Shock Nova

OP since lvl1.

I always carry this skill as a secondary damage spell (usually without support gems), and sometimes it even outdamage my SUPPORTED main skill (like fireball) by far.

In global chat, we all know and agree that this skill is OP (or at least we all agree it's the strongest spell), when someone ask "what's the best witch spell?" or something like that we all answer "Shock Nova".

BTW, Why this skill have ~10-500 damage (avg 250) and Ice Nova has ~50-90 (avg 140)? Both have cool on crit effects and feature good ranges. (NOTE: can't remember the levels i am comparing, but probably the same since i never removed them, i never used element specific damage mods)

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KurzedMetal wrote:

OP since lvl1.

I always carry this skill as a secondary damage spell (usually without support gems), and sometimes it even outdamage my SUPPORTED main skill (like fireball) by far.

In global chat, we all know and agree that this skill is OP (or at least we all agree it's the strongest spell), when someone ask "what's the best witch spell?" or something like that we all answer "Shock Nova".

BTW, Why this skill have ~10-500 damage (avg 250) and Ice Nova has ~50-90 (avg 140)? Both have cool on crit effects and feature good ranges. (NOTE: can't remember the levels i am comparing, but probably the same since i never removed them, i never used element specific damage mods)

Shock Nova is the best spell in the game so far. I hope GGG will find a way to made other skills entertaining like Shock Nova is :)

10-500 avg would be 255, not 250
50-90 avg would be 70, not 140

Anyone else find the minimum damage (range wise) a bit painful on this spell? I'd love to see the minimum upped a bit and maybe the max dropped a bit to compensate. It's difficult to kill anything if they get right up on you.

Thoughts?

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Rippster wrote:

Anyone else find the minimum damage (range wise) a bit painful on this spell? I'd love to see the minimum upped a bit and maybe the max dropped a bit to compensate. It's difficult to kill anything if they get right up on you.

Thoughts?

ya the crit used to make up for this some, but they lowered it to 2.6 base so .. meh :\

It will take quite a few points but I suppose if you go ALL spell damage and spell crit you could still end up using this spell as your primary.

support gems = reduced mana cost, added lightning damage, increased aoe

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It's difficult to kill anything if they get right up on you.

That's the point. The spell is a radial AoE, this is literally the most powerful shape an AoE spell can take.

Use Minions/Ice Wall/Temporal Chains/Knockback to keep enemies at the edge and you are enjoying a ridiculously high kill speed.

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konfeta wrote:

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It's difficult to kill anything if they get right up on you.

That's the point. The spell is a radial AoE, this is literally the most powerful shape an AoE spell can take.

Use Minions/Ice Wall/Temporal Chains/Knockback to keep enemies at the edge and you are enjoying a ridiculously high kill speed.

the spell does nothing in close distance, gains close to nothing from critical passives (half of witch skill tree) and costs the most from all spells so you cant support many gems, temporal chains is useful only vs ultra fast mobs vs rest you will gain way more if you use elemental weakness
as for the best aoe in game part im pretty sure cold witch is more effective than shock nova nowadays

the spell does nothing in close distance

Because it literally outdamages every other single spell a Witch has by a wide, WIDE margin at max range. The only exception is probably Spark and Detonate Dead in specific cases. Even if it only does average damage at the outermost edge it is a top tier nuke. And if it does even more than its mathematical average damage on most shots at top range... lulz

gains close to nothing from critical passives (half of witch skill tree)
That has something to do with the part where this had the highest raw DPS pre-critical passives nerf. Still probably does.

costs the most from all spells so you cant support many gems

Mana Leach doesn't increase mana cost anymore. Combine it with this spell's insane damage output; or use stronger flasks.

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temporal chains is useful only vs ultra fast mobs vs rest you

Heaven forbid you have the perfect tool to help you deal with the only kind of enemies that should ever make it into the ring's low damage range.

Also, please don't ignore Ice Wall and Minions and Knockback because you find it inconvenient to use something other than a nuke and a curse.

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konfeta wrote:

Because it literally outdamages every other single spell a Witch has by a wide

thats the illusion, most of that dps is wasted because you almost never hit monsters in best possible distance, removal of kb effect from flasks and change to stun had huge impact on dps output of that spell.
Recently i just thought about making ice spear witch (with its current base critic its easy to get 50%++ critical hit chance) that combined with multi project gem, light dmg for shock effect,freeze and alot of stacked critic dmg multiplier seems like most ridiculous spell ever (pure theorycrafting tho havent tested it yet)

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konfeta wrote:

gains close to nothing from critical passives (half of witch skill tree)
That has something to do with the part where this had the highest raw DPS pre-critical passives nerf. Still probably does.

doesnt change the fact I took all the "good" passives and im now left with wand dmg or criticals nods which do close to nothing for nova, doesnt look like good design for me

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konfeta wrote:

Mana Leach doesn't increase mana cost anymore. Combine it with this spell's insane damage output; or use stronger flasks.

i dont know how thats even counterargument to what i've wrote, nova with 2support gem costs still as much as other skills with 4-5 which lets for more customization and is pretty much the threshold, you wont be able to support much more even with best possible flasks unless you are masochist and want to wait for mana every time you cast (dont misunderstood me, im not claiming it shouldnt be that way i was just saying you cant compere flat dmg of spells without taking support gems into consideration) , wasnt aware of mana leech gem change will test it later

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konfeta wrote:

Heaven forbid you have the perfect tool to help you deal with the only kind of enemies that should ever make it into the ring's low damage range.

you wrote it like temporal chain is best curse for every situation when if fact it not, its only useful vs very fast mobs who can actually kill you, its way better to use elemental weakness + kite vs rest the dps gain from that curse is just so big its not worth to use anything else.

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konfeta wrote:

Also, please don't ignore Ice Wall and Minions and Knockback because you find it inconvenient to use something other than a nuke and a curse.

got them all except kb which im not really keen on using because my mana cost increase to the amount im not comfortable with and cant rly remove conc effect or faster cast because they are pretty essential for my build.