{
"post": {
"title": "Archmage is a Buff Skill in Path of Exile 2 that reserves Spirit to increase your damage based on your Maximum Mana. Use it with Ball Lightning and the support gem Wildshards for some shockingly potent clear! Need even more damage? Use Sigil of Power for synergy with Archmage!",
"selftext": "",
"url": "https://youtu.be/LTHoIQyrgQA"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "PLUS FIVE TO ALL LIGHTNING SKILL GEMS???",
"replies": [
{
"body": "While its hype, skills are probably now balanced in getting more +skill level. So not as insane if it was POE 1.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "in D2 it was not uncommon to have +16 to x skills, and it feels good, so my guess is that they went more for that approach in poe2. and then balanced it around that fact. \n\ngoing to feel hype as fuck when you get an item like that"
}
]
},
{
"body": "They've mentioned that +gem levels roll higher values now, so as to make weapons more important to caster.\n\nI think the idea is to remove some/all of the disparity between attack/spells dependency on gear.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Still, not really a fan of +levels being the baseline for increasing damage as a caster. Melee weapons can have an assortment of certain kinds of rolls, and get similar effects (attack speed, phys rolls, elemental rolls), but for casters it’s generally just “get +levels wherever you can, maybe get spell damage and cast speed but not super necessary”.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "The main issue IMO is that it isn't clear for new players just how impactful +levels is. Hopefully they signal that better this time around."
},
{
"body": "It's a consistent way to get flat damage. It's multiplicative with any % increased dmg. Literally how is that a bad thing?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Because it's too easy to get? That's the entire point of me saying that. You basically aim for one single affix as a caster and that's all you need. Variety would be nice is what I'm saying.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "There are many other ways to scale spells in addition to flat damage (and spell level as a subset of that). You have to close your eyes and play upside down to think that's the only way. IF you are wanting to stack added damage then in addition to affixes doing just that you can get spell level. Most builds use crit stats, aoe size, cast speed, projectile speed, +projectiles and many other stats to make their spells better. Or you can scale casting with ailment mods, % of dmg gained as, conversion and that's still not close to it.\n\nThen you need mana. Wdym there's only one casting stat? If you singularly care about max, single hit damage, then sure. But you're choosing to scale your build with a single stat and you're creating your own problem. But many of the above stats still scale max hit. And people easily got 800%+ increased damage in PoE1. You could spend a whole tree doing that and flat damage was usually secondary."
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Spell skill gems."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Wow, level 20 sigil of power requires level 90. Looks like there will be decent jumps between lvl requirements of gems.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That's the level requirement of the item that grants the skill, so it probably inherits that.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Ball lightning is level 11 which requires level 41, while Archeage is level 14 which requires level 58.\nI can see how 6 more levels on a gem can get the level requirement to 90. This does make it where you'll be more inclined to level other gems too though.\nYou are right about the item granting the skill though, guess I glanced over that.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Could also just be that the max tier uncut gem that can make a lvl20 gem only starts dropping at the max level zones where you usually are somewhere around lvl80 to 90 by the time you reach them (at least in poe1)"
},
{
"body": "I think it's very unlikely the skills will require that high levels, it doesn't serve any purpose.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It does actually serve a handful of purposes. Remember that gems don’t level with XP anymore. Instead, you need to find an uncut gem of the level you want. So, in order to get a lvl 20 gem, you need to find a lvl 20 gem. Changing up the level progression of gems up to lvl 90 for 20 means that the hunt for lvl 20 gems actually happens at high tier maps.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Why would the level requirement of the gem be 90 though? If you want it to be a late game grind, fine - but that doesn't require the level requirement to be super high. It on its own doesn't serve a purpose beyond limiting the power you can get from trading early.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It’s also a way to further incentivise leveling up. It also means that you can put more substantial jumps of power between gem levels. It might also have something to do with how it interacts with “+ to level of gems”.\n\nAlso, it kind of just makes sense, you know? Like, this is the max level it can have. Why should you have access to it at lvl 70?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Why should you have access to Headhunter at 40?\n\nThere's no good reason to change it. If it became an endgame grind with significant power, buying a gem would be expensive anyway so you wouldn't have it at 70. The only thing it would do is limit your options.\n\nLevels are already significant power. Making level requirements of something as central as skill gems go up to 90 is a very Diablo 4 decision (max level is all that matters) and I doubt they're going down that road.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That’s some wild hyperbole lol"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": ">It on its own doesn't serve a purpose beyond limiting the power you can get from trading early.\n\nIs that a bad thing?\n\nOne of the issues that some ARPGs have, and that they tried but somewhat failed to avoid in PoE1, is the issue where it's so much easier to get power from trading than finding stuff yourself that actually finding gear that's an upgrade over what you could easily buy from other players is rare, which makes the loot you find less satisfying. Level requirements preventing you from buying stuff that you're not far enough to farm for yourself yet is one way to do that.\n\nIt's also just a way to make level matter more. In Path of Exile 1, your level ends up not being hugely important in endgame compared to your gear since you can use nearly any item you need by around level 70-80. Making items with higher level requirements in turn makes your level matter more. The difference in power between level 89 and 90 in PoE1 is tiny unless the one skill point happens to get you a key notable or something in your build In PoE2, it looks like 90 will be a meaningful power spike because it lets you use level 20 gems. That might make leveling in endgame more fun and satisfying."
