Elemental Hit

It gets worse, too...

A 27-mana fireball does 212-318 fire damage, whereas a 27-mana elemental hit does 90-166 fire damage...

Elemental Hit ... whose bad side did you get on at GGG? :P

"

blackcircuits wrote:

It gets worse, too...

A 27-mana fireball does 212-318 fire damage, whereas a 27-mana elemental hit does 90-166 fire damage...

Elemental Hit ... whose bad side did you get on at GGG? :P

You forget that you can add elemental aura damage to elemental hit. Still tho the skill sucks.

Mark if you are reading this, could you tell us if you have plans to change ELE hit anytime soon?

This skillgem is like the forgotten black sheep of the skillgem family atm. It really needs an overhaul/revamp.

From my own personal observation with the gem:

There are a number of big issues holding this gem back. A lot of which double or triple dip into other areas.

- Mana cost is too high.

As other skills in the game got more efficient via mana cost reduction, greater damage, or easier passive tree enhancement, this skill didn't. Base mana cost also effects linkage viability greatly.

- The damage is too little for an "added damage" mechanic.

While the added damage isn't horribly low, there are better alternatives in terms of damage, cost, and utility.Other bow skills provide better alternatives for single target dps, wave clear, and elemental status effect application.

- No internal scaling.

Some skills scale from physical damage, converting or gaining a percentage of their elemental damage from physical. Some skills have increased physical damage % on gem level up. Some skills, especially single target skills, have high base damage modifiers. A lot of skills have all three (e.g. Burning Arrow), while this skill has none.

- Amount of Viable Support Gems
For a number of the above reasons, there aren't too many support gems that help the playstyle. The whole lot of projectile supports aren't too useful with this gem and scale the mana through the roof. Added damage type and melee supports are better served on other skills.

- Poor Passive Tree Benefits

Although there are many skill properties listed for the gem, the random nature and "added damage" mechanic is hard to augment. Any specific elemental damage nodes aren't too great. General elemental damage nodes tend to be within the realm of INT in the passive tree, while this gem is heavy Dex attribute. Only a cluster of WED exist in Dex potion of the tree. General projectile/melee damage nodes with crit/attack speed work best, but does so for every other skill too.
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Proposed Rework : Elemental Weapon

Attributes: Str, Dex, Int
Keywords: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Attack, Melee, Projectile (Bow/Wand)
Required Level : 19 (subject to change)
% per Quality : % increased duration of Elemental Status Ailments
Gem Level 1: 0% increased physical damage
Gem Level 20: 72% increased physical damage
Damage Effectiveness: 135%
Base Mana Cost @ Lvl 1 : 9
Base Mana Cost @ Lvl 20: 12

"A standard attack (with any weapon) that converts physical damage into a random element."

Can convert 100% physical damage into Fire damage.
Can convert 100% physical damage into Cold damage.
Can convert 100% physical damage into Lightning damage.

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Why 100% Damage Conversion?

The above is a good start to reworking this skill. Elemental Hit was initially interesting in that it was an elementally based WEAPON skill with a random element. However, this unique mechanic for the skill wasn't enough to impact the game. Infernal Blow explodes enemies, Molten Strike and Lightning Strike utilize projectiles. Glacial Hammer has innate culling and freezing chance. The new skill needs to have its own niche.

To date, there is no Weapon skill in the game with full physical damage conversion to elemental. Players are either converting or gaining a portion of their physical damage into elemental, resulting in mixed damage. Giving only a partial conversion or percentage gain would still result in that mixed damage. Reworking the gem to feature full conversion from physical provides: scaling from gear, more beneficial passive node choices, more applicable support gem choices, and a way for weapon users to do full elemental damage without Keystones and Uniques.

Allowing 100% conversion allows for the skill to be more niche in a different way. Weapon users would be able to achieve very potent elemental status ailments. From very long freezes, high burning damage, and longer shock duration, players would be able to build around all three or focus and strengthen one or two ailments.

