I have a question on arcanist and ascendent. The latest version of this game seems to be doing the following. I tested with a warrior main and a wizard hireling for dps.
Arcanist and ascendent setup seems to be working on arcanist weapons only.
The warrior can no longer set the arcane debuffs for the dps hireling any more. It seems the dps hireling has to set his own arcane debuffs.
Can someone confirm ? If the above is true, I cannot use the frozen setup if I I want to use arcanist + ascendent.
1.
You mean weapons with arcane element only?
If yes, my answer is no.
If no, my answer is still no.
There are many ways that you can still apply arcane debuff.
However, for the wizard, refer to no.2.
2.
I use frozen + arcanist w/ascendent on my PVE wizard and it’s fine. I use Ice Attacks and the Monsters still get pinkish when Weaken triggers.
To apply arcane debuffwith arcanist + ascendent, try applying angelite or topaz crystal for epic weaken 30% on the hireling. It should give you a quick fix until you can get 90% weaken from obsidian.
Let me try to elaborate my findings.
I currently have a warrior and his primary roles are that of a tank and the character containing most of the farm affixes. He has arcanist and ascendent setup. When all his equipment is of ice element, he can weaken the mobs but I cannot see any debuff characteristic on the stats page. When I change his equipment to arcane type, whenever he weakens the mobs, I can see the stats page reflect the change in his attack dps, increased many times the original.
My wizard is used as the dps but he currently does not have arcanist annd ascendent setup. Whether his equipment is of ice or arcane build, I do not see any increase in his skills dps, This is why it leads me to believe the following (which I am still trying to confirm):
The warrior can set arcane debuffs via weakening the mobs but the debuffs cannot be made used by the dps hireling.
it appears that only arcane equipment can change the attack dps information on the stats page, which leads me to think that only arcane weapons can be used.
Can you kindly check whether your dps has changed a few times on the stats page after weakening the mobs ? I am assuming you are using the ice build for your wizard. If you do not see any change in stats, you can try to amend to arcane build and see if you see the change on the stats page.
not all changes on Equipment will show on the Stat Page, but show up when attacking monsters. have you checked to see if the DMG you are doing is the same whether your items are Ice or Arcane?
just did a little Searching. @CuzegSpiked mentions placing Ascendant on his Main & Arcanist on the Hireling. I think this set up would allow both Characters to do the extra DMG, or at least your DPS Hireling. and Weaken on both Characters, just to be safe.
I have also wondered about whether I have to have Arcane Weapons to make use of those 2 Sets. but I am pretty sure I have seen the Debuff no matter which Element my Weapon was. I just haven’t really considered if it shows on the Stat Page, and if there is a difference between the Stat Page and being in the Campaign Map doing actual DMG.
I did further testing yesterday and this is my finding:
I created a new arcanist + ascendent set for my dps hireling, so both the warrior main and the dps hireling have the arcanist + ascendent setup. Both have the weaken skill which is a requirement for arcanist.
When I use ice build for both of them, the arcane debuffs are still applied to the mobs but there is no dps increase on the stats page for both of them.
When I use ice build on one one of them and arcane build on the other, I can see the dps increase only on the one with the arcane build. This means the one with the ice build cannot benefit from the dps increase.
When I use arcane build on both of them, the dps increase is shown on both of the toons. If I make any one of them stop attacking, you can still see the dps increase on the stats page of both toons, implying the arcane debuffs stack.
In version 3 of the game, we get a dps boost of ED% as compared with total damage % in patches before version 3. So it is understandable that in pre version 3 of the game, toons with builds other than arcane can make use of the total damage %. However in patch 3 onwards, due to the change to ED%, only arcane weapons can utilise the arcane debuffs for damage output. It is probably the intention of the game developers to allow only arcane builds to utilise the arcanist set. Ice build has frozen set, fire build has immolation etc.
So the above leads me to believe that arcane weapons are needed to make use of the new arcanist + ascendent set.
Sorry for the long winded message,
If you or anyone has any other finding please let us know.
Thank you.
nice @TheHammer . you can still use Frostbiting with Arcanist & Ascendant, you just have to have the Weapons Arcane. any of the Ice attacks from the Prismatic that cause Freeze will allow you have the Arcane Debuff and Frostbiting at the same time. of course, you would need a non weapon item with Ice Element to have Frostbiting, just no Ice%, Ice+, or Freeze, since these require the weapon to be Ice also.