Scorching Ray

This skill is really fun to use, but it needs best possible gear to be able to do maps after 10+. Map that made me to scrap build was unidentified underground river. Boss there have multiple stages, takes longer then your typical fight and spawns adds. I had 7.5k hp some regen and consecrated ground. 6l with 18 lvl gem and +4 gem levels. tooltip was 11k unbuffed if i remember correctly. So boss fight starts and i use potion, but since there is no burst dps i cannot one shot. Then boss summons adds and hides. At this point i am out of potions and adds hit 2k rapidly with good movement speed. As expected because i cant leach, restore flask charges to be able to take damage i die. That makes me really sad, because i really like this skill, but i cant imagine it being good even if you tipple damage.

Can some defensive improvements be considered with this skill? Maybe something like 10-20% increased recovery rate per 1 sec channeling up to 50-80% cap?

Little feedback for this skill. Here is my current setup:




https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUBAASzBg4HHgj0CaoJ9gthDFINzQ5IES0RlhNtFAkWvxhqHM4c3B_HIvQk2CaIJpUn7SmLKo0rUCt4LJwtizLRNtg5UjpYPC1Bh0PIRUdFnUkbTwRTUlRHVUtVxlZIWAdd8l8qYeJo8mpDbAttGXRVfIN_xoAwg1-DzIPbhW2LjIw2jxqPRpMnlS6a4Jtum6GexKEvogCmvqcIqLmsmK9sr6e00bcwtz686r6KwFTAZsCaxPbGrsgM1HzVgdgk2L3Z_N-G6-7sVfAf8Wz31_nd-ej-Cv5U


I went life / hybrid Inquisitor. At 90 (my max tree); I'll have about 5700 life and 3200 or so ES.


Current set up with ID (have played it with both FC and IBD instead instead of ID). Also, current curse set up would be TC/Flammability, TC/Enfeeble, EW/Flammability (any combination of those three). Vulnerability is also an option. As a secondary totem skill, I went with ST/FS but you could use a decoy totem or searing bond.


The way I found playing the skill is that you travel around a zone or map and basically swing your mouse in a 360 degree circle. Most trash mobs just melt down no problem. Any mob with any kind of resistance; however, you have to continually roll over them with the ray. Bosses, especially around T9+ start to become a headache as you don't really get rewarded for holding the channel (as it is advised to move during boss fights).

Further, there is a delay in when you start the channel to actually when the ray starts. This combined with the constant re-positioning of your mouse makes for some clunky game play. It's cumbersome and does not feel fluid.


SUGGESTIONS:

I would like to see the ray pulse or arc onto other mobs. In other words, the longer you hold the channel (up to a max of whatever stacks); the ray would arc out onto other mobs (at a decreased rate of damage). The longer you hold or channel the ray, the more it arcs (up to the max stacks). Keep in mind the more arcs come at a reduced amount of damage. The debuff could be kept but only on mob you are focusing the channel on, not the arcs. Faster casting could now be used to get to the max stack of additional arcs faster instead of its current use (turn faster).

This would allow you to focus your channel on the mob you actually want to kill (a boss for example) while the arcs pulse on surrounding trash. Repostioning would take place mostly with your actual character and less focus on continually having to rotate the mouse around (after you have repositioned your character). In my mind, this would eliminate a lot of the cumbersome mechanics of the skill in its current form, make it more fluid and give an opportunity cost on how long you want to stand still and channel.

Make it happen :)



I forgot to mention that this suggestion (the ray pulse or arcs) would help also due to the fact the ray gets blocked from many environmental objects.

i tried the skill with a lower lvl char (leveling from lv 20 to 35 with a scion)

the skill so far is nice but i found the low duration of 1.5 seconds makes it difficult to scale the duration with the passive tree and the support gem to use the skill as an dot like essence drain, especially with the turn rate tied to cast speed.
another issue is the lack of ui element which shows dot/debuff duration on enemies.
so you have an situation where the skill has low duration and you dont know how long the debuff/dot last on an enemy, so you try to constantly reapply the dot/ debuff while being hindered by the cast speed requirements of the turnrate.

"

stardustjenny wrote:

i tried the skill with a lower lvl char (leveling from lv 20 to 35 with a scion)

the skill so far is nice but i found the low duration of 1.5 seconds makes it difficult to scale the duration with the passive tree and the support gem to use the skill as an dot like essence drain, especially with the turn rate tied to cast speed.
another issue is the lack of ui element which shows dot/debuff duration on enemies.
so you have an situation where the skill has low duration and you dont know how long the debuff/dot last on an enemy, so you try to constantly reapply the dot/ debuff while being hindered by the cast speed requirements of the turnrate.

Basic math. Duration-(cast per second*8) if its negative your cast will always be efficient. If positive you have buffer time to kite boss/mobs.

So I've gotten in several levels while playing with this skill now, from level 30 something when I first posted and currently level 58. I was trying to figure out how much damage my skill does. I'm currently at 2k dps, I'm curious due to the tooltip, does the damage modifier from them standing in the beam do 2k x 1.6 = number, then next phase it would be that number x 1.6 = number 2, phase after that being number 2 x 1.6? if this is how the math plays out then I'm currently doing 88k dps at max stacks. I feel like I'm doing this math wrong though.

"

Sydin117 wrote:

...

EE is like musthave for SR

I was leveling a Templar from 12 to 68 or so purely with scorching ray. I must say i quit liked the experience.

It only gets enjoyable after you have access to Elemental Focus and Controlled Destruction (my fourth link was Faster Casting), after that until endgame I never had the feeling if not doing enough damage to quickly progress. The combination of Elemental Equilibrium and Elemental Overload applied through Orb of Storm (+ Curse Vulnerability) melted every boss I came across while leveling (usually in like 5 seconds or so). I originally planned to also use Vaal Lightning Trap, but I almost never used it because it was just faster to directly kill them.
For leveling the skill is really good if you have access to EE and EO since you can basically focus completely on defense for your gear. I only used a spell damage scepter which I crafted with essences and a 4-Link.
The skill really excels with Inquisitor (Pious Path) and playing life/energy shield hybrid. I had zero problems with survivability thanks to insane regeneration of energy shield.

I only played till like level 68 or so, but I already felt that the damage slowly became a hindrance. The skill for me is only enjoyable to play, if you can kill everything but rares with a single quick sweep and this started to decline the higher I got.
I can understand anyone who laments over the endgame viability of Schorching Ray, but not every skill needs to be perfect in endgame.