Firestorm critical chance

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Mannoth wrote:

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Vipermagi wrote:

Firestorm is old, so it uses old rules.

This is the correct answer.

No, it's not. Firestorm is a skill that is cast once and does a set thing, hitting a set number of times, like a normal skill, so uses normal rules. Tempest Shield is just as old has Firestorm*, but does an arbitrary number of hits (potentially infinite), which technically come from the same cast but are triggered separately by different events that have nothing to do with each other or when or where you cast the skill - so it treats each beam as it's own "cast" by re-rolling crit.
Tempest Shield (and skills like it) have always worked that way, so please stop insisting this has anything to do with old versus new skills - this distinction is entirely mechanical.

Orb of Storms and Blade Vortex are more like Tempest Shield, so use it's rules - these skills hit an arbitrary number of times over a long period based on factors entirely unrelated to you casting them - two different beams from the same Orb of Storms triggered by you casting two different spells are technically from the same "cast", but practically unrelated to each other, in a way that makes it unreasonable to roll crit once for the whole orb, just like repeated blocks from Tempest Shield.

Blade Vortex is on the edge of where this line can be drawn and in a bit of a grey area, but the fact you can bring it with you from one fight to another, along with technical considerations and the significant effect moving around has, push it to the "separate hits" category.

Vaal Molten Shell would likely be in this category except that Molten Shell isn't, and a) we want Vaal versions to work as similar to non-Vaal versions as possible, as well a b) these skills use the exact same code, so will hit things in the exact same way - the Vaal version just has an extra stat saying not to remove the buff when it explodes. It's one we might revisit in future, as the Vaal version does clearly fall more under the "separate" criteria.

*Double-checked this after posting, Firestorm was 0.9.3, Tempest Shield was 0.9.6, so not quite as old, but they were being worked on internally at the same time, and are clearly from the same era of design, so the point stands.

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sherkhan wrote:

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Vaal Molten Shell would likely be in this category except that Molten Shell isn't

Does this mean VMS rolls for crit once, when it is cast, and all subsequent interactions use that crit roll?

I.e. on VMS use, all your VMS hits will crit, or none of them will?

It means they all use the same crit roll. This will result in all hits from the skill being critical, or all hits being non-critical, provided your chance to crit does not change between hits or against different enemies hit.

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raics wrote:

Great, just the man we needed. Could you also refresh our memories in regard to why was the 'one roll per skill use' model chosen back in the misty past of PoE?

If it isn't too much trouble, of course. And oneliners are fine, 'technical reasons', 'game balance reasons', not asking for the meeting transcription.

It solved a number of issues, both making critical strikes when they occurred more impactful and noticeable by the player, and spacing out crit events so that big AoE wasn't massively better at triggering "when you crit" effects, which made them basically impossible to balance correctly.