Chain VS Pierce

Most pro players use chain as support but very few players use pierce. Does pierce is really that bad or just underestimated? I am trying to list out the pros and cons for both support and do some calculation to find out whether chain are really better than pierce. If you have some words about chain VS pierce. please share with us.

Reason Chain > Pierce

Reason Pierce > Chain

Okay, let's do some calculation to find out how many enemies need to be hit for pierce to out damage chain (both with GMP and all are lv 18).



Thus. we can expect that if projectile weakness is used instead of pierce and one socket is free, it can deal more damage than using chain for almost all of the time (more damage and higher hit rate from proj. weakness) as long as you can keep the original curse, but you have to use more passive to get one more curse (one more curse can't increase that much damage for chain).

But the problem is can you really hit that many enemies in one shot? Be ware that 300% of increased damage is not a easy target. The less increased damage you have, the better chain can out damage pierce. As a result, n may become 11 or even 12.

The final question is "do we need a buff to pierce, having increased damage like chain for example, or we just underestimate it?"

I use pierce with my split shot and I get very good results out of it. It is very satisfying to have nearly 100% pierce, critical, and then everything on the screen just explodes into ice shards and dies.
I don't know how viable it'd be on a build that didn't focus so heavily on critical strikes like mine.

Use Chain and Projectile Weakness. Get both benefits with one support gem.

They're both useful for different skills.

You wouldn't put chain on Lightning Strike.
You wouldn't put pierce on Fireball.

If you want to build a shockstacking build you're gonna want Static Blows anyway... So your issue with needing inc shock duration is not an issue. And even without shock, you clear rooms no problem anyway. And nobody uses LA on bosses.

Added a few words to the last few sentences.

Personally I think that pierce needs a buff which should probably be increased damage. As what I have said, most players use chain. There should always be a reason. I think it is mostly due to that it is rare to hit over 10 enemies in one shot. Therefore chain deal much more damage that pierce to an extent that I think Chain+GMP/LMP is a bit overpowered. Also, as there is projectile weakness. people mostly drops pierce. It really needs some love :(.

"

Use Chain and Projectile Weakness. Get both benefits with one support gem.

Pierced projectiles cannot be chained.

PS. My build is a power siphon build instead of bow/LA build. But it doesn't matter.

"

RenoR wrote:

In my opinion chain is COMPLETLY OVERRATED.

50% damage effectiveness is extremly bad, also the increased mana costs bear troubles. You have to know that instead of manageing resources, you can also get damage (=lower mana cost->more damage)

Another thing i want to point out is that shockstacking becomes less effective with chain.
You get a lot more chances to shock, thats true, but the downside is, that if you dont do enough lighting damage with a positive shock roll, you wont shock.
This means, that chain requires INCREASED SHOCK DURATION in order to shock better.

This fact is important if you use lighting arrow with chain, because each hit with lighting will have 35% damage effectiveness and chances are very high, that you wont trigger a shockstack.
Maybe I overrate this problem, because to shock 1 single time you have to do only ~1% damage of enemies max health.(for a 300 ms shock duration with is the lower limit)


If I would play a ranger, my base concept would be:
-lighting arrow + pierce
-35% chance to pierce through passive skillpoint
-stacking lighting damage mainly
-conductivity
-static blow
-no bloodmagic to save points and have mana for auras

Pierce needs not be used since you can spend some passive point to have dual curse (near static blow). Use projectile weakness can increase your damage a lot.

"

wildwind5566 wrote:

Most pro players use chain as support but very few players use pierce. Does pierce is really that bad or just underestimated? I am trying to list out the pros and cons for both support and do some calculation to find out whether chain are really better than pierce. If you have some words about chain VS pierce. please share with us.

