Firestorm critical chance

Is the chance to crit for Firestorm calculated per cast or per fireball?


Wolf

The former. Crit for basically all skills is rolled per use, not per hit. (Blade Vortex is the only, utterly weird exception, as far as I know.)

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viperesque wrote:

Blade Vortex is the only, utterly weird exception, as far as I know.

Orb of Storms also. I think that's the only other one that does this.

It is certainly odd that these newer duration-based spells that are designed to hit many times can roll for critical chance on each hit, but Firestorm doesen't. I was thinking maybe it's because Firestorm is series of projectiles rather than one thing hitting many times... but then that doesn't explain Vaal Molten Shell.

I think it's a balance consideration.

If Firestorm's chance to crit was calculated for each fireball, this would basically give it free Elemental Overload for non-crit builds. It would also turn it into a potent power charge generator with cwdt - firestorm - pcoc - increased crit strikes.

If VMS calculated each hit separately, this would make it even stronger with crit builds. Rolling the crit chance once makes it more unreliable... unless you're an Assassin and can easily crit cap it, of course.

At least that's what I think. It might be something else entirely.

Gives them something to consider next time they revamp/balance old skills at least.

I believe it's background mechanics.
Both the ball and Vortex are entities applied to the player or spawned in an area that repeatedly "cast" themselves, on a specific target.
I assume firestorm just creates a backlog of projectiles to be dropped, independent of enemies in the area or movement.
I suppose the likes of firestorm could be updated to those new mechanics, but I don't see a design precedent. It probably doesn't last long enough to be worth the memory.

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Bars wrote:

If Firestorm's chance to crit was calculated for each fireball, this would basically give it free Elemental Overload for non-crit builds. It would also turn it into a potent power charge generator with cwdt - firestorm - pcoc - increased crit strikes.

I have Ice Spear + GMP + PCoC + inc.crits. Full power charges in no time.

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databeaver wrote:

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Bars wrote:

If Firestorm's chance to crit was calculated for each fireball, this would basically give it free Elemental Overload for non-crit builds. It would also turn it into a potent power charge generator with cwdt - firestorm - pcoc - increased crit strikes.

I have Ice Spear + GMP + PCoC + inc.crits. Full power charges in no time.

True enough. I also use this setup for power charges and elemental overload, or blade vortex if melee.

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Bars wrote:

If Firestorm's chance to crit was calculated for each fireball, this would basically give it free Elemental Overload for non-crit builds. It would also turn it into a potent power charge generator with cwdt - firestorm - pcoc - increased crit strikes.

Can't say I remember what's the exact reason they changed the way crit is calculated to what we have now, but there is one.

Unfortunately, they failed to stick to it with some of the newer skills, so we have players using Orb of Storms to proc overload. I don't think charge generation is a big obstacle, if they introduced a global gain cooldown for a specific charge type the problem would be solved, actually that may not be a bad idea regardless.