Lastly, there definitely shouldn't be a skill that does everything without risk or enemy awareness. Without any physical damage component, Elemental Weapon poses the risk of elemental reflect. Players would still need to utilize curses or other damage skills for monsters resistant to elemental damage.

Why Triple Attribute Requirement?

When players look for the Weapon Elemental damage section of the tree, they would typically look at Templar area first, which is STR/INT. Templars would have a hard time using this skill as it was, since the original skill is pure DEX attribute scaling. This limited the pool of builds dramatically. Reworking the skill to require all three attributes makes sense, since you use all three elements. The triple attribute requirement also nudges the build to other areas of the tree but not so aggressively as before.

All classes can utilize this skill and each in their own way. All weapon specializations, one-handed, two-handed, and dual-wield are viable. Physical damage, weapon elemental damage, elemental damage, projectile, trap, totem, crit, and attack speed are all options for the player in varying degrees based on their starting class, making this skill very player friendly and interesting to build off of several times.

Why a Scaling % Physical Damage and Damage Effectiveness?

One of the issues of the gem before was the lack of innate scaling. % physical increase per level achieves meaningful damage increase for adhering to the triple attribute requirement of the skill. Since the skill is just a basic attack, the skill is slotted as a single target damaging ability. Every single target weapon skill has damage effectiveness higher than 100% or hits multiple times with a cumulative total damage effectiveness higher than 100%. This opens the skill up to Melee Splash and LMP/GMP support gems being quite viable and effective. Added Damage Support gems are also more useful.

If this skill gem is reworked to be a full conversion into elemental damage with no additional effect, then the skill essentially is like an Elemental Heavy Strike without the knockback and stun threshold decrease. Heavy Strike has huge % physical scaling and damage effectiveness to compensate for its simplicity. Since the rework would benefit from more weapon choices and passives, the scaling and effectiveness is lower. This skill would also be more open to critical strikes and elemental ailment affliction, so the damage effectiveness couldn't be too high.

Why the Mana Cost so Low?

The skill itself is very simple. There are no additional effects other than the conversion. Raw elemental damage in weapon form. Similar skills have lower base mana cost. Frankly, I think the mana cost may be too high still, but I was conservative. A five link set up of something like Elemental Weapon - Melee Splash - Multistrike - More Melee Phys - WED
would end up with about a 6x multiplier. 72 mana at level 20 for a simplistic 5L skill felt fair.

Why % Ailment Duration for Quality Bonus?

I felt that quality bonuses should empower what the skill gem niche is supposed to be. This gem allows for powerful elemental ailments. All of them benefit from duration, so that was my choice. I suppose increased damage would also work, but that seems so generic. Increased critical strike chance would be useless on non-crit builds, and I wanted the skill to promote build diversity.

Why Still Leave Elemental Damage Types up to Chance and Still Completely Random?

I think that random element draws players into using the skill. Now that the rework made the damage consistent and easier to build with, I think players will be embrace the random element more. Even more so if the skill was given an updated effect to your weapon or projectile based on the elemental damage chosen. Elemental Equilibrium would still be a good choice for the skill although it is random. 2/3 of the time a player would do 50% increase damage, while 1/3 of the time doing 25% decreased damage, amounting to an average 25% increase in overall damage. Of course, there will be those streaks of high burst or low damage, which again is a draw to some players.

What if the Rework is too OP?

There are a few ways to go around changes things. The triple attribute requirement is placed to make players that want that % physical on level up build a bit more hybrid than usual. Adjusting the attribute requirements, % physical damage increase, or the damage effectiveness could all be done without too much hassle. As long as you have the data to work with. If 100% conversion is too much, I envision an alternative being something like partial damage conversion with no physical damage dealt like so:

Can convert X% physical damage into Fire damage.
Can convert X% physical damage into Cold damage.
Can convert X% physical damage into Lightning damage.
You deal no physical damage.

Anything Else to Add?
I think if players really wanted the gem to do something more, it would be increased chance of inflicting elemental status ailments. Perhaps a flat % chance given to each element to proc its ailment on hit. Something like 10% sounds reasonable. However, I left that out in the original rework as there was already a lot to balance and I'm not the best at theory crafting or skill creation.

