Power Siphon

"

Qarl wrote:

Is anyone using this skill as a last-hitting style of skill, rather than with straight wand builds?

I gave my reasoning on the first page for why that's not viable.

To muse on it further though, even if it were stronger, I'd run into the problem of trying to find enemies that are low on health at all. Power Charges improve your crit chance, therefore it's good to have high crit damage. My crit damage is 715%, which is far from the best it could be. What that means in practice though, is that I either do very little damage, or I one-shot an enemy. Where then are these low-life enemies which I am to last-hit coming from?

Moreover, trying to single out one enemy in a swarm of chaos mobs to see if they're on low life, and then try to fire around them in order to single them out so my wand attacks can reach them is not only tedious, but possibly suicide. I need to either be running away from the archers/shadow fragments that will kill me in a few lucky hits or be spamming my multi-projectile ice spear at all times. I don't have time to be looking for enemies on low life, if they exist, nevertheless picking them off with an attack that does less than one-fifteenth the DPS of my main attack.

Here's my build and skill gems if that provides any necessary context.

"

Qarl wrote:

Is anyone using this skill as a last-hitting style of skill, rather than with straight wand builds?

I tried on my character Watchy who has some twinked gear. Feel free to copy her and play her. Wand witch with elemental on left click and power siphon on right click.

I couldn't even keep up 2 power charges well on her to use elemental hit much. In the end it just wasn't worth the hassle of alternating attacks, getting curses up, just to watch the charges drop off if spent I more than microsecond looking at loot or running to the next pack.

Anyone figure out what the quality modifier on this skill is?

Was wondering if it was something interesting that would make it worthwhile to look into this skill.

In theory it sounds like a good skill, but in practice, it doesn't work. What if killing an enemy with this skill...

...cursed the surrounding enemies to grant power charges on death or

...granted you with a short buff that gave you a 50% chance of gaining a power charge on enemy death?

I've put this skill on left click, once I found it. Makes left click attack actually an option for the wands. Still my fireball does more damage, costs less mana, is AoE and sets things on fire. Clear loss for Power Siphon. And I haven't specialized in fire even yet.

It does help lots against "reflects elemental damage" bosses, but I'd never consider it as a main skill.

just to state it between all the critics...as main (and only) skill Power Siphon is definitely viable and good...9k+ DPS with Multiple Projectiles is absolutely ok for Chaos

I haven't gotten that far with this skill yet, but I've tried it in 3 different ways with 3 different characters. Only only 1 seems like it could be viable.

#1) Spell build + Power Siphon enemies on low life to gain power charges
On the surface this seems like a really cool way to reward players for using tactics. However, it doesn't even work in the first difficulty - let alone at higher difficulties when the difference between your wand damage and main damage is even greater. I tried this and gave up on it very quickly. Even if you were to sacrifice points to put into wand, it doesn't work. Your wand and skills either have to be geared towards damage/crit/accuracy or they have to be geared towards spell damage.

#2) Wand build (Elemental Hit) main damage and Power Siphon enemies on low life to gain power charges
It seems like this might be more viable since points put into wand damage for your main damage skill will also benefit power siphon. Again, however, you run into the problem that you have to mouse around and find an enemy within your direct line of sight that may go down with one shot. This works in situations where I am not really threatened (and it wouldn't matter if I used it or not), but it doesn't work in harder situations. I imagine in chaos you will die if you stop your main attack to try to locate enemies "weak enough" to finish off...let alone doing that again and again and again to keep power charges. Unless you could somehow have a really powerful main wand attack (Elemental Hit) AND a really power siphon attack this wouldn't work (and that would require some pretty intense gear to support all that setup). The critical hit damage variance throws out any anticipation behind using this skill as a support.

#3) Power Siphon IS the main skill
It really isn't the most powerful skill, but I think the only way it could be viable is as the main skill. I don't think that was the intention, but it sounds like it can be used if it is heavily supported with heavy emphasis on wand and crit passives. I started a character this way and even though elemental hit completely outclasses power siphon in the early stages, its possible that with the right gear and very specific passive choices, you could make power siphon a viable main skill.

I'd guess that Power Siphon even from pure damage will outclass elemental hit later on...lets say you have a level 60 Wand with +149% ed and quality of course...that's 137 - 216 damage, when I understand damage calculation correct, boni from skills get put after that...my Power Siphon level 15 has +56% physical damage and 25% extra damage...so only those 56% are 76-120
from those 76-120 you can calculate 10% for every element (via passives), thats 8-12 each (probably increased by elemental damage passives etc), so it's 100-136...on top of that every other source of damage (like the lightning damage from the Power Charges) will get increased by additional 25%

Of course at the start Elemental Hit would be the better choice *shrug*

I just rethought the idea of Power Siphon combined with a spell...perhaps it was the wrong approach yet...most people were talking about an active cast that is more or less a "rival" to Power Siphon, since you have to choose between using one or the other.
Perhaps it would be smarter to combine Power Siphon with "passive casts" like Tempest Shield and/or Molten Shell...while the enemies approach you focus some to death (probably even without multiple projectiles), then you let them hit you and trigger your defenses and when the Molten Shell exploded, you clear up the small remainders with Power Siphon again.

Question for those using this skill, where are you getting your accuracy from? 76% chance to hit at level 26 is too low, and my friend has been rushing the wand nodes and getting all the accuracy ones he can get.

The tree definitely needs more wand accuracy to make wands viable without having to waste 15-20 points to go center for dex and accuracy that no other weapon user currently has to do.