Discharge

In recent light of this post http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1cjkbp/critdischarge_build/

Discharge once again blows.

It cannot compete with freezing pulse, something I found out myself as well.
Even now, with a powercharge on crit, it still is not viable.

So please Mark, make this skill better. It's just a pure waste of time.
Charges are way too good to be blow away by a skill that doesn't obliterate everything around it, especially compare to a lvl 2 gem called Freezing Pulse which can kill everything with just LMP/GMP as its only supportgem.

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Vipermagi wrote:

When compared to the best Spell in the game, this Spell is weaker! I wonder why.


So maybe Voll's + Discharge is not a good setup (who thought that something relying on an RNG roll isn't going to be as reliable as the best Spell in the game). Does that mean Discharge can *never* work? No, 'course it doesn't. There's half a dozen ways to utilise Discharge. Stacking Endurance charges and Chance to Ignite, for example, works quite well.

But I think the skill is supposed to work with all sorts of charges.
And normally you end up being more efficient keeping them instead of blowing them up for almost no damage.

I mean you now are able to generate Powercharges even without a wand or Volls. But using another skill to benefit from those charges is more efficient.

Endurance charges are easy to generate, but you rather want to keep 4-7 of them up to get less damage from enemies instead of blowing them up to kill maybe a few around you.

Frenzycharges are only possible 2 (3 with the unique) ways. One requires you to kill stuff (bloodrage) and the other is a melee skill.
But keeping frenzy charges and just spam the hell out of another skill. The attackspeed/castspeed is more efficient than dealing a little bit colddamage.

Generating all of them takes some time, and normally you have killed everything by then anyways.


My first Open Beta Character was a discharge dagger shaddow.
Killing stuff melee or using Freezing Pulse LMP+Blind was more effective in killing stuff than risking my life to blow up some charges in a group of enemies.

Discharge should have either way more damage and a bigger aoe to really kill of anything; or should give you some other benefit (like a buff after you've blown up that does what the charges would do; or gain some charges afterwards as a base chance).

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Vipermagi wrote:

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KenshiD wrote:

Endurance charges are easy to generate, but you rather want to keep 4-7 of them up to get less damage from enemies instead of blowing them up to kill maybe a few around you.

I think you mean "explode every living being nearby, scorch the earth and salt the fields". Ignite's a beast with a good number of Endurance Charges.

Actually, an Endurance Charge Discharger can quite easily incorporate Frenzy charges as well; Blood Rage. You're in the Strength/Dex area anyways for Endurance Charges, might as well pick up a bit of Life Regen.

I don't think a solo player has a solid way of benefiting from Power Charges by using Discharge, as mentioned.


The idea of having Discharge buff you according to spent Charges is pretty nifty though.

I rather use firetrap and keep my endurance charges.
It's way more effective.

2 questions:


1) Does having both + to level of fire gems and + to level of cold gems stack for discharge? That is, would using discharge in a heatshiver increase the level of the gem by 2?

2) Can someone explain to me how added lightning/cold/chaos damage works with discharge? Does it tack on the damage at the end, or does it add it to each charge?

I respecced my frenzy/endurance/power discharger into just a power discharger and I can confirm that the damage still sucks. Level 61, stuck at beginning of merciless act 3.

Can anyone link a levelled discharge gem so I can compare damage to whats on the wiki? They haven't updated the wiki from what it seems to reflect the recent damage increase.