Build Info & Playstyle

Arc / Storm Brand Archmage Scion Endgame Build Info & Playstyle.

Build Info

Mana Stacking

The Mana stacking archetype scales both, its offence and defence, with Mana. Thanks to Mind Over Matter, we take a percentage of the incoming damage from Mana before Life. With The Agnostic, we restore missing Life by draining our Mana and Arcane Cloak generates a shield based on Mana spent while empowering our damaging abilities. The synergies on this build are on the next level, hence why it is such an amazing build to play.

Mind over Matter

One of our primary sources of defence is Mind Over Matter (short: MoM). This Keystone makes that 40% of the damage that would be inflicted on the character's Life is deducted from Mana instead. This effect stacks, thanks to our Hierophant sub-ascendancy, granting us an additional 8% Mind Over Matter.

In theory, for Mana to not run out before Life, the unreserved Mana should be at least 67% of unreserved Life, granted that 40% of damage is taken from Mana before Life. In the practical aspect, we want to have as much Mana as possible, even if it's 300% of our unreserved Life, because Mana equals damage and survivability.

Agnostic

This Keystone removes all of our Energy Shield and drains up to 20% of our Mana to recover that much Life while we are not on full Life. As an example, we assume a Mana pool of ~8000, which means we are recovering 1600 Life per second. Playing with The Agnostic as a Mana stacker feels like having a permanent Life Flask on steroids active, countering almost every damage over time debuff or degen in the game.

With the Life Mastery "You count as on Full Life while at 90% of maximum Life or above" we are able to reserve Clarity with Arrogance Support without constantly draining our Mana with The Agnostic. This can be used before adding the Sublime Vision unique jewel to our setup, since it deactivates all other Auras besides Wrath.

Ailment Avoidance

Elemental Ailments are similar to debuffs, associated with a specific damage type. In Path of Exiles Endgame, most deaths occur under the effects of Elemental Ailments, such as Shock or a big nasty Ignite. Since we don't want to deal with any kind of Elemental Ailments, we make ourselves Immune with stacking "chance to avoid Elemental Ailments" modifiers as well as "chance to avoid being Shocked" in combination with the Stormshroud unique jewel. Once we reach 100%, we are immune to the following:

	Ignite	Fire	Ignite causes the affected target to burn for 90% of the hit's fire damage.
	Scorch	Fire	Scorched enemies have their elemental resistances lowered by up to 30%.
	Chill	Cold	Chill slows all actions of the affected target up to 30%.
	Freeze	Cold	Freeze prevents the affected target from taking actions for a certain duration.
	Brittle	Cold	Brittle causes hits against enemies to have up to +6% Base critical strike chance.
	Shock	Lightning	Shock causes the affected target to take up to 50% increased damage.
	Sap	Lightning	Sapped enemies deal up to 20% less damage.

Spell Suppression

Spell Suppression gives us a chance to reduce damage from incoming Spells. This layer of defence is almost exclusive to the Ranger starting area, since there are almost no other Atlas Passive Nodes or Notables anywhere else on the Tree. This Modifier is exclusive to Evasion Gear (also hybrid bases) and is therefore quite hard to stack. Our Path of the Ranger sub-ascendancy from Scion solves that issue, and we are able to gather enough Spell Suppression Nodes and Notables on our Skill tree. Mixed with Raider and some Gear Pieces, we achieve 100% chance to Suppress Spell Damage, reducing the amount of Spell Damage taken by 50%.

Pantheon & Bandits

Mapping

Clearing Maps with this Arc / Storm Brand Archmage Build feels amazing thanks to Vaal Arc! For beefy Monsters or Bosses, make sure to place your Sigil of Power and have Arcane Cloak active to boost your damage and survivability. Vaal Righteous Fire also provides us with an incredible damage boost, but can make us vulnerable for a short duration.

Map Modifiers to Avoid

The following modifiers are to be avoided if possible:

• Monsters reflect #% of Elemental Damage
• Players cannot Regenerate Life, Mana or Energy Shield
• Players have #% less Recovery Rate of Life and Energy Shield

Bossing

For endgame content like Pinnacle Bosses and Ubers it is recommended to swap Arc for Storm Brand. The difference is damage uptime and a healthy Mana Pool to avoid sudden death scenarios. Since we are not killing Monsters to recover Mana, Arc drains our Mana pool, and we might find ourselves in a situation where we wait for Mana to be able to cast. This also lowers our survivability due to Mind Over Matter. Storm Brand in the other hand doesn't have to be recast frequently and therefore boosts our survivability, since we never reach low levels of Mana as well as granting us almost 100% damage uptime and a safe brand play style.

Farming Strategies

First step is to progress through the Atlas following our Atlas Progression Guide. As a mapping focused character we should focus on the mechanics listed below depending on what level of content our character is currently capable of completing. If struggling in higher tier content, it is always recommended to go a step back and farm up more Currency and Gear. Clicking the League Mechanics below leads to either a full Explanation Guide or a detailed Currency Farming Guide based around maximizing profits from that mechanic or content.