage equal to 8-14% of Unreserved Maximum Mana at gem levels 1-20 (previously 10-16%). -Arcane Cloak: Now has Buff Grants added Lightning Damage equal to 10% of Mana Spent by this Skill's effect at all gem levels (previously 10-14%). -Overall damage nerf to Archmage & Arcane Cloak. Shock Nova of Procession change is neutral. Base mana costs doesn't matter for Archmage. PACT SKILL -Pact of Beidat gives 35% more damage, should be quite good. Depending on the downsides. QUALITY SOCKET CHANGE -10% quality of socketed gems if they match the color. -Overall Power Creep. Shock Nova of Procession gains 5% more cast speed. -Arcane Cloak gets 10% buff effect. MANA COST EFFICIENCY REWORK VS REDUCED COST -Reduced Cost is removed, in it's place Mana Cost Efficiency is being added. -No longer can reach 0 mana costs, but it should be fine overall for sustaining mana costs on Archmage still, maybe even easier mid-game than before. UNIQUE ITEM BUFFS -The Valako's Sign Unique Ring now has +100-150 to maximum Mana (previously +20-40). Big buff, might be harder to get early though. Likely even good into the endgame, easy source of leech + huge mana. -The Foulborn Kalisa's Grace Unique Gloves now have 100% increased Mana Cost Efficiency for 2 seconds after Spending a total of 800 Mana (previously 50% reduced Mana Cost of Skills for 2 seconds after Spending a total of 800 Mana). LEGION CHANGES -You can now sacrifice unique items in Legion to gain a modifier to a random Unique of the same item class. Some pretty interesting outcomes. -Memory Vault comes to mind as a good sacrifice option, with the hopes of getting a Mindspiral. Mindspiral is a very strong Archmage item, and it's pretty common, so this could be nice. -A lot of other interesting options but impossible to think of everything. FULL BUILD GUIDE NOTES 3.28 Notes, still relevant mostly. HOW TO USE THIS POB? -Make sure you sync up the correct gem set, gear set, and passive tree set in order to properly use this! HOW DO WE LEVEL THIS CHARACTER?! -There is two main ways to level up this character in the campaign. -The first is the typical Armageddon Brand + Cremation, this works well on any caster build -My recommended, and the second way is: Firestorm Archmage, this comes online at level 31 (28 is when you get firestorm, 31 for archmage) and will make use of mana nodes early, and is VERY tanky -Before 28, you can level however you like, the best way is generally going to be Rolling Magma but a lot of people dislike this, so just level however you want until then EXPLOSIVE IMPACT + MASTERY -This is a mastery that gives 100% increased damage against ignited targets, you will need some flat fire damage to spells crafted on your weapon early, and later on some fire damage from crafted mod or hypnotic jewel (in order to ignite) WHEN DO WE SWAP TO SHOCKNOVA THEN?! -I would recommend using Firestorm until you at least get Cruel Lab, the main reason is before then we don't really have any AOE or cast speed, both of which make the character a lot smoother -If you do not have Shocknova of Procession, you can farm it in either Merc lab or Uber lab with Firestorm DUAL WIELD VS WAND SHIELD -Early on if you want to Cap suppression it will be much easier to do so with an EV/ES shield, however you gain a LOT of damage and don't really lose much survivability by using two wands instead -With a shield you would be able to Shield Charge, but with Dual Wands you can use "Frostblink of Wintry" which is a tranfigured version of Frostblink, this is basically spell "Leap Slam" and it scales very well off of cast speed UNIQUE JEWELS! -This build has A LOT of these, so I figured I'd make a section talking about why for each of them, and which ones to go for first! UNNATURAL INSTINCT AND LIGHT OF MEANING -These are listed together because they synergise very well - Unnatural is the more expensive of the two and I think you really only want to add Perandus whenever you get UI -Unnatural gives a ton of stats, that's basically it, it's very powerful and it also gives LIGHT OF MEANING a lot more +mana or %lightning damage WATCHER'S EYE -There is a LOT of good Watcher's Eye stats for this build, the biggest two are probably "Damage Taken