New hope for lightning skills?

[LucianDK]

Ive been playing around more with sorceress test chars, and lightning in general seems to have been very improved. With no faster cast items, you throw chainlightnings relatively quick. Seems much faster than 1.09.

I played with a naked sorceress test char, with chain lit, lightning, charged bolt, nova and lit mastery maxed, and she had 1000 mana. And the big kicker, she could kill consistently in both hell act 1, and hell act 5 players 1. So its not impossible for players to brave hell difficulty, though you shouldnt be under any illusion to play in players 8. Lightning seems to be the least resisted element, compared to cold and fire.

I had moderate sucess with charged bolt, but without faster cast items, i had to stand in place too long, taking hits and getting killed. But it could kill act5 monsters by itself. Lightning offers huge damage versus lined up and single targets potentially 5000+ per shot. Where chainlit were lower with 3000+ potentially, but could take groups easier than charged bolt and put them in stun lock...and had i more faster cast stuff, chainlit would be the definite way to go. Though its heavy on the prerequisites, and your best friend will be a meditation pally swapping with conviction for lit imunes. So i foresee that lit skill charms will retain their value, or be even more sought in 1.10, as lit imunes is relatively few compared to cold and fire.

[Archon_Wing]

Lightning/Chain Lightning were the only two lightning skills in 1.09 that were underpowered. The next person that claims Static field was underpowered because it can "only" reduce an enemy to 50% life within three clicks will be whacked with a wet noodle. :P

The only thing that prevented lightning/chain lightning from being able to compete with other spells was the insanely slow cast speed and the fact that it was based on IAS rather than faster cast. People have had success using IAS gear, (1.09) and a speedy lightning is really nice. Plus it won't suck mana like that other evil spamable lightning spell. Yes, I do consider that other level 12 lightning spell evil, and nothing will change my mind. :)

With the bug out of the way and faster cast doing what it should, I wouldn't be suprised to see heavy usage. Honestly, I've been waiting for this for a long time.

[Kevin]

Chain gives Nova a run for its money in the mana suck department. I haven't really bothered too much with just lightning because I've been playing in a 3 char group with a magic arrow zon and a windlord druid. I'm a hydra and chain girl, and I won't really get the benefits of the synergies because for those skills mastery does more and that is all I will have points for. But Chain is definitely a mana hog. I pick up every blue pot that falls, have never put fewer than 2 points a level into energy (its gotten around 200 of my 360 total stat points so far) and I have still had to buy potions at times. Of course I haven't had a lot of luck find good plus mana items and still being able to maintain at least a 9 frame cast, so I still only have 620 odd mana at L71 (just finished nightmare, never did a leveling game, just played through the game in mostly /players 5 or 8 games). So, without twinking and trying to maintain a reasonable cast speed, 63% for 9 frames unless that change, mana can still be hard to get. Nova is worse, but it isn't that much worse since chain is now so much faster.

[Zath]

Aren't Fire/Lightning Mastery bonuses multiplicative with synergy bonuses right now? Given a limited number of skill points, it could very well be better to invest a few points in synergies instead of masteries.

[Dixen Andomiel]

Aren't Fire/Lightning Mastery bonuses multiplicative with synergy bonuses right now? Given a limited number of skill points, it could very well be better to invest a few points in synergies instead of masteries.

Someone *did* do something comparing the damages within the fire tree maybe a couple of weeks ago. IIRC, it was better to put about 15-16 points in synergies and only 4-5 points in the Mastery.

I'd be interested to see how a Single Tree or Dual Tree Sorc would fair now, considering that when it comes to hell it would just be better to party up and co-op.

[Erthshade]

I'd be interested to see how a Single Tree or Dual Tree Sorc would fair now, considering that when it comes to hell it would just be better to party up and co-op.

That's what I plan on doing when the patch comes out 'for real'. I've got a group of friends rounded up and waiting eagerly for 1.10, and I think we're pretty well set as a group. My general plan: sorc investing into Warmth, Enchant and Fire Mastery on the Fire tree and Chain Lightning and its synergies on the Lightning tree.

[Kevin]

Edit: Screwed up something.... Just wiping the post for now.

Edit2: Fixed the problem.

Yeah, I saw that, but since the synergies for Hydra are small it doesn't matter. Hydra does better from Mastery.

Since I had limited time and test chars were much quicker to put up, I looked at a sorc who can only put 53 points in the fire tree (quite a lot for a 2 tree sorc actually one in warmth and one in enchant is the other 2 the tables don't account for).

Quick results are as follows (I forgot to take the starting staff off so that is why firebolt is 1+1 or 10+1):

Code:

Skill Levels        Damage
Firebolt = 1+1   30-51
Fireball = 10      223-274
Hydra = 20        452-536
Mastery = 20

Firebolt = 1+1   36-60
Fireball = 20      438-498
Hydra = 20        407-482
Mastery = 10

Firebolt = 10+1 106-139
Fireball = 20      622-706
Hydra = 20        319-379
Mastery = 1

and to see Hydra with maxed synergies and little mastery I spent 10 more points:
Firebolt = 20+1  270-357
Fireball = 20       985-1118
Hydra = 20         370-439
Mastery = 1

Yeah its not the best data set, but for hydra fire mastery is still much better than the synergies. Since both bolt and ball add 4% fire damage to hydra. For bolt and ball the synergies can be better, but it doesn't look that way for Hydra

[Zath]

It has just occured to me that the effects of skill adders have not been considered here. Since skill adders only increase the mastery bonus and not synergies, taking them into account will in fact decrease the level at which synergies become useful. With this in mind, we can calculate at what level of mastery an investment in synergies will be more beneficial than another level of mastery. The results for some popular spells are:

Meteor: 6 (assuming 1 point in Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, and Inferno already)
Hydra: 18 (assuming 1 point in Fire Bolt and Fire Ball already)
Chain Lightning: 16 (assuming 1 point in Charged Bolt and Lightning already)
Lightning: 3 or 4 (assuming 1 point in Charged Bolt and Chain Lightning already)

What this mean is, for a spell such as Hydra, you should invest in Fire Mastery until it is at L18 with skill adders included, then alternate between one additional level of synergies and one additional level of mastery. If your Sorceress had a +10 skill setup, this would imply she should start investing in synergies for Hydra as early as L8 Fire Mastery.

If the number of skill adders "X" you have exceeds a break point "B", then you should invest "X-B+2" points in synergies before you begin increasing masteries. Given +10 skills with Meteor for example, you would want to toss 10-6+2=6 points into synergies before you start raising Fire Mastery.

Edit: Made a small calculation error so I have corrected the break points.