Ball Lightning

"

drixor wrote:

What are you babbling about arc is fine as it is at least for leveling, useless single target dps (imo) and great clearing capabilities.


I doubt arc is god sent in high end maps.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/879637/page/1
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/896869

An arc character was one of the ones to get in the top 5 in the charity race. It is great in high end maps, has great single target dps and it is definitely capable of killing the strongest the game has to offer (uber atziri even).

Arc is arguably one of the strongest spells imo atm.

Arc is what all spells should be! Most other spells are lackluster and utterly fail in comparison to attack skills. So let's not say that arc is OP because GGG released another fail spell. Which BL is 100%. Arpg is about maintaining high killspeed with low resourse comsumption, BL has neither. It is so much like the old arc its amazing GGG managed to release it after buffing arc. Mindbogling really.

All this skill will be used for is MF chars with GMP+AOE to cull everything on the screen. And even that might not work...


We wanted Piety's ball lightning, what we got is something totally different and not in just the visual. Piety's spell represents power, this represents knockback...

Dont kid yourselfs.As if they dont know that arc is overpowered now.

Again,i said two times in all this posts,and got again SELECTIVELY ignored.Why dont you compare it with SPARK?Because you are so naive to think that Arc is balanced somehow,when its obvious as the day itself that it only got buffed due to a certain user request,up to the point he find it incredible dull that it was dealing so much damage.

@allnamestaken. If you start seeing BL using by a streamer,dont you dare use it,its shitty right?

@Splifit good that you told him,seems he lives in another dimension or doesnt know the game at all.

@kagari one ball i enough in aoe,and with this + knockback makes the battles as trivial as arc does it,but with a little bit more time than arc.

So in general.Degrading it to shitty grade and try to buff it doesnt help either,what kind of feedback is that?

I think people comparing it to Arc are looking at it the wrong way. Incinerate is a more useful comparison as both spells have a focus on multiple hits over a short period of time.

done almost entire cruel with this already in last few hours (it is too hot to go outside here..)

i have no idea on how this gem scales up in higher levels but in low-mid levels:

a) mana cost IS a problem
b) it is really surprisingly weak

however. contrary to what ziggy and other have said L/GMP i think is NOT the way to go. these extra projectiles cover entire screen with balls of insignificant damage. people using L/GMP and complaining about damage.. well.. yes, it is bad that way

two supports that seem to provide VERY high effective dps increase are

Slower Projectiles
AOE

and third

Chance to Flee - mobs run away along the balls and take A LOT of extra dmg. also survivability goes WAY up due to that

sadly this means that 5L is the minimum effective setup as Echo and LPenetration are a must

but the icing on the cake, support that really makes a difference is..

Elemental Proliferation. This effectively provides auto 90% more damage vs groups.

sad stuff is that it means 6Link that most probably shall never have.


final note: this seems to NOT be a single target spell. and im fine with that.

"

elwindakos wrote:

Dont kid yourselfs.As if they dont know that arc is overpowered now.

I would dispute this.

Why is arc overpowered? Because it can hold its own vs attacks like split arrow, spec throw, power siphon, light arrow, cyclone, flicker strike etc etc? Actually, truth be told with top or near top tier weapons those attack skills still destroy arc. Arc can really only compete with these attacks until they get slightly over the middle of the road in dps potential. And that is with non crit builds. If you factor in crit (which arc has problems with) then there is simply no comparison as far as dps potential goes.

There are only a few spells that could even be considered decent (not counting "for fun" builds) and almost all of them atm rely on burning prolif. Det dead being the exception, that spell could be considered op.

I think Arc should be the target that GGG aims for most spells to be. Sorta like how sorceress was in diablo 2, spellcasters should be nice and reliable to start a ladder with because you don't need rng to bless you with a weapon to compete. Just experience to get your skills high will give you a good power base. However to counter that, attacks have a higher ceiling for potential as you climb equipment tiers.

BL is not being compared to spark because spark is underpowered now, noone in their right mind uses it late game. What is the point? I find people that want to compare it to spark try to make BL look better than it actually is.

It is bad. Simple as that, but it can be fixed by upping damage or damage effectiveness. That way the uniqueness will stay, since it does provide use for obscure supports, which is sort off nice (if only it had damage, so we could afford to socket these supports in before we have a 5L-6L).

I myself use it in 74-75 maps so far with an iron will caster (with RF), so damage boost is pretty hefty, and it still fails to be great, just ok sometimes. With IW it actually near impossible to use the needed supports for the spell, since we have an extra mandatory support. Requesting Iron Will keystone.

BL is crippled by it's dumb anti-shotgun features built into the skill. It's restricted from ever being useful, on top of it's bad damage.

Please redesign skill.

What is the base radius of the skill?
And the base travel speed would also be nice to know!
Couldn't find it anywhere in this thread nor in the wiki..

Also a general question:
How does the game calculate uneven numbers?
Lets take "Purity of Fire" as an example. If you have a level 23 PoF it gives +5 max Fireresist. At 20% Aura effectivity you gain another +1 on top. But at 30% you wont get another +0.5.
So the question is, does this form of calculation apply to increased area (and other things) as well?
So if you have 10 base radius and 9% increased radius it does nothing and only at 10% increased radius it goes to 11?
Thats a point i wondered for a long time.

Would be nice, if a Dev can enlighten me ;)

yet another test round. results:

- inc AOE is mandatory. templar and witch passives + inc AOE gem. without it there is no point in trying further

- elemental proliferation (With static blows and other shock sources) provides very solid dps boost - it provides constant 3shock coverage for mobs without external shock source (like Arc Trap EP) but it has to fight for a link place with other gems

- added lightning damage is ok albeit not as effective as one thinks (Even considering BL effectiveness)

- good life leech performance. in my build i shall manage with just leech from Catalyst + life regen (after RF build i try and add a lot of it to the build, even trying if possible to get these +4regen on gear as this stuff adds up)

- add Echo as 5Link

- slower projectiles + AOE -> huuuge dmg

- do not LMP/GMP. it is a waste of slot and damage once one has lots of AOE

- that new staff and BL are meant for eachother..

currently (act 2 merc) i manage with 4link and except for lightning res mobs is pretty much one shot.



problems people had is that theyve tried all 'old tricks' (gmp, conc effect, empower etc stuff), found it weak (rightly so) and started whining. this skill requires new approach and was balanced for such.