Applying shock with ball lightning ?

Hi, I have asked where I could and it seems there is a problem with applying shock with Ball lightning.


I am playing stormweaver ascendancy, I have invested in ailment application, elemental damage, spell damage etc... I also tested to invest in Shock chance and lightning damage to see If I could proc shock, with no success atm.

In the video's description in game it's stated that BL is "very effective at applying shock"

I also tried to see If I could apply shock with crits, Ball Lightning procs "Elemental Storm" on crit but still no shock.

I couldn't apply shock even once with it on normal mobs, I have to use lightning warp with BL to garantee the shock with the shocked ground, which makes BL useless since it doesn't deal a decent amount of damage. So ball lightning takes a gem slot with wet noodle damage and applying shock with it is supper unreliable or not possible.


The wiki states

"

The chance to apply shock depends on the amount of pre-mitigation damage dealt relative to the monster's ailment threshold. It is a base of 25% chance to apply per 100% of ailment threshold the hit deals.[1] Critical strikes do not inherently always apply ailments, but they do indirectly affect the chance to apply ailments due to critical damage bonus affecting the damage dealt.

https://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/Shock

I guess Ball Lightning doesnt deal enought damage to apply shock, even with investment in lightning/spell/elemetal damage. (At least in my case)

So:

1: There is a problem with shock application or damage dealt with this spell
2: This is intented and the description shouldn't state "very effective at applying shock" (yes even with the 750% more chance to shock)

If this is not a bug, I am sorry and disregard this post.

I think you are onto something here. It seems that the way shock chance calculation works does not mesh well with what this spell is intended to do!
I dont think it is a bug. My guess is that shock was supposed to work differently than ignite does with the % chance based on elemental threshold but it must have been scrapped or changed mid development cycle. (These things happen all the time.

Low damage = Low chance to get a shock proc. So it is extremely counterintuitive to have a spell with many small hits and multiply the shock % of that... Overall the 7.5 multiplier amounts to nothing if you have like 0.2% chance to shock with the puny bolts of ball lightning.

I think you are correct that the chance is so low that it is ignored like how it is with cold damage not chilling if the hit is too weak!
This is what I am seeing right now with a char that has pretty high damage on all element (not specifically going lighting as I am chronomancer)

All my other spells reliably inflict shock on mobs and even bosses!
I am unable to shock anything down to the lowliest of zombies with ball lightning. (Yes i have checked that i don't have any support gems/passives/items that remove the ability for a spell to shock.)

Hell The 74% gain lighting damage from mana tempest is enough to cause shock in elite bosses with Flameblast!
It is easier for me to get shock on a boss with a fire spell than it is with a lighting spell meant to cause shock XD. I dunno I find that hilarious!


ps: My flame blast is currently dealing a total of 28268 per cast = 764 (base) *1.85 (support gems) * 20 (Fully charged)
28268 is my dps too as i have it takes 1 sec to get a fully charge Flameblast with my setup!
I am not counting the increased to damage if [You shocked/burned/chilled] recently.
So it makes sense that the 74% lighting damage gain i shocking all the elite bosses I encounter so far with 1 hit.
As I am still in act 2 cruel.