Is fork and chain overshadowed by pierce?

adding MORE multiplier to Pierce is in the same weirdness category as oryginal Vinktars flask. the big Whaaaat? category that is

if anything Pierce Support should have LESS damage. and not an insignificant one. it deals more damage due to hitting more targets so why not? same as LMP GMP etc. it messes the double dip idiocy we have now - more damage multiplier on pierce is applied twice for poison or ignite.

it is a nobrainer, no downside support gem. bland boring awful design

chain is ok. it is really well made skill behaviour change. useful with some. terribad with some. it is cool

fork is a dumber version of chain with very questionable use case scenario. i use it with lightning trap but only because i have 6link sire of shards and rolled 3 greens. it clears mobs well. but it is 100% crowd controll only gem. fails when there are just few targets. it needs a rework not a simple numbers buff

Chain is amazing for clearspeed if you have enough damage. IMO it's underappreciated because people stare too much at their tooltip instead of actually trying how things work for themselves. Regardless, you do need an extremely high damage output, an alternative single target skill or gem swapping. Also, the Deadeye has an in-built chain so most players just get that.

Fork, I don't know. Never used the gem, seems clunky and pointless to me.

I think chain and fork penalty should receive specification to affect hits only, same with pierce damage bonus.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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JohnNamikaze wrote:

Pierce support already got nerfed, so it is fine. However, Chain and Fork Support needs to get a big buff.

Strongly disagree. Prior to Pierce getting a (completely needless) More Damage multiplier, Chain vs. Pierce was a legitimate choice made on a case-by-case basis, even with the Less Damage penalty on Chain. Pierce Lightning Arrow was fairly uncommon due to the clearspeed offered by Chain LA, but ever since Pierce got that stupid fucking More Damage modifier, it's Pierce all day every day forever and ever.
The "nerf" to Pierce made zero difference there. Oh no, it went from 30% to 20% More Damage, big fucking deal? :/ It's a loss of 7.7% damage - switching to Chain is almost a 50% loss.

The Pierce buff was, alongside Multistrike, one of the most blatant Damage inflation changes.


Fork has ~always been a shit support though.

A-bloody-men.

I cannot figure out why Pierce merits a 'More' modifier. I really can't. Every other means of embiggening a skill - Inc. AoE, Chain, Fork, GMP/LMP, Melee Splash, whatever - comes with either a 'less' modifier or doesn't get any extra damage at all. Pierce embiggens a skill and also plugs into dumb schitte like Drillneck's modifier, and it ALSO gets a "More" modifier to boot?!

Faster Projectiles does fugg-all for embiggening and it only gets an "Increased" modifier!

PPAD "Less"-s your attack speed and only works on the narrow-ass category "Physical > Projectile > Attack". Pierce "More"-s absolutely everything, including secondary effects like Poison!

Chain, Fork, LMP, and GMP all have a viciously bad "Less" penalty - even when they're not as good as Pierce in the first place. Fork is particularly awful - it's wonky and generally not as good as *MP - OR PIERCE at clearing packs, it does fugg-all against bosses, there is exactly one item in the game (which nobody uses) that cares about Forking...AND IT STILL 'LESS'S YOUR DAMAGE.

Pierce needs a 'Less' modifier, not a 'More' modifier. At the very least, it needs its 'More' modifier removed. Fork needs its 'less' modifier removed to be even remotely competitive with Chain, Pierce, or *MP, and coule probably stand to gain an 'Increased' modifier the same way Faster Projectiles has. Chain could use less 'Less'; GMP quadruples a skill's coverage for a 26% 'Less' modifier, whilst Chain gives you two bounces - triple coverage at best - for a 35% 'Less' modifier.

And for Bavaria's sake, DoT scaling needs to be fixed up so that 'Less' modifiers on support gems stop double-undipping on them! You shouldn't have to be punished twice for using options like Fork, Chain, or *MP on DoT-generating skills! If that means no positive double-dipping either, then so be it - the dip counts have gotten well and truly out of control as it is.

Geh. Just...incredibly bothersome. Even builds that already have 100% Pierce chance use the Pierce gem strictly for its 'More' modifier. That is messed up on all levels.

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Bars wrote:

Chain is amazing for clearspeed if you have enough damage. IMO it's underappreciated because people stare too much at their tooltip instead of actually trying how things work for themselves. Regardless, you do need an extremely high damage output, an alternative single target skill or gem swapping. Also, the Deadeye has an in-built chain so most players just get that.

