Lightning Alchemist - viable? Effective?

[Seydlitz]

I've seen builds for fire, acid, poison, but not so much for using electric power. I'm tempted to try this because I have picked up some decent gear. Anyone have any experience with this? Thoughts, etc. welcome!

[cru121]

Sure, go for it. Particularly tasty with color spray SLA from Gnome or Feydark Illusionist. Electric immune mobs are a pain in the ass though, better group up for those. I find the runearm-blast-to-strip-immunity mechanic very clunky. Go force secondary with Tactical Detonation and now Arcane Tempest. You can also pick up force SLAs for Feydark Illusionist. Consider also going Feydark primary.


EDIT: Never mind, reading is hard.

[Hobgoblin]

Sure, go for it. Particularly tasty with color spray SLA from Gnome or Feydark Illusionist. Electric immune mobs are a pain in the ass though, better group up for those. I find the runearm-blast-to-strip-immunity mechanic very clunky. Go force secondary with Tactical Detonation and now Arcane Tempest. You can also pick up force SLAs for Feydark Illusionist. Consider also going Feydark primary.

you may want to reread the title.....


just sayin


alchemist not artificer

[DrawingGuy]

In all honesty you'll be fine since outside high reaper raiding, you don't have to run a perfect meta build to be viable. Though I would put it near the bottom. My own personal ranks of elemental types for Alchemist:

1) Cold. Shiradi is an extremely powerful destiny, and cold plays into Stay Frosty. Multiple destinies also play nice with Cold, be it Primal's Thundersnow for more AOE DPS (though this works for electric too), or Eclipse for single target DPS. Fair amount of overlap with classes in both Druid (which Druid casters are now more viable with the U51 changes, so expect to see more of them) and Necromancers means more people benefiting from or helping strip immunities as well as good itemization due to more options. Burst of Glacial Wrath also no longer sucks due to the immunity issues being fixed.

2) Fire. Even with the loss of Empyrean, Fire is still one of the best options. EA is a very nice destiny to work with this element, it still has the most class overlap for party play and itemization, and the most immunity strip sources. Cindersmoke is a very nice spell for both damage and your rare ranged AOE CC with flashbang, so maxing it is always nice.

3) Poison. The contamination mechanic gives early immunity strips and more sources. Poison also got a fair bit of love with the U51 update. Scion of Earth is one of the best legendary feats for Alchemist due to Conjuration + Transmutation + PRR, and it got poison along with the DPS boost only Scion of Fire used to enjoy. Poison has also been introduced into multiple EDs putting it on even footing with Acid in that regard. However as Shuri throwers are still relatively popular and they can stack poison vuln, this still puts it cleanly above Acid and Electric. That, and Stygian's Wrath as well as Dreadkeeper's for extra crit sources.

4) Electric. While Electric doesn't have a stand out advantage, I still place it above acid due to better ED spells like Thundersnow. Cold and Electric are also common itemization combos, so you could still make Electric one of your main focuses. However stripping Cold immunity for Stay Frosty procs is simply better than stripping for electric.

5) Acid. Due to the DC advantages Acid had with Conjuration being removed with U51 and Poison being included in Draconic, I see little reason to pick Acid over the other elements. The others have better spell and ED options for DPS, and Poison has the same ED options along with having better synergies and itemization. Energy Criticals is not enough to counter those advantages, simply making it worse than Poison in almost every way now.

[Agr33n3]

In all honesty you'll be fine since outside high reaper raiding, you don't have to run a perfect meta build to be viable. Though I would put it near the bottom.

This layout is awesome! I agree with all of what you said for AFTER 12, though 1-11 is a different story.

From 1-11, Acid is by far the most useful spell type. There are minimal enemies you will encounter at low levels with acid resistances (kobolds, undead, ogres, oozes, etc.). Some oozes are immune to acid, but not to negative. For this we go to Apothecary. Alternatively, you can shove racial AP and other AP into tiefling for the fire stripping, but I would argue Apothecary has a better clearing ability in early levels.

From 6-11, the Inflict Serious SLA from core 3 can give some substancial dps. Throw maximize on here and it hits like a truck, easily clearing a pack in a single 4-SP cast. The only downside is it cannot be quickened and has a long casting animation like most Pot-throwing animation healing from Alchemists and Artificers.

[DrawingGuy]

This layout is awesome! I agree with all of what you said for AFTER 12, though 1-11 is a different story.

From 1-11, Acid is by far the most useful spell type. There are minimal enemies you will encounter at low levels with acid resistances (kobolds, undead, ogres, oozes, etc.). Some oozes are immune to acid, but not to negative. For this we go to Apothecary. Alternatively, you can shove racial AP and other AP into tiefling for the fire stripping, but I would argue Apothecary has a better clearing ability in early levels.

From 6-11, the Inflict Serious SLA from core 3 can give some substancial dps. Throw maximize on here and it hits like a truck, easily clearing a pack in a single 4-SP cast. The only downside is it cannot be quickened and has a long casting animation like most Pot-throwing animation healing from Alchemists and Artificers.

I wasn't really talking about leveling. Snagging Maximize and Empower first thing to roll with Apothecary SLAs is very strong, and can easily carry you to 11 just needing the rare elemental cast for things immune to negative or positive damage. Only the slow clunky cast animations stops Alch from beating out FVS and Sorcs for the ease and speed of the low level casting. From 12-20 you can throw spaghetti at the wall and do whatever - just use what you have the best gear for. It's not until Epics that your destinies, end game gear, end game quests/raids, and party start defining the best elements.

Even since I last made that post there are additional considerations:

- Legendary Red Dragon armor is a powerful proc that most meta end game non-casters now use. Being Fire spec and stripping fire immunity is a considerable group DPS increase against fire-immune targets. Add in wanting to splash Exalted Angel for Sanctified Vial and the synergy there, and you have a spec that many want in raids like , the THTH or VOD.
- People have discovered how awesome Fatesinger tree is, containing stats, DCs, free metas, the party buff of Tide Turns and the trash delete button of Cut the Strings. As this tree is agnostic of your elemental choices, a Draconic/Spellsinger split is essentially as strong in any element.

So while my order doesn't really change, the elemental specs are closer than I initially thought. I'd probably place two tiers - Fire and Ice as best with all the other options as second best. And really being how you want to build being your choice. How you choose and split between Shiradi, Draconic, Magus, Spellsinger, and Primal I don't think is as clear anymore. The difficulties you play at, the quests/raids you do most often, your party makeup, your amount of past lives, etc are all variables that actually change what I would think is best ED splits. That also could change the best element for you. Does go to show why I like the ED pass. The three tree concept has allowed us to customize trees to make many previously poor performing options to actually work, and while it hasn't quite shaken the meta, it certainly has opened it up a bit.