Gear & Crafting

Arc / Storm Brand Archmage Scion Endgame Gear Progression, Budget Items, Jewels & Crafting.

Core Items

Main Hand & Off-Hand

Items used: Wrath Chant & Pain Scratch
Weapon Type & Base: Profane Wand
Rarity: Rare

Arc and Storm Brand are spells that scale very well with Cast Speed. For Brands in specific, Cast Speed increases the frequency of which the Brand deals damage while attached. Therefore, we use Profane Wands as our Weapon Base of choice, as it provides us with Cast Speed as the default implicit modifier. The Wands were both crafted with Deafening Essence of Woe, granting us a high amount of Spell Damage to begin with.

Stats to look out for:

• +# to maximum Mana
• #% increased Cast Speed
• #% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• Adds # to # Lightning Damage to Spells

Since it is not easy to hit a perfect Wand with Essences, it is recommended to multi-mod the Item when you hit a nice combination of the stats above. Please note that a high rolled Mana prefix is mandatory.

Helmet

Item used: Crown of the Inward Eye
Drop Location: Sirus, Awakener of Worlds
Rarity: Unique

Crown of the Inward Eye suits this build perfectly. It is relatively cheap to get with the right enchant and provides us with a high amount of Life and Mana as well as Transfiguration of Mind, increasing our Damage based on Mana. It drops of Sirus, the Awakener of Worlds, and therefore is target farmable.

Enchants to look out for:

• Arc chains an additional time
• Storm Brand Damage Penetrates 12% of Branded Enemy's Lightning Resistance
• Arcane Cloak Spends an additional 15% of current Mana

Body Armour

Item used: Lightning Coil
Drop Location: Global
Rarity: Unique

Lightning Coil provides us with a lot of tackiness against Physical hits, as it converts 50% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Lightning Damage. As we are not able to stack hilarious amounts of Armour to protect us against massive hits, it is even stronger to convert the Physical Damage to be taken as Lightning Damage instead, as Resistances provide a flat % damage reduction.

Corruptions to look out for:

• +1 to Level of Socketed Gems
• +2 to Level of Socketed Duration Gems

The Corruptions come in quite handy, as both Vaal Arc and Storm Brand share the Duration Tag, making it easy to Gem swap for the chosen content.

Gloves

Item used: Eagle Paw
Item Base: Nexus Gloves (Ritual League)
Rarity: Rare

The Nexus Gloves are a Ritual Base Item that have a very special implicit modifier: "30% chance when you pay a Skill's Cost to gain that much Mana" as well as 30% reduced maximum Mana. Obviously, the Mana reduction is bad as we want to have as much Mana as possible, but the granted Mana sustain makes up for it. Basically, almost every 3rd cast is free, and we can utilize that free global cooldown to regenerate Mana.

The Basic stats for this item should have Life, Mana and Resistances but can be further min-maxed with the Hunter's mod: Unnerve Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit, increasing the Spell Damage the enemy takes. It can also be matched with the Warlords Spell Damage prefix with an Awakener's Orb and furthermore Elevated with Orbs of Dominance. Please Note that the Item level of Nexus Gloves are capped at 83, making it impossible to roll Unnerve with a Hunter's Exalted Orb. Therefore, we have to use an Awakener's Orb to get this modifier on to the Gloves.

Boots

Item used: Agony League
Item Base: Fractured - Dragonscale Boots (Armour / Evasion)
Rarity: Rare

Our Boots have 3 major purposes: Spell Suppression, Chance to avoid Elemental Ailments as well as Resistances. To craft these Boots, get a Hybrid Armour / Evasion Base with fractured +#% chance to Suppress Spell Damage as this modifier is unique to Evasion bases while having no modifier tag to deterministically craft. As it is quite hard to get Chaos Resistance, we craft these Boots with Deafening Essences of Envy, granting us a Tier 1 Chaos Resistance roll. All we need to do next is use a couple of Essences to hit another Resistance roll, lock the Suffixes, and use a Veiled Chaos Orb to obtain an Aisling Modifier for Movement Speed. Afterwards, craft Life or Mana and use Eldritch Currency for the desired implicits.

