Void Sphere

Havn't quite built around this skill yet but was doing some theorycrafting surrounding the skill. To my dismay I found the skill rather lacking in key areas.
1. the cooldown is too oppressive, and there aren't many clean reductions. Additionally, the one sphere limit means even if you managed to subvert the cooldown limitation, it won't help the build.

2. the damage is flat, not Damage over time. This means the skill cannot take full advantage of modifiers like chaos damage over time multiplier that it so desperately craves.

3. It doesn't pull unique mobs. This final one isn't as big a deal but it does restrict the ability's utility to threats that are already majorly trivialized by the meta.

So after brainstorming with a friend, we came up with an idea.
rather than changing the skill completely because it it's kind of awesome otherwise, make this simple change.

-Remove the one sphere limit, keep the cooldown.
-add "consuming a power charge resets this skills cooldown" in a similar fashion to cold snap or flicker strike.

These two changes would really open up niche builds with the skill while keeping its other restrictions more meaningful.

"

Lumynous wrote:

Havn't quite built around this skill yet but was doing some theorycrafting surrounding the skill. To my dismay I found the skill rather lacking in key areas.
1. the cooldown is too oppressive, and there aren't many clean reductions. Additionally, the one sphere limit means even if you managed to subvert the cooldown limitation, it won't help the build.

2. the damage is flat, not Damage over time. This means the skill cannot take full advantage of modifiers like chaos damage over time multiplier that it so desperately craves.

3. It doesn't pull unique mobs. This final one isn't as big a deal but it does restrict the ability's utility to threats that are already majorly trivialized by the meta.

So after brainstorming with a friend, we came up with an idea.
rather than changing the skill completely because it it's kind of awesome otherwise, make this simple change.

-Remove the one sphere limit, keep the cooldown.
-add "consuming a power charge resets this skills cooldown" in a similar fashion to cold snap or flicker strike.

These two changes would really open up niche builds with the skill while keeping its other restrictions more meaningful.

Yea looking at the skil on release, its something i wanted to try running as a self cast skill but after looking at the skill gem. The flat damage is weird to me because at this point im not even sure how to put damage into it. Im guessing i would try and do it like dark pact without the skeletons, but im still new to building so this is prob something ill try and make over the league or until i give up. I think removing the 1 sphere limit and maybe giving it 2 charges instead of 1 would maybe help it. Otherwise i think trying to stack cooldown recovery speed may be the way to go right now.

Void sphere imposes it's limit of 1 on other traps, when linkd to the trap support gem.


Traps triggered before void sphere trap, will go off like normal. However, Traps thrown after void sphere trap has triggered, will immideately end void sphere.

I've increased trap limit, but this has no effect on the bug.

As I'm making a void sphere centered trap build, not being able to throw a single trap during a 5 second duration of void sphere without having to deal with it's cooldown, makes the build rather clunky and unpleasant.

If void sphere trap would no longer impose it's limit of 1 on other traps, I think the build would be rather enjoyable.


Thank you in advance,

Aerican

"

Lumynous wrote:

1. the cooldown is too oppressive, and there aren't many clean reductions. Additionally, the one sphere limit means even if you managed to subvert the cooldown limitation, it won't help the build.

It does, I will note, benefit from Second Wind.

"

2. the damage is flat, not Damage over time. This means the skill cannot take full advantage of modifiers like chaos damage over time multiplier that it so desperately craves.

3. It doesn't pull unique mobs. This final one isn't as big a deal but it does restrict the ability's utility to threats that are already majorly trivialized by the meta.

Recall that 'meta' isn't everyone. I would also note that it's meant as a support skill, not a primary one - it excels at bunching up those low-tier enemies and giving you some space to reposition, lay down your bread-and-butter area abilities, or focus on those things it pulls with difficulty or not at all. For example Strongbox? Drop a sphere on it; open it; dash/blink away. Abyss opening? Ditto. And since one is leveraging its pull, not its damage, it might be reasonable to leave it at level one - the pull does not seem to be affect by gem level, and the low damage at level one makes it somewhat safe to use on physical reflect enemies/maps.

Low tier enemies instantly die, bunching them up means the damage is terrible

concept is great, the rest is terrible.

base damage and damage multiplier are flat out terrible for a skill that is limited to 1 sphere at a time

moving enemys around is a nice concept but lets get real for a minute, the enemys you can actualy move will likely die in a second with any other skill anyway

cooldown is way to long. this is POE we are talking about, having to wait up to 10 secs to reuse a skill is a huge drawback.

as of now i only found 2 uses for it:
first is in CWDT setup to save one from being sorrounded by a nasty pack
second is as a virulence generator for agony crawler

other than that the skill feels quite lacking

few ideas that could improve the skill

option 1: reduce cooldown to 7 secs and considerably increace base mana cost

option 2: increace its aoe, at the end of its duration make it explode dealing damage based on all the corpses consumed

option 3: add a weakening debuff that increace enemys damage taken for every second they spend within the sphere effect.

Another great looking ability dead on arrival because of poor design choices.

No way it can be used as a primary skill and clear endgame content. Simply none.

"

Recall that 'meta' isn't everyone. I would also note that it's meant as a support skill, not a primary one - it excels at bunching up those low-tier enemies and giving you some space to reposition, lay down your bread-and-butter area abilities, or focus on those things it pulls with difficulty or not at all. For example Strongbox? Drop a sphere on it; open it; dash/blink away. Abyss opening? Ditto. And since one is leveraging its pull, not its damage, it might be reasonable to leave it at level one - the pull does not seem to be affect by gem level, and the low damage at level one makes it somewhat safe to use on physical reflect enemies/maps.

I quite agree that the meta isn't everyone but I'll point out the mobs I was referring to are white and blue packs, which almost every build can wipe out. If void sphere was meant exclusively as a utility skills, it pales in comparison to other options (any hardcast curses, movement skills to get in/out of combat, rejuvenation/decoy/devouring totem)
The fact that it does as much damage as it does implies it wants to be more than that, but its too limited to do so.
I'm all for non-meta strategies, did an empire's grasp shockwave totem build that made it to maps. The issue is that the skill simply doesn't fulfill the niche that it implies in its current form.

It offers good utility but requires greater investment to get it there. I'm using it as a ranged Orb of Storms substitute to trigger EO and hextouch. It also helps me to clear with another Conc Effect skill by bunching up the mobs. It's a boost to defense since mobs will often wind up an attack but will be pulled away before they can land it. It's fun.

Second Wind is an absolute must in order to glean any consistency from it, it's basically a two-socket skill. With second wind, a skill effect duration cluster, and 100% increased AoE from hierophant, it's only preforming okay overall, not great.

There isn't much incentive to level it at all, aside from its hinder effect. You'd be hard pressed to push it to 100% uptime in order to use it as a main damaging skill, and it can make phys reflect maps impossible as a utility skill.

It's also awkward on a technical level.

I still can't tell if the corpse consumption is meant to prevent on-death mechanics or not. Sometimes it prevents them, sometimes it doesn't. This is without any other effects like shatter or explodey chest.

There's also a dangerous bug that it will turn monsters who spawn inside it invisible. This is repeatable on heist doors that spawn monsters and syndicate intervention portals.