What We're Working On

Just a small feedback about some of the new gems:

Sigil of Power: in a game where staying still for too long drastically increases death chance it feels a bit odd for it to have such a small area, increase area support shouldn't feel as mandatory link. Maybe a small increase to area with levels?

Void Sphere: I like it so far as a defensive mechanic, but some monsters types seem to get out of it or outright ignore it too easily, especially the ones with movement skills; I kinda don't see the reason for it to suck in corpses without any additional effect, it just makes it hard to use for builds with skils/passives based on them, there are already many other ways to get rid of corpses if needed.

Crackling Lance: it feels a bit clunky, I think it should have a clearer indicator on the area it hits especially because it's constantly changing with intensity stacks; also a wider initial cone would be nice, monsters seem dodge it too often when closing in in groups and trying to spread around the character, resulting in several extra casts when other spells like Arc or Divine Ire automatically solve that problem.

I have played Crackling Lance from league start until level 91 on SSF and am continuing on with the ability. I really enjoy it and I think many players have yet to figure out or discover how to make the skill work well.

I have one suggestion I would like to offer that would make the skill more interesting.

Crackling Lance should inflict Sapped on nearby enemies, with a greater spread as Intensity stacks are built up, scaling with Area of Effect and Lightning Ailment modifiers. One could even design a new crackling effect to show in game which monsters are suffering the effects of reduced damage from being nearby the character which is casting Crackling Lance.

For a skill that requires the character to cast in place to get the most out of it, inflicting sapped on nearby enemies would give the player more room and time to work with and get the most out of the spell.

Crackling Lance is complicated to use, had to drop it.

Firestorm could stand for a damage buff.

Crackling lance:

Crackling lance scales pretty well in early mapping. Not before mapping tho. Leveling with this skill is a nightmare. Early on we dont have the cast speed to stack intensity very quickly so the skill deals no damage. I understand why you removed intensity stacks with each cast of spell echo. That would be way too powerful but early on with faster casting this skill is just terrible.

After started mapping, this skill is still pretty bad to maps because the arc of the skill is just way too small. I scale the skill to up to 131% increased AoE and it still cannot clear quickly. The distance it travel can compensate this if it is not heist league. In heist, Im off-screening mobs that I dont wanna bother with is annoying me. However, this should be fixed in the upcoming patch since killing mobs will not raise the alert level.

Not sure if this is bug but sometimes mobs cant be damaged if they are standing decently close to the player. Not sure if its because the mobs is standing between the lightning or if its a bug.

As we all know moving in PoE is the best defense. This skill is allowing us to sacrifice those defense to exchange for damage which is nice. 30% more damage is a lot. considering this skill can use intensity support as well make it sounds amazing on paper. However, The base damage of this skill should be carefully raise by a little bit to make actually worth it to stand still and cast multiple times for the more damage the skill provides. Making it much less effective compare to warcry slam skill ( I love the warcry slam skills rework btw. The hit and run playstyle feels really good to play)

Sorry GGG, I’ll be frank. You should be totally ashamed of yourselves for releasing such poor quality design and code to your fanbase. You folks are getting way over your heads, that you can’t even produce a properly functioning league and expect your paying customers to work for you testing and reporting defects?

And to all of you praising GGG for their great work, get a hold of yourselves and open your eyes for gods sake.

Lancing Steel has honestly become everything I wanted it to be with rapid shooting blades.

Criticisms for the new skills I was interested in.

--Lancing Steel--
The visible "muzzle flash" on Lancing Steel is awkwardly high above the actual visual of the skill. (Shards fire at arm height and the sparks are above my head)

The shards themselves are visually very lack luster.

--Void sphere--
Been waiting for this skill since harbinger. Blackholes are my jam in literally every game.

My biggest complaint is that the visual is less interesting that the Vortex MTX and the blackhole portal.

I still wish it could be a primary skill through some means such as a unique at least.

--Hex blast--
This is actually not a hexblast issue but rather I wish blasphemy support had a visual radius like Blood n Sand, so I can see how close I need to be to hex someone for the skill.

A little bit of smart targeting would be nice if it tried to prioritize mobs with Doom if possible.

--Firestorm--
The first skill I beat Dominus with back in the day. I actually have a lot to say about this skill and it's not even about the damage numbers.

1. The impact noise of the meteor is extremely underwhelming. Those mini fire golems falling in Kaom's dream land with a significantly more intimidating impact noise. Gravicous version of firestorm in act 3 also sounds much better than what we got.

2. The duration is so short that it doesn't fulfill it's title of fireSTORM. A few Artillery Ballista? Now that's a firestorm when they get going.

3. Lastly could the meteor maybe hinder if it's a direct hit to help keep extremely mobile mobs actually in it.

--Shattering Steel--
I tried to like this skill, but why does it have randomized ranges. Why can it hit a boss then attack again and the skill shoots half as far. I hate always having to assume it's going to fire at minimum distance.

--call of Steel--
I don't care what anyone else says, detonating entire packs of mobs with one Call has been some of the most fun I've ever had in PoE so I thank you for that.

Can you guys please make an SRS mtx that turns the skulls into floating busts like the ones in the library, to match my statue skeletons? PLEASE TY! PRIORITY SHIPPING

Reiterating a post on void sphere:

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 meaningful. Basically I'd love to use this as the center of a build rather than as a utility piece.

Shattering Steel:

Feedback

1) Do not Proc Bleed frequently even at 100%+ chance
a) Do not work well with Gladiator's Gratuitous Violence

2) Bonus Damage scaling per shard is seemingly not working

3) Call of Steel is clunky and sometimes do not proc that you need to recast

Cracking lance.

Is the interaction between cracking lance and spell repetition supports such as spell echo and unleash working as you expected or is it bugged. Because currently cracking lance does not gain intensify charges when repeated with echo or unleash

Also when intensify support is linked to cracking lance it does not gain the bonus aoe damage with intensify stacks.