Added Chaos Damage

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This support gem is ridiculously powerful. My summoner witch has it attached to Firestorm and I don't even need any passives to make it work.

It's not so much that the skill is crazy strong more than the mechanic behind firestorm make it so. It's meant to be rather strong because there's no way to make it more powerful via passives unlike the other corresponding support gems.

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Faerwin wrote:

It's not so much that the skill is crazy strong more than the mechanic behind firestorm make it so. It's meant to be rather strong because there's no way to make it more powerful via passives unlike the other corresponding support gems.

There are plenty of ways to improve it with passives. Spell Damage, Crit chance, Crit Damage, and Cast Speed all work with it. The only things that don't work on it are Elemental Damage bonuses, which are for the most part, total junk for spells anyway since spell damage bonuses are already so plentiful.

And I do think either this gem is overpowered or other supports are underpowered. Added Chaos Damage nearly doubles my DPS with Ice Spear. Added Lightning Damage and Added Cold Damage don't compare in the slightest.

If anything, added chaos damage should scale LESS than the other flat elemental damage support skills, due to the fact that it cannot be resisted most of the time.

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Karakkonor wrote:

If anything, added chaos damage should scale LESS than the other flat elemental damage support skills, due to the fact that it cannot be resisted most of the time.

that's where I disagree. If there wasn't a single chaos resistant monster, I'd agree with you. However, there's plenty of chaos resistant monsters and unlike those that are resistant to elements, you CAN'T reduce that resistance. This mean that it's actually weaker compared to an element (no other curse can increase the damage done to a target by 50% or more).

And on my previous post, I was under the impression that chaos damage didn't benefit from spell damage increases passives or enhanced damage ones.

I can't help but feel like chaos damage just isn't chaotic enough. The support gem is clearly very powerful -- I wonder if, rather than reducing the damage boost it provides, it (chaos damage itself, not the support gem in particular) could be balanced by giving it something of a drawback.

For instance, you could always have to suffer 2% of the chaos damage you deal. Or you could have a 2% chance to suffer the full amount of the chaos damage you deal. Or a chance, whenever you deal chaos damage, to be afflicted by a random status ailment. Or make chaos crits heal instead of damage their targets.

I just mean that you can approximate balance by changing mechanics rather than just bumping the numbers one way or the other.

god no, any of those changes would entirely kill the gem.

2% chance to receive the full amount would just flat out kill me 2% of the time.

2% perma reflect would be like fighting with permanent reflect damage monsters.

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Faerwin wrote:

god no, any of those changes would entirely kill the gem.

2% chance to receive the full amount would just flat out kill me 2% of the time.

2% perma reflect would be like fighting with permanent reflect damage monsters.

Yeah, Added Chaos Damage is most useful for casters. Constant damage would never allow Energy Shield to regen, and spiked damage would instantly kill you.

Just inflicting a status effect seems interesting, well apart from Ignite anyway which would be the same as the 2% damage suggestion.

Right, my suggestions were meant to be just an illustrative list. I don't know that any of those is a good idea in itself (as you rightly point out); my point was just that you can affect/effect balance through changes in mechanics rather than just damage numbers.