Barrage

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By itself as a standalone attack, there are probably better options, but I can see this skill being absolutely incredible with a CoC gem added.

I'm actually planning on trying out a crit-centric dual-wand Barrage Shadow as soon as the next set of leagues is up.

Barrage/Chain/Cast on Crit/Cold Snap/Power Charge on Crit/Increased Critical Strikes. Leave off the PCoC and ICS for earlier, non-6L builds. Critical Weakness to support. Combined with a few critical chance nodes and the wand's naturally high crit chance, I suspect this'll turn out to be a monster combination. Grab cold damage/freeze duration nodes in the Witch tree for even better results. Critical Cold Snaps are pretty respectable in the damage department and, as much as they'll be going off (Steady income of power charges ensures CS gets to bypass its cooldown a lot), I'll be able to lock down entire mobs while I nuke them with cold damage.

This combination's biggest shortfall, I predict, will be damage output against powerful single targets (i.e. bosses), so to fix that I'm going to have Ice Spear and Increased Critical Damage on-hand to swap with Cold Snap and Chain especially for those occasions.

I think it's going to work out just fine. ;)

Barrage by itself? Not so impressive. Barrage supported by the right gems? Potentially devastating.


weakness of this is accuracy

you need enough accuracy to 'hit' and then 'roll crit'. evasion dips into your crit chance TWICE. it applies to mobs too.

my wander has around 85% crit power siphon chance and barrage with CoCS was not that impressive. ofc it all changes when you get crown of eyes (another broken unique)

also - eating power charges dips into crit chance (you cannot seriously play a crit wander without 6+ power charges up).

but, what stops me from checking this idea out..

EDIT: tested (briefly) with crit wand, ele, prolif, burn/shock wander tree

used tabula rasa. issue: you eat PCs faster than you generate them and 7PC make a huge part of my crit chance. cold snap dmg is probably ok (i used lvl12 just to see how it procs) but frequency is low due to no PCs->low crit

and barrage misses so many 'bolts' that effectiveness is not that great
Last edited by sidtherat on Jan 18, 2014, 3:21:58 AM
@Manfred_von_Wolfstein, sidtherat

The issue here is the power charge on crit gem - it only gives a charge per attack/spell that crits (extra projectiles that crit do not count). On the other hand, the CoC gem will cast per crit (extra projectiles that crit do count).

With chain, a barrage that crits will throw out potentially six cold snaps per attack while only generating one power charge itself. The cold snaps can generate a power charge, but only if they crit - so, even if the majority of those crit, you will likely be at zero power charges afterwards (and some of the cold snaps might not be able to cast if the earlier ones did not crit).

You could solve this with Voll's Protector, which gives a charge per crit, rather than per attack (that crits).
"
Aimeryan wrote:
@Manfred_von_Wolfstein, sidtherat

The issue here is the power charge on crit gem - it only gives a charge per attack/spell that crits (extra projectiles that crit do not count). On the other hand, the CoC gem will cast per crit (extra projectiles that crit do count).

With chain, a barrage that crits will throw out potentially six cold snaps per attack while only generating one power charge itself. The cold snaps can generate a power charge, but only if they crit - so, even if the majority of those crit, you will likely be at zero power charges afterwards (and some of the cold snaps might not be able to cast if the earlier ones did not crit).

You could solve this with Voll's Protector, which gives a charge per crit, rather than per attack (that crits).


yep., i know it :)

about the Voll's Protector. it is true that it makes PC creation a lot easier but for a crit heavy wander build this armor is surprisingly hard to beat:



but probably if i had a 6L Voll's..

my quest to find a use for this gem continues. it seems that apart from CoCS build there is none (and CoCS builds are abominations and should be a niche fun stuff and not the juggernauts that they are now)
"
sidtherat wrote:
weakness of this is accuracy

you need enough accuracy to 'hit' and then 'roll crit'. evasion dips into your crit chance TWICE. it applies to mobs too.

my wander has around 85% crit power siphon chance and barrage with CoCS was not that impressive. ofc it all changes when you get crown of eyes (another broken unique)

also - eating power charges dips into crit chance (you cannot seriously play a crit wander without 6+ power charges up).

but, what stops me from checking this idea out..

