Energy Blade thoughts

So I thought the blades were created from 80% of your initial ES, not the 20%.

The flat then isnt that outrageous at all then and you may lose way too much from your weapon for spells. Inquis battlemage is off the table.

Feels like its just a leveling weapon for ele builds that don't want to upgrade weapons, and for whatever reason get enough hybrid gear (cant just be ES gear)

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Sadaukar wrote:

I was thinking about energy blades aswell and I'm kinda curious how the energy shield costs for activation will scale.

If it's not overly crazy I think it will be very good for a hybrid life/evasion build with some eva/es gear slapped on.
U can get ~50% increased ES pretty easy and should be able to get around 1000ES without too much investment.

That'll be 52-1040 flat added damage, which is just nuts for ele attack builds. (more than double of what added lightning support gives)

for ur example I think it snapshots the ES when u activate the Buff. I don't think it will update it for every attack, but I could be wrong of course.

Let me add to this. I have no idea how this buff will work as a main skill.. I do know that Hierophant will be the BEST class for this. Mana Stack near 300+% mana then Convert 23+% of max mana to (Use nodes on tree and masteries) ES. Aswell you get the armor ES nodes and masters... Then Zealots oath on top of Discipline with supreme Ego. ... There is so much ES potential its not even funny.

I find the hardest part is using two handed weapon like Staff. I don't know if it even scales with casting speed? Is the damn thing a buff to a character that uses attacks? I don't know.

I wanna try this, but Im super confused in what its really doing. What makes ot attack fast? Does casting speed work? Is it meant to he used in addition to something like Battlemage Cry? I get ita for defense and all, but after that ...???

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OneTwoTimer wrote:

How do you maintain them when you constantly take dmg? Once es goes too low in a hard fight you can't cast them anymore?

Heirophant my dude... Staffs, Mind over Matter, Armor Stacking like a beast. Maybe Block nodes on Staffs? Still unsure how two handed weapons play a role.

MoM and Armor should save your ass if you can block enough...

Also if you use ES drain gem on something , Zealots oath? I dunno you should... Be ok, still will get one shot though which sucks.

We'll see though

Hierophant seems like the way to go if all you care about is max ES but lots of other classes have better damage or defenses. I was thinking a str stacking jugg could work to with accuracy stacking.

What's the ideal skill to use this with battlemage?
I guess I have been looking for a reason to play spark that's not aurastack.

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FrankBOSS wrote:

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OneTwoTimer wrote:

How do you maintain them when you constantly take dmg? Once es goes too low in a hard fight you can't cast them anymore?

Heirophant my dude... Staffs, Mind over Matter, Armor Stacking like a beast. Maybe Block nodes on Staffs? Still unsure how two handed weapons play a role.

MoM and Armor should save your ass if you can block enough...

Also if you use ES drain gem on something , Zealots oath? I dunno you should... Be ok, still will get one shot though which sucks.

We'll see though

How are you going to invest into staff block nodes and expect to block with a staff while you're wielding a sword? Cause yes, the energy blades REPLACES your weapon entirely as a sword...

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arkon9944 wrote:

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FrankBOSS wrote:

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OneTwoTimer wrote:

How do you maintain them when you constantly take dmg? Once es goes too low in a hard fight you can't cast them anymore?

Heirophant my dude... Staffs, Mind over Matter, Armor Stacking like a beast. Maybe Block nodes on Staffs? Still unsure how two handed weapons play a role.

MoM and Armor should save your ass if you can block enough...

Also if you use ES drain gem on something , Zealots oath? I dunno you should... Be ok, still will get one shot though which sucks.

We'll see though

How are you going to invest into staff block nodes and expect to block with a staff while you're wielding a sword? Cause yes, the energy blades REPLACES your weapon entirely as a sword...

Interesting :o ... Well we'll see how it goes. I don't imagine it doing away with whats on the tree. If it DOES do that then whats the point of the skill ? Why stack ES in the first place if no weapons matter? Im starting to hate this skill lol. I wish it was in PoB so I could see it more clearly

If this skill adds damage to Abberath's Hooves it could be something pretty stupid.