},
{
"body": "Most people won't be in \"late game grind\" before level 90+ anyway. Not sure what the issue is here.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "This is not PoE1, so we don't know that.\n\nThis is a potential change (not confirmed) that literally would do nothing but limit your options of gaining power until almost max level. It makes no sense.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "How does it make no sense? To me, it honestly makes a lot of sense.\n\n90 is barely \"almost max level\" in the context of XP though, at least in PoE1. Pretty sure it's not even halfway to 100 in PoE1. We have no idea how true this is, but I'd imagine it's going to be fairly similar in PoE2 and we have nothing that says otherwise. It's also typically around the time you'd have a level 20 gem in PoE1. I don't see how this is any different. People didn't have level 20 gems at level 70 most times anyway. Having more items be at higher levels actually makes it so you continue to gain power at higher levels from easily obtainable things instead of big purchases/gear upgrades, which is nice imo.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It being an endgame grind does not necessitate it having a super high level requirement. Currently skill gems have a max level requirement of roughly 70, at which point gems are like level 16 naturally.\n\nThe only thing this accomplishes is making trading less valuable. Any other effect it has is literally objectively negative, such as sharing gems between characters being harder. It makes no sense.\n\nHeadhunter has a level requirement of 40.\n\nPushing level requirements up is a very Diablo 4 decision, because it's easier to balance. This game is too smart for that.",
"replies": [
{}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Which is good. Means you spend more time playing and less time trying to be Leonardo DiCaprio (children not included)",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I understand people are just trying to defend a change GGG might not have even made in this thread, it's fine. We'll see come release."
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "You can see in the teaser it shows in the gem description Level 20 (max) Requires level 90, 205 int."
}
]
},
{
"body": "[deleted]",
"replies": [
{
"body": "agreed",
"replies": [
{
"body": "[deleted]",
"replies": [
{
"body": "its all good. downvotes mean nothing and they didnt care enough to argue another point so its a wash. everyone is entitled to their opinions"
},
{
"body": "[removed]",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Your post dismissed an opinion off-hand in a way that often causes anger and flame wars. Because of that, we removed it for breaking our Be Kind Rule (Rule 3b).\n\nYou may be able to repost your opinion if you rephrase it in a way that's more constructive! If you disagree with other ideas or don't care, explain why in a less inflammatory way and avoid attacking the person.\n\nIf you see other posts that break the rules, please don't reply to them. Instead, report them so we can deal with them!\n\nFor more details, please refer to our [rules wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/wiki/rules/#wiki_3b._be_kind_rule)."
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Sorc looks really fun. I'm mainly worried about defenses when considering playing it, should be fun to figure out though",
"replies": [
{
"body": "We don't know all of the ascendancy nodes so they might've put some defences there, and if there aren't we will just have to git gud and dodge roll the mechanic lol\n\nI'm also thinking of starting sorc for the versatility so I can try a lot of skills sounds like a fun way to explore the new systems too with lots of proj and AOE combo possibilities"
},
{
"body": "Speaking of defenses though, this seems perfect for a mana stacker with Monk going for the dual mana/ES leech though. Could be similar to PoE1 ES stackers with getting a free defensive/offensive layer through a single focus."