Reason Chain > Pierce

Spoiler

1. Pierce has a chance for not piercing while chain always chains.
2. You need to position yourself to reach a great output for pierce, while you can deal maximum damage as long as all of your projectiles hit enemies.
3. You can hit enemies behind the wall indirect when using chain, but there should be no wall between you and the enemies when using pierce.
4. Chain has increased damage when leveling which is what pierce doesn't have.
5. Stack shock faster for chain (maybe charge faster to flask which gains charge when crit?)

Reason Pierce > Chain

Spoiler

1. Chain has the upper limited of hit (15 with GMP, 9 with LMP and 3 alone) but pierce has no limited.
2. Lower mana cost (200% for chain, only 110% for pierce)
3. Projectile weakness, which is a really strong curse can be used for pierce (in fact, with projectile weakness, you won't use pierce anymore).
4. Cheaper (their price should be quite the same if having quality? I don't know about the price)

Okay, let's do some calculation to find out how many enemies need to be hit for pierce to out damage chain (both with GMP and all are lv 18).

Spoiler

Assume you gear and passive provide you 300% damage increased. Consider all 5 projectiles hit enemies successfully and ignore the effect of shocking. And for calculation purpose, you expected damage without any damage increased is 1.

For chain,
Mana multiplier = 2*2 = 4
Total damage = 0.5*0.5*5*3*(1+300%+34%+34%) = 17.55
(the two 34% are increased damage from gems. One from GMP, one from chain)

For pierce,
Let n be the requested number of enemies.
Mana multiplie = 2*1.1 = 2.2
Expected total damage (without quality) = 0.5*[5*(1-0.57)+0.57n](1+300%+34%)
Expected total damage (with 20% quality) = 0.5*[5*(1-0.72)+0.72n](1+300%+34%)

After solving, n is 10.4 (w/o Q) and 9.3 (w/ Q). In other words, if there are 10 enemies in front of you and assuming they are grouped together, pierce deal similar damage with chain. If there are more enemies (e.g. 20), pierce can out damage chain easily.

Thus. we can expect that if projectile weakness is used instead of pierce and one socket is free, it can deal more damage than using chain for almost all of the time (more damage and higher hit rate from proj. weakness) as long as you can keep the original curse, but you have to use more passive to get one more curse (one more curse can't increase that much damage for chain).

But the problem is can you really hit that many enemies in one shot? And the final question is "do we need a buff to pierce, having increased damage like chain for example, or we just underestimate it?"

I think you're forgetting some things in your pierce equation. There is a chance of piercing twice right? and 3 times? and 4
times?
So let's do this with 1 arrow and all the enemies lined up. Imagine there are 10 enemies lined up and you deal 1 damage. Chain will deal 0.5 * 3 (1+34%) = 2

Now let's do this for Pierce (with 20%). We have 72% chance for 1 pierce and 52% for an extra pierce. Counting all these will result in 1*0.72 + 1*0.52 + 1*0.37 + 1*0.27 + 1 * 0.19 + 1 * 0.14 + 1 * 0.10 + 1 * 0.07 + 1 * 0.05 + 1 * 0.037 = 2.467 so we expect to pierce 2.467 on average. so our damage will be (1+2.467)(1+0%) = 3.467

"

WhatTheHex wrote:

"

wildwind5566 wrote:

Most pro players use chain as support but very few players use pierce. Does pierce is really that bad or just underestimated? I am trying to list out the pros and cons for both support and do some calculation to find out whether chain are really better than pierce. If you have some words about chain VS pierce. please share with us.

Reason Chain > Pierce

Spoiler

1. Pierce has a chance for not piercing while chain always chains.
2. You need to position yourself to reach a great output for pierce, while you can deal maximum damage as long as all of your projectiles hit enemies.
3. You can hit enemies behind the wall indirect when using chain, but there should be no wall between you and the enemies when using pierce.
4. Chain has increased damage when leveling which is what pierce doesn't have.
5. Stack shock faster for chain (maybe charge faster to flask which gains charge when crit?)

