alternate gem idea - Herald of thunder OF LIGHTNING STRINKING THE SAME PLACE ALOT (working title :D)

So, I like Herald of Thunder, almost every league i try to make an autobomber with it, I love working around the restrictions and quirks of making it a main damage skill.
However, there is a hugely annoying way Herald of thunder chooses targets. It seems to randomly pick anything in range that has not been hit yet and when not yet strong enough to one-shot trash regularly, it just does not function as a main skill.

I would really like there to be a version that picks a target and keeps hitting it until dead or the buff expires, still randomly, as that is some of the charm of it to me.

I also think it would be a fun alternative for the people who use it as a buff, as to randomly assign them a target to focus down early game.

Cant see it as a massive dev effort either, but that is ofcourse a naive view from the outside.

Thoughts from the 0.2% gang?

This actually already technically exists: Choir of the Storm amulet.

Throw that onto a high attack speed, high crit build and bam: herald of thunder that strikes the same target until dead.



I know it isn't exactly what you are asking for, but it technically functions the same as your idea.



But also.....you're a fan of HoT autobombers and you are complaining that it doesn't kill the trash mobs? What kind of autobomber are you creating? It takes very little investment to get HoT to deal enough damage to one shot white mobs pretty much through all of mapping....and then the entire point of the "autobomber" is that it....bombs everyone else, exploding the entire screen and pack. The window of time you describe on a HoT main build leaving trash around is practically non-existent.

There's also the fact that you can just use a different lightning skill that does target the same enemy or doesn't hit randomly. And basically create an autobomber around IT instead. Kinda the whole point of HoT is creating a thundercloud that hits everything.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

This actually already technically exists: Choir of the Storm amulet.

Throw that onto a high attack speed, high crit build and bam: herald of thunder that strikes the same target until dead.



I know it isn't exactly what you are asking for, but it technically functions the same as your idea.



But also.....you're a fan of HoT autobombers and you are complaining that it doesn't kill the trash mobs? What kind of autobomber are you creating? It takes very little investment to get HoT to deal enough damage to one shot white mobs pretty much through all of mapping....and then the entire point of the "autobomber" is that it....bombs everyone else, exploding the entire screen and pack. The window of time you describe on a HoT main build leaving trash around is practically non-existent.

It is not at all what I would like. the lightning bolt has a .5 sec cooldown and it is on a amulet, making it unsupoportable, resulting in simply a visual effect or a slight dps boost.

I've been running poison HoT recent leagues, even with hit based I get that problem earlier in progression. I really hate leveling with a skill that is not the late game skill.

Thanks for taking time to leave the feedback tho.

you reduce the cooldown of the lightning bolt to match your attack speed....and even unsupported it CAN deal oodles of damage. The level 30 version has about 5x the base damage of even a level 25+ HoT, which naturally gives it similar amount of damage as a supported HoT thunderbolt. With poison HoT autobomber you are already committing to a "meme" build....so why not try another?


Poison HoT autobomber.....seems to defeat the purpose of autobombing with HoT. But to each his own. To me, that's pretty much the least optimal way to create a build around HoT, which you KNOW targets enemies randomly and there is a pretty set maximum CD that limits poison stacks and damage "time".

To be clear: I do know that poison HoT autombombers exist. I also know that Choir autobombers exist. Additionally, BOTH are sub-optimal HoT autobombers overall, but I find waiting for and counting on poisons to be the greater of the two evils when it comes to a build specifically designed to be a fast glass cannon.


I just think, rather than asking for a completely new skill, you would do with utiilizing any number of other combos that already exist to get the "effect" you want. Why does it need to be HoT? Outside of this singular instance and build, would the gem you describe have any other usage that isn't already covered elsewhere?


Like.....just completely off the top of my head....a static or orbiting ball lightning poison build made to be an autobomber with cwc or cwdt or mjolnir or cocs would be more efficient at hitting single targets and stacking poisons. It would also free up ring slots.

Isn't figuring out these kinds of things one of the main draws of playing PoE over other games? That there are so many options to get exactly what you want, you just have to think outside the box.

I don't know why you consider poison HoT a meme build, but from what I've played it is the best performing one by far (might be I have only come across bad versions of the regular version) at endgame. The point of an autobomber for me is everything dying around me with minimal gameplay input.
I personally also like DoTs, the lifebars draining smoothly is somewhat satisfying to me, that is why for years my most go-to build is actually RF. But im kinda sick of RF now, so if you have a good build to share let me know.