},
{
"body": "u have MOM and ur a mana stacker thats all the defense u need, ur essentially scaling ur offense with ur defense, i mean if ur an archmage build that is",
"replies": [
{
"body": "With 50% less mana regen on MoM and only 1 mana flask it could be hard to regen mana to both protect you from damage and cast spells",
"replies": [
{
"body": "MoM CI EB, ez",
"replies": [
{
"body": "This is my plan for monk."
},
{
"body": "I really wonder is there any source of spirit beside minion weapons? Probably 60 from the camp.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I to wonder about this. Hope I can get enough spirit to finish of the build as cast on crit archmage to use attacks for leech. It's a stretch on many though. To many problems to solve for a stacker. Give me into based accuracy or hits can't be evaded and maybe... Just maybe"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Isn't EB not part of game when starting out in EA?"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Mana leech could be back."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "This looks like it interferes with visibility of boss ground effects A LOT."
},
{
"body": "Yeah we’ve all had that run through playing elementalist in PoE1 and just getting absolutely stomped, hopefully they learned how to make a sorc archetype work in PoE2"
},
{
"body": "Sorc playstyle is meant to be a glass cannon, but there will be ways to increase your defenses at the cost of lower damage. Will be fun to find your own balance for your playstyle. Looking forward to playing Sorc!"
},
{
"body": "Add me, I'll bodyguard you with the Templar and shield"
},
{
"body": "Oh just use arctic armor for defenses, it reduces incomi- oh wait :)"
}
]
},
{
"body": "I know it's sorc here, but hear me out\n\nChayula monk Archmage instead. You get instant mana leech, which synergises with Mind Over Matter, which you're going to take if you're a mana stacker. That plus energy shield stacking means you're probably safe to go low-life, which means you can get pain attunement for 30% crit damage.\n\nAnd since you're reserving life anyway, you can get darkness for another defensive layer. If the last Darkness passive doesn't have anything to do with chaos, it could be worth taking. And if Darkness does suck, you get extra persistents if you're reserving spirit and life.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I highly, highly doubt there are going to be readily available sources of mana leech for spells, if any at all",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Hybrid attack+spellcaster might be a thing to enable leech since dual spec is a big deal.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'm not sure like ~20 points is going to be enough be able to switch from casting to attacking, and leech in PoE2 looks like it is going to take a lot of investment to feel good.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You could do full lightning attacking and casting with the damage nodes being part of the shared tree, probably would be well supported between Monk and Sorceress areas. And those 20 can go into utility like leech with maybe some going into spell/attack split as well. \n\n\nThis is of course all guesswork since we don't know full tree. ",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Or Mjölner. Mjölner can solve most of the problems."
},
{
"body": "Right, the idea is that the atack is only for leach, not damage. So outside of elemental damage that you were going to get anyway, you fully speck into leach",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Well if there is mana leech from non-physical attacks then your attacks can likely be a non-trivial portion of your overall damage. And they probably need to be in PoE2 to scale leech. I would bet they'll make it so you're not getting any significant leech in PoE2 without damage, but we'll need to see how many leech scaling nodes are available. So the idea could be scaling attacks for damage, and then getting triggered spells for extra damage."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "You just go for elemental nodes instead of attack or spell-specific nodes."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "mana leech support is likely, or there'd be no need to specify that it's instant in the monk case (differentiator). Of course, that's 1 support gem for your build and they might have left it attack only. Time will tell.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Mana Leech Support is physical attack damage only.\n\n>or there'd be no need to specify that it's instant in the monk case\n\nWhat does this even mean? Mana Leech is inherently over time, regardless of it being from a gem or gear or the passive tree.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Not on the new monk ascendancy. \n\n[https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1h0o1h5/question\\_on\\_mana\\_leech/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1h0o1h5/question_on_mana_leech/)\n\n\"I see that Chayula has instant mana leech\"\n\n> \nMana Leech Support is physical attack damage only.\n\nI haven't seen the POE2 version. If you say so."