EDIT: tested (briefly) with crit wand, ele, prolif, burn/shock wander tree

used tabula rasa. issue: you eat PCs faster than you generate them and 7PC make a huge part of my crit chance. cold snap dmg is probably ok (i used lvl12 just to see how it procs) but frequency is low due to no PCs->low crit

and barrage misses so many 'bolts' that effectiveness is not that great


"
Aimeryan wrote:
@Manfred_von_Wolfstein, sidtherat

The issue here is the power charge on crit gem - it only gives a charge per attack/spell that crits (extra projectiles that crit do not count). On the other hand, the CoC gem will cast per crit (extra projectiles that crit do count).

With chain, a barrage that crits will throw out potentially six cold snaps per attack while only generating one power charge itself. The cold snaps can generate a power charge, but only if they crit - so, even if the majority of those crit, you will likely be at zero power charges afterwards (and some of the cold snaps might not be able to cast if the earlier ones did not crit).

You could solve this with Voll's Protector, which gives a charge per crit, rather than per attack (that crits).


Hm. Thanks for the feedback. I definitely didn't realize that PCoC generated charges on a per-attack basis instead of per-crit. >.<

I guess I'll have to try to dig up a Voll's then... Actually, it'd probably be a better idea to use Voll's anyway, since that would free the PCoC support slot for use with Increased Critical Damage or Additional Accuracy.

With that change, though, I'm still convinced this can be a great build! :D
"Chris wrote:
The "nerfs" in this patch are in response to the rest of the rebalance and so that many builds are simultaneously viable. You can't complain that there are only seven good builds and then complain when we balancing the power level :P
Last edited by Manfred_von_Wolfstein on Jan 21, 2014, 8:58:33 AM
in its current form it needs flat accuracy buff and 1 chain integrated into the skill. either that or they need to make accuracy version of tempest shield.
[quote="Mark_GGG"]damage modifiers don't can currently can't apply to degen.[/quote]
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"
leighferon wrote:
in its current form it needs flat accuracy buff and 1 chain integrated into the skill. either that or they need to make accuracy version of tempest shield.


I wouldn't agree with innate chain. Mostly I find this skill useful in one application - single target CoC spam, with quill rain. This is about the only thing I find it does better than competitors. Works well as a weapon-swap alternative for single-target to the ST-GMP-COC-Discharge (with Voll's Protector) build I use.
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leighferon wrote:
in its current form it needs flat accuracy buff and 1 chain integrated into the skill. either that or they need to make accuracy version of tempest shield.


Barrage would be a rather awkward skill if it had those attributes.

The fact barrage is only viable with coc in my eyes indicates it needs a buff/overhaul. It's extremely unimpressive in terms of damage and it's just incredibly awkward to use. My DW wand scion has <30 dps total with it, she can't even kill things half her level with a fully leveled barrage. It needs to have better scaling in the early game, where coc builds aren't even possible yet.
My Keystone Ideas: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/744282
I'm happy with barrage, when it is paired with CoC.

It has strange mechanics that make it more suited for a slow weapon when you add lmp or gmp. It is exceptional with a high crit harbinger bow CoC build.

Maybe initially it was going to be a support and they changed it for balance reasons.

If you don't run a CoC build there are many other effective attacks in the game. Barrage fills the obvious void in the game for a multiple shot ranged attack. I don't see any reason to change it.
It is just not suited to be used as anything other than CoC fodder. Even then there are better options for every circumstance: Split Arrow for groups; Frenzy for single targets; Spectral Throw for either.

It needs to fire more shots faster and do more damage. It basically does nothing right.

It's a weird compromise between a single target and multi-target attack. Sort of like Arc, in a perverse way. And much like Arc, it just isn't good enough.

My suggestion would be to make an enemy hit by Barrage suffer a very short (0.25 second?) stackable debuff which would cause them to take 10% more damage from Barrage. You could get into some serious synergy with chain/fork/pierce/attack speed etc., and it wouldn't make it the crazy go-to choice for CoC.
It's worth noting that +2 maps are a dangerous thing.
They can cause players to get out of their depth -
playing maps that are too hard for the items they currently have. Herp Derp.
Last edited by RickyDMMontoya on Feb 4, 2014, 1:50:08 PM
Despite all the comments in this thread I really like the skill barrage.

If your run it with GMP + COCS and any projectile spell it is incredible.

Barrage calculates it's crits per cast. If the first projectile crits so do the others so with GMP you crit 8 times resulting in firing 8 sets of 5 of the spell you've linked it to (40 fireballs in my case). It fills the entire screen with fireballs when you proc COCS multiple times and absolutely devastates even without taking a lot of spell damage.

Stacking crit chance and attack speed is the way forward with a build like this.
[ºµº] oh boy here I go killing again

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