Ball Lightning

Can't believe people manage to get deleted messages here -_-

@Mark : Any tips about if it's intented that conc/aoe damage doesn't work ?

Well, truth is hard to swallow after 5months they released absolute sh1t spell with wrong synergy with passive tree.

The skill has little to no synergy with passives/supports.
You cannot scale it´s damage with area nodes, you cannot scale it with shock nodes (because the hits are so small that they cant shock champ packs or rares), conc effect does not scale its damage, neither does lmp or gmp.
There is very little you can do to increase the actual damage output, and on top of that it deals subpar damage to begin with.

Completely useless in its current iteration.

Buff incoming.

I think GGG has come to the conclusion that its better to release a skill medicore/underpowered and buff it later to where it should be rather than releasing it too powerful and having to deal with the children crying when the nerfs come.

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gh0un wrote:

The skill has little to no synergy with passives/supports.
You cannot scale it´s damage with area nodes, you cannot scale it with shock nodes (because the hits are so small that they cant shock champ packs or rares), conc effect does not scale its damage, neither does lmp or gmp.
There is very little you can do to increase the actual damage output, and on top of that it deals subpar damage to begin with.

Completely useless in its current iteration.

This is pretty much my take on the gem as of right now. It's a fun spell to use, but the damage it does just can't stack up to something like Arc or even Lightning Strike, and yes I know LS isn't a spell. They both can be augmented with other supports that bring their potential up, and both have a much easier time of shocking enemies, which is generally one of the big reasons why you'd want to use lightning-based attacks in the first place. BL can't do that...Arc has a natural shocking chance, even more with quality, and LS can shock as well along with still being useable with RT and Static Blows.

Ball Lightning might deal a decent amount of hits, but they are too weak thanks to the damage effectiveness of the gem itself, and again, no way to really scale the damage up. Arc can hit quite a few times thanks to its natural chaining, and LS can be given the Chain gem and still do well even with the heavy damage penalty. In its current state it isn't that good, and worse when you find out that using something like LMP/GMP won't allow it to 'shotgun'...lots of lost potential there. I understand why the devs used that line of thinking, but it just limits this spell's effectiveness far too much.

Still needs some tuning, IMHO.

Are we talking about the same spell here?

In a 6l,this is utterly,tottaly broken.Broken,that it does so much that many spell cant.Ill explain My thoughts after i post the setup

Ball lighting-lighting penetration-faster casting-echo-knockback-ele prolif.

Ok so,you have monsters,get pushed back,also known as get hit more,proliferate shock to masses with some aoe build,even though it wont get Aoe modifiers.

Melle monsters cant hit you.Ranged monsters wont reach the range distance.Prolif will shock stack anything in its path guaranteed.The more hits you will get the best leech you will have.

It pierces,it spreads out,and in an aoe build one cast is enough to cover your aoe needs,so lesser multiple or greater is there to hurt its dps,rather than help it.

Have you seriously tried the spell this way?I repeat it is the single most broken spell,that provides good dps and insane survivability.

Dont know what people wanted more from this skill.............

Edit:I swear to god,if you buff this spell,it would be the most utterly broken thing in this game period

Edit:did i mention it is broken?Cause it is.

Prolif helps but why would we knockback stuff to avoid them to reach us when arc can do the same by simply killing the targets.

I'm tryinbg the gem each time i get a level on it and each time i go back to arc.

@elwin

Everything you just said, Arc can do far better and more reliably, and it doesn't need Elemental Proliferation because it can shock far, far better than BL can. Yes, the Knockback is quite nice, but even though the monsters will be getting hit more, it doesn't matter if those hits are overall weaker and can't stack shocks on their own. Arc has very little issues doing that, and more importantly, because of its higher damage it will kill faster, thus rendering the advantage of Knockback - keeping enemies away - moot. Plus, Arc can be used in conjunction with an Empower gem, which will scale its damage even higher, and you can still use a similar gem setup:

Arc > Spell Echo > Faster Casting > Empower > Lightning Penetration > <insert gem here>

You could certainly add in E. Proliferation, but you still have plenty of flexibility for other things depending on what you need. That's really the big issue with Ball Lightning, it lacks flexibility and synergy with skills and its damage is too small compared to the main lightning spell it's competing again...Arc. As it stands right now, BL is certainly not useless, but it is lacking and needs some work to get it going better.

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elwindakos wrote:

The more hits you will get the best leech you will have.

"

Kagari wrote:

Prolif helps but why would we knockback stuff to avoid them to reach us when arc can do the same by simply killing the targets.

I'm tryinbg the gem each time i get a level on it and each time i go back to arc.

Cause Survivability in this game is half the game.You know,half the builds in there build around that.And no,arc cant kill anything without you getting dmged,this spell can

@TanakeahEvery thing you will point out,flameblast can do better.What is your point?

Here we are arguing if it is a good or bad skill.

See,i selectively spoken about a combination i used.You could drop faster casting which is an overkill to the combo i spoke and add empower or anything else.And be honest with yourself,Ball lighting has so many more support gems helping it,such as faster projectiles,slower projectiles,increase aoe,lesser multiple,greater multiple in addition to any other support Arc can get.

As it stands nopw arc is useless when comparing to flameblast.Are you going to compare apples and oranges?

Again.Here we are talking about if it is great or not and its possible uses.Asking for a buff for an already beefed up spell is wrong.