Chain

Sorry for asking this again, but to clarify; the 50% damage penalty applies on the original projectile as well (not just the chaining ones)?

Does fork work the same way?

It's disappointing that fork and chain synergize so poorly as to be useless together. I think making them work better together would:

1) make the skill system more consistent and easier to understand
2) allow regular projectile skills to better compete with the fireball/pulse + xMP combo

The underlying principle as to how it could work is that when a projectile hits a target it triggers all support abilities. Then, each new projectile that is launched maintains all supported abilities except the support that generated the projectile. So if a fork+chained projectile hit the following would happen:

1) Two projectiles fork off the mob and also 2 projectiles chain off the mob.
2) If the chained projectiles connect, then they both fork two normal projectiles with no special powers.
3) If the forked projectiles hit, then they both chain two projectiles that have no special powers.

This means that in the best case, a fork+chained projectile can hit up to 13 targets, which would be very unlikely and result in a huge 450% total multiplier. Most likely on average a single projectile would result in 8 or 9 hits in a cluster of mobs, which would lead to a total 300% multiplier. Even this number seems excessively large, but keep in mind two things:

1) The multiplier is coming from two support gems, not one.
2) Getting a good multiplier requires a large cluster of mobs, whereas a small cluster will yield much more modest results. Worse, the skill is ruined for single target attacks. There is overall a reasonable tradeoff here.
3) LMP, an easily obtained ability, alone provides a 210% multiplier to BOTH single target and AoE damage for pulse and fireball, almost guaranteed at near melee range. GMP brings that up to 250%. And this multiplier comes from a single skill that forces no tradeoffs other than mana increase.

In the end, testing would be required to ensured that it isn't overpowered, but I think it's a useful idea to pursue.

As a final note, applying this rule to pierce would probably be overpowered, since pierce does not give a damage reduction multiplier. If it did, it might not be too strong since each projectile would be doing something like 20% damage. A Mob would literally have to get hit 4-5 times to break even with not having the supports at all.

I got a short question. Is it viable to use Chain + Elemental hit/frenzy as the main AOE clear skill? I'm sick of seeing archers everywhere shoot out 3-5 arrows per shot with lightning arrow.

Since there are multiple threads about Chain i just hope that this one is as good as the rest and that i will get an answer here. :)
There r two things im curious about:

1.
If a prejectile chains or not depends on either there is an enemy in the specified range or not. Considering there are two enemies in range of a chaining projectile, which one would be attacked? Is it random or will the target be attacked which is the closest to the one the projectile chains from?

2.
Does the support gem "greater area of effect" work together with it?

Thanks for ur replies! :)

today i went to a lower level area where i could 1-shot everything. with LMP i should kill 3x3=9 targets for each shot if i hit the initial 3 targets. but often only 3 till 5 went down while like 8 or 9 were in range.

could it be that chain does not chain if the target dies by the initial hit? or did the chained projectiles try to target mobs that were killed 0.001 seconds ago?

"

Baki wrote:

today i went to a lower level area where i could 1-shot everything. with LMP i should kill 3x3=9 targets for each shot if i hit the initial 3 targets. but often only 3 till 5 went down while like 8 or 9 were in range.

could it be that chain does not chain if the target dies by the initial hit? or did the chained projectiles try to target mobs that were killed 0.001 seconds ago?

Most likely its the chains are created at same time some may target same monster but only one will trigger again

I'm sorry for random noob question but I've got to know: at what gem level does Chain become good? Because so far the damage nerf and mana cost increase (at least on LA) is massive and it feels rather underwhelming compared to LMP

"

WhisperByte wrote:

I'm sorry for random noob question but I've got to know: at what gem level does Chain become good? Because so far the damage nerf and mana cost increase (at least on LA) is massive and it feels rather underwhelming compared to LMP

Tangent Incoming: LA doesn't need any LMP/GMP/Chain- most of the LA builds posted in Ranger and Shadow counsel against it as a waste.