Lightning Trap

So my journey with this skill continues onward, level 15 now.....


The scaling on this skill is really really bad it seems.

at level 15 the base is 17-314, which is less than shock nova at 15 (21–400). Combined with the fact that quality shock nova does everything this does better even if you use static blows, I fear this is a loser at endgame at the moment.

It could be this thing starts to scale insane at 18-20, but I'm not holding my breath. Chain helps the skill a lot, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

I will continue to level it and try new supports.

If the trap detonates *on top* of an enemy, is that initial trigger enemy hit and pierced by each projectile? Or does the first hit-and-pierce, while the rest pierce-but-not-hit?

Because if it's the former, then it could have some nice single target potential (though would probably need bear trap to set up on smaller targets) as well.

The way it works currently is this: The monster the tiggers the trap takes damage equal to one ball of lightning and is then immune to being hit by any of balls, even if they chain back aiming at him (They will go right through him).

This skill is beyond abysmal at single target. I'd even go as far as to say it is useless unless there is a decent sized pack of monsters.

It also has the low (4%) lightning crit chance which means unless you have a gigantic crit modifier, static blows, or a quality added lightning you arn't going to be shocking anything with this.

I've already mentioned this but I think this skill will end up needing a buff to damage and have shock chance added to it to make it more functional.

The Point Blank Support Gem doesnt work with Lightning Trap. Guess it's the same with the passive Node. !!!

Cheers

balls should bounce off the wall as spark do

My initial impression of the gem is that it pales in comparison to spark for shocking enemies. In maps, there's always a sporker to shock enemies making this skill kind of useless. For a trap build, I'm debating which traps work best right now...

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBVyvfsIIQB6UC40myLJzBtOTsdhF-rx8CNsXYJKcIj0bQ0M9lVcYdFJit

My skill tree so far.

At the moment, alternating fire trap and lightning trap to kill enemies. Everything is pretty much melting.

Also using the occasional bear trap, and thinking about working cold snap/elemental proliferation into the build at a later time.

So far, tons of fun and very quick/easy leveling.

Current planned build for high level in the new hardcore league:

Tried this skill today. Seems to work reasonably well, especially for my friend's witch, who is (normal, act II) pretty much killing everything with it (added fork, nothing else, having quite a high crit chance).

ok now that ive done some testing on lightning trap it just doesn't seem to fill any particular niche on its own, shock nova would be a better crowd control trap, spark is great for causing crit spam and arc is better for single target and shockstacking on strong enemies. From the design of the spell it seems to be best for a crit build however suffers from a low base crit chance and meh demage reliability and the inability to hit the target that sets the trap off even with chained/forked projectiles meaning if you make it better for crowd controll you make it even worse against single target and even more unreliable from my experience.

My suggestion to change it and give the spell its own niche is a 2 fold bit 1 reduce the damage by about 40%-50% as well as the damage effectiveness, increase crit chance to 5-8%, and make the projectiles have 100% pierce and bounce off walls which would result in a highly unpredictable critspam indoors and make it more efficient for crowd situations even outdoors without making it super reliable for single target especially bosses since most boss mobs have a decently large room to fight in and would finally give lightning mages a spell that excells at crit chance since ice is currently the only build that has one for that niche.

just my 2 cents, like the concept the way it was pulled off however was kinda unimpressive.