Firestorm

I think that the 80% damage reduction on it is a little abrupt. A damage nerf was without a doubt needed when it came to added damage to firestorm but it seems that along the damage reduction of the added chaos damage gem, that 80% just seems too much.

I went from a character sheet of 3736 dps with all charges up to 625,6 dps, a 83,3% damage nerf!

Of course, it is with a level 1 firestorm gem. I will try leveling it and see if there's real improvements with it because I admit that it is silly to expect a level 1 gem to do a ton of dps.

If the issue fix itself with expected levels of the gem, then I will simply withdraw my comments.

I totally understand that it shouldn't be the best at lvl 1 and I even said it in a previous post. However, it is still a crazily abrupt change for me!

I'd probably suggest to reduce the penalty as the gem level up (to keep it from being best at level 1). Maybe 1% per 2 levels (meaning a lvl 20 firestorm would deal 70% less damage).

I say probably because I am currently leveling it and it is just speculation atm.

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Rory wrote:

The damage hasn't changed for Firestorm at all - Number wise, we increased the damage by 400%, then added the 80% reduction to return it to normal. However, this will affect support gems - Any support gems will be doing 80% less damage per hit, rather than getting the full damage for each hit, bringing them on-par with most skills with supports. The skill was never designed to be best at level 1!

I understand why you did it, but in all honesty I think it was perfectly fine before compared to the other options, and I think it's way too weak to bother with now.

I mean, even after this patch I can still kill a good 5-15 chaos enemies in a single shot of multi-projectile Ice Spear with Projectile Weakness and Elemental Weakness. Firestorm can't ever hope to do that due to its necessarily limited nature as a ground-targeted attack with small AoE. Heck with moving enemies you might as well not even bother. Even if you try to lead your target the auto-targeting system just ends up targeting the enemy's current position anyway. It's an exercise in futility.

Because of that, even before the nerf I usually just used it for convenience and not as a main attack. I'd pick off enemies that were alone and standing still, such as a single enemy right next to me, or a skeleton in an annoying-to-get-to ridge. Now, it's not even better than my main attack at killing a single enemy. Why should I bother with it?

As for the low mana cost, since when was that ever an issue? Even with the increased mana costs this patch combined with my Voll's Armour, I still don't need any more mana passives or mana gems or mana gear than what I got on the way to other passives. Flasks are just that good.

Lv72 Witch - Crit and Power Charge focus, no element specialization.

The damage reduction for supports here is weaker than spark, with a tighter AoE and less chance to travel, as well as not all of the fireballs being guaranteed to hit anything or travel, AND being unable to be affected by other supports such as multiple projectiles and peirce. This skill now seems fundamentally weak.

It still needs supports to attempt to keep up with other spells, and it costs more because of it.

The spell as a whole gets 5 % less support damage overall than spark does considering it's base duration.

Right now the only duration increasing passives for anyone that might use it are near the ranger, and I don't see much need for rangers to consider anything with spells considering all of their other weapon options seem to be so much better for damage.

Also the only support that works with it well considering the nerf is increased duration, which doesn't fix the problem of enemies just moving out of the way.

In my opinion this skills needs retooling (Either make it fewer hits and High AoE with scattered/staggered projectiles like a comet shower with some screen shake, Or reduce the penalty somewhat so that the fireballs in their current form are more damaging for it's mana cost (it's main issue is cost scaling with level, the damage only needs to be increased slightly)

At the time that I was using this skill I was a level 42 summoner with firestorm + chaos damage + cold damage. I used it with supports until it started costing 40+ mana per use. Then I swapped it for ice spear + chaos + multi projectiles. Not a great setup for a summoner but good to deal backup damage to bosses while summons tank.

without some way to bind monsters in place, this thing is next to useless anyway and deserves a buff for that purpose as well

Actually, the only skill duration passives, anywhere, are near ranger, and it works for many skills in addition to firestorm and spark. I think there should probably be at least one or two other clusters far away from the ranger cluster, personally, just because there are so many skills that can use it effectively.

And as for your statements about rangers not needing skill duration passives AND never having anything to do with spells, I will have to disagree with you on both points.

That said, I don't really have enough personal experience with firestorm to say whether the 80% damage reduction is warranted.

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UristMcDwarfy wrote:

Actually, the only skill duration passives, anywhere, are near ranger, and it works for many skills in addition to firestorm and spark. I think there should probably be at least one or two other clusters far away from the ranger cluster, personally, just because there are so many skills that can use it effectively.

And as for your statements about rangers not needing skill duration passives AND never having anything to do with spells, I will have to disagree with you on both points.

That said, I don't really have enough personal experience with firestorm to say whether the 80% damage reduction is warranted.

Other than spark, only ice spear and fireball are projectiles, which are the only synergistic skills near a ranger for spells. Yes it allows you to build some quirky dex/int builds but I don't think it outperforms bows although it offers options.

I noted that there isn't MUCH need for rangers to consider spells, just that they're usually not a primary focus because you have to go far out of your way to make them useful as far as stats are concerned.

This is not a commentary on the usefulness of the ranger passives though, it's just that firestorm underperforms as a spell for it's cost.

If they dropped the mana cost on it and it's damage still sucked, it becomes a utility spell. But one designed for that purpose.

If They boost the base damage and let damage add supports affect it less, then it becomes an elemental choice. But I think in it's current state, it is less than useful especially considering the amount of support gems and effective increases the other spells get.

Why is spark the bees knees now and this ultimately useless?

I use this spell just for fun, I love the graphics and effect so so much.
But I don't like his effect. Since reaching high level, I even use Spark because it do many more damage by far, even without linked and at low mana cost.
I'm pure summoner woth some help with spark or firestorm, and I'm starting to use only spark because firestorm is a very bad spell even with things like increase area of effect an add lightning damage and chance to ignite, imo.

Really awesome spell, I love it so far... but no damage at all (level 64 summoner with level 15 gems), at least for me :/

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Rory wrote:

The damage hasn't changed for Firestorm at all - Number wise, we increased the damage by 400%, then added the 80% reduction to return it to normal. However, this will affect support gems - Any support gems will be doing 80% less damage per hit, rather than getting the full damage for each hit, bringing them on-par with most skills with supports. The skill was never designed to be best at level 1!

It will now require 5 fireballs per cast to hit the same target to equal the impact of a damage support gem attached to any other skill. From my (albeit limited) experience with this gem, that would never ever happen, let alone happen on average. I wonder if that penalty is too harsh. I also think it takes away from the uniqueness of this skill as it requires a completely different build setup to make a high # of hits/low damage skill as opposed to most other skills which are your garden "1-hit per cast" variety.