Ball Lightning

do not diss slow projectiles/knockback too soon (one or another, two is an overkill - fortunately one can get knockback from the tree afaik)

it WORKS despite it being not the 'obvious' choice

added chaos/lightning/cold (i think cold due to chill might be the surprising winner) is ofc an option but number of extra hits knockback/slow proj provide is very very significant.

covering entire screen with balls that hit nothing? no thanks. i plan to use it with my incinerate mom/eb/aa setup (there are only 8 passives difference between my planned BL and existing Inc builds.. go poe build diversity!) and i do not mind being hit with such setup

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And without slower proj it is exactly what this spell needs - filling the screen with balls of lightning that don't attack anything for most of their duration.

Just got this spell recently and have been trying it out. When you do get it, it kind of sucks compared to other spells, because level difference. I'll have to also disagree with slower projectiles, it makes the ball travel so little distance, I don't think it is worth it. Especially when facing tough enemies like Corrupted Zone enemies or bosses.
If you use Ball Lightning, Added Lightning or Added Chaos, and Knockback, its pretty good. It gets better once Knockback's odds go up. My 4 link is currently Ball Lightning, Added Lightning, Knockback, and Blind.

It is cost prohibitive so I am running into mana issues if I try to use too many multipliers. Knockback and Blind has no multipliers, so that's another plus to use them.

Oh yes the positioning argument. In poe? With desynch? With charging rhoas? Yeah, good luck.

sidtherat is actually on to something here, BL is a support skill first and foremost, sadly. Even the theorycraft has gone that way, with added cold support ideas (it is the weakest support of all usually). Instead of theorycrafting how to make the spell kill faster, we started to think about utility. Sad.

How awesome Piety's Ball Lightning is! And how underwhelming this is...

Is 15% knockback enough? Didn't test it yet, to cheap to regret the passives, lol

Temporal chains on hit corruption, does it work with spells? If so, it might be nice with BL.

so let me see if i understand correctly......the AMPLIFY, BLAST RADIUS, and all AOE nodes in between are absolutely useless for ball lightning?????????

if thats the case, and i came back after 6 months of not playing just for this skill, used a respec i had left over from the 1.0 patch, and completely ruined a character....ahh to hell with a rant.....

this type of shit should be in patch notes.

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Raelys wrote:

so let me see if i understand correctly......the AMPLIFY, BLAST RADIUS, and all AOE nodes in between are absolutely useless for ball lightning?????????

if thats the case, and i came back after 6 months of not playing just for this skill, used a respec i had left over from the 1.0 patch, and completely ruined a character....ahh to hell with a rant.....

this type of shit should be in patch notes.

Clearly cannot read because every poster in this thread agrees that getting more AoE is better.

I did say that i have an 170% AOE char.And it can wholescreen packs.Whatever visible to direction the ball goes,it gets hitted.

The dmg portion is extra high.With a curse it one shots(well with echo) packs.The fact that it does so many hits,is comparable to incinerate.You can hear at least 5 ticks with knockback and with slower proj(which i dont agree is a noobtrap just for other setups.)it can multiple hit targets,so much,that literaly you cant get hit.

If you play this game long enough,you will understand dmg isnt everything.When there are builds out there that goes 80% on survival and 20% on dmg just to feel safe,then you know that what this skill delivers it,its just over the top.

Dont want to use knockback gem?Do it with projectile weakness.You do like perma shock stacks?this skill is all the way.No other skill can shock stack than this one.And apparently,shocking enemies is,what you know,the death of everything.

Do your testings before commenting here.This is a feedback thread.And no,one shot of it can kill white monsters in 3 ticks of its at least 5 it does.Have fun discovering this skill

170% AOE, would love to see a vid of this in action.

P.S. Technically if we're talking echo it is a two-shot.

as my build is still in act2 merc facerolling stuff i went full banana and equiped this


and lo and behold. this skill DOES benefit from huuuge AOE (have a bit above 400int atm)

i expect some Pillar BL builds soon. probably shall even consider one myself. using this staff 5Linked effectively makes it a 6L (as one can remove AOE gem). sadly staves are not perfect for defense..

btw - people complaining about the damage: comparing it to BROKEN stuff like ST low life builds and current Arc leads nowhere. i know it is fun to deal 300k dps aoe damage or 1mln or whatever but that are these builds that are the problem, not BL. BL seems to be a very interesting gem with few ways of scaling it (crit is viable, albeit 4% is a tad low..) that requires something more than slapping THE SAME supports as for all other gems (multi proj, conc eff etc)

Pillar is no go. No spelldamage, no defenses - just a gimmick build.

Dual Divinarius on the other hand could be nice. Only problem is that dual-weild block is too far away from aoe passive clusters. So defenses will be lacking too.



P.S. Did arc seriously just been compared to ST buzzsw? It has nowhere near the broken power. Just redid my arc caster shadow to ele wander (same thing really as buzzsaw) - night and day difference. As strong as arc is, it is not that strong.

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Allnamestaken wrote:

170% AOE, would love to see a vid of this in action.

P.S. Technically if we're talking echo it is a two-shot.

Contribute me atziris acuity and and an astramentis and i will show you all the skills in all their full glory up to 220% AOE xD

But again aon subject,pillar might seem bad,but if u use it for clearing white mobs and elites,you will see that it is indeed a viable option.For those that wont go as me full bananas,they can try divinarius i think its called.It has spell aoe anyway and ofc carcass