Molten Shell

Lvl 30-38 2h Marauder here using Molten with Iron Will to great effect.
I love the skill and on Cruel it's the one thing that allows me to rush in to Sweep groups since I had bad luck with proper gear drops in Cruel.

My issue is that it seems to massively reduce drops by the monsters. On a normal group of 5-8 enemies, when they get killed by the explosion, I get 0-2 drops from the whole group and 0 drops is common. When I sweep a similar group down instead, I usually get 4-8 drops. I only have 5% increased drop quantity. This isn't just some bad luck, I'm using the skill for a long time now and it's consistent. It's almost like only one mob get's killed properly and drops and the rest don't.

<edit>
After posting this I really tried to pay attention to loot amounts and it's quite erratic, which is of course to be expected from any RNG systems. Let's just say I moderate my estimates to "I feel like there is a tendency for less loot drops from mobs killed by Molten Shell but maybe that's just me"

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Briala wrote:

Such a bummer that casting this spell interrupts movement. This would otherwise be the kind of self-buff that is so much fun to cast during the otherwise down times of movement between packs.

If its an animation issue, I'd much prefer that there be no casting animation and no interruption to movement.

If its perceived as a balance issue (not sure why it should be), I'd vote for tuning it such that on the run casting was allowed. Its just much more fun that way.

Throwing up buffs as you make your final run into a pack of monsters == fun.

Stopping ahead of a pack of monsters to go through a pre-fight checklist of buffs == tedious/work.

This. I find myself wishing I could throw it on instantly. Maybe to prevent abuse, it could have a 3 second cooldown perheps so it can't be spammed.

I've searched through the last three pages and didn't really find what I've noticed.

This skill doesn't seem to be activated when being attacked by sea witches. I'm not the only one who's noticed this.

Linked to MS are Life Leech and Iron Will. When witches attack me, I manage to kill them all and lose well over 1K HP, but the MS doesn't blow up.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

The witches mostly use a cold damage spell, rather than dealing physical damage. Molten shell only explodes if you prevent a certain amount of physical damage, which requires taking some.

Molten Shell description:
"Summons fiery elemental shields providing additional armour for a short duration. If cumulative damage prevented by your blocking or armour reaches a threshold, the shields explode outwards, dealing fire damage to surrounding enemies."

I tested Saffell's Frame, which states "block chance applied to spells" and Molten Shell and I assumed the blocked spells would trigger Molten Shell, but it does not seem to be the case. Or my resists were too high and I just mitigated too much damage to begin with, so that the shield wasn't broken?

I also used Saffell's Frame on merciless Vaal Overlord and the lightning was sometimes blocked, but as far as I saw, it didn't break Molten Shell. I admit that I might not have had the Shell active at the specific moments I got shot by lightning as the constructs were also shooting at me and breaking it.

I guess I should have done more testing before writing, but just looking for confirmation that "blocking chance applies to spells" and blocked spells and Molten Shell work together.

you have to actually take the hit for molten shell to count it as absorbed, because if you block, you don't take damage. however safell's frame is smart because you would only take attacks as damage not spells, meaning molten shell would trigger that much more if things have physical damage mixed in the spells.

Would this be considered a "buff" or just additional armor? I'm mainly referring to the inner force passive node cluster and if it would boost the damage output of the molten shell explosion.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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wildery wrote:

I know you guys have discussed this before, but effectiveness points should improve the whole buff, and saying that Damage when it explodes aint apart of the buff gives me a fucking brainexplode soon, as well as anyone else can see its on the buff.

Except that it isn't part of the buff, and can't be, because buffs don't work like that - a buff just adds stats to the thing it's on, and can't actively do anything such as dealing damage. And as a result that stat can't affect it.
The buff was, for a short time, mislabeled in a way that made it sound like the damage was dealt by the buff, which is not the case, but this has already been fixed (although I can't guarantee whether that fix has made it to beta yet or not). I have, however, just fixed up a couple of other buff descriptions which were similarly confusing.

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wildery wrote:

Otherwise i suggest, on for example Inner Focus: does not affect damage of buffs, or just make the damage less from start and this is a way to increase the damage.
would maybe solve some problems with the pig-shaman guys as well.

Saying it doesn't affect damage of buffs is unnecessary because buffs cannot deal damage, and potentially confusing because buffs can apply bonuses to damage, and those are affected.