Shrapnel Ballista cannot fork

Just as the title says. I have tested it with GMP, volley, barrage, and arrow nova and the projectiles produced by shrapnel ballista never fork.

When supported with arrow nova and hitting an enemy that does not move, it terminates all projectiles, which seems to be the intended behavior without pierce/chain/fork. With fork and 7 base projectiles, I would expect it to fork into 14 projectiles in a nova shape, but does not.

Is this intended? It is not listed anywhere that fork would not work.
Also, where is arrow nova in the projectile order of operations. Is the payload arrow considered an arrow that can take part in projectile effects? Is it actually spawning 7 more arrows that terminate inside an enemy if it lands in the enemies hitbox?

Edit: Maybe the projectiles are forking, but the forked projectiles instantly hit the target they are spawned from? This would be an expected 21x damage vs a single target (7 from nova inside enemy + 14 forked projectiles). In my testing, it did do more single target damage with arrow nova, but it did not seem like it was 21x.

Edit 2: After further testing using gloomfang + totem health bar pixel measurements and slivertounge, I can confirm that the projectiles are forking inside of the enemy. However, one projectile forks outside of the enemy (the payload arrow?). My original build plan was to spawn 28 to 2052 projectiles per second per ballista, but now it will turn from a clear build into a bossing build!

I think this is the same bug I reported yesterday. It leads to some pretty nutty damage.

It is intended. From the description of Shrapnel Ballista:

"

Enemies can be hit by multiple arrows from the same attack.

If you place the ballista in a right position, all arrows fired from it can hit the same enemy and deal shotgun damage. That initially means GMP would work very well on large bosses like Kitava.

For cases like fork, since your projectile just reached the monster, forking happens right inside it, and as forked projectiles are counted as new projectiles, they immediately hit the same target again for 2 extra times.

So with GMP firing 7 total arrows and Fork hitting 2 more times per arrow, 1 Shrapnel Ballista on Kitava means 7x3 = 21 hits.

I am using the Replica Iron Commander build this league. With Hierophant ascendancy and 2200 strength I can summon 18 Shrapnel Ballista in total. Using Awakened GMP and Awakened Fork (which the second fork also happens inside the same monster), My total arrow hits on a Kitava would be 18*8*7=1008 if all initial projectiles hit. However as a result it sucks on pack clearing as I can't pierce mobs for fork to work and have to rely on chain (alt Q gem) to spread my arrows.

I decided to go ahead and fully flesh out this build. I made a chieftain and use replica infractem as the core part of the build since it gives you two forks.
The build has a ridiculous amount of single-target damage but at the point I am at now, I can't use it as a clear skill, even with chain support since even one totem freezes my computer if it attacks a pack.

I pushed it to its limits with awakened fork support (+1 fork, so 3 forks), GMP (+4 projectiles), arrow nova support (+4 projectiles and depending on the enemy it can confirm every projectile is a hit), rain of splinters jewel (+2 projectiles), the split shot notable + the little one next to it (60% chance for fork to create an additional projectile), the vengeant cascade anointment (projectiles return), and eye of innocence + 100% ignite chance + torchoak step for an explosion on every hit. I only have 5 totems however.

Each arrow only does about 1000 damage, and each explosion does around 2250 damage (before other modifiers like immolate support and curses). On average a fork is a 3.6x multiplier. But against a stationary boss with no adds, they are getting hit an average of 13 * 3.6 * 3.6 * 3.6 * 2 = 1213 times per totem per second (6065/s from all totems). This would make my real single target DPS about 1.2 million from shrapnel ballista + 2.7 million from torchoak per totem per second before debuffs and immolate support.

I do hope that they decide that this is an intended feature. Those calculations are against an unmoving target, which realistically is only a select few bosses. For example, 3 of the conquerors stand still for the most part, so I can kill them instantly, but Al Hezmin constantly runs around, making the fight take much much longer. Taking off arrow nova support makes about 0-4 of the initial arrows miss the target depending on its size and their distance from the totems, but since you don't have the absurd 1-2 second travel time from arrow nova, it hits instantly, making it better for those fast fights and against packs where if you don't get the life leech instantly, you die. I also enjoy the part where you have to play around not instantly melting your computer. I decided not to use poison mostly due to fear of it being unplayable.

"

Fixed a bug which caused projectiles fired by a Shrapnel Ballista supported by Fork Support to hit a target more times than intended.

Welp, there goes the build for the most part. My single target DPS will drop from 20 million dps to 400k. I get why they nerfed it, but they could have at least waited until next league to brick it like what they have done with all my other janky builds (RIP chains of command guardian + decay). Hopefully I can kill Sirus for the first time before the patch goes through.