Elemental Hit - Hopes for new patch

EH worked well even if it wasn't OP, but I guessed that only a few 1H melee characters might use it for high armor bosses or whatever. PA/VS/Puncture builds were using it with the wrong expectations, meaning that ele Split Arrow (converting to crit then CoC late game like Buzzsaw) was best suited for making it a boss killer, but it was great for wands when its flat damage was much better than perfect triple ele 1H and scaled huge compared to wand base. GGG proved me right by creating Wild Strike, which is clearly better for melee and more effective later in the league when flat ele is outclassed. It was an admission that EH was best as a range skill early in leagues using all ele or proj nodes.

EH only needed a bit of help to make it inviting, outside of these 2 builds. I suggested baby prolif, increasing the variety of Slingshot link combinations using EE to be more effective. With the recent nerf to Ele Prolif range because of Flameblast, but still working well enough with it, EP could be linked to EH to increase the prolif range to old levels, which is fair: big range for a skill that does random ele and small range for solo ele. The high chance of getting at least 2 types of ele using LMP and all 3 with GMP in Ele H/E/P mode means shocking, burning, and chilling/freezing an entire pack with 1 attack and more Fork (strangely raised from a 15% to 30% plier) damage into the back rows.

Instead, GGG added chance to shock/freeze/burn. Crit chance is so low when leveling it's hard to tell how effective that 10% really is. Even when it helps you probably don't have the attack speed or accuracy to take advantage of it or they're already dead when you try. With high enough crit you're shocking/freezing/burning pretty much all the time, so that bonus is practically useless. Baby prolif would've helped slow down what doesn't die (so less need to speed up attacks and burn mana), dish more damage, and prime for a 2nd shot, making it a great 1-2 punch.

GGG also removed the quality that made it worth flipping and releveling. With the nodes on the board (295% crit), max diamond rings, 38% on the ammy and wand, the old 80% from EH, 3 charges and a L20 mark SS hits around 90%. Maligaro's wasn't even necessary, neither was another charge, though if you shelled out the money for a vaaled neck you could cap. What replaced the gem crit was a bit more ele damage averaging around 50DPS per link so far (300dps in a Tabula). All that work releveling a gem for a starter build and not even an advantage to CoC while it has trash damage, making you level another along side even if you weren't going to Vaal anything.

Then there's lowering EH to RLvl1 while raising Barrage to 12. Barrage is much better in early game, with Ondar's Clasp on the original SS and the 3 support gems you could get before Merveil it bulldozed until A3N to get to the library. Then, EH did decent damage at RLvl19 and went up nicely, but now EH starts earlier and has much less damage at the same levels, though they eventually match at the end. Combine this with less aura damage and harder time getting mana already and the expense of EH is more difficult than ever to justify, even if they shave a mana here and there off the cost. Requiring 4L outside of leech or a leveled Clarity with loads of regen affixes while using only 1 other aura before cruel Malachai doesn't cut it.

It's easy for me to say someone at GGG wants grandma Ele dead, but the fact is KB and PS used to be phys gems leaving EH and Barrage best suited for ele, with Frenzy useful in either until Blood Rage could be handled. Now, KB and PS increase all damage, and the abusive mechanics of KB combined with the abusive mechanics of the A4 fights in Daresso's dream make it look like they put KB in after testing the other 4 gems during alpha and realized wanders were screwed. That also explains why KB continues to get stronger and calling the changes to EH buffs (when the truth is they're nerfs) sure as hell looks like it's getting the axe soon. It deserves better, starting with fixing the damn tooltip.