Eldritch Implicits:

• #% Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments - Eater of Worlds Influence
• #% Action Speed - Searing Exarch Influence

Stats to look out for:

• +#% chance to Suppress Spell Damage
• +# to Resistances
• to maximum Life & Mana
• #% increased Movement Speed

Amulet

Item used: Rage Pendant
Item Base: Fractured - Lapis Amulet
Rarity: Rare

The best in slot Amulet is a fractured Incursion Temple modifier with +# to maximum Mana and #% increased maximum Mana. This Amulet is rough to craft as we need to hit +1 Level of all Skill Gems to further Multi-Mod with cannot roll Attack Modifiers as well as prefixes cannot be changed and reforge Lightning with Harvest to grant +1 Level of all Lightning Skill Gems. Afterwards, we have to lock the prefixes and reforge with harvest to hit good suffixes. Personally, I recommend using an Atziri's Foible Amulet until you acquired enough currency to attempt this craft.

Whispers of Doom is our Anointment of choice, once we have 2 active curses. Before that, anoint Mind Drinker for additional Mana and Mana recovery on kill.

Stats to look out for:

• +1 to Level of all Skill Gems
• +1 to Level of all Lightning Skill Gems
• +#% to Resistances
• #% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• #% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments

Rings

Items used: Pandemonium Twirl & Havoc Hold
Item Base: Synthesized
Rarity: Rare

Conductivity and Elemental Weakness are two very powerful curses for our build. Luckily, both Curses exist on synthesized Ring bases and can be crafted with Deafening Essence of Misery to provide massive amounts of Mana Regeneration Rate. Based on Market prices, we can also use fractured Curse Rings from Delve.

Stats to look out for:

• +# to maximum Mana
• +# to maximum Life
• #% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• #% of Damage taken Recouped as Mana
• +#% to Resistances

Belt

Item used: Maelstrom Buckle
Item Base: Stygian Vise
Rarity: Rare

We want to use a Shaper Stygian Vise for our Belt of choice. This Belt Base comes with an Abyss Socket and therefore can be further improved. #% Increased Mana Recovery Rate boosts our Mana regeneration, which is mandatory for this Build. Our Sub-Ascendancy Pathfinder restores Flask Charges over time, and this can be enhanced with the increased Flask Charges gained modifier.

Belt Stats to look out for:

• #% increased Mana Recovery rate
• +# to maximum Mana
• +# to maximum Life
• #% increased Flask Charges gained
• #% reduced Flask Charges used
• #% increased Flask Effect Duration
• #% Effect of Flasks

Abyss Jewel Stats to look out for:

• #% chance to Avoid being Shocked
• #% chance to Avoid being Shocked (corrupted implicit)
• +# to maximum Mana
• +# to maximum Life
• +#% to Resistances

Flasks

Flasks provide a massive amount of defense and damage. Roll, use and enchant all your flasks following these combinations:

Baseline Flasks:

• Taste of Hate
• Topaz Flask
• Ruby Flask
• Quicksilver Flask

For Bossing:

• Progenesis

For Mapping:

• Oriath's End

Cheap alternative:

• Atziri's Promise

Enchant your flasks with Instilling Orbs:

• Used when Charges Reach Full

Ensure your flasks have 1 of these prefixes:

• +(32–35) to Maximum Charges
• (31–35)% chance to gain a Flask Charge when you deal a Critical Strike
• Gain 3 Charges when you are Hit by an Enemy
• (36–40)% increased Duration

Have 1 of each of these suffixes:

• #% increased Cast Speed during Effect
• #% reduced Effect of Curses on you during Effect
• Crafted (Unveil): 50% Chance to Avoid being Stunned during Effect