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thekingreddragon#7456 wrote:

I don't know why you consider poison HoT a meme build, but from what I've played it is the best performing one by far (might be I have only come across bad versions of the regular version) at endgame. The point of an autobomber for me is everything dying around me with minimal gameplay input.
I personally also like DoTs, the lifebars draining smoothly is somewhat satisfying to me, that is why for years my most go-to build is actually RF. But im kinda sick of RF now, so if you have a good build to share let me know.

I believe we have very similar tastes in builds, which is why I jumped into this thread.

So the reason why I say poison HoT is a meme:

1) Autombomber: its right there in the name, the build is supposed to be a "bomber".....in that it explodes full screens of enemies. DoT, by its very design, is kind of the opposite of a bomber. RF is a pseudo-bomber, because its usually paired with some type of explosion effect. But in your build....there is no explosion, only proliferation.

2) The design is generally glass cannon, with few (if any, really) defenses. As such, DoT is almost never the go-to design because that allows for enemies to LIVE too long, and get off attacks to kill you.

3) You simply can't get high enough damage, and because of the exact reasons why you wrote this thread...the skill simply isn't designed efficiently for poison. Poison delivery is MUCH better on other builds: ball lightning, spiders, minions, HoA, poison-specific skills like the claw projectile ones. Basically....any skill where you can control who and what gets hit, and crank that speed up like crazy.

4) Without heavy investment, they aren't a "bossing" build...and really shouldn't be crafted as one.

5) There simply.....aren't players using a "poison HoT" build. That alone makes it "meme". It also illustrates many of the downsides of the build. Sure, it functions and is likely fun to play, even powerful to play. BUT.....compared to OTHER HoT auto bombers, it is deficient in many different ways.

6) Autobombers are meant to be uber uber uber fast. I'm concerned that a build such as yours is remarkably slow as an autobomber, especially once you start to tank up the enemies a bit with delirium and other things. It might still perform well, but not at TRUE speed.



Herald of Thunder builds are generally variant off of this basic setup:
https://poe.ninja/builds/mercenaries/character/Tbzshuzup-5538/Rita_Ore_Killer?i=10&search=skills%3DHerald%2Bof%2BThunder%26sort%3Ddps

Even lower budget versions of that build are cranking out 10x the damage YOUR HoT build does, without any wait period for the damage to take effect. And that "instant" damage makes up for the extra layers of defense you invested in. And there is basically no chance of anything like what you described in the first post with a build like this.

tl;dr I just thought the idea of the alternate targeting to be neat. Thought of it while running out of time in Incursions.

while it has been a few years since i played the traditional HoT autobombers, I always felt that they were a meme (the formula might have improved/I might have done it wrong). Only functional when everything was going right and falling over when a white mob farted in my general direction.

I feel like you are really splitting hairs here, it is a MEME autobomber because is it not hit based, damage propagation is not an "explosion" and does not die easily enough?

While the poison variant is not tanky by any definition, atleast it can take a hit or 2 from rares

while the DPS might be like 4m, I still just run through toxic sewers with 250%ms and then do the second lap to collect my loot, only stopping for mechanics.

For example one mechanic I like is Incursion and forcing all magic monsters there feels so nice, but early it is a pain to have 10 magic mobs at 20% hp each and run out of time, because of the targeting of the Herald of Thunder.

Of course since there are not many players playing HoT and even less are having the same frustration. I don't expect it to be added to solve my problem (it might even not do that). I think it is an interesting alternative that would in MY opinion feel quite different compared to the original (like having a death ray guide you or something).

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thekingreddragon#7456 wrote:

but early it is a pain to have 10 magic mobs at 20% hp each and run

Right...but that's not an issue with HoT targeting. It's an issue with the way you have built around HoT. That's kind of my point.

I get your reasoning for the suggestion, but specific targeting lightning skills already exist: HoT similarly exists to provide a DIFFERENT style of lightning play. If there are functional issues with the build, such as where you describe monsters "escaping" your ability to kill them....that isn't necessarily a signal that something is wrong with the skill but rather with the build not optimizing said skill.

Perhaps the "bomb" thing was splitting hairs, but the meaning was that a HoT autobomber is not meant to rely on targeting at all: it's meant to pop EVERYTHING no matter who or what the bolt hits. Poison, and DoT overall, simply doesn't do this. Poison requires multiple hits on the same target to actually achieve its proper dps.

HoT, as you describe, doesn't facilitate this behavior reliably. Which means that creating a poison HoT autobomber is already choosing to put yourself at that particular disadvantage. When you could have chosen a more appropriate skill, which do exist (namely: ball lightning and variants, spark, etc.)


I also think you'd find that a HoT autobomber in which the thunder only hits a single enemy until it dies is going to likely perform far worse than even your current autobomber does. The lightning would have to strike WAY faster for it to "feel" smooth.