Chain

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markus7 wrote:

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markus7 wrote:

Is Chain Quality (+1% Projectile Speed per 1 Quality) good enough, and does it affect the first projectile(s), i.e., before Chaining..?

Few people seem to care about Chain Quality.

Can someone lean in about it please? I'd really like to know if there's any reason to use a quality Chain.

projectile speed is important for skills that have short range like ethereal knives, incinerate, flame totem, freezing pulse. however, only EK gets benefit from chain as of this post.

Thank you, sir! Makes sense.
So Chain quality right now is mostly good for EK. I have never played an EK character, so I had no idea. This is good information for the future, thanks.

I think, the only skill, that can benefit from chain, is skill, used solely for IQ/IR, or for overgear farming.

Chain doubles cost of skill, and adds just +50% more damage, which is highly situational. For example, greater Multiple Projectiles add +150% more situational damage for the same cost. Lesser Multiple Projectiles add +110% for +50% cost. And when LMP/GMP are used with pierce, it provides great AoE for almost any situations.
Why do you think Lightning Arrow is so popular? Because it's a shot, that has innate "chain" ability. It's far more efficient to link GMP to LA, than link chain to Split Arrow, for example.


Seriously, guys, this gem needs a buff. Increase number of bounces, or decrease damage loss, or decrease mana cost. Chain ATM is just a garbage.

I use Lightning Arrow together with Chain and Lesser Multiple Projectiles. I could use Pierce or fork instead of chain maybe but chain has the advantage that it does automaticly jumps to an enemy (or sometimes just an barrel :D ), so it always hits. I could imagine this is a little bit more efficient thant support gems like pierce or fork which just go a straight path.

The only reason chain can't be buffed right now is its interaction with some skills. While those like Fireball or Frozen Breath do only base damage on bounce, LA, Ice Shot and Poison Arrow activate AoE on every bounce making them efficient even with this severely neutered chain gem. Explosive Arrow used to be able to leave fuses one every bounce but was fixed in recent patch.

Solution is simple, make all skills activate AoE on last hit only and chain could be buffed without breaking the game. Skils with no AoE involved could still activate special property on bounce, like Puncture or Siphon.

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raics wrote:

The only reason chain can't be buffed right now is its interaction with some skills. While those like Fireball or Frozen Breath do only base damage on bounce, LA, Ice Shot and Poison Arrow activate AoE on every bounce making them efficient even with this severely neutered chain gem. Explosive Arrow used to be able to leave fuses one every bounce but was fixed in recent patch.

Solution is simple, make all skills activate AoE on last hit only and chain could be buffed without breaking the game. Skils with no AoE involved could still activate special property on bounce, like Puncture or Siphon.

Anyway, chain gem is just adds 50-60% more damage, when there are enough enemies to chain. It isnt much, really, especially considering 200% mana multiplier! And that works only in perfect scenario, where there are enough clustered enamies.
According to what you wrote, we should nerf GMP/LMP in first place, because they provide +150/110% more damage, if all projectiles hit (and for some spells, due to shotgun effect, more damage is dealt to single target too). These gems are far more powerful, than chain. Let's nerf them first, so they will be on par with chain.
But better solution, i think, is just to buff up chain.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

Anyway, chain gem is just adds 50-60% more damage, when there are enough enemies to chain. It isnt much, really, especially considering 200% mana multiplier! And that works only in perfect scenario, where there are enough clustered enamies.
According to what you wrote, we should nerf GMP/LMP in first place, because they provide +150/110% more damage, if all projectiles hit (and for some spells, due to shotgun effect, more damage is dealt to single target too). These gems are far more powerful, than chain. Let's nerf them first, so they will be on par with chain.
But better solution, i think, is just to buff up chain.

We can't ask to buff chain as long as it works inconsistently.

Let's say we fire LA into a densely packed group of enemies.

We fire it with LMP, and all three arrows hit spmething with 4 hits per arrow, that's 12 hits at 70% damage for a total of 840% distributed damage.
If we use GMP, that's ideally 20 hits at 50% damage for 1000% damage in all.
With chain, that's 12 hits at 50% damage for 600% damage.

Ok, chain cleary loses both in raw damage and in mana cost, now combos.
LMP+GMP would ideally do 28 hits at 35% damage for 980% damage.
Now, LMP+Chain would do 36 hits at, again 35% for 1260 damage.
And GMP+Chain would do amazing 60 hits in perfect conditions at 25% damage doing 1500 damage.

As we can see, while chain pretty much sucks on its own it works much better as a complement to LMP and GMP, in fact better than either one, however, that's only if the skill in question activates its radius on every bounce.
Now, if it didn't...

