Potential Ball Lightning Concerns

I'm not concerned about its AoE, but...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but mobs can only be hit once per the lightning strike amount (200ms?)

-So, LMP means nothing VS bosses, the extra balls wont strike the boss, if its already been struck in the last 200ms, so all you need is one ball.
(Edit: this part might be wrong) -Faster casting/Echo wont mean crap, you only need one ball on the screen at a time on a boss, so base cast speed is most likely more than enough.
-Increased AoE/Conc don't matter for Single-Target with BL.

Alternatively, I suppose if you want this as a single target spell, you don't have to worry bout LMP for shotgun damage or cast speed nods/mods/gems. I wonder what the ideal supports would be for a none-crit variant...

Considering that's its 30% damage effectiveness... that means added lightning/cold/chaos are utterly useless on this, correct? How do you scale its single-target damage effectivly if cast speed doesn't help?

So maybe: (Spell) - Lightning Pen - Empower - Life Leech - Blind

I'd say blind because striking a boss every 200ms could potentially perma-blind it. Slower projectiles might work instead, or Enhance depending on what its quality bonus is.

(Edit: I think Ziggy said quality might be +1% lightning damage per 1% quality, so idk then)

I also don't like how the ball itself doesn't deal damage, a BALL OF LIGHTNING passes through you, it does nothing, but the bolts of lightning from it do!
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This is all of course without testing the skill myself, I'm just posting some concerns I have with the spell, since Echo has basically no effect on its single-target damage output.

I wonder if its a quest reward or a drop only gem...

Also, now that I think about it, the Zap cap is probably there because without it, Ball Lightning would probably be the most broken thing in the game with Static Blows and LMP/GMP. It probably is still going to be strong with SB, lightning damage every 200ms seems like a good way to shock something.

replace LMP for slower projectiles for bosses

/thread

Yeah it's going to suck. Just use arc.

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aster casting/Echo wont mean crap, you only need one ball on the screen at a time on a boss, so base cast speed is most likely more than enough.

This is false. It works pretty much the same way spectral throw does. Each individual cast has its own cooldown. That means echo and faster casting matter quite a lot for ball lightning.

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kasub wrote:

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aster casting/Echo wont mean crap, you only need one ball on the screen at a time on a boss, so base cast speed is most likely more than enough.

This is false. It works pretty much the same way spectral throw does. Each individual cast has its own cooldown. That means echo and faster casting matter quite a lot for ball lightning.

If that's true then that's good, though I interpreted it vastly differently based on what was said in the video.

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Waves_blade wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but mobs can only be hit once per the lightning strike amount (200ms?)

That may be limited one hit per 200ms per cast. So if you cast two balls in rapid succession they'd have their own shock rate. It certainly looks that way from the video, actually.

But we'll either need to wait for the skill to be released or have ZiggyD or a dev clarify...

If you're right, I won't care about this skill at all unless it's as buff as searing totem. Then again, it'd just be a damage over time without damage over time... that you can possibly leech from? Interesting trade offs.

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If that's true then that's good, though I interpreted it vastly differently based on what was said in the video

Just like ST, lmp won't increase your single target DPS but will vastly improve group DPS. It's pretty much a built ingame mechanic to work like that.

Faster Casting, Echo, Lightning Penetration, Empower. Slower Projectiles won't make too many people very happy due to cutting its range in half. Getting 3 to 4 hits in a cast probably isn't worth having the target within 1/3rd vertical screen distance from your guy.

The only thing that gets me about Ball Lightning is they waited until the league was over to release it. I had a lightning trapper waiting for that ability. I had to settle for Arc.

Since i have a rule about never rolling the same thing two leagues in a row. It will be probably six months before i get back around to trying it.