Closing Thoughts

So that is my own personal contribution to helping this game and this specific gem move forward. I tried hard to capture the essence of what made the skill appeal to players to begin with, but did so in way that is easy to balance and provides a ton of build diversity.
I would be really ecstatic if GGG considered even a fraction of this rework. I could think of seven different builds off the top of my head I would play right now if this skill worked as above.

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Vipermagi wrote:

Don't make Elemental Hit yet another Skill that scales with Physical Damage. Even fucking Viper Strike scales with Phys now.

I agree. Even though I think the downsides listed by BowmasterSol are quite valid and actually glaring issues, converting Ele Hit to yet another copy of Burning Arrow / Ice Shot / Poison Arrow / Molten Strike / etc wouldn't do PoE (or its build diversity) much good.

"

Vipermagi wrote:

Don't make Elemental Hit yet another Skill that scales with Physical Damage. Even fucking Viper Strike scales with Phys now.

This is a very valid point in itself. I just went with the standard approach to making the gem worthwhile. Again, just a good start.

Let's run with the idea of making the skill not scale off physical. The previous mechanic of flat added damage either became too powerful or too unusable/unreliable.

A couple of ways to do this that come to mind:

1) Your attacks gain a range of damage of each element. There is then a mechanic that converts two elements into the third. You deal no physical damage. Something like this using the current Level 1 damage ranges:

Your attack can gain 16-29 Fire damage, 13-24 Cold damage, and 3-48 Lightning damage.
Can convert 100% Cold and Lightning damage into Fire damage.
Can convert 100% Fire and Lightning damage into Cold damage.
Can convert 100% Cold and Fire damage into Lightning damage.
You deal no physical damage.

The attack would scale of elemental damage passives fairly well and specific elemental damage increases can be utilized. Higher character levels would still be needed to use higher skill levels of the gem and to utilize better affixes on gear. Elemental added damage affixes and support gems would be good. Players could still benefit from physical through supports/auras that gain elemental damage from physical, but not too the point where the skill is mostly dependent on physical damage.

Elemental Equilibrium would still be random but an overall damage boost. No longer would players using the skill have to worry about elemental damage overlapping each other if solely using this skill on mobs.

2) Your attacks can gain stages on each successful hit. Each stage gives 20% more elemental damage and % increase in elemental status ailment chance on hit up to a cap. Stacks reset when a different skill is used, similar to reave.

While I think it requires pretty large changes. The changes I'd most like to see is not just another convert into Ele Damage, especially as this won't work particularly well with a skill that randomly does different damage types. I feel like the reason why Spork/Flameblast/Ice Spear and the likes actually work is due to them being able to penetrate some of that high resistance the mobs you want to kill have.

If we'd get an increase of the added damage by about 20% we would probably start putting out relatively respectable damage with the skill. Reducing the mana cost by another 20-30% would probably allow the skill to be used without Soul Taker or EB.

One of the largest flaws I feel Elemental Hit has is the fact that it's very hard to support. Like I previously wrote most other single elemental skills can get their hands on incredible multipliers to their damage through the use of Penetration gems. I would say that doing the above changes of 20% more damage and a cost reduction along with adding a small penetration bonus to all elements included while leveling this skill would help it out greatly. If I remember correctly with a level 20 Penetration gem you end up with 35% Penetration. Adding a flat 15% Penetration to Elemental Hit would probably help the skill out massively against the mobs that actually pose any sort of threat.

I's rather see this gem beeing reworked into a support gem with the same properties and a 180% Mana multi.

Why not just a small damage multiplier?
The skill has potential synergies with Elemental Equilibrium and Pointblank, and can work with extremely fast attack speeds, and those options should stay. They just tend to be inferior to other skills. I think this skill has really been created with Wands in mind, however, and it's just the wrong base stat for that. Or the right one, given there's already an Int skill for that.
A better one to no one's surprise.