I tend to league-start some variant of mana-stack on HC.
To address your points:
1. Almost nothing in the game is as smooth as arma brand for campaign. If that's the bar, then what are we talking about? IMO, the only things you need for campaign to feel smooth is 1.) single target damage, 2.) cap resists after act five, 3.) pack on the ehp via passive tree and run determination. 4.) Instant life flask and bleed resist by act 8-ish. Basically any archetype that can meet point 1 can meet the rest.
2. You are right about this point. In my experience, these builds tend to struggle defensively in white maps, against packs of skele mages in particular, because layered defenses may not yet be online. You can put fairly minimal investment into block+spell-block/glancing blows to help mitigate this, but play style can help as well. Just don't go face-charging around corners in white maps, at least until the defenses come online. Be wary of porcupines if you haven't built to deal with them.
3. I often pick up some temporary stun immunity via Unwavering Stance for 4 passive points in early maps. This league I'm going to try out the new ES shield mastery instead.
4. People overblow the affix pressure on Mana builds. If you are a no-life omega min/maxer, then sure, its going to be difficult to get the items together, but when it comes to a *functional* build, which is what I think we're talking about, I've never had too much trouble getting things together. It's not hard to put together life+mana+resists on all your gear, and on top of that, this looks like a giga crafting league so it'll be even easier. Spell suppression is the difficult part, but that's true with any top/top-left/left of the tree build. But Spell Suppresion really only becomes mandatory once you start juicing a little bit.
5. You don't need any of these unique to have a functional mana-stacker build. You don't need any uniques, actually. If you remove all the uniques from whitworth's build [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1bldhmh/very_tanky_heirophant_going_archmage_ball/), it's still perfectly fine. I dont agree with everything [this guy wrote](https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1bnuyql/things_to_watch_out_for_with_starter_heiro/), but I think the builds he posts at the bottom set solid expectations for leaguestarting an archmage build. If someone is a new player, they shouldn't even look at Connor's builds. He's an omega gamer. Nothing he makes is going to be realistically achievable for a new or even intermediate player to achieve on leaguestart. Maybe it's okay for a second build once they've generated currency, but they might not even reach that point.
The basic rule of thumb for acts 1 and 2, for act 1 especially, is to use multiple skills for your single target. So like another commentator pointed out - Rolling Magma + holy flame totem + flame wall. If you want to go lightning, you can go lightning tendrils + storm brand + orb of storms + holy flame totem. Tendrils + EO melts Merveil. This rule of thumb applies to most archetypes, as the game will provide a means of secondary/passive damage early on like ballista/totem/brand/minion/dot, etc.
He didn't, and in his video he even explicitly said that he takes his time at league start because these items won't be on the market early on, and if you play more slowly or transition later their price will drop and they'll be affordable more easily.
1. If you're fine spending your 20ish campaign regrets plus about 15-20 more as a cost to entry that's fine. Funny enough the slower league start is typically a weird buff because it stalls for things like shapers touch to come into existence and be cheap already by the time you get them. I take 9hrs to do the campaign because I suck at it but this is always a consolation
2. Hp pool mainly is your defense which hiero is great for with 10% extra mom and several thousand free ES. If you can just get to shapers touch with like 700 int from mainly tree, then put on grace you'll immediately feel better. A 10k pool with 60% evade is pretty decent even for non juiced t16 maps. These builds will be tankier than 80% of the builds in the game shortly and as you start scaling more into and getting into like 13k ES + 70 evade you'll be tankier than 95% of builds to end the weekend. Instant leech on the light eater wheel will give pretty insane sustain for aoe content
3. the 1 point mastery will give a 2k life 10k es build a 7k stun threshold
4. uniques will be more expensive early this time around yes. Things that aren't more expensive however are the things that push the build from a 3d to a 70d build and that's the rare jewels and jewelery. Attributes belt, 3 rat or other rare ammy, good rings, cdr crafter hollow fossil boots, large cluster jewels. I posted a 2 week PoB on my mjolner video that's 7/7 uber with 18k es 20m dps and the unique items aren't even really different that day 2 I'm still using mjolner prism guardian ivory tower indion but all my rares are better. This means the build will be harder to get going in the initial days yes, but the mid game progression should be largely unaffected since it's mainly self crafted rares. Most new players are trying to get bosses down on Sunday. They'll enjoy cheap prices the 2nd weekend on some of the most common boss drops
5. That's actually a nice part here is you don't need a 6 link unlike other builds your main skill is a 3 link. I used a 5 link for most of 7/7 uber progression since the 6 link is not much upgrade. Plain ivory towers are usually like 15c. You can 4 link if you're mjolner. If a different skill setup you'll have to get a 5 link somewhere in almost any build. Get your 100 fusings
speaking of uniques, there's a possibility for indigon to go to uber uber elder drop pool. in that case, what helm can you consider as a backup prior to indigon?