Fork, I don't know. Never used the gem, seems clunky and pointless to me.

This was true for a while but the reason pierce won it even w/o the more dmg was the FW interaction which is now gone.


I would still use pierce now even if chain had zero dmg penalty.

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Nephalim wrote:

This was true for a while but the reason pierce won it even w/o the more dmg was the FW interaction which is now gone.


I would still use pierce now even if chain had zero dmg penalty.

Yeah, except the Frost Wall "interaction" was grade-A elephant manure and everyone knew it. I can't think of anything more clearly definable as an exploit. We all knew it was inevitable that it'd get axed eventually.

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Nephalim wrote:

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Bars wrote:

Chain is amazing for clearspeed if you have enough damage. IMO it's underappreciated because people stare too much at their tooltip instead of actually trying how things work for themselves. Regardless, you do need an extremely high damage output, an alternative single target skill or gem swapping. Also, the Deadeye has an in-built chain so most players just get that.

Fork, I don't know. Never used the gem, seems clunky and pointless to me.

This was true for a while but the reason pierce won it even w/o the more dmg was the FW interaction which is now gone.


I would still use pierce now even if chain had zero dmg penalty.

This only tells me you haven't played a nice chain build :3

Either that or he gives zero shits about clearspeed like me!

But I have the impression Nephalim is relatively meta-following so you're probably right.

pierce always won out. chain would be half decent for builds but in all reality pierce is always better if you're using GMP over LMP, especially for things like lightning arrow which have an inherent chain build into the skill.
the more projectile speed you had, the better pierce was as well. however chain is great if you are running slower projectiles, but slower projectiles is just as horrible of a support in my opinion...the less speed is WAY too much.

fork has always been useless. i've never seen it used and i've never used it more than one map just to try to see if it has a use, which it doesn't. its horrible.

chain is great, but not the gem. deadeye ascendancy makes use of a free +1 chain which i use one my main build with lightning arrow and no pierce, and its amazing.

i agree that pierce has so many interactions that it will most likely always be superior, even without the 'more' damage benefit, or even if chain didn't have the less damage consequence.

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xMustard wrote:

pierce always won out. chain would be half decent for builds but in all reality pierce is always better if you're using GMP over LMP, especially for things like lightning arrow which have an inherent chain build into the skill.
the more projectile speed you had, the better pierce was as well. however chain is great if you are running slower projectiles, but slower projectiles is just as horrible of a support in my opinion...the less speed is WAY too much.

fork has always been useless. i've never seen it used and i've never used it more than one map just to try to see if it has a use, which it doesn't. its horrible.

chain is great, but not the gem. deadeye ascendancy makes use of a free +1 chain which i use one my main build with lightning arrow and no pierce, and its amazing.

i agree that pierce has so many interactions that it will most likely always be superior, even without the 'more' damage benefit, or even if chain didn't have the less damage consequence.

Pierce did not, and does not, always win out, insofar as the actual 'Pierce' mechanic goes.

Pierce vs. Chain is a question of potential vs. consistency. Pierce is able to hit more targets than Chain can, but Chain is much more likely (i.e. close to guaranteed) to hit multiple targets, while Pierce has no such guarantee. The behavior of the skill being modified has a great deal to do with whether Pierce or Chain, as an embiggening mechanic, works better. Chain adapts better to wonky pack shapes or suboptimal map layouts (which encourage wonky pack shapes), while Pierce allows easier/quicker offscreening in bowling alley-style EZ mapz like Canyon or Gorge.

Some players also simply have a visceral preference for one or the other - I am terribly weak to the sight of a dozen projectiles bouncing around inamidst a pack of swiftly disintegrating critters, while some players strongly prefer to see their projectiles blast through waves of foes as if they're not even there.

The problem is that the Chain gem is an enormous damage penalty, while the Pierce gem is, for some ungodly reason, a significant damage bonus. if Chain had a 20% More modifier instead of a 35% Less modifier (and a quiver which offered a giant damage bonus based on Chain chance/count), you would see a whole g'damned lot of Chaining builds just the same way you see a whole g'damned lot of Piercing builds.

Pierce is dominant right now because Drillneck is ridiculous and because the Pierce gem has an entirely unjustified 'More' modifier. Change it to 'Increased' or get rid of it altogether, and Pierce will go back to being an option rather than a mandate.