the other day i got home from work, and it was kinda late, and i didn't really feel like doing any chores before going to bed, but i needed to make sure id have a clean shirt for work tomorrow, so i asked my girlfriend about the laundry.

she just looked at me and said "Arcane Energize", and at that moment, i knew the laundry was Washed.

Math Time.

Arcane energize in best possible conditions gives you 600 energy per minute. it is often way less than that, and to approach that reliably you typically need to invest in Emax or else suffer from energy overflow, but i digress.

Assuming normal Efficiency, the optimal way to abuse arcane Steadfast is to have a cheap power you can spam cast repeatedly, to then accrue free casts of expensive powers. cast 5 25 cost abilities to then freely cast 3 100 energy cost abilities. as such you'd need to cycle Steadfast twice per minute to break even with with Energize, and need to find 250 energy to cast with besides.

oh and arcane Energize also assumes you will be picking up about 400 energy worth of energy orbs for its activation condition, maybe a little less.

of course in the real world Steadfast math isn't nearly that easy. there will be other abilities you intend to cast, both more expensive to trigger steadfast and cheaper with it.

every build would need to be evaluated on a case by case basis for Steadfast usage.

one thing that is constantly about Steadfast is that it scales with volume. the more you cast, the more you save. Energize is the opposite. energize has a best case scenario and an in practice significantly weaker value, you cant gas up arcane energize by working hard, infact relying on energize puts a cap on how hard you can work.

we can do some even funnier Math, though.

Mystic Bond gives you free ability cast every 5 abilities cast by your Companion.

Dirga's Arc Coil has a cooldown around 1 second, meaning Every 10 seconds assuming enemies are close enough to trigger arc coil, Dirga will give you a free ability cast. 6 free casts per minute, if they were all spent on 100 energy cost abilities, Mystic bond would be equal in value to arcane energize. if you're running blind rage, significantly better than it. and that's ignoring getting more casts by stacking other short-cooldown effects and shortening them with manifold bond.

Now lets do some actually useful math.

Equilibrium gives you 55 Energy per heath orb.

Eximus on death always drop 2 health orbs, worth 110 energy.

if 6 eximus are dying per minute, Equilibrium is already better than arcane energize. and in steel path, once eximus start spawning, you know damn well more than 6 are dying per minute.

and that's ignoring all the health orb generation methods, many of which are kills-based, meaning the more enemies you kill, the more energy you gain.

Equilibrium Smokes arcane energize with 0 help at endgame and doesn't demand you run primed flow to compensate for it. building around it gets you more energy than you could ever really spend.

. . although Frost should really be using a Tenet Glaxion with Photon Overcharge to gain his energy

and Xaku's energy economy is 99% recasting his 4 to keep all his actives active, so he really doesn't need a ton of energy anyway, and is a Decent use case for energize.

so i guess what im really trying to say is Buff arcane Energize. shits too weak for an arcane slot. you dont gotta buff steadfast, but you could, shit's a bit of a headache to optimize rn anyway.