Do some lightning spells need a buff?

Spark and Ball lightning maybe?

Arc could use a slight buff too?

But especially Ball Lightning, it seems it does sooooo little damage and almost never shocks even with 750% chance to shock

Spark by itself, yes, DPS is lacking. But, drop and Orb of Storms while sparking, or better yet both Spark and Firewall, spark is the Meta everyone is using.

Arc and Ball Lighting, yeah... they suck, or rather, are not comparable to Spark potential DPS.

I can only kill stuff reliably with arc if I don't use the chain support

Spark needs a buff through campaign (gem levels 1-12), but should be left as-is or slightly nerfed in maps (gem levels 13+).

Campaign: decent damage until A3 where it then falls off a cliff.

Maps: several people doing an estimated 10m+ dps, including at least a handful doing an estimated 50m+, as done & "documented" (in video) by various POE streamers.

The slow cast spells need buffed. They do way too little damage for something that gets interrupted easily.

I agree spark needs a small buff early and probably a decent nerf at max level. Archmage too. Then yeah I'd love to see ball lightning buffed so my triple cast on Shock ball lightning build actually works. :P

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Galtrovan#5344 wrote:

Spark by itself, yes, DPS is lacking. But, drop and Orb of Storms while sparking, or better yet both Spark and Firewall, spark is the Meta everyone is using.

Arc and Ball Lighting, yeah... they suck, or rather, are not comparable to Spark potential DPS.

Spark isn't lacking by itself, you can clear like 2 screens w/o firewall adding to it. Its too cheap, casts too quickly, lasts too long, and can coat 2+ screens - when compared to all other spells.

As a Mace+Armour+Life+Str Warrior main it seems funny talking about buffing spells in general and esp. Spark.

No offense intended but I'd like to jump to the head of the line and get raised up in terms of damage, clear speed, gearing pressure [or lack thereof] to where the caster builds are now before we talk about significant buffs.


Devil's Advocate: If something is obviously "janky" or not really working the way it should then sure fix it. Plus I don't mind looking at spells that have a long wind-up [like my best warrior skills which have exceedingly long windups] so those can be better balanced and represented.

Spark on its own is fine.
* damage is decent
* supports help it become one of the best spells to use
* Needs mana tuning for lvl 20

Arc on its own is very weak
* needs faster chains out of the gate, before supports
* needs less penalty to damage as it chains
* probably needs lvl 20 help (didn't get it)
* needs better support help

Ball lightning on its own is very weak
* needs damage boost
* needs better support (like inc duration and ricochet)
* needs some work for terrain issues (see below)
* probably lvl 20 help to

So spark and arc ignore ground elevation gradients. The former crawls, the latter pierces to the target. Ball lightning dies. Targeting often sends a ball lightning cast into the sky, so it doesn't travel outwards, even if your target is outwards when you cast. And if there is a bump in the road, it impacts and dies.

Poe1 has very little of these hills and dips in the terrain, and when it does, it is walled to prevent traversal. And BL travel up and down those is less obtuse, so the cast survives to deal a few ticks of damage.

My solution: make ball lightning sticky. Have the orbs cling to the spot they impact and run their duration out. This would solve a large portion of their issues, since the orb would continue to tick damage (increasing overall dps), be thematic to ball lightning lore, and helps open potential strats.

However, the long term solution I feel would be to make it crawl and pierce like spark and arc do, allow some supports that affect other spells, and call it a day.