Somatic Shell -> Hidden busted tech potential?

Somatic shell protects the enemies before it is exploded. This means that the enemy will be on full life until the shell explodes, meaning all those "While Enemy On Full Life" mods will remain in play for much longer...

So against bosses you will somatic shell (possibly one link, or increased duration linked) then use your 6-link DPS skill...

The numbers will matter. If you only get one hit off before it explodes, it will be garbage, but if it sticks around for say 3 seconds of DPS, it could be good???

I'm not sure if that's how it works. It requires a hit to apply, which means as little as 1 damage would make the enemy not on Full Life any longer. They don't show enemy health bars in their showcase videos, so I can't say for sure. What I can see is that the damage seems to be low enough to not kill them right away, which could mean that it doesn't apply damage on hit by itself, but it could also mean that the showcase character didn't have enough damage on the skill. I suspect if it's the former, it will get nerfed very quickly.

Besides, if it has enough barrier HP to last 3 seconds with your build, that's also 3 seconds where you don't actually deal damage. All the while on Full Life mods would just add to this, meaning you probably gained nothing overall.

From the showcase, it looks more like a way to add a touch of AoE to otherwise single-target-focused skills. They didn’t mention that the explosion scales with the damage you deal, just that it triggers after you’ve dealt a certain amount. If you watch closely, the explosion doesn’t even kill a rare enemy, so it’s probably on the weaker side, more of a budget-friendly, early-game “explode” effect.