Shattering Steel

I just have a complaint about Call of Steel. It's a super interesting idea and it works pretty well, but with Shattering Steel its pretty annoying.

It feels like it was just added to slow the skill down. The explosions are pretty nice but without Lord of Steel jewel the skills feels awful. Just slow and clunky.

Even with Lord of Steel, the playstyle is still pretty clunky. Explosions are nice for map clear but once you get to a boss you have to back away a couple of times just to gather more shards.

I think it would be better if the steel skills had passive shard generation and you added Call of Steel as a skill gem to support steel skills. Maybe a Steel tag could be added? That way we could increase CD recovery, add aoe to the explosions, maybe mess around with ele conversion even. It also just feels odd having a skill and not be able to change anything about it besides adding one jewel to it. Doesn't quite fit the PoE gameplay I expect.

I'm playing a shattering steel champion with 2h swords. The damage is decent and the leveling scaling was great, but call of steel is what makes it so clunky and frustrating to play.

The fact that you have to "reload" every 6 attacks is what kills this skill. There are builds that attack 5+ times a second and you can't realistically use call of steal that frequently. When you're clearing it's not so bad because you can attack, CoS, attack, CoS, and 1-2shot packs. But if there's anything with more hp you spend so much of your time attacking, reloading, attacking, and reloading. Compare this skill to any other non-steel melee attack and you can just right click a target. I feel like call of steel interrupts my play, rather than complimenting it.

I think having Call of Steel be a button that grants you a buff is great, but let the main attack work without it.

Here is my feedback on new Shattering Skill:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2939714

"

Additional Projectiles: If you use the skill without any Steel Shards, it will always launch only one projectile, even if you have additional projectiles from other sources.

This is bad. We are being heavily punished if we decide to use the skill without CoS.

And regarding the feedback from the guy in the above post. Not causing bleeds from steel explosions? Everyone should avoid this skill, and perhaps all other steel skills as well.

I am playing shattering steel champion since the league start and i got to sirius with it and noticed 2 big problems with this skill.

I am 99% sure the 100% more damage per shard doesnt work.
There is absolutely no difference in damage against single target whenever i have shards or not. I dont know if anyone else noticed this.

There is also problem with legion as shards doesnt stick to legion and call of steel do nothing, i cant do legion at all with this skill because of that.

Would love some help with Shattering Steel. Level 91 Gladiator, bleed, impale, max block/spell block, Shattering Steel build.

I have been playing SS since start of build and have found it to be pretty good in terms of mob clear when used in conjuction with: the impaler, great old one's tentacles and call of steel.

One hit with SS and a CoS as I move away generally clears the screen. Most map bosses get vaped, even red tier, but every now and again I really struggle to keep the dps up, obviously this is when there are no extra mobs.

I wish there were a way, other than running away to get out of range, that I could reload SS without having to strip impales off hard to kill targets. I feel like this is the best way to fix SS when it comes to single target DPS. I know dropping the impaler will help, but that seems a Little OTT.

I have some questions about the mechanics of the new Shattering Steel skill that i"v been struggling to find answers for:

Is it possible to hit a target with a projectile and the aoe explosion at the same time?

If so wouldnt that make pierce a bad option?

Finally from what I read about the new mechanics GMP would be a really bad idea for single target dps, it seems trying to overlap the explosions is damn near impossible, is this true?

Link to build in PoB if anyone is interested
https://pastebin.com/r4tYMfgF

Cheers

Well might as well post it to the relevant skill as well:

At the moment, projectiles behave in a very random fashion:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2942740/page/1#p23527042

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2938487


No other skill has this kind of randomness about travel distance? Why this one now? And this makes scaling projectile speed (distance) quite useless.

IM NOT SURE IF IM PLAYING PATH OF EXILE? OR TIME CRISIS
it be a much better skill if they made a support gem/item that will make the steel charges return to you heres my ideas

magnetism support
calls back steel charges after depleted

and for the love of god at least give the skill more than 12 charges or make a item that adds more charges when you have a dual wield char thats attack speed is insane? 12 charges and the fact that you have to reload it every 3 swings it seems is pretty dumb when frost blades has literally the same mechanic AND IT CHAINS

From a long time, super casual player.

History:
The first build I made in the Bestiary league was 2h sword, strike build, that used dodge as its primary defense and I still play that character today (with many many modifications). I have explored all the strike skills and when desperate for equipment have used other builds to generate small amounts of currency. Nothing has worked exceptionally well as 0 range melee build, but things have gotten better. Most early patch changes hurt my builds and caused me start over, wasting the currency used to roll gear that no longer worked. Playing in standard all these years, the currency hits were the hardest (not as bad now).

My general design style was (and still is) to use multiple, non-channeling, strike skills in support of each other create something that could compete with the damage and survivability of ranged melee, cyclone, bows and spells.

Today:
I have been desperately trying to find ways to move away from totems because they don't fit the style of the character I want to play. Prior to this patch, I kept finding myself forced to come back to totems if I had any chance at running t16 maps. This last patch has finally given me a set of solutions that allows me to step beyond the totem crutch.

Shattering Steel + Impact support + The Impaler (tree) + Point Blank (tree) seems to finally be the answer for my fast-swinging melee. Swinging fast means not hitting hard. A big hitting impale seemed like it could be a decent answer but the small impales overwrote them too frequently. Shattering steel now allows me to have 100% impale on my big impale hit and 0 impale on my small super fast hits. Since I am a 0 range melee, point blank makes that impale more impactful. The combo allows my character to happily replace my old unwanted totem with my new friend Shattering Steel.

Current strike matrix:
Frenzy (thank you, thank you, thank you for upgrade here as well)
Bladestorm (huge survivability buff when this came out too, because of life gain on hit)
Shatter Steel (OMG it makes the above so much better)


After years of taking away from every build I have come up with, thank you for starting to give a little back. Loving the new skill. Please don't nerf to spite me :)