Kinetic Blast single target?

Hi I was wondering if Kinetic Blast could be used as single target WITHOUT Frost Wall. Like, what if I have a separate single target KB with Concentrated Effect? Will the explosions overlap a little bit?

Conc/Incr.AoE for KB, Molten Strike, and Firestorm don't really help or hurt for single targets (aside from Conc being just a good damage multiplier).

While both supports decrease/increase the explosion aoe, at the same time, they decrease/increase how far away from the initial hit the explosions start.

As a result, it's kind of a wash. It doesn't make more or less shotgun situations happen.

---

For KB, the best way to turn it into a single target is to get your target against a wall. To that effect, either knock them back and attack really fast, or make your own walls with Frost Wall.

Cheers. :)

Hm okay. What's the best way to apply frost wall then? I know self cast frost wall with increased duration works, but what about spell totem? I guess the frost walls would be in front of the monster then

The best for sure is CoC.
It's a big ball of synergy.

{KB + GMP + Pierce + CoC + Frost Wall} as a 5L (alongside the piercing% from the tree).

Every time it pierces the frost wall, it causes explosions.
Every time the explosions crit, more frost walls show up.

---

Failing that, self-cast would work fine. Just box the single target in and then blast away with a {KB + Pierce + damage + damage} linkage. Have another {KB + GMP + AoE + damage} linkage for mob destruction.

I have an entire "Sniper" character based around single-target KB - that is, tons of pierce and no multiple projectiles. The idea is to stack as much damage into a single projectile (Carcass Jack helps), get pierce to at least 80%, fire a single shot into a group and let the KB and Herald of Ash explosions nuke everything. The more monsters there are, the more they overlap, and DPS multiplies very quickly. Three or more monsters pierced generally multiplies the resulting damage enough to one-hit anything in sight.

Ironically, its main weakness is attacking single monsters. Because there's not a bunch of monsters to pierce-proc on, the explosions don't overlap and you only do the base projectile impact damage. This is where Frost Wall could come in handy, so I'll be watching this thread for advice on how to implement that (a seperate CoC KB slot could work). The tooltip DPS is still respectable, but it feels like it does less damage in practice. Therefore, for bosses, I use my standard Barrage + Life Gain on Hit + Faster Attacks + Projectile Damage linkage.

It works pretty well - would work better with higher crit and a better wand than I have, but it was a budget build. Even still, it handles low-70s maps just fine so far.

Make space for a 3L and just use Barrage - Wed - Crit damage setup, I found this better than a single target power siphon especially when you shotgun all 4 projectiles, well mostly rare mobs get one shot on the first projectile anyway.