Need some help with Spark and Sire of Shards!

Hey,

so first of all, yes, Sire of Shards is more of a meme than a good weapon. I still want to use it. And the jewels, too, but im not too sure about them.

Second: What "on-hit" numbers for Spark should i aim for?

Id like to be able to farm red maps, not oneshot Sirus. But nobody on any stream or guide puts out any actual numbers i can relate to. Imported PoBs tend to have mirror-tier items, so there is that.
I know that i should aim for proj. speed and duration aswell, to increase the likelyhood of Spark hitting the same enemy again after 0.66s.
Also getting some source of Pierce.

Still, do i need 30k damage per hit? Or 100k? Or more?

Hi, Sire of Shards can be strong but I cant see its synergy with Spark.

SoS has two main features, extra projectiles and projectile behavior change. Other than that, its damage stats are poor. But Spark already has multiple projectiles and its behavior can be changed the same way with Hazardous Research jewel. Not worth using SoS in my opinion

Yea, thinking about it: I get the "in a nova" from the Jewels already. Guess the extra projectiles isnt worth the slot?

I was thinking about other skills being usable with SoS, but none really hit my fancy.

"

HerrImHimmel wrote:

I was thinking about other skills being usable with SoS, but none really hit my fancy.

Freezing Pulse?
Magma Orb?
Ball Lightning?
Summon Phantasms as a support for all of them?
How about supporting them with Totems and Brands? FP work wonders when proxied in a nova like that.

Perhaps even Frost Blades or Spectral Throw, if you want to go for an attack?

Other skills that could work well in nova, like Spark and Ethereal Knives, already have a Jewel that allows them to do so. You may still want to use SoS instead of Hazardous if you don't like the reduced duration the Jewel gives them

Supporting it with Brands is an idea i didnt try before.

Already did Magma Orb. Ball Lightning works well, but is not what im looking for rn. Tried Frost Bolt and Freezing Pulse but not sure yet.

Other than that, im still looking for a damage number. Did nobody play spark before?

Oh, they did. They did it a lot. In fact, they did it so much that it "sparked" a lot of of collateral damage than just that Skill in order to "adjust" it.

Spork (Spark+Fork) builds were all the rage back in Perandusleague, mostly because Voltaxic converted 100% lightning to damage. Thanks to the new concept of ascendancies, the meta was formed by Scions that popped into a map and casted a lot of Sparks. Those sparks had a lot of projectile speed and forked, thuse doubling the number of sparks after the first hit. They had so much projectile speed that it was possible, with the right mirror-tier gear and the right layout to fullclear a whole map by just standing in the starting portal. If the enemies did not die by the Spark, they died from the poison (The notable between Shadow and Ranger gave +100% Poison damage, since it was a mechanic that was recently changed and promoted back at Perandus together with new Physical spell skills). It also helped that Berserker ascendancy had its life and mana leech always toggled on, not just on-death.

Of course, GGG has proven and explicitally stated in time that they do not want a character to be able to kill a mob without interacting with it first. The fact "interaction" means oneshot is a different topic.

That said, the adjustment for 2.3.0 (Prophecy) meant:
> Spark rearmed after 1 second
> Spark was slowlier
> Spark could not travel further than 150 unit from Player
> Halved efficacy of quality for the gem
> Everything that converted elements to chaos (with the expection of Incandescent Heart) was nerfed by 40% of their value. This made impossible to reach a full convertion of lightning to chaos, and left the chance for a full fire to chaos convertion at Standard, with legacy Consuming Dark and Infernal Mantle
> Berserk ascendancy would leech only when killing recently

It was not until Incursion that Spark got a little bit of beef, and Synthesis for the rearm after 0.66 second to come off again and the damage to be raised back a bit.
It will be impossible to do anymore what Spark could do in Perandus, but it can still be a good choice nowadays, as long you plan to actually interact with the map instead of killing things offscreen

Still, Hazardous Research would be way better than SoS (the Jewel came much after SoS).
Its projectile damage is high, and the projectiles are also quite useful, but it would be better to play with Fork (which now gives More damage, and got a revamp in Harvest with the chance of forking 2 projectiles instead of 1 near the Ranger-Shadow part of the tree) for extra projectile generation, and dual wielding a pair of well-crafted wand, or a very good rare, would do a better job in increasing their damage.

Consider the idea of a FP nova Brand. I've heard they can do wonder even with all the brand nerf Harvest gave us