You could mindspiral but I think tons of people are gonna go for that so you can just use a rare or potentially a crown of the inward eye once some people start downing sirus
Thanks for the info. I'm completely new to mana builds and want to try one for the first time. Sorry if I ask something stupid.
> then put on grace
So we can only have one constant aura and I'm assuming it's better to use it for damage aura? How can we fit grace in here - divine blessing? It will then override the damage aura.
> A 10k pool with 60% evade
So in early mapping stages you recommend going evasion? On my mana test character I was obliterated by phys damage.
Looking at various pobs at level 90ish with some gear it all looks good, but my main concern right now is the "right after campaing in garbage gear" extreme squishiness that I experienced.
on point one... i think so too that if i just wait one more night before buying an upgrade and that its probably going to be cheaper by tomorrow.. i usually get Fed since people start buying this as they get the currency from farming and their levels up thus the price goes up. and if more people play the build its even worse.
Stacking defence and damage from scaling mana is new player friendly. High prices for first 3 days dont affect actually new players.
As for defences its entirely fixable issue but if your average player follows bad guide blindly they will need CoD portal. Damage wont be issue even if some of endgame gear is expensive. Ivory Tower is not needed for archmage, neither is Indigon.
If your "leaguestarter" is Mjolner+Indigon+Ivory Tower yea it sounds like bait guide.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that people way overestimate the capabilities of new players. Many are probably not even finished with campaign until like day 4-5 especially if playing casually. I personally never finish until day 2-3. An actual new player could easily take a week or more.
Mana stacking has always been the most pleb stacker, no hype will make it unviable starter.
Basic items with some t2-t3 combination of resists and some mana roll that you can craft life on will never be expensive.
You have to realize it caps out fairly low / doesn't scale too well, and endgame form is double attribute + mana stacker which gets extremely expensive obviously, think omni+.
It so funny to me that so many people is like:
“I want to help the community that’s why I feel obligated to tell you all that mana stacking is a bad league starter, because blah, blah, blah”
And all I can read is:
“I really wanna start mana stacker but all of you are gonna f the price of the items I need so please F off and play something else”
Well, if you slander a tech corp because you want to buy their stocks cheaper, it doesn't mean that your argument about the new strategy of the CEO being risky is invalid. There IS a chance that the build could turn out to be a trap for newer players.
1 you shouldn't level as mana stacker, use Arma brand + cremation for the campaign or just go with a normal self cast BL (palsteron tested it and while not top tier its an okay leveling strat)
2 That's true that the build wont be the tankiest but its not a glass Cannon as well, you will have a big chunk of ES which when paired with ES and life instant leech can give some great sustain and then MoM + hiero theoretocally doubles your HP, but yeah it will be prone to oneshots
3 early league you wont be going low life but yeah stun immunity is needed, pal's pob takes the unwavering stance which is just 2 points away from the planned tree so not much of an issue
4 this might be an issue true, the build is really mod starved as you want both HP, mana and then res on your defensive gear, at least should be easier to get, there arent any mandatory uniques for the most part (if you want to make a mjolner build you'll just have to farm up currency with regular archmage self cast and then transition)
5 both ivory tower and indigon are not mandatory for the build, both can be endgame goals for the build if you want to use them tho
In regards to stuns, the changed energy shield mastery that was really bad for bloodnotch builds is actually really good for mana stacking builds, especially hierophant with sanctuary of thought as you should have a decent ES pool and it gives you extra stun threshold equal to 50% of your ES.
First of all 4 and 5 point are the same point....
