Ball Lighting vs Spark

I've been trying to plan on a build for when Ascendancy is released, and I feel like doing a multiple lightning spell totem build. I've been focusing on Ball Lightning and spark, just because they seem to be a fun ability to use.

I was wondering which would be better for this situation. I don't know which one would be faster at clearing and which would be more cost efficient to get up and running at a good pace.

Would love some help with this. If anyone has any suggestions/questions for my either post them here or message me in game if I'm on.

-Thank you

There's a thing about ball lightning which makes it somewhat unsuitable for totems, it does less damage at point blank as the ball is spawned on the enemy so it does half the usual number of hits. Melees can approach your totems more easily than you so it's a factor, also if you're using slow projectiles ball lightning range isn't very good so you'll be repositioning them more.

On the other hand, spark is the equivalent of dumbfire missiles from Raptor so it's especially suited for totems, fire and hope it hits something. That said, ball lightning is generally a stronger spell and spell totems need the extra power.

As far as gearing goes neither is terribly expensive, a pair of projectile speed wands is very good for spark and BL benefits strongly from Carcass and a pair of Divinarius daggers, though neither is a hard requirement.

BL and spark totem are on par with each other imo.

If you are using a sire of shards BL would be a better choice as you get four times the amount of projectiles whereas with spark you'll get less than double the amount. It would also cover space better than spark if you are running an mf char that culls in parties.

For the same reason BL would profit more from a rain of splinters jewel. On the other hand spark wouldn't need that jewel which means no damage penalty and the opportunity to use another jewel.

Spark is a bit easier to build, especially for totem. You can simple place totems at random positions and fill the whole screen with spark. You can link it with fork or pierce (with passive it can reach 100% pierce) and some increased duration in passive if you want to, which are only gems and/or a few passive, to make it strong.

For BL, some uniques like Sire of Shards or Rain of Splinters can make a huge difference, which make building BL is a bit harder.

For clearing speed, I don't think they will have a large difference.

PS.: BL looks better without skin, spark looks better with skin.
PS. again: it seems to be fun to play spark with Deadeyes. The initial pierce, projectile speed and free chain make it great. (but no crit from pierce :[)

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Melees can approach your totems more easily than you so it's a factor, also if you're using slow projectiles ball lightning range isn't very good so you'll be repositioning them more.

I thought that the slower projectile jewel didn't actually affect the range of projectiles. Also I was thinking of how good single target would be. Spark would be all over the place, while ball lightning would be accurate.

lighting warp + multiple totems with the new templar sublcass anyone? that looks like fun.

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flier66666 wrote:

I thought that the slower projectile jewel didn't actually affect the range of projectiles.

It does, it's a good way to squeeze more hits per cast if you're doing a short range BL.