My ele only has Staff, Dagger, Focus and Scepter. Even if I want to equip her with all the legendaries possible, she can only use those 4. And condi build is even not viable for ele. I’m jelly much
Please allow me to quote master Zelyhn’s Mantra:
Hey Mikhail, I am going to try to give you a detailed answer as to why fire is much more desirable than arcana.
First let’s take a look at what arcana gives you:
- Fury on swap (very desirable)
- Vigor (very desirable)
- Lingering Elements (public enemy number 1)
- Elemental attunement (desirable for the most part)
- Arcane precision (public enemy number 2)
- Evasive Arcana (cleanse and blast are desirable)
- Boon duration (somewhat desirable)
- Attunement recharge (insignificant due to fresh air and relevant skills’ cooldown)Then let’s look at the advantages of fire:
- Flame Barrier (public enemy number 3)
- Burning precision, internal fire, or Conjurer (all desirable)
- Sunspot (desirable)
- Pyromancer’s alacrity (very desirable: aligns the cooldown of our important fire spells with the rotation pattern of a build with little arcana points)
- Burning Rage (desirable)
- Persisting flames (very desirable)
- Power (very desirable)
- Condition duration (desirable)Now let’s analyse the contributions:
- First, Evasive Arcana. This trait is actually detrimental. This is because you are going to use your dodges for something else than dodging. Therefore you are actually more likely to take damage and conditions. So either you use this trait strategically and the outcome is paradoxical, or you don’t and then it is simply useless.
- I am going to assume that you are using EA strategically, and therefore that you are not dodging as efficiently as you could. This means that you need more sustain. Therefore boons like protection and regeneration are relevant for you. But you could do without them if you used dodges for dodging. Therefore only the might from Elemental attunement is relevant. This is a nice group contribution, but it is very weak compared to what you could get in fire for the same amount of points.
- Boon duration is nice. If we disregard unnecessary boons then the best we can get from it is the following: say you can maintain 19 stacks of might on average then boon duration will bring this to 25 (rounding a bit), this is a contribution of 6, and that is 210 power. Fire gives you 300. Granted, there is also a group effect to take into account.
- I personally use 10 in arcana to maintain perma vigor and ensure my fury uptime. This is because I tend to play in non-optimised groups. However it can be argued that persisting flames nullifies the contribution of fury on swap if you can realise a proper rotation.In comparison, fire gives you the following:
- Offensive defense via the use of defensive conditions (chill, cripple, etc)
- Much greater group effect: fury for the group (equivalent to a 420 precision boost for the group), increased vulnerability stacks from Weak Spot = more damage for the group.
- Synergy everywhere.
- Damage, damage, damage. And well, the “Zerker Paradigm” dictates that the faster you kill your foes the less likely you are to get hit before they die. Therefore damage is defense, somehowTo conclude:
Once you are confident in your ability to rely on dodges to survive, then the defensive contribution from arcana becomes irrelevant and paradoxical. In contrast fire brings much more to the table.
In the future, burning speed and frozen burst will be buffed. This implies that pyromancer’s alacrity and persisting flames will be even more desirable.
My advice to you is to start playing with less arcana progressively. Keep vigor but start putting points elsewhere (water is a safe choice to start with). Then gradually increase your investment in fire. Also, you should grab a focus. In the end the most efficient build is 30/30/x/0/x (+10 in either arcana for vigor or earth for damage).
R.I.P the less casual Iris :’(
On the side note, I just started to do more touring today. So tiring!