LMP+Chain would first hit 3 enemies and chain two more times for 6 more hits and only on last target would the AoE activate hitting 3 more enemies per arrow, making it 18 hits for 35% damage = 630 damage.
GMP+Chain would do only 30 hits at 25% damage doing 750 damage.

So now chain loses the crazy synergy with multiple projectile supports and starts to suck as a support to the supprt too, making it a boost candidate, so, if it had 30% damage penalty instead of 50% it would do:

Solo Chain - 840%
LMP+Chain - 882%
GMP+Chain - 1050%

Ok, now it does same damage as LMP on its own, and does little as an addon for LMP and GMP as it probably should. If the only valid use of the support was to boost LA with multiple projectiles than it was a piss-poor design. Now, let's reduce the damage penalty to 20%, it's a bit expensive to only match LMP.

Solo Chain - 960%
LMP+Chain - 1008%
GMP+Chain - 1200%

Now that's more like it, nice boost on its own and not a total waste on LMP/GMP. So LA is officially balanced, now let's see what it does for other skills.

Single shot skills - 240% damage for 200% mana, decent
Multishot - 480% with 6 arrows max, 1152% with Chain, nice when compared to current 720%
Fireball - If we assume AoE would on average hit 2 enemies, thats 2 extra hits with chain doubling the damage per fireball, not useless. Currently it would be 4 hits at 50% versus 2 hits at 100%, a totally pointless support.

GMP actually works as 2x LMP added, so it's pretty pointless to combine them.
Chain works fine with GMP/LMP, but... wait.... you have to hit a huge pack of mobs to make GMP(LMP)+ chain+ LA combo work. And, i think, you forgot to mention one important detail about LA - it SHOCKS! I think shock is what makes combo with GMP(LMP)/chain viable - you trade shock duration for much higher shock chance (and thus, faster gain 3x shock stacks), and even single use of skill benefit from shock.
I can understand, why this works for LA, but i cant understand, why it would be great with other, non-shocking skills.
And dont forget 200% mana multiplier! That is a BIG downside!

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raics wrote:

Fireball - If we assume AoE would on average hit 2 enemies, thats 2 extra hits with chain doubling the damage per fireball, not useless. Currently it would be 4 hits at 50% versus 2 hits at 100%, a totally pointless support.

afaik, fireball doesn't work like Explosive arrow (doing a main hit, then exploding). It explodes on the last hit instead of doing a normal hit. Fireball + Chain does 3 50% hits instead of one 100% hit, so it's not pointless. (Unless you're using conc effect...)

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

GMP actually works as 2x LMP added, so it's pretty pointless to combine them.
Chain works fine with GMP/LMP, but... wait.... you have to hit a huge pack of mobs to make GMP(LMP)+ chain+ LA combo work. And, i think, you forgot to mention one important detail about LA - it SHOCKS! I think shock is what makes combo with GMP(LMP)/chain viable - you trade shock duration for much higher shock chance (and thus, faster gain 3x shock stacks), and even single use of skill benefit from shock.
I can understand, why this works for LA, but i cant understand, why it would be great with other, non-shocking skills.
And dont forget 200% mana multiplier! That is a BIG downside!

Yes, shock is a big factor there, 60 hits with GMP+chain is a guaranteed triple shock. There's one more thing, when you use LA with multiple projectiles only it hits the front rows not reaching too far back, chain also positions the subsequent bursts better. Anyway, that was my whole point, the only skill chain works good at the moment is LA, and specifically when utilizing MP supports too. And that's just plain bad, on similar level to Punishment curse being only good for necro builds.
Now, with that makeover I suggested chain would be fairly good for most projectile skills offering a damage boost worthy of 200% mana multiplier. On LA it wouldn't be worth it in raw damage, however, if we include shock in the equation it just might be a worthwhile addition.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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raics wrote:

Fireball - If we assume AoE would on average hit 2 enemies, thats 2 extra hits with chain doubling the damage per fireball, not useless. Currently it would be 4 hits at 50% versus 2 hits at 100%, a totally pointless support.

afaik, fireball doesn't work like Explosive arrow (doing a main hit, then exploding). It explodes on the last hit instead of doing a normal hit. Fireball + Chain does 3 50% hits instead of one 100% hit, so it's not pointless. (Unless you're using conc effect...)

Actually, fireball does count direct hit and indirect AoE hits separate, if you take AoE nodes that increase area damage and hit a cluster of enemies you primary target will take the same damage while those around him will take more. Confirmed by devs on some occasion.

The post got a bit long-winded so I skipped things a little in the end. I meant to say because of small AoE you hit at most two enemies with one fireball on average (not one enemy twice by direct+AoE), one directly, other one indirectly. So if you attach chain you get two more direct hits and it explodes on the last one hitting a smallish area so it rarely hits more than two monsters (I admit I was being fairly generous there).

Anyway, I'm glad someone read the whole thing.