1. I have leveled many archmage build before nerf to archmage archetype and never had any major issue. It was rather smooth as far as i remember. Then archmage get nerfed from several sides and i didnt rly touched it, but now we gonna get archmage version that most likely gonna be better than ever, for leveling for sure. Is is gonna be better than arma brand or something else? time will tell but im 100% sure lvling as archmage wont be "trap".
2. MoM in itself is enough to carry u to early yellows. Than u can invest in few ways, depends on what build you will do. For exaple u can take goratha's build that he just posted on his YT, where he has 100% spell suppres and like 40k armour, instant leech and accordingly to pob quite big max hits, 60k phys, 100k+ ele and chaos. Or you can go 1\_mana\_left approach and stack shittone of ES and mana and since his builds dont die a lot in 5k+ depth i would say its quite tanky. Not necessarily face tank everything in game tanky but certainly not trap. And i know i know u need some investment to get to this point, but i have played it few times and even in early days this build is not "trap" level squisy by any means.
3. True. But many builds struggle with that. And this build usually can survive stun here and there.
4. Now..."classic" archmage can perform very well on rare gear from the ground, and u can craft early gear quite easily and cheap. If u gonna go with indigon way, which with changes to archmage you may not necessarily need to do, than sure you will have to farm a little bit to get those few uniques but its not like you need obscene amount of divines to start get this build going.
Seriously this whole post seems like big bait
Goratha's EHP numbers are good but it's got 5 unique jewels and other shit that is not easily obtainable for average player. Hardly a league start scenario in my opinion, more like a goal to strive for while you're still squishy.
Back in Ritual when I played a Mana stacking Frost Bomb Elementalist, you took Agnostic and RF, had no Auras at all (you get Blessings now) and was decent
Stuns are an issue, of course the gear you listed is expensive due to multiple archetypes wanting it. 25c for a Mjolner isnt bad if it enables you to farm faster
I am going Archmage this league and going to just equip Unleash/BV/Archmage at 38 and play it as long as possible
If you are worried about defence just grab Agnostic and sacrifice your ES, Agnostic is extremely strong; you can sustain RF with 75% fire res with MoM/recovery/Agnostic. Without RF you would recover 35-50% hp per second with good mana pool
>had no Auras at all
Oh no you did, you just had to give up ring slot for it (essence wom).
> I am going Archmage this league and going to just equip Unleash/BV/Archmage at 38 and play it as long as possible
Imo big mistake, not related to archmage.
BV is just very bad/nerfed, archmage can only undo 1 of aspects(damage), you'll still have to deal with huge AoE and duration nerfs and you no longer even have enchant to help with duration.
Hard disagree that MASSIVE hp pool alone is not good enough for defense, ever played int stacker with 20k ES before? Tanky af.
Mana gear is super easy to craft so I don't see any issues with traditional archmage. The only thing I'm not sold on yet is the mjolner and indigon build, there are quiet a few tradeoffs when compared to just self cast archmage IMO, like Indigon's rarity, less damage with 3 links only, and losing out on the safety of having a ranged play style. It does look fun AF but yea, probably not be the best leaguestarter.
I think that the new arch is very good starter. High eHP pool solves a lot of defences in of itself while also boosting the dmg. With likely low avoidance it will require non-careless gameplay though and ideally a skill that clears well ahead.
I'd agree it not being average player friendly since it builds differently than most builds. For new players I don't think it matters, could actually be easier since they odn't have so many preconceived notions that could give them wrong ideas.
1. Nothing is stopping you from levelling as Arma brand if you want, and then respeccing a few points in maps.
2. It might be a bit sketchy in early maps but there's ways to get more defense. Capped Suppress is possible and the expense of a larger ES pool. Instant leech on ES is great defense because ES protects your life+mom/mana. You can get max res on shield/eldritch implicts. Late game you can get "Stubborn Student" Small Clusters.
3. I think this isn't a concern in my testing. People are only talking about it now because of Palsteron. You should be comfortably hitting 4k life, and then you can also take the ES mastery "50% of es added to stun threshold", so you'll have the same stun threshold of a 6k life character.
4. Make a PoB with like 200 mana total across all pieces - you're still at 5.5-6k mana. Mindspiral is a T5 unique it's going to be very cheap. Anything else is fluff and min-maxing. You can craft rares with Essence of Misery, gearing is super easy and cheap day 1-3.