from Mana before Life Clarity", and "%Mana gained as ES Clarity" -This is a good time to mention that this is why we are using a Level 1 Clarity - it's forced to be linked to Arrogance because of how Eternal Blessing works and its purely to enable the Watcher's Eye, skip this if you don't have one -However there is a lot of good stats to keep an eye out on especially when still using Grace. "Suppression with Grace" "Evade with Grace" and almost all of the Clarity Mods are useful -On SC Wrath can also be used very end-game, so those can be useful too MELDING OF THE FLESH -This is only used once you have acquired Mageblood - It's possible to use it beforehand with "Tides of Time" perhaps but I haven't looked into it much -Basically you stack one type of "Maximum Resistance" and gain the other two as equivalent to the one you are stacking, in our case we are stacking lightning -The reason it's only used once we get Mageblood is because it has a huge downside of -70 to 80 resistances and we can solve that as well as gain 95% Effect from the Topaz Flask at the same time using Mageblood -If you are using "Kitava's Thirst" you'll want to stack Cold or Fire resistance instead, this is because we get "2% max lightning resistance on helmet" but you can also get "2% cold res on gloves" or "2% fire res on boots" GEM CHANGES -Intensify is bad for overlapping (aoe scales the skill really well) -Faster Casting is great because the skill benefits a lot from cast speed -Inspiration can be dropped with Lavianga's setup or Foulborn Kalisa's Grace TWO MAIN WAYS TO SCALE ENDGAME - ANATHEMA VS INVERT THE RULES ANATHEMA (highest boss DPS but has downsides) -Requires 4-5 Sockets for curses -Four ways to trigger the curses Bane, Arcanist Brand, Focus Helmet, or Kitava's Thirst to trigger them -Bane has less curse effect, but is one cast for all the curses -Arcanist Brand has a delay and can be clunky, but probably the best on bosses -Focus Helmet overall best most likely with super end-game setup -Kitava's Thirst has reduced cast speed and is a bad helmet slot, but is the best QOL -You'll want Exposure Mastery and need to get exposure somewhere (glove implicit, militant faith, use wave of conviction) INVERT THE RULES (less boss DPS but far less socket pressure and doesn't need to use Anathema or Kitava's Thirst) -Invert the Rules is the option if you want don't want to deal with curses at all -Make sure you take the invert mastery as well -DO NOT get exposure or use any -resist curses -Penetration still works -Easy way to remember what works is anything that debuffs the enemy is BAD, but anything that is on your character is good (curses vs pen) TWO WAYS TO SCALE DEFENSIVELY - BLOCK STAFF VS EVASION DUAL-WIELD (Dual-Wield is more damage with Min/max Wands + Focus set-up) -Early Game Dual-Wield is more damage -If you go Pledge you will not need to farm Greater Spell Echo, but if you use Dual-Wield you need to replace normal Spell Echo with this -Pledge goes Max Block with Staff nodes -Dual-Wield goes for Evasion/Suppression -Dual-Wield set-up requires FAR better gear (you need almost perfect suffixes) FOULBORN BEREK'S SWAP FOR MAPPING VS FOULBORN KIKAZARU FOR BOSSING -Berek's works well with Shock Prolif and gives explosions while mapping but isn't great for single target -Foulborn Kikazaru grants +2 mana per level and scales quite well for single target SHRINE BELT BIS FOR DPS / MAGEBLOOD PROBABLY BIS FOR DEFENSE WITH MELDING+LIGHTNING COIL -Echoing Shrine or Acceleration Shrine is BIS DPS -Mageblood can go easier suppression and/or max resists with Melding and then combine with Lightning Coil for super tanky version -Shrine Belt allows you to go for 3rd ring slot ascendancy and use another Foulborn Kikazaru FINAL THOUGHTS -Skill feels amazing to play and I had a blast playing it throughout -Visually can't see anything which sucks for Hardcore but Ice Nova was the same way -Ice Nova likely a better starting skill for damage but feels worse to play (1 button vs 2 button) and has a big opportunity cost with Kitava's Thirst and 4 extra sockets required -Shock Nova scales very well with gear and is pretty fun to min/max befcause of how ridiculous the cast speed gets