It can be tested with arcane cloak if it works.

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Andrius319 wrote:

If this skill adds damage to Abberath's Hooves it could be something pretty stupid.

Should work with Battlemage same as all other weapons.

This skill is born dead, level 20 sucks, quality sucks, huge noobtrap

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Sadaukar wrote:

I was thinking about energy blades aswell and I'm kinda curious how the energy shield costs for activation will scale.

If it's not overly crazy I think it will be very good for a hybrid life/evasion build with some eva/es gear slapped on.
U can get ~50% increased ES pretty easy and should be able to get around 1000ES without too much investment.

That'll be 52-1040 flat added damage, which is just nuts for ele attack builds. (more than double of what added lightning support gives)

for ur example I think it snapshots the ES when u activate the Buff. I don't think it will update it for every attack, but I could be wrong of course.

I'm thinking it'll probably be more Petrified Blood territory, because of the need for raw burst mitigation when sacrificing so much ES.

I think people will generally strive to get as much ES as they possibly can while trying to mitigate the loss of the EHP.

Also, the skill at just level 20 has a cost of 624 ES, so just to be able to activate it, you need 3120 ES. (more if overcapping levels). In otherwords, lazy investment just won't work.

Furthermore, this isn't a Support Gem. This is a spall on its own. When you apply added Lightning damage to a spell, it gets increased and amped by all the other passives, so that Added lightning damage number isn't what it seems. There's not a lot of supports for Energy Blade, and there's no confirmation if supports even affect the converted ES spell damage part of the skill. But, supporting a 624 ES cost is going to increase that cost even more. It could end up needing 1200+ ES cost, or a 6000 ES Base.

^ I know once you start crunching the damage numbers on that your eyes will go wild, but with only a few actual supports affecting this skill, it makes sense to have the ballooned base damage numbers vs traditionally supporting a skill.

The real kicker is the fact that this BEHAVES like a support.

What's glaring me in the face is Power Siphon. Wand support passives generally favor Lightning Conversion, and some of the best Power Siphon wands are explicitly lightning conversion. On a Barrage build, Power Siphon damage can already hit 16 mil dps. Apply a ~ 3 Link Energy Blade to that with Awakened Controlled Destruction + Awakened Elemental Focus (170% Multiplier, level 21 min, or a cost of 1011.2 ES)

If you have a level 5 Awakened Controlled Destruction/5 awakened Elemental Focus, that's
going to be hard to quantify, because we don't know if More Ele damage will affect the ES conversion part of the damage, but anywho:

Supposing 5509 ES;

(13+220.36)(1.83)(1.2) = 512.46 Minimum Added damage (before Tree passives)
(243+4407.2)(1.83)(1.2) = 10211.83 Maximum Added damage.

That's supposing we can even support Energy Blade with these btw, since the damage is indirect

I looked down the list of possible supports, and the only other one that stands out as useable is Iron Will. Literally every other support either doesn't enhance damage, or has a condition that Energy blade doesn't meet (like Mana cost on Archmage)

You could Enlighten it, to reduce the upfront ES cost, but that'd almost be a worthless link.
You could Empower it, but the damage addition would be trivial compared to damage supports.

I don't know Energy Blade's Alt Qualities yet, but that could play a role in balancing (Q is Crit on normal, suggesting that yes; Energy Blade can be counted as hitting itself, so Controlled Destruction and Elemental Focus will probably work; That would also open up Innervate, but we're already talking an expensive ES cost)

But; If you apply this to something like Power Siphon; that's 10,211 Max damage which could be amped by any spell damage, damage conversion (Spiritual Aid, Wandslinger), lightning damage on the tree, and be enhanced by attack speed. I could see this adding 5-7 million dps to a wander on full build.


Bottom line: The skill isn't meant for low ES builds, unless you plan to leave it unleveled like a CWDT.

P.S. If you can't use Power Siphon because of the Sword Transformation, it's likely this is as demonstrated: Spectral Throw/Spectral Helix. Pure Lightning Damage builds based on melee probably won't have enough survival unless they don't level the gem and just use it to buff.