Rain of Arrows

Is projectile speed currently working as intended with this skill? Going from 40% less proj speed (projectile speed supported) to 100% increased projectile speed (no slower proj, yes faster proj and a proj speed quiver), seemed to have almost no difference at all.

Point being, even if it is currently making a difference it's really, really tiny to the point of being a useless stat. As is, it's tough to get a decent clear speed because of the inherent delay, and with proj speed seemingly not speeding it up (or at least not enough), that's an issue.

1) How does this skill work with only 1 target on the screen?
The skill description says that half of the arrows will land directly on targets if there are targets in their range.
1a) First off, what is the range? The range of the whole skill or does each arrow have a range where it can choose to land?
1b) Secondly, do actually half of the arrows try to hit that 1 target, or is it a maximum of 1 arrow that can choose to hit one specific target?
1c) Just to be clear, arrows that accidentally happen to overlap actually hit a target twice, so shotgunning is possible, right?

2) Is scaling AoE beneficial or harmful for single target DPS?

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habbey wrote:

Is projectile speed currently working as intended with this skill? Going from 40% less proj speed (projectile speed supported) to 100% increased projectile speed (no slower proj, yes faster proj and a proj speed quiver), seemed to have almost no difference at all.

Point being, even if it is currently making a difference it's really, really tiny to the point of being a useless stat. As is, it's tough to get a decent clear speed because of the inherent delay, and with proj speed seemingly not speeding it up (or at least not enough), that's an issue.

After reading your post I tested it. Please note that my character has 83% increased projectile speed by default (20% from Ballistic Mastery passive point, 30% from Far Shot Deadeye Ascendancy point and 33% on a Quiver).
First off, equipping Slower Projectiles Support DOES NOT display the projectile-speed modifier on the skill in the hotbar. Whereas equipping Faster Projectiles Support does display the line.
But that's the same with another skill (e.g. Barrage), but there it seems the 'less projectile speed'-modifier works. So the issue above might just be a display error.
Anyway, I tried Rain of Arrows with Slower Projectiles Support and then with Faster Projectiles Support. To me it seems that the delay until arrows start falling down is the same, but the rate in which they spread out are different. It's a very tiny difference though.
Without any projectile speed support and only the 83% increased projectile speed (I listed above where they come from) I personally think the delay is very tiny so this skill should work well with clear speed.

Edit: Maybe the delay until the arrows start falling down is calculated with your attack speed? Then it would make sense that you think the delay is an issue, assuming you don't have much attack speed.

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Alshadur wrote:

Edit: Maybe the delay until the arrows start falling down is calculated with your attack speed? Then it would make sense that you think the delay is an issue, assuming you don't have much attack speed.

It has previously scaled with both, where getting some extra proj speed makes a large difference (since you have so much attack speed by default a bit more doesn't make much of a difference but going from 0 to 30 proj speed is a huge difference).

As for the clear speed, its not the worst ever, but it is very clearly worse than things like tornado shot, lightning arrow, and even split arrow. Proj speed effecting the falling would certainly help alleviate some of this gap (as well as it being a boon defensively as the sooner you hit/stun/kill the enemy the less time they can hurt you).

Too inconsistent to be single target skill.

Damage is too low to be aoe skill.

Boring to play.

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Alshadur wrote:

1) How does this skill work with only 1 target on the screen?
The skill description says that half of the arrows will land directly on targets if there are targets in their range.
1a) First off, what is the range? The range of the whole skill or does each arrow have a range where it can choose to land?
1b) Secondly, do actually half of the arrows try to hit that 1 target, or is it a maximum of 1 arrow that can choose to hit one specific target?
1c) Just to be clear, arrows that accidentally happen to overlap actually hit a target twice, so shotgunning is possible, right?

2) Is scaling AoE beneficial or harmful for single target DPS?

The skill is really not intended for single target damage, although if you should want to try it, you way to go is with concentrated effect support. As for the range it has and how it works now, you got it well explained in the following post: Skill Revamps Part 3; here is a snippet:

"half of the arrows will drop randomly, while the other half will drop on targets over the area."

this means that if you have a level 20 gem, wich fires 21 additional arrows, theoretically 10 of those will hit the target if there is only one target to hit, and the remaining 11 arrows will drop randomly in the area of effect, potentially hitting it too, if you shrink its area with concentrated effect, and taking into mind the bosses hitbox is normally bigger.

Does it mean the skill is good and single target? I highly doubt it, although I will do some testing as I actually run a RoA/Blast Rain build based on ranged totems wich is quite capalbe at clearing maps fast, and is not shabby at single target (It will never compete with higher dps builds mind you, but is workable).

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SuicideAll wrote:

Too inconsistent to be single target skill.

Damage is too low to be aoe skill.

Boring to play.

It's clearly a clearing skill, so not a good choice to "convert it" to single target.

Damage is quite ok to be an aoe skill, you just need to think a bit on how to make it work. It's capable of clearing all kind of maps decently fast.

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Aalzien wrote:

It's capable of clearing all kind of maps decently fast.

Are your feelings going to get hurt if rain of arrows did more damage?

Rain of Arrows has 15% chance to fire an additional sequence of arrows
Is such a weirdly implemented thing.
The enchant just fires a second RoA shot after a some clunky uncontrollable delay at the same place where initial RoA has been landed. In most cases all monsters are already dead, in some cases my character are a screen away from the place.

Old RoA was a predictable damn heavy hitting phys-based attack, similar to Heavy Strike but with a bow.
New Roa is a clunky, mechanically weird skill, sometimes it hits a static target only with one arrow, sometimes a single shot performs 6 hits, count in the enchant and we have [1, 12] damage range, wtf is this a lightning spell?

I've played RoA ft. Vaal RoA impale champion from lvl ~80 to 95, previously I also played it with an elemental raider (mass abyss jewels).

Pros:
- IMO the best bow skill for leveling.
- Very good AoE.
- High damage potential against large enemies.
- Smooth gameplay due to "freedom of targeting", especially when paired with mirage archer.
- Works wonderfully with impale, should be the same case for some vile toxins poison shenanigans.
- High crit chance + knockback from king of the hill = hilarious combination.
- The 15% chance for an extra sequence enchant is amazing for endgame content and it's cheap as dirt compared to some other "essential" bow enchants like the extra pod SA or extra secondary projectile(s) TS.

Cons:
- Outdated visuals, no MTX'es - emerald rain literally does nothing except changing the color from yellow to green. Also, Vaal RoA looks and sounds exactly the same as the base skill :(
- Lack of synergy with additional arrows modifiers. In my opinion RoA should have something like: "any source of additional arrows has doubled effect with this skill".
- Really bad damage against small enemies that are standing next to a wall or in a corner, due to the skill's targeting/randomness. This is VERY noticeable when fighting temple architects during temporal incursions.
- Inconsistent in tight corridors - maps like vaal temple, plaza, courthouse, carcass and some others.