Reason Pierce > Chain

Spoiler

1. Chain has the upper limited of hit (15 with GMP, 9 with LMP and 3 alone) but pierce has no limited.
2. Lower mana cost (200% for chain, only 110% for pierce)
3. Projectile weakness, which is a really strong curse can be used for pierce (in fact, with projectile weakness, you won't use pierce anymore).
4. Cheaper (their price should be quite the same if having quality? I don't know about the price)

Okay, let's do some calculation to find out how many enemies need to be hit for pierce to out damage chain (both with GMP and all are lv 18).

Spoiler

Assume you gear and passive provide you 300% damage increased. Consider all 5 projectiles hit enemies successfully and ignore the effect of shocking. And for calculation purpose, you expected damage without any damage increased is 1.

For chain,
Mana multiplier = 2*2 = 4
Total damage = 0.5*0.5*5*3*(1+300%+34%+34%) = 17.55
(the two 34% are increased damage from gems. One from GMP, one from chain)

For pierce,
Let n be the requested number of enemies.
Mana multiplie = 2*1.1 = 2.2
Expected total damage (without quality) = 0.5*[5*(1-0.57)+0.57n](1+300%+34%)
Expected total damage (with 20% quality) = 0.5*[5*(1-0.72)+0.72n](1+300%+34%)

After solving, n is 10.4 (w/o Q) and 9.3 (w/ Q). In other words, if there are 10 enemies in front of you and assuming they are grouped together, pierce deal similar damage with chain. If there are more enemies (e.g. 20), pierce can out damage chain easily.

Thus. we can expect that if projectile weakness is used instead of pierce and one socket is free, it can deal more damage than using chain for almost all of the time (more damage and higher hit rate from proj. weakness) as long as you can keep the original curse, but you have to use more passive to get one more curse (one more curse can't increase that much damage for chain).

But the problem is can you really hit that many enemies in one shot? And the final question is "do we need a buff to pierce, having increased damage like chain for example, or we just underestimate it?"

I think you're forgetting some things in your pierce equation. There is a chance of piercing twice right? and 3 times? and 4
times?
So let's do this with 1 arrow and all the enemies lined up. Imagine there are 10 enemies lined up and you deal 1 damage. Chain will deal 0.5 * 3 (1+34%) = 2

Now let's do this for Pierce (with 20%). We have 72% chance for 1 pierce and 52% for an extra pierce. Counting all these will result in 1*0.72 + 1*0.52 + 1*0.37 + 1*0.27 + 1 * 0.19 + 1 * 0.14 + 1 * 0.10 + 1 * 0.07 + 1 * 0.05 + 1 * 0.037 = 2.467 so we expect to pierce 2.467 on average. so our damage will be (1+2.467)(1+0%) = 3.467

I have discovered this for projectile weakness. But I don't know whether pierce support gems count pierce for each enemy separately or it can always pierce once it's counted as successfully piercing.

Anyway, if piercing is counted separately for each enemies, the case for pierce is much worse. The expected damage for one projectile if infinite pierce in front of you should be 1/(1-0.72) = 3.57 (using lim)for quality gem. However, there is unrealistic to have infinite enemies. To have an actually, distribution of number of enemies is needed. If we assume a uniform distribution from 1 to 3 enemies in a row, the expected damage for one projectile should be 1.65 (I don't want to post the math here as I use sum of geometric series twice). Than if all 5 projectiles hit targets, the expected number of enemies hit is 8.264, and thus the expected damage is 0.5*8.264*(1+300%+34%) = 17.93

Comparing with the value of chain (17.55), pierce is a dump. Chain can maximize its damage as long as there are as least 5 enemies and all of your 5 projectiles hit them. However, pierce need at least 15 enemies, and have to be 5 in a row with 3 rows (other combination will cause a lower result), to achieve such a expected value. In other words, pierce really needs some love and buff comparing with chain if it is counted separately for each enemies.