Scorching Ray

Currently I am playing a character with Scorching Ray totems and they interact very poorly with legion content. They just sit and focus on the same target, not trying to free anything else. This is very unfortunate and doesn't line up with the way the other totems interact with legion content as far as I can tell. Is there a way they could be changed to try and burn other targets instead of just one unkillable close range target?

2.1M DoT DPS vs Shaper:
"I'm unable to kill generic monsters fast enough"

172% cast speed, 0.4sec WB attack time:
"The character is so slow at killing monsters I'm getting hit on each screen"

The "staged damage" mechanics should go.
Currently the skill is unusable for endgame without fullscale Temporal Chains or RF or Profane Bloom -like ability.

Even in a 6-link SR feels stupidly weak. This skill needs some serious buffs; the celestial MTX alone isn't gonna make people play it, GGG.

Just wondering why the mana cost so high? Other channelling skill, like incinerate or storm burst, only cost 5 mana/cast at highest level, while SR cost 11, make it so hard to channelling all the time with a 6-link.

I've tried.

Since Delve league, through all the balance nightmare, major nerfs and minor buffs, indirect mechanical changes I've tried to make this skill pleasant to use.

It doesn't work.

lvl 30 SR with a proper 3-mods watcher's eye and 7x 4-mods perfect rare jewels, 3x 50% auras, arcane surge, 145% cast speed, 75/75% dodge on top of 6k life, divine flesh etc.
The build only missing two things that can buff the damage - Pain Attunement, and persistent RF.

1) Damage of 1st "layer" is too low, the skill feels weak vs normal monsters no matter what.
2) Base cast time is too high, the skill provides nothing for the cost of "standing still in front of danger" for at least 1.6 sec, exposure is shit. You can apply exposure instantly with a lvl 1 cwdt setup. The skill at 3299923.1 PoB dps vs Shaper is neither impressive nor effective in party.
3) The skill (among others channeling skills) is barely usable at >130ms latency on predictive network mode. It's a completely different (obviously bad) experience compare to "normal" 40ms-lockstep gameplay.

Regarding upcoming monster resists and HP buff — the skill in its current form is not an "active skill gem" anymore, it's just "a tool to proc cws".

I agree with people saying the damage is too low. As-is, only useful for CWC. Also, the exposure effect being back-loaded now isn’t great. If you’re going to keep it that way, you need to either lower the cast speed, reduce the number of maximum stacks, or both. It makes it nearly impossible to keep the debuff up on mobile bosses and trash mobs are dead before it even kicks in anyway, so it’s pointless. I do prefer the exposure effect overall to the old minor debuff ticks, because those fell off too quickly and were too hard to maintain a decent value, but this needs some tweaks. Either it needs to just be applied right away (why not? Wave of conviction applies the same effect instantly) or it needs to be much faster than it is and last longer. Having a boss dodge out of your beam and knowing you’ll have to focus on it for like 3 full seconds to get it back feels awful.

SR version I'd be happy to play with:

This skill PvP penalty is busted, over the years you've been setting "T override" of the skill for multiplicatively lower values.

3.0.0
  T = 4
3.2.0
  T = 1.5
3.4.0
  T = 0.5
3.8.0
  T = 0.2

3.0.0 was released two yeas ago, the skill is the most problematic pvp case since 2.5.0 (3.7 years ago)

I'm sure through all this time not a single developer took a mindful look at how the skill pvp penalty works.

I believe the "add 60% of Damage" skill mechanics adds the damage at different layer of calculation logic, all this "T constant" nerfs were affecting only the initial stage of damage.

At a character that has pretty high investments in SR damage the first stage of SR applies pathetic, laughable 50/sec degen. While 2nd and ongoing stages hit like a damn train. I've seen quite a bit of 30k ES guardians on Standard league that were unable to dispell SR before dying in a fraction of second. This is not how +60% more damage should work.

Please take a look at the skill mechanics. If all damage stages would be affected by PvP penalty equally the skill would require a different T value other than current 0.2

Does Scorching Ray and Sporeguard work together?
The reason I'm asking is that SR does not always trigger 'on kill' effects, for example SR does not trigger smoke on kill for Smoking Remains. So I was wondering if SR's 'on kill' effects work with Sporeguard? Has anyone tried it out, is it worth it?

When you nerfed the Tukohama's Vanguard monsters (for summoners) I'm guessing Scorching Ray itself also were hit. Totems does not have seperate instances of burn, it instead stacks up to max stacks faster and this throttles the damage increadibly much. We either need way higher damage for Scorching Ray or we need it to be able to apply seperate instances on monsters when applied by totems.