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Darkness removes your Spirit.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "That's why I said you're reserving life. If Darkness sucks, don't take it and use your spirit too for even more auras",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You have to take darkness."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Darkness replaces spirit. You may not be able to reserve anything at all.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "They've shown reserved life in gameplay, so it's presumably possible to reserve life for persistents.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It's entirely possible there's just a set of buffs that reserve life only, and not spirit."
},
{
"body": "In which gameplay footage was it visible?"
}
]
},
{
"body": "But you can skip the darkness node right? Just go all in the conversion stuff",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Doesn't look like you can. Seems to be a forced node.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It is a branching node going down from the start. It would only be required to get Grasp of the Void (chaos damage based on unreserved darkness) and one other node we do not know the name/effect of yet. No ascendency has a required node to start with."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "My guess they will work on reserving darkness for stronger buffs but time limited (for those who enjoy potion rotation in PoE1.) Kinda like blessing since they havent shown all of each tree."
}
]
},
{
"body": "did they confirm u can reserve life? I also wanna MoM mana stack on chayula monk, but darkness replaces your spirit, and it doesn't seem like you can use darkness instead of spirit for reservation, so I'm at a bit of a dead end with that."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Archmage's flat lightning damage changed to percent added. Seems like quite a few examples of this kind of thing, maybe to solve damage effectiveness balance problems?"
},
{
"body": "Archmage as a spirit reserve will be interesting\n\noccurs to me you'll be able to have it only active on one weapon set if you wanna avoid the mana tax on utility skills",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Reserves 100 spirit, and cast on X supports also reserve 100 spirit. Hopefully you can get 200~ spirit from the campaign plus passive tree, otherwise my plan for Sorc won't work.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I remember seeing a rune that could give +15 spirit too, so hopefully it's achievable"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Am I the only one who seems sceptical to see a 20% proc tooltip and then gameplay that shows 5 or 6 procs within 8-10 casts (guesstimated because individual casts aren't fully identifiable)?\n\nTo me this has \"Crackling Lance showcased with Inpulsa's Broken Heart\" vibes.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I counted 4 procs in 13 total casts, which is higher than average, but not wholly outside the realm of possibility. It might be 5 in 14 because at one point it either echoes or gets triggered somehow, and in that case it isn't known if the echo remembers the proc from the original cast.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I'm rewatching it with 0.25 speed, and it seems that the projectiles are not released entirely simultaneously, which results in two projectiles from the same cast appearing to be two sets of circle projectiles.\n\nIn other cases there are clearly over 15 projectiles which means two procs in a row. But it's *possible* that they were caused by whatever the Spell Echo or Unleash equivalent is (I don't remember the new mechanics for Spell Echo that they showcased).\n\nAnd there are some casts without procs before and after the series of high procs, but there are still a bunch in a row that would suggest a much higher chance or simply cherry-picking footage with a high number of consecutive procs. \n\nNow, I don't want to argue in bad faith and I won't accuse GGG of deliberately misleading players with this. I'd just guess that someone thought \"this portion really shows what this support gem does well, so let's use it\". However that doesn't mean that it'll work out that way in practice, and players should at least be *cautious* with their approach and not blindly trust that this gameplay demo is the kind they'll realistically see on their characters."
}
]
},
{
"body": "just be more lucky lmao"
},
{
"body": "Nothing stopping you from playing crack lance with Inpulsa! If there's some trickery going on I'm fine with it as long as it's something you can reasonably do in game"
},
{
"body": "Is crackling lance in PoE2? Didn’t know if we have a list yet of lightning spells that will be in the game",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I don't know, I'm referring to the initial reveal for PoE1. \n\nThey showcased it with a character that had Inpulsa's Broken Heart equipped, which made the clear seem much better than it was in practice. There was a significant negative reaction to that after it was revealed."
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "you can show me anything PoE2 related at this point, and I'll still be in that Pablo Escobar meme."
},
{
"body": "I keep getting pushed further and further towards a Spark starter and Wildshards just adds more to it. Hopefully there is a way to scale the duration up enough to where it feels good to clear with. A lot of the boss arenas seem to be on the smaller side so I think it could really thrive",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Was thinking the same, arenas are mostly small and spark loves it. Well, in poe 1 at least."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Maybe Cast on Shock - Lightning Conduit for single target.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I had the same idea, but Cast on Shock reserves 100 spirit, meaning for archmage and cast on shock you would need minimum 200 spirit."
