Ball Lightning

That must be it, ha ha !

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sidtherat wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjzLeBxSnUc (it is best to skip to like 1:30 as i had serious issues with porcupine spikes and my health was going down like crazy so beginning is less than steallar. as said - this issue is already fixed with proper cwdt setup)

Sorry to say, but my Arcer has much better clear speed, even if I don't use Conductivity neither Elemental Weakness, too lazy and prefer Temporal Chains on CwDT.

I tried BL and this skill is ATM very underwhelming, I foresee some buff in future as it's quite visible, that after few fiascoes, current balancing method used by GGG is to release skills nerfed to ground and next buff them if nobody uses them.

That clear speed was with lvl 17 gem.. so not that representativr. And arc was buffed to the op state so comparing ok skill with op one shall always result in the same.

I presume that after people stop using it as any other spell they shall realise that this spell is quite strong and 'non-quantutative' benefits like inherent safety knockback provides can - in practice - be more important.

While i agree that some spells are very very bad (ice nova..) calling ball lightning bad just because
A) that previev ball lightning was crazy op
B) arc is now a benchmark (ggg went waaaaay overboard with it)
C) old tricks wont work (people try to turn a sportscar into a tow vechicle..)
Is a bit too much

Im nobody around here but soon enough one of the popular streamers shall take BL and make a build that people shall copy and claim it the godsend. And i bet it shll be aoe+knockback centered..

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sidtherat wrote:

B) arc is now a benchmark (ggg went waaaaay overboard with it)

I haven't wrote, that it's bad, but that's underwhelming. I was quite thrived to use it as supplementary skill on my Arcer, but there is no point in it, it can't replace neither my supplementary elemental proliferation Arc totem nor GMPed Vaal Spark I use for bosses (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/947464).

ATM it's just too weak comparing to Arc. Full stop.

As a by side note, it's sad, that I can't just swap lighting skills on character build to be lighting one. This all "specialization" makes gameplay in PoE very boring, one-skill-one button-wonders are fun only for limited time.

i think that with similar investment one can make arc and BL at least similar. ofc arc on 'arc build' shall perform better than BL on 'arc build'. BL scales with AOE, arc ignores that. so one of the biggest BL multipliers is gone.

in my BL build arc hardly does any damage compared to BL output - because i scale it with AOE that Arc completely ignores etc.

and try to do 'fracturing' map with arc.. for BL it is free % affix

i know that arc is strong - the mere fact than everybody and their dogs are playing arc builds tells a lot about how strong it is. but after large enough group of people start thinking new ways instead of 'slapping it on existing char and note with satisfaction "crap"' the topic of 'BL is too weak' shall be forever forgotten

after playing with it A LOT i have to say that this gem is their best creation so far - mechanics are complex, scaling not-obvious and utility way above average. but it wont work as a replacement for arc gem in arc build. it wont. because why should it?

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sidtherat wrote:

and try to do 'fracturing' map with arc.. for BL it is free % affix

I did, what problem? I have 2x 6 times chaining Arcs, any group bigger than 2 mobs is going down in blink of an eye.

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sidtherat wrote:

but it wont work as a replacement for arc gem in arc build. it wont. because why it should?

Because, I know, that it's strange idea, but... maybe using 2 skills on one character could be fun? :)

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sidtherat wrote:

in my BL build arc hardly does any damage compared to BL output - because i scale it with AOE that Arc completely ignores

Strange, I was under the impresson BL damage doesn't scale with area damage, because it doesn't do area damage.

I also think damage is a bit too low, you need to do, what, five or six hits with it to match one hit with arc, however it moves too fast to give you more than two or three, sometimes even one when fast enemies move towards you. Slower projectiles gives more hits but also reduces range too much. Some spells just do too little damage to work good, no matter what we do to them, like ice nova.

I agree arc is a bit overtuned compared to most other spells, but I don't think it should be nerfed, it makes for a pretty strong, no hassle caster, I'd say other spells should sooner be buffed to that level.

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raics wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

in my BL build arc hardly does any damage compared to BL output - because i scale it with AOE that Arc completely ignores

Strange, I was under the impresson BL damage doesn't scale with area damage, because it doesn't do area damage.

I also think damage is a bit too low, you need to do, what, five or six hits with it to match one hit with arc, however it moves too fast to give you more than two or three, sometimes even one when fast enemies move towards you. Slower projectiles gives more hits but also reduces range too much. Some spells just do too little damage to work good, no matter what we do to them, like ice nova.

I agree arc is a bit overtuned compared to most other spells, but I don't think it should be nerfed, it makes for a pretty strong, no hassle caster, I'd say other spells should sooner be buffed to that level.

you scale it with AOE, not AOE damage. non-aoe-BL hits a mob 2-3 times

my BL hits it ~8 times or more if i roll successful knockback streak

this is equivalent of 250%+ cast speed

people really should STOP thinking about BL as they did about all previous spells. this has different mechanic and different scaling. you scale it via 'number of hits' and only then with 'power of single hit' and at the very last with 'cast speed'. people do it the other way around and well.. results are no surprise to me at all

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sidtherat wrote:

my BL hits it ~8 times or more if i roll successful knockback streak

So, if you roll successful knockback streak, your one ball is dealing damage equivalent of one Arc chain?

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sidtherat wrote:

you scale it with AOE, not AOE damage. non-aoe-BL hits a mob 2-3 times

my BL hits it ~8 times or more if i roll successful knockback streak

this is equivalent of 250%+ cast speed

people really should STOP thinking about BL as they did about all previous spells. this has different mechanic and different scaling. you scale it via 'number of hits' and only then with 'power of single hit' and at the very last with 'cast speed'. people do it the other way around and well.. results are no surprise to me at all

I know, I tested the number of hits using my area cycloner which can stack 120% AoE size on it and it still isn't that impressive. Prolonging it with knockback is essentially a good idea but it's far from reliable, it desyncs, and there are enemies you can't knock back.

Scaling BL with cast speed is really no different than scaling any other spell with cast speed, it's far from flameblast which has a peculiar relationship with it.