Blazing Salvo

quite unbelievably low damage on this skill. tried it between lvl 31-55 with intensify+controlled+fork/conc, +1 fire wand and Split Shot passives, struggled to kill even white packs, had to get carried by my guild

patch notes say it didnt scale with projectile bonuses but im 90% sure it does not scale with area damage either, which is pretty lame considering it was explicitly showcased with intensify. would also explain why I heard from some people that it's okay with traps/mines generic damage bonus

comparing base damage and %effectiveness to fireball it seems like salvo was designed to hit about as hard as fireball if all 7 projectiles overlap, idk how practical that is at high levels but when you're leveling with 4-5 projectiles and little aoe to work with it just doesnt happen

besides the shit damage I didnt really enjoy how there was a deadzone immediately in front of me even if I casted it as close to me as possible, didnt really live up to the showcase as a powerful selfcast skill

I don't know if this gem is bugged or just works differently than every other similar projectile-to-explosion gem I've used before (molten strike, fireball, etc). Modifiers to area damage aren't affecting its tooltip. I have heard that modifiers to area size aren't working as well, but can't reliably test that without spending more resources on a season character than I want to. Overall, I like the feel of the skill, but it has drawbacks. I'm using it as totems, and so the delay of dropping the totem + the delay of the projectile travel time can make it slow to start outputting damage, that means moving targets can be nigh-impossible to damage at times. Also, the random spread of the damage can make it underwhelming on single target bosses that don't have large hitboxes. Up until last night modifiers to projectiles weren't affecting it, which made it feel great with GMP, but now GMP isn't a great gem with it. In short, it looks great, feels okay, and seems buggy in regards to area damage. Also, I'm unsure if the medium cluster jewel notable 'cooked alive' (enemies ignited by you have -10% to fire resistance) works when used with totems. Not sure where to find an answer to that, and when I asked in discord the only answer was an uncertain 'probably?'. So, still playing it (level 88 6-link soul mantle hierophant right now) but wish there was more clarity to it. And a little more damage.

I'm playing as a witch, mainly prioritizing damage on the passive skill tree.

At early levels when you get it, Blazing Salvo feels pathetic. I compared the damage compared to magma orb and magma orb was doing far better clear and single target. I have been using magma orb until I got unleash.

Once I get unleash Blazing Salvo felt amazing. Cleared packs well and just about one shot rare monsters. At this point, comparing it to magma orb, it seems like magma orb would have more clear, while Blazing Slavo has more damage. This is with unleash, however, and I'm honestly a bit scared to compare the two without unleash, since I'm sure magma orb would come on top.

Playing a Shadow/Assassin.

It feels really underwhelming, you have to gut your damage to make it feel decent, E.g. using following supports, Unleashed > Greater Projectiles > Spell Echo makes the skill feel decent but guts the damage, remove them and your damage drops.

Projectile speed is also an issue, bosses that move fast are painful to fight, half your damage misses or doesn't even land.

There is also a dead zone around the player, if mob gets close half your damage misses.

What's weird is both projectile speed and the dead zone doesn't seem to effect Cast on Critical builds the same as self casting. They land better with CoC builds and dead zone with cyclone builds doesn't seem to be issue, only issue with self casting setup.

But all in all, the skill is cool I like it, just the damage is crap and projectile speed is to slow.

I don't know why it's projectile marked. and the number of supports you seem to want to use this with is very limited for self casted. It just doesn't synergize well with most.

There's so few good choices for projectile supports for spells. It's a pretty major problem.

Faster projectile - You don't want to go speed because it's odd to want something to fly slightly faster, and then do less damage, and cost more mana.

Slower projectile, great, more damage but slower? No thanks, I need to hit moving targets.


Volley? Maybe.. but are 2 more really worth it for more dmg?

Lesser/greater projectile. Volley is superior, and still kind of meh


For damage:
If you want to go crit, then you can't do controlled destruction
and if you want ailments/ignite from crits elemental focus, the big damage boost.

Unleash - It's okay

Intensity - poor skill in heist, you do not want to sit still, and same in mapping you keep moving thus you cannot gain charges fast enough to use them.

Pinpoint - same as above, nice skill but you don't sit still unless you sit there and soak damage. This is a poor mechanic with intensity as a skill, it's counter to what you actually should be doing.

Concentrated effect - yes, may as well need damage from something
Spell echo - Sure, less just cast more with Unleash and hope they work well together - but we need a damage spell

Energy Leech - Lack of decent damage skills means I use this.


a 4 slot Salvo with Unleash, conc effect, spell echo.

Just flame with combustion and Efficacy and let them burn.


What I am finding out in leveling is that, I cast flame wall/Blazing Salvo once. Then hit VD from the corpses and spam that with conc effect on it. It kills shit better faster... I am trying to not use VD, but really it's so much better as a skill. I cast, move along stuff dies.. cast move along stuff dies.... no targeting needed

I want to like the skill, kind of like I wanted to like Kinetic bolt, but I find it's lacking a lot.

I have a question: can the projectiles pierce, and do they inflict damage if they pierce (is there an explosion or at least a flat firedmg-hit)?



edit:

asking cause i currently try to make an assassin work with this skill. encountered a mob with a rare with "allies cannot die"-aura, and was unable to kill it cause the projectiles exploded on the outer monsters and didnt do dmg to the rare.

tested with voidwalker now, and it seems to work, though im unsure if the dmg to the pierced monsters comes from the explosions behind them. would like an official explanation/clarification. thanks :)

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Clownkrieger wrote:

I have a question: can the projectiles pierce, and do they inflict damage if they pierce (is there an explosion or at least a flat firedmg-hit)?

Blazing Salvo works just like Fireball in this regard. A projectile that pierces a target will deal single-target damage to that target but won't explode (same with fork or chain - single-target damage but no explosion) until the projectile ceases to exist.
So with Voidwalker for example (assuming you're phasing and no additional source of pierce) each Blazing Salvo projectile will pierce up to five enemies on it's path to the targeted area, dealing single-target damage to each of those enemies. It will explode upon reaching the targeted area or hitting a sixth enemy, whichever occurs first.

Playing a Flame Wall + Blazing Salvo trickster, and the skill feels wrong in some way. It doesn't feel like an horizontal projectile or a land projectile either. A salvo should be a parabolic shot that lands where you aim, no matter if there are closer enemies, the salvo should just pass over them. But blazing salvo doesn't, you can aim as far as you want, to get the maximum spread, but if an enemy is below the projectile trail then it will suddenly land for no reason, screwing your spread and making it hard to kill invulnerable totems/rares, in example.

It's doubly annoying when paired with Flame wall, since you should be able to fire at ranged enemies while letting the melee ones to cross the wall if they dare. But no, the salvo will land on melee enemies no matter how far from them you aimed. What's the point of area-control spells if you can't make a clever strategy of them? In the end, what originally looked like a nice new skill to play with, ended being no more than another common projectile spell, with the same behavior than all other projectile spells (despite it definitely looks like a land projectile spell), and far less damage than all other projectile spells. You save a gem slot from GMP, but there's no way you can achieve a similar damage output even with that "extra" gem slot.

A ver nice-looking idea and appearance, with a very poor implementation.

Can Blazing Salvo chain?