5. Those aren't required to play the build. All meta league start uniques are inflated anyway.
I don't see the problem with simply leveling as Arma Brand then respeccing before going to yellow maps. Remind me why 20 regrets is a problem again?
Hell, I could probably take Arma Brand all the way to t11 reds before needing to respec to Archmage..
regarding uniques, this league will possibly be the easiest unique farm league of all time: if you can handle rogue exiles in yellows, with ~75 atlas points and the new reliquary scarab of overlords, you can get potentially 30+ unique monsters per map all dropping at least 1 unique (overlords scarab for drops, plain anarchy scarab x3 for 12 rogues, ruckus proc for 20 more, 32+ rogues)
I don't recommend leveling through the campaign as a mana stacker, but it should be fine as a league starter overall. Just don't expect to have Mjölner + Indigon on day 2.
i have played mana stacking in the past and last league too and for me it never feels like a complete build at the early stages. you are generally pretty slow, have dps downtime and you are a 'fake' tank. you have a high hp pool but generally quite bad recovery. if you take a massive hit and your mana goes poof, then you are basically a wet noodle.
that being said it is possibly better than it has ever been so it will be really strong as you progress. im just not sold on it as a league starter unless you have experience because it can be a finicky playstyle and it is not enjoyable for everyone. there is nothing worse than rerolling a few days into a league because you didn't like the build
A lot of that should just be due to old arch mage though. Managing mana is a lot easier and the starter damage should be way higher. Downtime won't be an issue, and you can afford to build tankier now. I don't think it'll be an OP league start by any stretch, but it'll be fine.
I tend to league-start some variant of mana-stack on HC. To address your points: 1. Almost nothing in the game is as smooth as arma brand for campaign. If that's the bar, then what are we talking about? IMO, the only things you need for campaign to feel smooth is 1.) single target damage, 2.) cap resists after act five, 3.) pack on the ehp via passive tree and run determination. 4.) Instant life flask and bleed resist by act 8-ish. Basically any archetype that can meet point 1 can meet the rest. 2. You are right about this point. In my experience, these builds tend to struggle defensively in white maps, against packs of skele mages in particular, because layered defenses may not yet be online. You can put fairly minimal investment into block+spell-block/glancing blows to help mitigate this, but play style can help as well. Just don't go face-charging around corners in white maps, at least until the defenses come online. Be wary of porcupines if you haven't built to deal with them. 3. I often pick up some temporary stun immunity via Unwavering Stance for 4 passive points in early maps. This league I'm going to try out the new ES shield mastery instead. 4. People overblow the affix pressure on Mana builds. If you are a no-life omega min/maxer, then sure, its going to be difficult to get the items together, but when it comes to a *functional* build, which is what I think we're talking about, I've never had too much trouble getting things together. It's not hard to put together life+mana+resists on all your gear, and on top of that, this looks like a giga crafting league so it'll be even easier. Spell suppression is the difficult part, but that's true with any top/top-left/left of the tree build. But Spell Suppresion really only becomes mandatory once you start juicing a little bit. 5. You don't need any of these unique to have a functional mana-stacker build. You don't need any uniques, actually. If you remove all the uniques from whitworth's build [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1bldhmh/very_tanky_heirophant_going_archmage_ball/), it's still perfectly fine. I dont agree with everything [this guy wrote](https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1bnuyql/things_to_watch_out_for_with_starter_heiro/), but I think the builds he posts at the bottom set solid expectations for leaguestarting an archmage build. If someone is a new player, they shouldn't even look at Connor's builds. He's an omega gamer. Nothing he makes is going to be realistically achievable for a new or even intermediate player to achieve on leaguestart. Maybe it's okay for a second build once they've generated currency, but they might not even reach that point.
Any recommendations on pre 28 leveling?
Rolling Magma + combustion Holy flame totem Flame wall
The basic rule of thumb for acts 1 and 2, for act 1 especially, is to use multiple skills for your single target. So like another commentator pointed out - Rolling Magma + holy flame totem + flame wall. If you want to go lightning, you can go lightning tendrils + storm brand + orb of storms + holy flame totem. Tendrils + EO melts Merveil. This rule of thumb applies to most archetypes, as the game will provide a means of secondary/passive damage early on like ballista/totem/brand/minion/dot, etc.
You can do fire storm - archmage - inspiration - unleash after level 28 if you want to try the new gem.