Jewels

Watcher's Eye

Item: Watcher's Eye

Wrath is our only Aura, so we can utilize a combination of the following:

• Damage Penetrates #% Lightning Resistance while affected by Wrath
• #% increased Lightning Damage while affected by Wrath
• #% increased Critical Strike Chance while affected by Wrath (to proc Elemental Overload)

Forbidden Flesh & Flame

The best Forbidden Flame & Forbidden Flesh combination allocates;

• Raider
• Pathfinder

Depending on which is cheapest. Allocate your Ascendancy passives accordingly to which Jewel you purchase.

Lethal Pride

The Lethal Pride is slotted at the Witch Jewel socket next to the Power Charge. Near this socket is a good concentration of passives the build already paths to for its damage and utility. This makes it the favourable location for it to be socketed. The Jewel grants additional powerful bonuses to passives allocated within the radius of its ring. The bonuses we are looking for on these passives are any combination of the following:

• 5% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage
• 4% Increased maximum Life
• 5% chance to deal Double Damage
• Resistances
• Stats

Thread of Hope

To safe skill points, we are using a specific Thread of Hope Jewel to allocate passives in the ring radius. Make sure to grab one with a medium circle to allocate:

• The Agnostic
• Divine Judgement
• Arcane Capacitor
• Holy Dominion
• Sanctum of Thought
• Runesmith

For budget, take any Thread of Hope with a medium ring. Try to get the minimum amount of -#% to all Elemental Resistances and for endgame, try to get one with Corrupted Blood and or Silence Immunity, as it smooths our gameplay and adds quality of life to our character.

Unnatural Instinct

The Unnatural Instinct Jewel disables the bonuses of allocated small passive skills but adds the bonus of all unallocated ones. The best possible location to socket this Jewel is on the left side of the Scion starting area.

We gain:

• 10% increased Spell Damage
• 9% increased Cast Speed
• +12 to maximum Life
• 24% increased maximum Mana
• 20% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• 36% increased Area of Effect
• 20% increased Skill Effect Duration
• Regenerate 0.3% of Life per second
• 15% increased Area of Effect of Hex Skills
• 20% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills
• 20% reduced Mana Cost of Curse Skills
• +5 to Strength
• +10 to Intelligence
• 24% increased Physical Damage

We loose:

• Regenerate 0,8% of Life per second
• +10 to Strength
• +10 to Intelligence

Stormshroud

The Stormshroud Unique Jewel provides us Elemental Ailment Immunity based on our chance to avoid being Shocked. To gain 100% chance to avoid Elemental Ailments, we use a combination of Elemental Ailment avoidance on our Boots as well as chance to avoid being shocked on our Abyss Jewel in the Stygian Vise Belt.

Sublime Vision

The Unique Jewel Sublime Vision boosts our Wrath Aura Effect and enables the alternate Elemental Ailment Sap, which reduces the Damage of Enemies affected by up to 20% based on Ailment Effect. This enhances our survivability but disables every Aura other than Wrath.

Cluster Jewel

The Dragon Shine grants utility and damage as well as an extra Jewel socket to place your Forbidden Flame & Forbidden Flesh combination. The best cluster jewel type for the build grants 12% increased Lightning Damage. Our Cluster Jewel should have the following Affixes:

Prefix:

• Scintillating Idea
• Prismatic Heart

Suffix:

• Widespread Destruction
• Elemental or Chaos Resistance

Rare Jewels

Once you reach higher base levels on your Character, you are able to allocate additional Jewel sockets. These can be filled with a rare Jewel like Oblivion Vessel.

Stats to look out for:

• #% increased maximum Life
• #% increased maximum Mana
• +#% to Chaos Resistance
• +#% Elemental Resistances
• #% increased Lightning Damage
• #% increased Damage
• #% Flask Effect Duration
• #% increased Cast Speed (multiple variations)
• Stats