Shock Nova

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Wooser69 wrote:

I'd love it if the skill was like the Plasma Field used by Razor in Dota 2. Ring slowly grows outwards then retracts, hitting enemies twice.

I agree with this, that would be awesome as hell.

My suggestion:
Remove dead zone
Expanding to retracting ring as you suggested

level 20 Shock Nova deals 35–656 @ level 20

Reduce expanding and retracting hits to 17.5-328 damage@lvl 20 each

So that if BOTH the expanding rings hit, it does the original total of 656 damage at level 20 Shock nova

Could even reduce the damage a bit entirely if dead zone is removed to keep it reasonable

Really hope this or Ice nova gets worked on to become better end game skills.
There are so many skills/supports in the game, but most of them are not even worth using =/

bah Y you no hit anyone shock nova traps, Y ?

I tried to edge trap you, I tried concentrated effect where I hope the deadzone would be no more, but even when you seem to overlay over the rest of the enemy pack, I see 1 guy hit at most... shock nova Y?

I like the lightning tree to be high risk high reward kind of build, the only problem tbh is LAG which might be settled after the first arrival of sheep has grazed enough to fill their stomachs.

<rant>
I'm only on my first character (level 41 witch) though, i see i need to have some sort of strong tank, crit chance, shock chance, cast speed, and finally spell/elemental/lightning dmg.

Also using minions because, why not?

I hear minions with lightning damage and shock chance can yield wicked results if they all roll high, insta death?

All in all, lightning looks awesome but with lag the shock nova can be impossible to land sometimes, but then again sometimes even my fireballs miss when i'm pointblank so i dunno, just LAG maybe haha!
</end rant>

This skill is just pitiful. I chose this as my main skill because I thought it would go with lightning warp pretty well. Reading through the thread, I see others have had the misfortune of trying the exact same thing.

The dead zone increasing in size when AOE nodes/gems are used is ridiculous. I am using these because I want to feel more powerful and hit more things. As is, it just makes the skill worse because nearly every mob closes the distance into melee range. The dead zone needs to be a consistent size.

The skill/reward of this gem is just laughable. One of the few gems in the game where you actually need to spend the time to properly position yourself and the damage is just pure trash. Half the monsters that appear to be in the ring don't even get hit. A monster standing right next to one that is getting shocked out the ass is standing there with full life.

The constant kiting because it takes forever to actually kill things and constant repositioning because things aren't even being hit when they should be is a JOKE. How did this gem even make it into release like this?

Someday I want to try this skill with Shockwave Totem. With high enough cast speed and the increased knockback nodes, maybe the totem would be able to keep melee enemies locked into the effective range of Shock Nova. I just don't have any experience with totems, so the high chance of failure has kept me from trying to make such a build.

Edit: Meh.

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unkempt wrote:

The constant kiting because it takes forever to actually kill things and constant repositioning because things aren't even being hit when they should be is a JOKE. How did this gem even make it into release like this?

Sadly most of this issue has to do with server-synch being complete garbage. Same reason for two mobs in the same position getting only one of them hit. I like the idea of this skill and I'm trying to use it on my Templar but it's only ever gotten me killed when I could have just used my time to cast spark and clear the map.

Another issue I've run into when introducing myself to Shock Nova is the AoE range of it. Mobs don't seem to just about get right into it's hit box from their natural ranged attack distance. Do I increase the dead-zone and hope I can utilize it for clearing mobs on the edges of my screen or do I just leave it as is and hope to hit something.

The most frustrating part of this skill is that the animation doesn't match up at all with when/if mobs are really getting hit. I'm going to say this is once again because of server synching but I have no clue.

In the end the only conclusion is to utilize my time casting more reliable skills and perhaps throw in a Shock Nova when I'm feeling lucky.

As it is right now, Shock Nova is unbearable because of it's deadzone.
Even with Concentrated Effect and without any increase to Area Size melee enemies constantly manage to enter the deadzone.
This needs some looking into ASAP.
Btw, the way it was before was pretty crappy as well, having max dmg at the outer edge of the nova.
Nicest thing would be to make it like Ice Nova so it has no deadzone and without any fluctuation in damage depending on the distance to your enemy.

Maybe you should also rethink the mana cost, cause it is very steep considering it's a 0.75 sec base cast speed.
It ramps up to 250 mana/sec (with 4 support's and no cast speed increase, at 100% faster casting it gets to 500m/s) and i don't know if it's possible to sustain with Mana Leech since the leeching rate for mana is so low.

As for the damage it does i think it doesn't need changing.
The damage isn't very high, but considering the potential to shock enemies it remains viable.

I would be happy with this skill being lower damage if it meant removing the dead zone and adding higher shock chance, trying to maneuver myself around enemies which rarely get hit makes this skill the most frustrating to use, which is unfortunate for my aoe build.

as everyone said already, pretty useless. damage is OK imo, but no point if it doesn't hit.

LOL at Shock Nova against those ranged shield monsters. When I tried it, I couldn't hit them when outside of their shield, and when inside their shield, the damage area of shock nova lands outside of the shield. It is impossible to hit those monsters when their shields are up.