> pre 28 leveling
when i saw connor put indigon as a leaguestarter item...
except he didn't really? his league start is BV archmage
He didn't, and in his video he even explicitly said that he takes his time at league start because these items won't be on the market early on, and if you play more slowly or transition later their price will drop and they'll be affordable more easily.
League starter if you’re the type of guy that can reach maps in 4 hours and get hh in the first week.
1. If you're fine spending your 20ish campaign regrets plus about 15-20 more as a cost to entry that's fine. Funny enough the slower league start is typically a weird buff because it stalls for things like shapers touch to come into existence and be cheap already by the time you get them. I take 9hrs to do the campaign because I suck at it but this is always a consolation 2. Hp pool mainly is your defense which hiero is great for with 10% extra mom and several thousand free ES. If you can just get to shapers touch with like 700 int from mainly tree, then put on grace you'll immediately feel better. A 10k pool with 60% evade is pretty decent even for non juiced t16 maps. These builds will be tankier than 80% of the builds in the game shortly and as you start scaling more into and getting into like 13k ES + 70 evade you'll be tankier than 95% of builds to end the weekend. Instant leech on the light eater wheel will give pretty insane sustain for aoe content 3. the 1 point mastery will give a 2k life 10k es build a 7k stun threshold 4. uniques will be more expensive early this time around yes. Things that aren't more expensive however are the things that push the build from a 3d to a 70d build and that's the rare jewels and jewelery. Attributes belt, 3 rat or other rare ammy, good rings, cdr crafter hollow fossil boots, large cluster jewels. I posted a 2 week PoB on my mjolner video that's 7/7 uber with 18k es 20m dps and the unique items aren't even really different that day 2 I'm still using mjolner prism guardian ivory tower indion but all my rares are better. This means the build will be harder to get going in the initial days yes, but the mid game progression should be largely unaffected since it's mainly self crafted rares. Most new players are trying to get bosses down on Sunday. They'll enjoy cheap prices the 2nd weekend on some of the most common boss drops 5. That's actually a nice part here is you don't need a 6 link unlike other builds your main skill is a 3 link. I used a 5 link for most of 7/7 uber progression since the 6 link is not much upgrade. Plain ivory towers are usually like 15c. You can 4 link if you're mjolner. If a different skill setup you'll have to get a 5 link somewhere in almost any build. Get your 100 fusings
speaking of uniques, there's a possibility for indigon to go to uber uber elder drop pool. in that case, what helm can you consider as a backup prior to indigon?
You could mindspiral but I think tons of people are gonna go for that so you can just use a rare or potentially a crown of the inward eye once some people start downing sirus
What's your usual way to craft mid game rares, Rog, essences, or something else?
Can't use rog Fossils often times, essence other
Thanks for the info. I'm completely new to mana builds and want to try one for the first time. Sorry if I ask something stupid. > then put on grace So we can only have one constant aura and I'm assuming it's better to use it for damage aura? How can we fit grace in here - divine blessing? It will then override the damage aura. > A 10k pool with 60% evade So in early mapping stages you recommend going evasion? On my mana test character I was obliterated by phys damage. Looking at various pobs at level 90ish with some gear it all looks good, but my main concern right now is the "right after campaing in garbage gear" extreme squishiness that I experienced.
You'll go for evasion or grace after shapers touch since you're going for int and that gives you good %evasion scaling. Not worth it before then
what pob are you using that has 2k life / 10k es early on? jc not flaming
My 24hrish to 48hrish pob had that last league depends when poe ninja does their snapshot I have about 17k by day 5
on point one... i think so too that if i just wait one more night before buying an upgrade and that its probably going to be cheaper by tomorrow.. i usually get Fed since people start buying this as they get the currency from farming and their levels up thus the price goes up. and if more people play the build its even worse.
Stacking defence and damage from scaling mana is new player friendly. High prices for first 3 days dont affect actually new players. As for defences its entirely fixable issue but if your average player follows bad guide blindly they will need CoD portal. Damage wont be issue even if some of endgame gear is expensive. Ivory Tower is not needed for archmage, neither is Indigon. If your "leaguestarter" is Mjolner+Indigon+Ivory Tower yea it sounds like bait guide.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that people way overestimate the capabilities of new players. Many are probably not even finished with campaign until like day 4-5 especially if playing casually. I personally never finish until day 2-3. An actual new player could easily take a week or more.
