Ball Lightning

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sidtherat wrote:

it does. it sets the benchmark.

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I've tried knockback and it seems pretty useless, you end up killing white mobs a bit faster due to each ball hitting more but the bottleneck with BL is killing single targets, and knockback does nothing to help with that.

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Allnamestaken wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

it does. it sets the benchmark.

Exactly, arc sets a benchmark to which all spells should be brought to. Not that arc should be nerfed into underpowered state of other spells.

You speak like getting even lvl 3 empower is easy, they cost half a 6L each. lvl 4 empower is in the legacy unique category of expensive. And so are 21/20 skills - somewhere in the 6L area.

The skill's dps really is relatively low, and it does need at least a 5L to be very effective.

It won't most probably beat incinerate in terms of dps, tried incinerate on my caster without too much cast speed and with spell echo + inc cast speed support (at least I think I used it, can't remember exactly) + about 20% inc cast speed from other sourses was able to reach 15 cast per second. Couple that with much bigger damage of incinerate and BL loses out in theory completely. The only thing it has on it is relatively more safety, but both will make lightning thornes and corrupting blood a nightmare.

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elwindakos wrote:

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Allnamestaken wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

it does. it sets the benchmark.

Exactly, arc sets a benchmark to which all spells should be brought to. Not that arc should be nerfed into underpowered state of other spells.

You speak like getting even lvl 3 empower is easy, they cost half a 6L each. lvl 4 empower is in the legacy unique category of expensive. And so are 21/20 skills - somewhere in the 6L area.

The skill's dps really is relatively low, and it does need at least a 5L to be very effective.

It won't most probably beat incinerate in terms of dps, tried incinerate on my caster without too much cast speed and with spell echo + inc cast speed support (at least I think I used it, can't remember exactly) + about 20% inc cast speed from other sourses was able to reach 15 cast per second. Couple that with much bigger damage of incinerate and BL loses out in theory completely. The only thing it has on it is relatively more safety, but both will make lightning thornes and corrupting blood a nightmare.

If arc sets the benchmark of which spells should be brought up to,that means by definition that it is OverPowered(see:OP) against other spell.Which is why this isnt even a comparison.

Empower level 4 again i say wont help the skill so much.You will be better with added chaos and added lighting.

The skill BASE dps is low,which in shock stacks surpasses other skills by far.

It is beating incinerate,since you can move,throw it further,Aoe More,CAN crit(which u evade the whole point on discussion with incinerate.)

And yes,both corrupting blood and thornes are nightmares.

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Allnamestaken wrote:

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Kenzorz wrote:

I haven't made a build around this myself yet and all I've done is test a low level BL with high level supports on my Lvl 89 Ambush self cast char but this is my opinion, while the skill is probably not as strong as Arc (that shit is overtuned and will get the Searing Bond/Flameblast treatment soon) it's definitely better than Spark-tier.

Off the top of my head, this is what I think for supports;
IMO, these are must-have supports for it:

Lightning Penetration
Increased AoE
Spell Echo (if self casting obviously)

These may work:

Added Chaos Damage (this is just an example for my character, one BL hits for about 5 times on the same mob, that's 150% effectiveness) for more reliable damage.
Added Lightning Damage if you want to boost the lightning damage
Elemental Proliferation for obvious reasons
Faster Casting for obvious reasons

These I'm not too sure about:

LMP/GMP: more AoE is nice but I found it reduces the damage too much.
Knockback: sounds good but I'm not sure how reliable it is.

Noob traps:

Slower Projectiles: yes I said it. Why are people so obsessed with making a single ball hit a few more times at the cost of significantly reduced range and significantly increased mana cost? Just get a classic caster support like added chaos damage or faster casting if you want more damage without a huge penalty jeez it's no wonder people find this skill shit. It seems like no one in this 7 page thread has ever played a caster before, I'm surprised no one (or maybe I missed it) suggested Added Chaos, it has 30% effectiveness and deals a lot of hits.

I probably won't make my char that uses Ball Lightning in some way until the next 4 month leagues though

Because it does not deal a lot of hits, unless all you fight is Kuduku.

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Kenzorz wrote:

I'm guessing you're one of those people who just holds right click in the middle of Lvl 76 Crematorium map boss' firestorm because moving between attacks is too hard.