How does projectile behavior works?

Hi there! I'm kinda confused about how this works. From what i know, only one projectile behavior can be applied when hitting a target, and the 5 different behaviors have priorities upon one another. But i heard that when you pierce an enemy, which would be 2nd priority, it cancels out all following (fork, chain and return) behaviors. Is this true? If so, is it worth it to combine multiple projectile behaviors on a build? (like pierce + chain for example. would it improve clear speed?)

I've been trying to test this on a deadeye ice shot character, with vengeant cascade, but haven't been able to reach a conclusion yet.

Could someone with more knowledge about this clarify this topic? Thank you!
Last edited by leonores on Jun 15, 2023, 3:30:04 PM
Last bumped on Jun 24, 2023, 10:52:39 AM
It all can combine yes. Like if you have 2 pierce, 1 chain, the projectile will pierce the first 2 targets it hits, and then chain when hitting the third one. Unless you have special modifiers that don’t allow behavior, look at snakepit for example. Yes, it will improve clear speed, but the magnitude of improvement is not an easy topic to cover. To behave the projectile needs to hit the target, chain is probably most powerful but hard to get, pierce is easier to get but don’t have homing potential. Depending on the skill and how enemies are positioned, 1 chain can out perform 1 pierce + 1 chain just because pierce doesn’t change direction and you could not get a second hit to actually chain off. Some skills benefit less from behavior like ice shot does aoe, this aoe potentially kills targets behind the first one so it cannot chain form anything as well. And then there’s projectile count which will change you arc coverage, which also can change stuff. I’d say just don’t think too much about it. If you have a good clear — just leave it be. If you want to improve it, try what you can and see what feels better.
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Arykst wrote:
It all can combine yes. Like if you have 2 pierce, 1 chain, the projectile will pierce the first 2 targets it hits, and then chain when hitting the third one. Unless you have special modifiers that don’t allow behavior, look at snakepit for example. Yes, it will improve clear speed, but the magnitude of improvement is not an easy topic to cover. To behave the projectile needs to hit the target, chain is probably most powerful but hard to get, pierce is easier to get but don’t have homing potential. Depending on the skill and how enemies are positioned, 1 chain can out perform 1 pierce + 1 chain just because pierce doesn’t change direction and you could not get a second hit to actually chain off. Some skills benefit less from behavior like ice shot does aoe, this aoe potentially kills targets behind the first one so it cannot chain form anything as well. And then there’s projectile count which will change you arc coverage, which also can change stuff. I’d say just don’t think too much about it. If you have a good clear — just leave it be. If you want to improve it, try what you can and see what feels better.


Thank you very much for your response! I will try a few more things and call it a day. Thanks again.
a) use vengeant cascade and have at least 1 pierce (more is better)
b) chain is optional
c) fork is pretty bad w. vengeant cascade as you won't get the hit on the way back through
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sawseech wrote:
a) use vengeant cascade and have at least 1 pierce (more is better)
b) chain is optional
c) fork is pretty bad w. vengeant cascade as you won't get the hit on the way back through


I don't think that's true at all. From what i've tested, chain is superb for clearing speed, and by combining it with awakened fork support gem, the clearing speed gets absurdly good. You don't need pierce for clearing (actually, if you're using chain/fork, more than 1 pierce can really hurt it, because if you pierce a lot of enemies, there may not be remaining enemies for your projectiles to chain/fork from), as vengeant cascade will still return after all the forks and chains have been exhausted. You need at least 1 pierce for single target, that's true, since you need the projectiles to bypass the monster, get behind it, and then return (but if you're using sniper's mark, then you could get away without any pierce at all, provided you're close to the boss/rare monster, so that the split arrows can hit it consistently upon returning). For monster packs, you don't need that, since the fork/chain will already spread the arrows and get it to a point where, by returning, all enemies will get hit again.
Last edited by leonores on Jun 24, 2023, 10:57:35 AM

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