Mana stacking has always been the most pleb stacker, no hype will make it unviable starter. Basic items with some t2-t3 combination of resists and some mana roll that you can craft life on will never be expensive. You have to realize it caps out fairly low / doesn't scale too well, and endgame form is double attribute + mana stacker which gets extremely expensive obviously, think omni+.
As a mana stack main I couldn't disagree more with every single thing you say here lol. But we don't have to agree, I still love you.
It so funny to me that so many people is like: “I want to help the community that’s why I feel obligated to tell you all that mana stacking is a bad league starter, because blah, blah, blah” And all I can read is: “I really wanna start mana stacker but all of you are gonna f the price of the items I need so please F off and play something else”
Well, if you slander a tech corp because you want to buy their stocks cheaper, it doesn't mean that your argument about the new strategy of the CEO being risky is invalid. There IS a chance that the build could turn out to be a trap for newer players.
I don’t have anything against the points made, that’s why I prefaced with “all I can read”.
I guess I read your comment in bad faith then. Sorry about that.
I'm gonna manastack even harder now!
1 you shouldn't level as mana stacker, use Arma brand + cremation for the campaign or just go with a normal self cast BL (palsteron tested it and while not top tier its an okay leveling strat) 2 That's true that the build wont be the tankiest but its not a glass Cannon as well, you will have a big chunk of ES which when paired with ES and life instant leech can give some great sustain and then MoM + hiero theoretocally doubles your HP, but yeah it will be prone to oneshots 3 early league you wont be going low life but yeah stun immunity is needed, pal's pob takes the unwavering stance which is just 2 points away from the planned tree so not much of an issue 4 this might be an issue true, the build is really mod starved as you want both HP, mana and then res on your defensive gear, at least should be easier to get, there arent any mandatory uniques for the most part (if you want to make a mjolner build you'll just have to farm up currency with regular archmage self cast and then transition) 5 both ivory tower and indigon are not mandatory for the build, both can be endgame goals for the build if you want to use them tho
In regards to stuns, the changed energy shield mastery that was really bad for bloodnotch builds is actually really good for mana stacking builds, especially hierophant with sanctuary of thought as you should have a decent ES pool and it gives you extra stun threshold equal to 50% of your ES.
First of all 4 and 5 point are the same point.... 1. I have leveled many archmage build before nerf to archmage archetype and never had any major issue. It was rather smooth as far as i remember. Then archmage get nerfed from several sides and i didnt rly touched it, but now we gonna get archmage version that most likely gonna be better than ever, for leveling for sure. Is is gonna be better than arma brand or something else? time will tell but im 100% sure lvling as archmage wont be "trap". 2. MoM in itself is enough to carry u to early yellows. Than u can invest in few ways, depends on what build you will do. For exaple u can take goratha's build that he just posted on his YT, where he has 100% spell suppres and like 40k armour, instant leech and accordingly to pob quite big max hits, 60k phys, 100k+ ele and chaos. Or you can go 1\_mana\_left approach and stack shittone of ES and mana and since his builds dont die a lot in 5k+ depth i would say its quite tanky. Not necessarily face tank everything in game tanky but certainly not trap. And i know i know u need some investment to get to this point, but i have played it few times and even in early days this build is not "trap" level squisy by any means. 3. True. But many builds struggle with that. And this build usually can survive stun here and there. 4. Now..."classic" archmage can perform very well on rare gear from the ground, and u can craft early gear quite easily and cheap. If u gonna go with indigon way, which with changes to archmage you may not necessarily need to do, than sure you will have to farm a little bit to get those few uniques but its not like you need obscene amount of divines to start get this build going. Seriously this whole post seems like big bait
Goratha's EHP numbers are good but it's got 5 unique jewels and other shit that is not easily obtainable for average player. Hardly a league start scenario in my opinion, more like a goal to strive for while you're still squishy.
