Elemental Hit

Currently trying to make it work as a low life based character with selfcasting.

Main problem I am encountering in my build is keeping up the buff of Laviangas because Arctic Armour simply doesnt drain enough. Shit skill already costs 140 mana in a 4Link and deals barely any damage.

Gotta say, they completely destroyed.

Something went wrong here, the dmg and manacost are just way off.
Example explosive arrow vs elemental hit:

lvl1:
22–34 // 16–29
28 22.5
that is: 19.6% less damage for 3 mana less

Explosive arrow has an extra AoE
Ele.Hit has the chance to also shock and freeze.

So far this seems ok. I am not taking into account Ele Equilibrium, though EH benefits form that, you have to give up other flat roll elemental rolls, which can boost your dps quite a bit.

EH old @lvl 12 for 19 mana: 97–181 // 80–148 // 16–297
EH new @lvl 15 for 28 mana: 97-180 // 79-147 // 16-296
EH old @lvl 15 for 21 mana: 129–240 // 106–197 // 21–395

Old vs new @ lvl15:
fire: 184.5 vs 138.5 :: ~25% less
cold: 151.5 vs 113 :: ~25% less
ligh: 208 vs 156 :: ~25% less

Or in other words the gem is nerfed 3 levels down and than still 9 mana more expensive. Or you can say it does 25% less damage (like having LMP on your single target) for 7 mana more.

lvl15:
293–440 // new:97–180 .. old:129–240 (note the wiki is not updated)
366.5 // new: 138.5 .. old:184.5
vs the old case you did: 50% less damage than explosive arrow.
vs the new case you do now: 62% less damage than explosive arrow.

Now the old idea probably assumed you do shock, but I think that is a fair trade off vs the AoE explosive arrow has. For further comparison we have to consider that with WED EH will scale better and EA works differently, this use to close the huge gap between the two skills.

If you than assume Ele.Equi. you have to also take into account that moltenshell can have flat elemental damage rolls on rings, while ele.equi. can't (no Eq.equi benefit else). It is also not a guaranteed 50% reduction with Elemental Hit (EH) since there is a chance of 2 or more successive hits with the same elements. This leads to an average reduction of 38% or so, if I recall correctly (have to look up the old calculations). I am not sure but I think Ele.Equi. coudl work with explosive arrow, if you add cold and/or lightning damage only, to the arrow, than the explosion which deals fire damage should find 50% less resistance. I haven;t tested this, but now that I think about it, this might be OP and fun :D
(I looked it up and it does work, this probably means goodbye to Elem.Hit for me.)

Now in the old case the trade-off made somewhat sense. Yes there is far less damage and aoe, but hey you can build around ele.equi. you can shock, burn and chill/ freeze, also the mana cost for explosive arrow at lvl 15: 32 mana was a fair bit more than EH. 28 vs 32... is less of an impact.

The last difference between the two is weapon elemental damage (WED), which does not boost explosive arrow (EA) damage. To be more exact:

Explosive arrow damage is each fuse. The rest of the damage is your normal attack (which is your bow + rings etc.). So the actual bit I am comparing does not benefit.

WED: new:54% :: old: 68% @ lvl15

EA vs EH +WED new case:
366.5 vs 213.29: ~42% less damage

EA vs EH +WED old case:
366.5 vs 309.96: ~15% less damage (seems more balanced, or slightly in favor of EH? It is now a comparison of 2socket vs 1socket).

So thanks to the WED nerf a 2 socket: EH + WED will do 42% less damage than explosive arrow. At a similar level in lategame. For a cost of only 4 more mana per attack. Between the old and new case of EH with WED you now do about 31%less damage. From OB to launch you got hit by 31%less damage, this is HUGE. INSANE and it currently shows in the game.
This is an insane nerf including the increased mana costs.

Only due to Chin Sol probably and other awkward combinations EH has been nerfed far too hard. (Chin sol benefits EH far more than EA since bow damage bonus, does not apply to EA charges).

To me it seems that either in the near future explosive arrow is nerfed, or EH is restored. I can't believe the skill gets hit due to chin soll cheesiness or the empower support gem (giving +gem lvl to EH). Thsi really puts the skill ina niche sector where it still can be used. I am less familiar with wanders, but I think they are on the not chin sol boat.

Would be nice if GGG could provide some insight into this. I suggest giving chin sol, point blank and than people have to choose long or close, since they would lose their long range damage. I can only imagine this being the culprit and/ or the empower gem (since elemental hit is literally nerfed down 3 levels, just ridiculous).

Don't know who said a 10% nerf, but currently it sits at 25% blank and 30% with WED, despite the mana cost nerf.

i'm doing a elemental hit in nemesis right now. i do no dmg in lv 32 docks with a lvl 37 elemental hit gem. and i have 48% wpn ele dmg from the tree supported by wpn ele dmg, and i have elemental equillibrium. this nerf is just disgusting

"

Ozgwald wrote:

I am less familiar with wanders, but I think they are on the not chin sol boat.

At this point it looks like it is exclusively a wand skill. An example of such a backbone.

In practice, such a backbone is dreadfully overextended. The points on Physical% are wasted points. A more practical kind of example character. 25% reduced reservation is possible, which would get you into the threshold needed for triple damage aura land. Leaving you with juuust enough mana left over to use Elemental Hit exactly zeroty times.

