Kinetic Blast of Clustering - This was an easy win....

Kinetic Blast of Clustering was a skill many players eyed with its description and got excited.

- A mana stacking, potentially shotgunning, wand skill.
- The damage effectiveness clearly alluding to its ability to deal multiple hits.

The skill description is a lie or a deliberate misconstrue of words. It doesn't hit "around" its secondary radius. It hits in a NOVA. Players were expecting a wand skill that behaved similar to original Kinetic Blast pattern / firestorm hits. Players got a sequential blast pattern that when enough projectiles are stacked, hits in a nova around the original impact radius in a SPIRAL.

The skill has terrible single target capabilities that are in no way made up for by its mana stacking.

The consistency to clear packs good at times when bursts overlap, and horrific when it doesn't.

The best way to kill something with this skill? Have a high proj count & aim at a wall so you ACTUALLY get overlap.

Either adjust the radius so each ring overlaps with the center, maybe even with slight variance so not EVERY blast hits the middle OR give us firestorm hit patterns / original Kinetic Blast pattern please, not shock nova outer ring overlap.

The best way to use this skill should not be hitting a wall for overlap. In it's current state this is basically just the default wand attack that has mana stacking attributes when attempting to kill a single enemy. Killing anything powerful takes far too long.

...huh.

Reading the description, I was definitely expecting this to be an attack version of explosive trap. They should definitely redo the gem text if that's not the case.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

...huh.

Reading the description, I was definitely expecting this to be an attack version of explosive trap. They should definitely redo the gem text if that's not the case.

It has the same wording as normal KB, so it wasn't a big surprise that it would behave exactly like the original one.

On the other hand, yeah, its one of the most DOA gems GGG ever made. Wands already suffer when it comes to single target and every time somebody comes up with a good single target tech ( old nimis kb, trans kinetic bolt before nerf), they just nerf those things to oblivion.

I agree, this gem should've functioned like explosive trap, but nope, wanders can't have single target. (and wisps don't solve the single target problem).

The quickest and easiest fix I can see, would be to swap the two radiuses. This would at least make the skill playable this league. Better overpowered & nerf it next time if needed than worthless for an entire 3-4 months guys.

Regardless of what you choose, please don't leave it broken for the league.

It's strange that this skill, an Active skill as opposed to a support skill like Archmage, has 11 levels with no changes from the previous level, 12 if you count level 9 since it only increases the base mana cost from 15 to 16. It's really strange to level up the gem and have nothing change.

Those 12 levels without relevant changes should instead reduce the Secondary radius and increase the explosion radius, or alternate between both, to make the skill actually "cluster" by level 20. Alternatively, the skill could have an alternate leveling path, like Blood and Sand.

Edit:
The current leveling path:
1: Base (8% of Max Mana)
2: No change
3: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (9% of Max Mana)
4: No change
5: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (10% of Max Mana)
6: No change
7: No change
8: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (11% of Max Mana)
9: +1 Base Mana Cost (yay...)
10: No change
11: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (12% of Max Mana)
12: No change
13: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (13% of Max Mana)
14: No change
15: No change
16: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (14% of Max Mana)
17: No change
18: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (15% of Max Mana)
19: No change
20: No change
21: +1% Max Mana as Added Physical Damage (16% of Max Mana)

Oh come on, you guys really think GGG will give to you shotgun wander skill one day?

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Mold4000 wrote:

Oh come on, you guys really think GGG will give to you shotgun wander skill one day?

I mean the normal KB does shotgun???? This literally just makes it so that the explosions are the primary damage focus / stacking rather than projectile count.

Explosive trap is built this way, Firestorm hits in a random radius within an aoe, Seismic trap literally all about getting those overlapping waves.

Toxic Rain? Shrapnel Ballista? Tornado shot?

There's nothing wrong with expecting a skill to be designed well based on its description. With the massive amount of Transfigured gems last league I think its fair to say MOST of them hit the mark, with a few overperformers.

This? This can't even properly kill a single low power rare at an acceptable speed. If there is a cluster of monsters it does well because the aoe does what its supposed to, even more so if you pierce / chain / return, but the second you want to kill ONE enemy with this you're shit outa luck.

I tried to play this skill, its totally unusable.

It's a real shame they didn't made it possible to shotgun in some way. It's the worst wand skill for both farming and single target.

It also doesn't help that Power Siphon has been the only skill for years with some single target potential.

Dunno why they treat wands so harshly.