}
]
},
{
"body": "This looks extremely good; time will tell how big a cost 100 spirit is (it's all of your baseline reservation but can you get a herald in there as well somehow? and would you want to?)\n\nMana sustain may be a real issue though",
"replies": [
{
"body": "You get 30 flat spirit from a boss in act 1, so assuming you get a few more throughout the campaign + gear + passive tree support you should be able to comfortably fit it in. We've seen sceptres with around 200 flat spirit which is kind of nuts but they're mostly minion statsticks.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Come to think of it - do we even have 100 baseline spirit or am I just remembering out of date 2019 Exilecon info there?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Don't think they've actually said how much we get total, all they showed recently was 30 from A1.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Still 30 by the end of act 2 unless they've changed something, so yeah we really have no idea what the baseline is after campaign lol",
"replies": [
{
"body": "There are spirit rewards in each act, so if someone still had 30 at the end of act 2 then they skipped an optional boss"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "Jonathan said you start with 0 spirit now and get spirit gradually through the campaign by completing certain quests/killing bosses. I assume this means max spirit is 100 after getting all quests, then you can get more (up to 200) from scepters and even from a few other sources like the sockstable stones from ultimatum. So theoretically I think you could probably approach 400 spirit if you min maxed.\n\nYou’d have to sacrifice an offhand for a scepter though, which seems to roll mostly minion mods",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Oh, it's 0 baseline now? That's interesting. Makes me reassess Herald costs.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "They said the reason for staggering when you get spirit from quests instead of having 100 right away, is because they felt like new players were confused about what spirit was for, since you can’t use any skills that require it until a little later. (Mid act 1 I think?)"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "baseline 0"
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"body": "No more reserving mana for this mech feels so good now."
},
{
"body": "Nice, Archmage still looking fun."
},
{
"body": "I would love to see a skill in PoE 2 like \"Flare\" from the Black Mage class in Final Fantasy 14.\n\nIt would be like the Warrior's perfect strike channel, just longer and AOE"
},
{
"body": "Do we know what \"Gain 5% of Damage as Extra Lightning Damge\" does specifically? \n\nEssentially like 5% more damage in familiar PoE1 terms? In this case I would assume it works something like this:\n`x = x + 0.05* x = 1.05 * x`\n\nOr does it add flat damage equal to 5% of all damage?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Probably what the \"Gain 5% of X type damage as extra Y type damage\" but without the conversion wheel that was present in PoE to exclude infinite loops."
}
]
},
{
"body": "I need to stop coming to this sub. I need this game so bad and IRL isn't passing the time fast enough."
},
{
"body": "Definitely playing this. Until next teaser, then I'm gonna change my mind again."
},
{
"body": "The problem with PoE2 is there is a million cool things I want to try out, there isn't enough time even for this irredeemable degenerate to do them all."
},
{
"body": "Frankly this looks amazing, even if its rubbish damage wise, I'll be playing Archmage",
"replies": [
{
"body": "yep. i guess im a mage now"
}
]
},
{
"body": "Closest to a 1 button clear build I have seen in PoE2 so far."
},
{
"body": "5% of Damage as extra lightning.\n\nPreviously this wasn't possible in POE1, because of the existence of lightning->something else conversion.\n\nYou'd convert lightning to fire or something, then gain 5% of fire as lightning... which then gets converted to fire... infinite loop. To avoid that, \"%gain as extra\" mechanics were one-directional following the elemental priority flow (phys -> lightning -> cold -> fire -> chaos). \n\nYou could gain %lightning as fire, but because you can't convert fire to lightning, no loop.\n\n**This makes me think that damage conversion no longer exists**, which is a change with a lot of ramifications.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Many of the skills on poe2db have phys to ele conversions. Also Avatar of Fire is on there."
},
{
"body": "This was confirmed like a year ago, but not mentioned anymore anywhere since then."
}
]
},
{
"body": "POTENT? ABOBA"
},
{
"body": "Archmage seems powerful but 100 Spirit is alot of Reservation O\\_o"
}
]
}