The advantage is the huge base crit they have. 10.4% versus 6.5% for bows with a decent local affix. This needs mentioning: a crummy 15% crit chance node for a wand is the equal of a ~24% crit chance node for a bow. (Ranger+Shadow bow crit could use a boost btw gods that be.) The 1.5 versus 1.55 attack speed isn't even worth mentioning compared to that.

While the +skill level affix on wands might boost the skill some, those three sockets make you give up a lot.. I suppose you could Empower+WeaponElementalDamage and call it a night...

Bleugh. At any rate, it puts my elemental hit ranger to shame now. Well, any character does really. Any one that can use their attack skill more than 0 times.

Yeah they royally screwed up here. I agree with the lack of crit for bows, I planned to build around Death's Harp and only over leveled I am able to do the damage I need, but the mana costs are crazy high atm.

The issue with bow crit nodes is that it doesn't benefit Explosive Arrow, which you are best of simply building around attack speed, and since I got a quill rain (where the 50% less weapon damage does not influence the charge damage), I would rather do that.

Empower just brings it almost back to the old level, the gem isn't readily available, you give up a socket. Also it just adds +2 to gem level, the damage dropped 3 levels. You can compare the current state vs Fireball and again laugh at the potential dps, especially since that can shotgun.

So I got the empower wrong in my previous post, things are actually even worse. Giving up a socket is very hard because to compensate death's harp and other bow low base crit chance you got to get increased critical strikes and power charge on crit. Both of these combined with the 100% crit multiplier are the biggest growth factors to dps for Death Harp. You can take global crit nodes for DH, which does benefit explosive arrow.

If I am shared with conduit 3 charges (bring me to 21%(aroudn 33 expected by lvl80) chance to crit, from a base of 5) I have what seems to be 2.5k dps single target. That is Ele.Hit + WED + Faster Attacks (and 4 frenzy charges). Which utterly drains my 65 mana regen per sec. Ideally I have: EH + FA + WED + ICS + PCoC, here the wander has access to generate power charges with a skill which means an extra socket to benefit the EH.

Changing bows, means I just have to go for the more conventional lightning arrow/ frenzy. The only better bow could be chin sol, for up close spanking, but also than I am better off with something else than EH apart from EA (the only one worse with chin sol).

I guess wanders are more suited, but I feel that even they suffer from 31% less, for them though cycling between Power Siphon and EH is about the only other interesting option available than doing just pure power siphon (which probably is better than combining it with EH now).

I just don't get the current nerf in all scenario's it seems extreme, unless I am underestimating the wanders too much. I would love to see a buff to the base crit of bows, I feel that around 6 (which is the base for EA charges) would be a nice thing to start building upwards, but 5 is really too low.

Not sure if I am respeccing or going to push the experiment forward. I am interested to see how much I can get out of this, but atm I can still easily change to EA, which I know will work out for me, the gear being already there too.

(I think I move onward, because I can grab the 35% chance to pierce node and with the extra arrow, that means the single target is pretty much a decent aoe attack. Than a a ranged attack totem with another Ele hit, or EA or Poi.Arr. could considerably boost the damage, sounds like an interesting trick to try out).

I can understand the damage nerf, although I do find it unnecessary. The mana cost change however destroyed it for most builds.

Really, the only overpowered build using elemental hit I ever saw was a Dual Totem Low Life build running shavrone and requiring gear in the 50+ exalted. Why was it necessary to destroy this skill for every other character in the game? If anything damage should have been nerfed furthar, but the mana cost decrased. How are supposed to pay for it? Atm is costs HUNDREDS of mana/sec at high level and 5/6L

so elemental hit got recently nerfed?

which is better for single target DPS, frenzy or elemental hit?

with EH nerf is it greatly in favor of frenzy or something?

"

xtacb wrote:

so elemental hit got recently nerfed?

which is better for single target DPS, frenzy or elemental hit?

with EH nerf is it greatly in favor of frenzy or something?

I can confirm that with just ele dmg on rings and the same bow (death;s harp) for several levels that frenzy keeps a similar damage. Adding cold damage and LMP, puts it only slightly behind Ele.Hit+WeD+FA. EH has a far higher mana cost and only since lvl 13 of the gems the damage is in favour for Ele.Hit. I have frenzy on LMP, so that says quite a bit. With changing the bow and actually upgrading it (since DH won't scale into endgame with frenzy as it does with ele.hit) than frenzy would be the clear winner. A high aura build (wrath anger) with frenzy has 1 aura giving similar dmg to ele.hit. (Due to %aura effectiveness nodes).

yea. after patch i have started a dual elemental hit totem build


the damage is still good(when i can manage to actually cast them)


totems with just a 5link with 305 mana and thats only a lvl 16 gem.


please remove this mana cost increase its ridiclious. i have super end game gear and i cannot even manage to solo 66 maps at a decent rate because the mana cost is abousluty absurd


i have no idea how a build would use this with a 6link. even on someone who uses it as an attack directly from there weapon the mana cost would be insane if u attacked fast.


also. forget linking it to bloodmagic gem. that mutipler is also retarded.


td:rl


damage nerf is fine. remove the mana cost nerf it makes the skill unplayable with the new arua cost.

SO i was thinking the other day how to make elemental hit with melee. And i got general idea.
Dual redbeak +blood Rage low life buffs. thats 200% more dmg AND 70% ias.
So elemental hit + +life leech+multistrike+melee splash+ increased area. You could run 4 x60% auras on health and mana. Disciple, grace,determination, wrath.havent tried to build actual tree tho.

Just put some points. Build looks solid at lvl 90. depends on gear with chaos resist