What is wrong with Crackling Lance?

This skill feels like the new spectral shield throw. Arc does less tooltip dps and feels 1000% better. Is it bugged? GGG can you please chime in? Nobody is having any luck with this skill.

There's multiple reasons it sucks.

You need to stand still for max stacks, so you are prone to dying and it slows the overall feel of the skill.

It's an intensify skill and there's a total of one node for Intensify.

It cant chain, unlike Arc so it's clear is worse. Its average damage also happens to be lower for some reason from testing, using the same gem links, a level 11 Vaal Arc deals more damage than a level 17 CL despite the tooltip saying otherwise.

Also the fact that you need to cast it multiple times to get the max dps means it's a drain on mana and you waist nodes trying to keep mana regen up with the CD casting.

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jrockjake wrote:

There's multiple reasons it sucks.

You need to stand still for max stacks, so you are prone to dying and it slows the overall feel of the skill.

It's an intensify skill and there's a total of one node for Intensify.

It cant chain, unlike Arc so it's clear is worse. Its average damage also happens to be lower for some reason from testing, using the same gem links, a level 11 Vaal Arc deals more damage than a level 17 CL despite the tooltip saying otherwise.

Also the fact that you need to cast it multiple times to get the max dps means it's a drain on mana and you waist nodes trying to keep mana regen up with the CD casting.

Crackling lance literally covers the whole screen... the clear is the one thing that it's better than arc.

The reason why arc does more single target is because it deals almost double damage on 1 target.

The clear with CL is better than arc. The catch here is you need to move so you don't get past 2 intensify. The single target with intensify 3 or 4 is good, dunno if it's better than arc.

For bossing if you flame dash you lose one intensify per dash, so if you get the +1 intensify node you can keep almost the entire fight with 3 intensify stacks.

I'm doing an entire custom build for the first time, chose CL for it because it looks promissing.

An advice i can give from my limited personal experience so far, stack cast speed. Even if it's not ideal in terms of POB DPS, it feels a hell of a lot better. I guess that's true for pretty much any skill but on this one even more, the faster you can stack up those intensify charges the better.

In general, i don't think the skill has much potential in terms of viability, it will be mediocre at best. Having to stand still to maximise single target DPS is a major problem in boss fights especially for a caster build. Maybe someone can find a build that's tanky enough for face tanking while retaining decent damage otherwise the skill will just end up being forgotten after the initial hype.

PS Spectral Shield throw on a bleed glad is totally awesome in terms of clear speed, yeah bossing sucks unless you can invest quite a bit of cash but the clear is top tier.

There's a new unique jewel which, if I understand it correctly, makes you gain Intensity continuously (since its own Intensity gain should sustain "gained Intensity recently" forever). So it should take at most a second of standing still to max out Intensity again. If you're worried about clear, you can swap it in for bossing only.

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yamface wrote:

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jrockjake wrote:

There's multiple reasons it sucks.

You need to stand still for max stacks, so you are prone to dying and it slows the overall feel of the skill.

It's an intensify skill and there's a total of one node for Intensify.

It cant chain, unlike Arc so it's clear is worse. Its average damage also happens to be lower for some reason from testing, using the same gem links, a level 11 Vaal Arc deals more damage than a level 17 CL despite the tooltip saying otherwise.

Also the fact that you need to cast it multiple times to get the max dps means it's a drain on mana and you waist nodes trying to keep mana regen up with the CD casting.

Crackling lance literally covers the whole screen... the clear is the one thing that it's better than arc.

The reason why arc does more single target is because it deals almost double damage on 1 target.

Yes it covers the screen, but doesnt go around corners.

In long open areas it has good clear. In caves or narrow small areas it's worse than Arc

okay, so im not the only one having a bad time with this one. this is literaly my worst starting out experience with a skill ever.
i rolled several caster toons in the past, inlc div ire and storm burst. all thos chars felt better than this one.
having to pound t1 volcano boss for an eternity almost made me instantly scrp the char right away.
after reading this thread a bought a lvl 15 arc and swaped it in for my lvl 17 cl and its a totally different experience. boss fight went like 5-10 times faster and im not joking.

The beam should come out after 3 cast not 4 , its like too long.

Also the beam's widht should be twice as large.

It needs a lot of cast speed to feel good like pledge.

right now im thinking that intensify is bugged. i switched to feezing pulse with pinpoint, and even with 4 stack intensify its not realy looking any different. tooltip wont change too.