Check out the reworked Blast Rain in Conquerors of the Atlas!

The only thing this skill needs is bigger AoE. Like 400% more.

The guy who's saying it can't shotgun, I had the same idea from the patch way back that just destroyed shotgunning. It removed the ability of a lot of skills to shotgun:

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Version_2.0.0

"Projectile skills no longer "shotgun". You can't hit the same target with more than one simultaneously-created projectile from the same source any more. They've been rebalanced around this."

Unless the above only applies to the literal arrow and not the AOE, but that should maybe be clarified? Clearly they're intended to shotgun here.

Edit: Seems it was clarified at the time.

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LTSmash0 wrote:

Unless the above only applies to the literal arrow and not the AOE, but that should maybe be clarified? Clearly they're intended to shotgun here.

It does. And always has. It was clarified at the time, by Chris and everyone else in the dev team that chimed in at the time. There is no need for further clarification. We know this is how it works. You can test that this is how it works with every other skill that has AoE explosions. It's really fucking easy to test.

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xMustard wrote:

i swear people think they'll just spontaneously combust if they say "i was wrong"

This hit me hard. My ex-gf was exactly that way.

Query, as someone who does not compulsively watch hundreds of hours of streamer every week.

Why is Scourge Arrow such a thing? I keep hearing that it's unbearably busted, but I've never seen a build for it that explained why. Is this another Mathil-esque "anything can work if you stack enough flat damage and just ignore the skill's mechanics entirely" thing?

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1453R wrote:

Query, as someone who does not compulsively watch hundreds of hours of streamer every week.

Why is Scourge Arrow such a thing? I keep hearing that it's unbearably busted, but I've never seen a build for it that explained why. Is this another Mathil-esque "anything can work if you stack enough flat damage and just ignore the skill's mechanics entirely" thing?

well its mostly because of the crazy high scaling it inherently has in the gem if you fully channel it. so yes, stack enough flat damage. it also hits a good number of times per cast, so it has that going for it as well.

however, i can't stand to use scourge arrow. i think it feels like shit and always has.

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1453R wrote:

Query, as someone who does not compulsively watch hundreds of hours of streamer every week.

Why is Scourge Arrow such a thing? I keep hearing that it's unbearably busted, but I've never seen a build for it that explained why. Is this another Mathil-esque "anything can work if you stack enough flat damage and just ignore the skill's mechanics entirely" thing?

The key is that it hits so many times and deals so much damage per use that it's absolutely perfect for Delve, which is full of long+narrow hallways.

If your impression is that it's an awful-feeling skill for regular mapping, guess what: you're right!

But no, this isn't anything like the mathil effect where anything is "technically viable". After the tornado shot fork nerf (where fork was tripling the damage of tornado shot due to a bug), scourge arrow is actually, kind of by far, the single best skill for deep delving. Just check the delve leaderboard :)

A scourge arrow rework that makes it more useable for mapping and less crazy strong against packs in long hallways would be much appreciated. But more likely they're just going to nerf the damage.

Either that, or they think scourge arrow is fine in its niche and it'll continue being the delve meta forever.

Gotcha. So not really missing some weird hidden interaction, beyond not caring about leaderboards enough to realize the hand+glove nature of Scourge Arrow for Delving. Heh, I'd figure Divine Ire would be similar, but I can see where DI doesn't work as smoothly.

it's a little sad, honestly. Nobody else seems to have noticed, but bow skills are not allowed to deal significant single-hit damage. Every single bow skill in the game, with the only partial exception of Burning Frickin' Arrow, deals damage via rapid application of numerous small hits. Even Scourge Arrow, the big-whammy charge-up Heavy Duty shot...deals damage by exploding a bunch of cabbage landmines that scatter a ton of smaller darts around.

It's super annoying. There's only so many iterations of Barrage we need. Blast Rain here finally making sense is great, but yeesh.

Oh well. SA aside, I'm honestly quite curious on the potential for Blast Rain ballistas in conjunction with clearing/snaring skills. The scaling would be wonky ay-eff, but I could see a Blast Rain Ballistas (which could come with the hilarious moniker of 'the BRB build') character using Toxic Rain to help snare enemies below its ballista fire. Probably be one of those "cute idea, not worth it" builds, but hell if I don't want to try sometime.

So, where's a video of this in action? With GMP, greater volley, ect ect?

BR mines in play?