Hey all, Archmage has been stomped into the ground by GGG for a long time now, so here's a new twist/variant to it that I'm considering league-starting. Abyss Jewel Stacking Trinity Archmage. This is heavily based off of Jungroans Raider variant however with the nerfs to arcane surge it feels like you're almost obligated to take hierophant.

What this build does differently from previous versions of archmage:

• Chill effect, frostbolt and ice nova with high cold damage scaling gives a strong defensive layer previously not had
• Recoup: with new recoup nodes added to the tree, it lets us get 42% life recoup. Insane with Agnostic and Mana damage recoup (we're running roughly 35%~ mana recouped).
• High Block: Running a Rumi's gives us 30% block and 63% spell block
• Shroud of the Lightless: What this entire build is based around. The life and mana pool is much larger around this time around with the abyss jewel stacking, roughly calculating we can fit in around 9-10 abyss jewels each with 40 mana and giving us 3% life, 3% mana and 4% elemental pen. Running a 3 socket shroud of the lightless also gives us much more comfort than running a replica kaom's heart. There's an added bonus of Shade form.
• Intuitive Leap Value: This harps on the 42% life recoup, but mana builds struggled during clear as there was no real efficient way to gain mana as most of it was flat mana on kill. With the recoup node, you now have a good enough excuse to take an impossible leap around Ghost dance to pick up two extremely high-value nodes.
• Last but not least: Arcane Surges changes. The damage nerf on paper seems to be massive (-6% MORE spell damage ), but in actuality, it's a buff. The changes to hierophant more than makeup for the % more spell damage loss, and in return, we gain cast speed for free.

Here's a tentative PoB I made with Day 1/2 gear running on a 5L it's got a respectable eHP pool and 6.4 mil damage. This should import into the updated PoB perfectly fine. Let me know if you guys find any errors or improvements to be made!

https://pobb.in/z8-r9A7gXGuv

Edit: https://pobb.in/ta3U91ry6f72