Wizard, arcanist - "A Step Above Mastery" and "Arcane presence" doing half of their job

bifflinculte

The "A Step Above Mastery" feat allows arcane mastery to stack up to 10 times as intended. But each stack still grants a bonus of base 0.5%, instead of 0.5+1=1.5% as mentionned in tooltip. So, with 10 arcane stacks, damage buff is 5% instead of 15%. When Arcane Power Field is on (buff doubled), the gap is even higher, it's 10% instead of 30%.

This is very annoying because on paper A Step Above Mastery is the best feature of arcanist. So no wonder this paragon has much less dps than thaumaturge.

There is another issue with Arcane Presence passive spell. Tooltip says it buffs cold and lightning damage by 1% for each stack, but it's 0.5%. With A Step Above Mastery is on, the buff reaches 5% for 10 arcane mastery stacks.
That also means, that the "A Step Above Mastery" feat doesn't modifiy the buff of arcane presence as mentioned in the tooltip.

darthpotater

This explains lots of things. Thank you for the testing

bifflinculte

How I achieved the tests:
Preview server, test orb, no variable damage/power buff, dummy targets and tyranosaurus (chult)

1) magic missile hits, without arcane stacking -> damage = 100, 0% buff
2) magic missile hits, "a step above mastery" off, 5 arcane stacks -> damage = 102.5, 2.5% buff (=5x0.5%), works fine
3) magic missile hits, "a step above mastery" on, 10 arcane stacks -> damage = 105, 5% buff (=10x0.5%), should be 115, 15% buff (=10x(1+0.5)%)
4) magic missile hits, "a step above mastery" on, arcane power field, 10 arcane stacks, cast daily -> damage = 110, 10% buff (=2x10x0.5%), should be 130, 30% buff (=2x10x(1+0.5)%)

With arcane presence on:
1) ray of frost hits, no arcane stack -> damage = 100, 0% buff
2) ray of frost hits, "a step above mastery" off, 5 arcane stacks -> damage = 102.5, 2.5% buff (=5x0.5%), should be dam=105, 5% buff (=5x1%)
3) ray of frost hits, "a step above mastery" on, 10 arcane stacks -> damage = 105, 5% buff (=10x0.5%)
4) ray of frost hits, "a step above mastery" on, arcane power field, 10 arcane stacks, cast daily -> damage = 110, 10% buff (=2x10x0.5%)

This is true for non crit and crit hits. Results are the same with arcane encounters instead of magic missile and on live server (more difficult to test, regular weapons grant variable damage).

Arcanist has great potential, but feel like Baby Legs. Please give Baby Legs regular legs !

nitocris83

Being reported per another thread. Thanks for the additional info!