Lightning Warp

Can you target it from far away (larger delay on purpose) then leap slam to the spot for double damage?

Well, even more than for Detonate Dead, I fail to understand what this skill is meant to be.

It's not a main nuke, it's not meant as movement or defense or utility.

Ok, it's interesting and intriguing... And if you take the right class (Here, Shadow) take all the passives and gear that will mitigate its penalties, you can make it useable.

What's the point of having that sort of limitations on such skills ?

I think this skill would be much more useful if its delay came AFTER casting it, the way Whirling Blades works.

In this state, it's not useable as an escape spell, is difficult to use as an attack spell due to the need to predict where your targets are going, is much more dangerous to use than a regular AOE and does less damage.

About the only way to make it useful is to stack up passives till you've made it more or less instant. Which once again underlines the problem with its design : It's only useable once you've spent a lot of points contradicting its design, NOT making it hit harder....

What is the envisioned use for this spell ?

I am actually using this spell in conjunction with Whirling Blades and Phase Run atm. Let me tell you that it is a freaking blast!

Run away from pack of mobs.
Cast Lightning Warp.
Cast Phase Run (for phys buff).
Warp into pack doing damage and hopefully crit to put up status effects.
Whirling Blades out with large bonus from Phase Run and get to safety at same time.
Rinse and Repeat.

Ok, I get the idea. The problem I have with it is that combat in an ARPG, esp. when your char is squishy, relies on very rapid decisions and actions. On control and positioning.

Notice that both players that built a char around it tried to reduce the timer as much as possible to get it near instant. And the last guy to post uses Whirling Blades for disengaging.

I agree that in most cases you can guess where the mobs will be going, but only roughly.
It's fun, but why choose an attack that lacks precision and control compared to others unless it has a bigger payoff ?

And why choose a method of movement that commits you to going somewhere in advance if it's not much faster than walking there ?

If the underlying idea is to set a disengage based on your mean survivability, then it's mostly fit for "tanky" builds. Combat is just too random, IMHO, for squishier builds to rely on something that's not controlled.

I agree that the "ininterruptible" part would be useful when you get in a bad situation (I.E. surrounded and stunlocked) Problem is, you generally don't plan to be in such situations, they happen. And when they do, you just have split seconds to do something, if that.

If the spell had a delay after completion, or worked like a mine (IE takes time to set up, but can be triggered instantly once its set) it would be more practical.

I'm not convinced that the front-load delay fits with how combat works. It's too much of a gamble and you lose too much control.

While it can be used as an attack/movement, you will still need to reduce the delay as much as you can.

Which means getting a lot of Movement increases. That's feasible for a shadow that focuses on making this spell work, but quite difficult if you're a witch. And no support gems will help with that.

Couldn't the spell include some sort of movement increase with leveling ? Other skills already add things like attack speed.

Things I would like to see for this skill:

Increased Projectile Speed improving travel rate.

Trap and Remote Mine teleporting the player.


Basically just more hooks for it to have interesting interactions with support gems.


You could even have the damage increase based upon the delay and have Increased Duration effects alter the duration.

Mark, than you for your answers, but I don't finf the use scenarios you've outlined very practical.

Jumping into the path of an incoming pack of mobs is something I do as a tank, and leap slam is useful for that.

But as a witch, I will try to position myself precisely to fire off an aoe, not jump into contact. And as a shadow, I try to flank the group to limit damage and because shadows mainly have ST attacks.

In both cases I'll want precise positioning. LW isn't really faster than walking and relies on guessing the end position of targets. I don't think its damage makes up for the added danger.

Where I find it useful is to get to shooters or Necros behind a group. But there, predicting if and where the mob will go isn't that straightforward. That's why you need to reduce the delay as much as possible.


And predicting survivability doesn't go that well with a shadow. If you rely on evasion, it's quite random by nature. ES is more predictable, but it's not meant to stand up to heavy hitting. Predicting survivability is more the province of mitigation tanks.

Targeting makes the defensive situation you describe even more difficult. To set up LW, you will need to point somewhere else (while already in combat or close to be) then bring back the cursor to try to target something befor LW fires off. It's fine if you use an untargeted ability, not so much with any targeted attack.

You're much better off using Whirling Blades or something like it.