Chain and fork are grossly outdated

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Alex_Lied wrote:

BTW, anyone tested fork with Powerful Precision? Right now fork usefulness is really questionable but when ascendancy patch hit poe, I had one idea on how it could used:

"Attack Projectiles Return to You after hitting targets" + fork + GMP

In the end, I never tested it so I am not sure how well it fare.

Like raics said, the issue is that the forked projectiles often miss. Projectiles don't return if they miss; only if they hit but don't fork/pierce/chain/etc...

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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Alex_Lied wrote:

BTW, anyone tested fork with Powerful Precision? Right now fork usefulness is really questionable but when ascendancy patch hit poe, I had one idea on how it could used:

"Attack Projectiles Return to You after hitting targets" + fork + GMP

In the end, I never tested it so I am not sure how well it fare.

Like raics said, the issue is that the forked projectiles often miss. Projectiles don't return if they miss; only if they hit but don't fork/pierce/chain/etc...

So hitting wall doesn't count here? That wouldn't work then...

Maybe if these new projectiles rarely hit it would make more sense to increase their dmg rather than drop it? It could bring the gem back for some other builds than spark.

Fork was always poorly balanced. If we compare it with chain that gets three guaranteed (theoretically) hits at 70% power for 210% total, fork get one direct hit and two, well, let's say they're 50-50 ones, so it's one at 90% and two more at half that which amounts to 180%.

If you look at numbers it's close enough, 20-30% here and there do not make or break the skill, however there's a big difference in one thing - hit pattern. Chain can hit any target within a radius, regardless of position, and fork only hits in front. Even if fork got autoaim and therefore three almost guaranteed hits, it should still do more damage than chain because of more narrow spread. That's the reason LA has always been more popular than Ice shot, despite the lower dps and very similar mechanics, it's a circle instead of cone.

Now, back when it was hard or impossible to push Pierce to 100% I'd say it deserved a damage multiplier, but if you can get full pierce there's no limit to the amount of extra targets it can hit, unlike the other two gems, which offsets the lack of extra hits if there are only a few targets in range. Pierce is somewhat like sunder, shines if the crowd is really big but does nothing if there are only few. I personally think that's the way it should be, a tradeoff should exist so you can make a choice depending on your setup and playstyle instead of the number game deciding it for you.

problem is pierce was always considered garbage compared to chain, and even considered worse than fork back in the day.
it was never really difficult to get 100% pierce and when you did it was always better than chain/fork purely because of the mana multi as well as not having a less dmg factor.

now, for some reason, they add more damage to pierce. i agree that chain and fork are grossly outdated, but i don't think its because pierce got the more damage modifier. they were always outdated compared to pierce and they should get some of their negative effect alleviated HOWEVER pierce should straight up get the more mod removed. it is completely unnecessary and ridiculous.

it makes it the clear and obviously winner for all projectile skills that can pierce. pure and simple. i mean hell, look at "Slower Projectiles Support". why in the F would anybody even socket this thing anymore, when you can just socket pierce? its the same damage boost without any negative, but rather a MASSIVE positive with even 50% pierce chance to drastically heighten your AoE game.

i just don't get it.
im sure these problems are glaring to GGG, but they're probably not priority right now

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raics wrote:

Fork would be a much more interesting support if it always behaved the way it does on Frost blades. It spreads too wide so there's a high chance it won't hit anything, if it auto aimed within a small angle it would be much more usable, not just a way to create extra sparks.

Again, good point here, but the mechanics would be too similar to Chain imho

I would suggest : forks create 3 more projectiles at lvl 1, up to 6 at lvl 20 (5 at 17), on a 120 angle.
Maybe it would be too good with GMP/extra proj but hey, I'm no tester.

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zbouby25 wrote:

Again, good point here, but the mechanics would be too similar to Chain imho

I would suggest : forks create 3 more projectiles at lvl 1, up to 6 at lvl 20 (5 at 17), on a 120 angle.
Maybe it would be too good with GMP/extra proj but hey, I'm no tester.

Yeah, that's one way to do it, but if it had a projectile that continues in the original direction it would be too similar to pierce.

Maybe that's the problem all along, it isn't different enough from the other two supports.

It really depends on how you view it, for example, Point Blank with Chain is godly and its instant pack destruction. Even if you shoot from far away the way chain works is it resets the projectile distance upon hit so even after the initial hit falls of, it boosts its damage back up to normal on the chains.

Fork its just at the point where its completely outdated and should probably just be removed at this point. As soon as + additional projectile came out it make piercing superior in every way imaginable.

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

It really depends on how you view it, for example, Point Blank with Chain is godly and its instant pack destruction. Even if you shoot from far away the way chain works is it resets the projectile distance upon hit so even after the initial hit falls of, it boosts its damage back up to normal on the chains.

It doesn't reset, that was fixed long ago.

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raics wrote:

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zbouby25 wrote:

Again, good point here, but the mechanics would be too similar to Chain imho

I would suggest : forks create 3 more projectiles at lvl 1, up to 6 at lvl 20 (5 at 17), on a 120 angle.
Maybe it would be too good with GMP/extra proj but hey, I'm no tester.

Yeah, that's one way to do it, but if it had a projectile that continues in the original direction it would be too similar to pierce.

Maybe that's the problem all along, it isn't different enough from the other two supports.

What you just said gave me new idea to reviving this gem:

"if it had a projectile that continues in the original direction it would be too similar to pierce"

That's not exactly true. What if we take the fork chance outside of chain and pierce chances and make it "projectile always fork on hit". This would introduce new mechanic outside of current ones.

"Projectile always fork on hit creating two extra projectiles
Extra projectiles have 70% dmg of original one
Original projectile can pierce but cannot chain"

Mixing it with pierce it would make single hitting skills like burning arrow, behave similar to shrapnel shot with cone-like damaging pattern.

It could also be good alternative to using GMP on every single projectile skill.

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raics wrote:

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

It really depends on how you view it, for example, Point Blank with Chain is godly and its instant pack destruction. Even if you shoot from far away the way chain works is it resets the projectile distance upon hit so even after the initial hit falls of, it boosts its damage back up to normal on the chains.

It doesn't reset, that was fixed long ago.

No it doesnt, it wasnt fixed because thats how it works.

When you chain it creates a new separate projectile that resets the distance calculation because the new arrow is fired from where it chains.

Edit- Im going to double check right now, im pretty sure what you were talking about was the interaction with LA but i might be wrong.

Edit 2- Apparently i am wrong. When was this fixed because it felt like it was working months ago when i was playing my Iceshot ranger ?