I shared this on the subreddit over 3 months ago, but thanks to the secret police was unable to share it with you guys. So here you go. Hope it's useful.
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Vengeant Cascade is one of the largely forgotten (because it was largely useless) hidden passive tree notables added all the way back in Blight league. It costs 2 Golden + 1 Amber Oil. It gives -
15% increased Projectile Speed
Attack Projectiles Return to you from final Target
Returning Projectiles Pierce all Targets*
* And yes, those returning projectiles can hit targets again.
'Return' is a projectile mod that comes after all the other ones - split, pierce, fork and chain. So your projectiles won't return until they're done doing all of those, upto however many of them you've got. It also has to actually HIT another enemy in order to return - and of course that enemy only gets hit once - so it won't return after some max distance or hitting a wall. It returns back to the source of the projectile, be that you, a trap, a mine or a totem. So it basically got relegated to just being a rather meh clearspeed tool, and one that was inferior to all the others (as in order to hit the enemies again, they'd have to be in the proper position to get hit by the returning projectile - although it does go through you to hit stuff behind you as well, for what it's worth). It also doesn't work for projectiles falling from the sky, like Rain of Arrows and the like.
If you want to know how this affects all the different attack (it doesn't affect spells) projectile skills, there's both a nice old Reddit post and another vid by Woolfio both trying it out -
But anyway, what's new? In a word, Hydrosphere. That little gem of a new skill from last league may just be Vengeant Cascades' saving grace. So how to double your hits on mobs, including bosses?
Simple. Use a projectile attack skill that can pierce (so not like Spectral Shield Throw), but doesn't inherently pierce (so not Tornado Shot). Get exactly ONE pierce on it (say, from a Penetrating Arrow Quiver). Cast your Hydrosphere behind the enemy and fire away. The projectile will go through them (using up its one pierce), hit the Hydrosphere and return to hit them again. Boom! Doubled hits.
This ends up looking like a laser when used with skills like Barrage, however the real stars here might be skills that trigger secondary effects on every hit. For example - Kinetic Blast. It'll create explosions both on passing through the enemy AND on returning to hit them again, further multiplying your damage. It's kinda like having the old Frost Wall interaction for KB back again.
So basically Vengeant Cascade is finally not just a questionable clearspeed tool - it might actually significantly boost your damage as well now. Video showing the interaction can be found here - https://youtu.be/abPr6srsfMM
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Hey, looking at this thread a few months later, why is tornado shot not good for this? I know pierce is useless since it would fly off random direction, but wouldnt having chain work? -> chain from boss to hydro and then return? Or is that not how it works?
For tornado shot only the initial arrows pierce not the small projectiles which actually do the damage .The small projectiles don't do anything without having modifier(chain , pierce , fork) so it's amazing for tornado shot.
Last edited by badnewz10 on Nov 27, 2021, 7:58:11 AM
