lightning arrow against new thorns

You could you know..not fire blindly offscreen? I get around the new thorns by throwing decoys up and bear trapping the mages or swapping out to RoA for these maps. Adapt.

Wow, seriously now..

You people are just so full of yourselves. This tread was never intended as a plea for your help. Or for you to tell me that my LA build sucks. And this coming from someone who's main spec is a marauder? Pam, please.

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ighnaz wrote:

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zriL wrote:

Lmp + chain = 9 arrows at most. So the best case scenario with lmp+chain is 9 hits on one target. 3 hits is a reasonable average.

Also, you could use your brain and use another skill, that is such a creative idea that only elite players can think of it...

buddy I got plenty of characters with different skill combinations that most people dont even think are viable. No reason to bring my creativity into this.

Also you seem to have no clue how LA even works.

There's no need to insult him, especially when he's right and you're not. Max possible times to hit a single target with a single attack of LA using LMP + chain is 9. 3 for the initial LMP shot, and each splits for chain for another 6, a total of 9 hits max against any single target.

And of course, as he and I both mentioned, you're not likely most of the time to actually achieve this. Tight groups of zombies or monkeys or the like it can happen, but most of the time something more like 3 hits per target, per attack, is about what you should expect.

I don't disagree that the mechanics of lightning thorns are more harsh for lightning arrow than for most specs, but when you exaggerate your numbers in pursuit of making your point, you lose credibility. It is simply not possible, using LMP + Chain, to hit the same target "more than 10 times" in a single attack. 9 is the max.

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Lyralei wrote:

You could you know..not fire blindly offscreen? I get around the new thorns by throwing decoys up and bear trapping the mages or swapping out to RoA for these maps. Adapt.

Seen a friend nearly kill himself with RoA^^ As for not firing blindly offscreen, I personally try not to do it, since I dont wanna aggro more than the group is ready for (unless its a horrible downwards direction map, then its hard not to), but stray arrows on AoEs/extra arrows from "overkills" fly offscreen out of the players control.

What I find daft tho, is if I use a single target skill, yeah it takes a chunk of my health, but its semi-survivable, but if I use an AoE attack and hit say 6 enemies, only 1 of those has thorns, yet I take damage from all 6 (thats how its comming across to me).

The answer seems clear to me...stack EVEN MORE more health /sigh

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ighnaz wrote:

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magicrectangle wrote:

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ighnaz wrote:

do you know how much attacks I do to a single target with 3.5 APS LA build? that's not even comparable.

Depending on pack positioning, density, etc, it varies a lot, but 3 times per attack isn't an unreasonable guess. That would put you comparable to my cleaver with multistrike.

I already do 3.5 attacks per second. Chain combined with lmp makes it possible to hit one target more than 10 times. Then you have the fact that LA hits up to 3 targets with EACH hit on a certain target. So rather than 3 times it is more like 30 or even higher. That's why it's not comparable. If I had an issue of having to deal with 3 thorns every second I would laugh that right off.. I wouldn't even need life on hit to solve that issue.

so what you are saying is they should nerf LA/chain/lmp so you don't hit so many times?

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magicrectangle wrote:

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ighnaz wrote:

well i dont see why it's bad for melee. None of my melee characters have trouble with it. LA gets destroyed because of the number of attacks it deals to a certain target.

My cleaver attacks 5 times per second. I'd love to be running multistrike for more like 10 attacks per second, but lightning thorns pretty much prevents that from being a viable option.

I think a slight internal cooldown on lightning thorns would be a good solution to the problem. Say a 1/3 of a second cooldown on lightning thorns before it can reflect again (against the same target). Maybe push the damage back up a bit to compensate.

Better yet, have it build charges the longer it goes without reflecting. Monsters with lightning thorns generate a lightning charge once per second, up to a maximum of 5 charges. When they're hit, they discharge all charges against their attacker. This way lightning thorns isn't necessarily so much worse for fast attacks than for slower ones.

Holy crap you just fixed lightning thorns for everyone

GGG hire this man


I'm not being sarcastic I promise I know it looks like it but man this is an amazing fix that I've never even though of... ICD would make LT tolerable by all

I would argue that its in place to promote more careful play, but that wouldn't be the case now would it? As per usual, I don't believe that stacking life is a solution to it because you will die anyway, high life or not.


Insofar, after the first time I came across it (was well aware of the implications when patch notes came out) I haven't yet had a problem with thorns. At the very least, a charging Blackguard is indicative of a mage nearby and that should be a good enough warning. They also don't cast their thorns if nobody is within their line of sight.

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Duskbane wrote:

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magicrectangle wrote:

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ighnaz wrote:

well i dont see why it's bad for melee. None of my melee characters have trouble with it. LA gets destroyed because of the number of attacks it deals to a certain target.

My cleaver attacks 5 times per second. I'd love to be running multistrike for more like 10 attacks per second, but lightning thorns pretty much prevents that from being a viable option.

I think a slight internal cooldown on lightning thorns would be a good solution to the problem. Say a 1/3 of a second cooldown on lightning thorns before it can reflect again (against the same target). Maybe push the damage back up a bit to compensate.

Better yet, have it build charges the longer it goes without reflecting. Monsters with lightning thorns generate a lightning charge once per second, up to a maximum of 5 charges. When they're hit, they discharge all charges against their attacker. This way lightning thorns isn't necessarily so much worse for fast attacks than for slower ones.

Holy crap you just fixed lightning thorns for everyone

GGG hire this man


I'm not being sarcastic I promise I know it looks like it but man this is an amazing fix that I've never even though of... ICD would make LT tolerable by all

they misewell get rid of LT if they were to implement this. how long do you think monsters survive in endgame? any sort of delay would make LT extremely weak and it would be pointless to even have it on the mobs.

Level 83 hardcore LA arrow here - I nearly died 2 times yesterday because of the thorn. What I consider doing :

- Grabbing a Topaz flask with movement speed or curse immunity.
I'll certainly try this out.

- Switching faster attack to life on hit on my 5L.
It might be a good idea, but I don't think I'll do that, because it becomes very boring with LOH. You don't have to watch out anything anymore and you can play mindlessly, which makes me sleepy. I'd also loose over 30% of my damage.

- Getting Koam's heart :)

- Switching to a 7 aura's ranger.
With 85 resist, I guess it becomes manageable, but I can't try this out because I'd need over 30 respect orbs. I'd like some feedback on this.

- Not doing anything.
It makes the game more challenging and I wouldn't even play if I'd be immortal. Surviving a close call is an incredible feeling. I'd rather having fun playing the game for a month, then dying, than to play an invincible tank who will last forever.


..and I don't know how many times you can hit a single target with LA, but 3 hits on average IS CERTAINLY NOT a good guess.

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Drahken wrote:

they misewell get rid of LT if they were to implement this. how long do you think monsters survive in endgame? any sort of delay would make LT extremely weak and it would be pointless to even have it on the mobs.

Obviously the timing would be tweaked through gampelay testing, but "any sort" of delay certainly wouldn't make it pointless. The delay could be shortened until the desired effect is achieved, without the silliness that happens with multiple instant hits now.