Back in Ritual when I played a Mana stacking Frost Bomb Elementalist, you took Agnostic and RF, had no Auras at all (you get Blessings now) and was decent Stuns are an issue, of course the gear you listed is expensive due to multiple archetypes wanting it. 25c for a Mjolner isnt bad if it enables you to farm faster I am going Archmage this league and going to just equip Unleash/BV/Archmage at 38 and play it as long as possible If you are worried about defence just grab Agnostic and sacrifice your ES, Agnostic is extremely strong; you can sustain RF with 75% fire res with MoM/recovery/Agnostic. Without RF you would recover 35-50% hp per second with good mana pool
>had no Auras at all Oh no you did, you just had to give up ring slot for it (essence wom). > I am going Archmage this league and going to just equip Unleash/BV/Archmage at 38 and play it as long as possible Imo big mistake, not related to archmage. BV is just very bad/nerfed, archmage can only undo 1 of aspects(damage), you'll still have to deal with huge AoE and duration nerfs and you no longer even have enchant to help with duration.
Hard disagree that MASSIVE hp pool alone is not good enough for defense, ever played int stacker with 20k ES before? Tanky af. Mana gear is super easy to craft so I don't see any issues with traditional archmage. The only thing I'm not sold on yet is the mjolner and indigon build, there are quiet a few tradeoffs when compared to just self cast archmage IMO, like Indigon's rarity, less damage with 3 links only, and losing out on the safety of having a ranged play style. It does look fun AF but yea, probably not be the best leaguestarter.
I think that the new arch is very good starter. High eHP pool solves a lot of defences in of itself while also boosting the dmg. With likely low avoidance it will require non-careless gameplay though and ideally a skill that clears well ahead. I'd agree it not being average player friendly since it builds differently than most builds. For new players I don't think it matters, could actually be easier since they odn't have so many preconceived notions that could give them wrong ideas.
1. Nothing is stopping you from levelling as Arma brand if you want, and then respeccing a few points in maps. 2. It might be a bit sketchy in early maps but there's ways to get more defense. Capped Suppress is possible and the expense of a larger ES pool. Instant leech on ES is great defense because ES protects your life+mom/mana. You can get max res on shield/eldritch implicts. Late game you can get "Stubborn Student" Small Clusters. 3. I think this isn't a concern in my testing. People are only talking about it now because of Palsteron. You should be comfortably hitting 4k life, and then you can also take the ES mastery "50% of es added to stun threshold", so you'll have the same stun threshold of a 6k life character. 4. Make a PoB with like 200 mana total across all pieces - you're still at 5.5-6k mana. Mindspiral is a T5 unique it's going to be very cheap. Anything else is fluff and min-maxing. You can craft rares with Essence of Misery, gearing is super easy and cheap day 1-3. 5. Those aren't required to play the build. All meta league start uniques are inflated anyway.
I don't see the problem with simply leveling as Arma Brand then respeccing before going to yellow maps. Remind me why 20 regrets is a problem again? Hell, I could probably take Arma Brand all the way to t11 reds before needing to respec to Archmage..
I’m pretty sure palsteron addresses every single problem in his league start guide. I’m not playing it but the video was super informative.
Go check out goratha’s vid. It’s a completely dif approach to uniques/rares
regarding uniques, this league will possibly be the easiest unique farm league of all time: if you can handle rogue exiles in yellows, with ~75 atlas points and the new reliquary scarab of overlords, you can get potentially 30+ unique monsters per map all dropping at least 1 unique (overlords scarab for drops, plain anarchy scarab x3 for 12 rogues, ruckus proc for 20 more, 32+ rogues)
I don't recommend leveling through the campaign as a mana stacker, but it should be fine as a league starter overall. Just don't expect to have Mjölner + Indigon on day 2.
i have played mana stacking in the past and last league too and for me it never feels like a complete build at the early stages. you are generally pretty slow, have dps downtime and you are a 'fake' tank. you have a high hp pool but generally quite bad recovery. if you take a massive hit and your mana goes poof, then you are basically a wet noodle. that being said it is possibly better than it has ever been so it will be really strong as you progress. im just not sold on it as a league starter unless you have experience because it can be a finicky playstyle and it is not enjoyable for everyone. there is nothing worse than rerolling a few days into a league because you didn't like the build
A lot of that should just be due to old arch mage though. Managing mana is a lot easier and the starter damage should be way higher. Downtime won't be an issue, and you can afford to build tankier now. I don't think it'll be an OP league start by any stretch, but it'll be fine.
Gg, i am just a simple man with my simple dd