Scorching Ray

Currently a level 51 Chieftain using Scorching Ray - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction - Iron Will. I have mixed feelings on the skill, it's totem AI is better than I expected, as is the turn rate even with a lower amount of cast speed. I think my major complaint is I find it difficult to know exactly how many stacks of the debuff I have on an enemy, and because of this I'm having a difficult time knowing how to properly scale it. I find it difficult to gauge how much cast speed is helping me, how much cast speed I need to ramp up to the next stage, etc.

Some questions I have,

1) If you're using this on a dual totem build, let's say it hypothetically takes 4 seconds to reach the next stage of damage, would two beams on the same mob benefit the damage output in any way? Would it split the time in half needed to ramp up? Would they each individually ramp up, would they do nothing?

2) Do increases/reductions to duration affect both the time the debuff lasts on a mob and the length of the burn? I'm sure I'll have more questions, but this is what comes to mind for now.

3) Does a faster cast speed help with that initial cast delay Scorching Ray has before the beam fires? Or is that a fixed however many ms it is?

94% increased cast speed:

wind up time is too [..] long.
if clicking fast it display ray animation w/o dealing damage.

yes it can kill zombies on the coast; with 13+ grand spectrum it will be 'ok' for endgame,
but 'in between' it works only until you meet pack of quick devourers.

game is balanced around damage dodging -> with that high wind up time skill has no use in end-game besides totems / CI+aegis aurora builds.

My Level: Various Characters 10+ > L80

MY Feedback to scorching ray:

What i not understand it states it does not hit.

Why is it destroying barrels and thinks like that?

If you compare it to RF, RF does not touch barrels and crates and such, while scorching ray does.

Does it "hit" these?

Feedback on scorching ray.. I really wanted to use this in a totem build next league but initially it is a big disappointment.
I bought it and relevant support gems using a lvl 90 char. Then gave them to a level 70 char that has a tabula rasa for testing.
Then went to coast merciless to test.. well.. it can slowly kill zombies.. barely.
It is hard to scale, things like lmp do not work (expected), penetration (expected but annoying), increased aoe surprisingly does not work, didn’t test concentrated effect but assume it doesn’t either.
Soo.. totem with faster casting, scorching ray, controlled destr + elem focus , way overlevelled, *barely* kills zombies.. in act2 this was unusable as it couldn’t kill white mobs fast enough.
Now I know this character doesn’t have a specific fire build, so I expected issues killing rares, maybe even blues.. but whites?
sooo... damage is bad.. what about using it to lower resists? Resistance loss caused is way too (s)low for it to be worth it for that either.. takes too long to get to max and even at max it would be so so.. needs to scale MUCH faster or better to have less tiers until max to be even worth considering, at least for totems.

considering what others say about using it without totems, guess this skill as is is just not worth using. :(

This skill is a huge letdown... it doesn't works with most support gems, and auras don't benefit it in any way.

I'm literally killing stuff faster by using Fireball without any support gem as well! Firestorm, which is available at level 12 as well totally outperforms it...

This skill needs to be reworked, so that it can benefit from auras and other support gems as well.

Skill needs increased -res debuff. When clearing stuff you want 1 debuff to clear white mobs even with high hp. I am leveling with it and using 6l with +4 skill levels and it feels borderline ok dmg. Reason is that -4 fire res dont do shit so i think its better to remove -res stacking and let 1st stack do -35% fire res. When all -res are applied bosses drop fast, but on high hp whites and fire res mobs its a pain in the ass. This is especially visible in merciless act 2 on bears and golems.

Damge is lacking, currently running 10 grand spectrums, 19/20 rf, kaoms heart, 5 link searing touch 49/38 with lvl 3 empower, 19/20 rapid decay, 20/20 faster casting, 21/20 controled destruction and witch fire brew. I also run an EE setup. Now scorching ray is only 15/20 (19/20)with empower + searing touch, but the way its progressing, considering i have to stand still with this skill and i can't leech. Damage is poor.



Passive tree lvl 82

Look at ancestral 200k dps totem where you can play safe. Now after apllying same logic to scorching ray. Numbers should be 500k damage done after 2s of casting and continue at 350k dps at max stacks. After all these delays and testing didnt shot that numbers that are now should be doubled.

Can we please get an explanation of how both Faster Casting and duration affect the debuff stages?
I've been trying to test with FC (0 and 35) and it seems like the time to build up stages is static.