Arc & Chain Feedback - Bouncing Off You & More

I think Arc - and to an extent, Chain (Support Gem) - could use some love.

DISCLAIMER: The values/calculations below are outdated, but the concept remains true.

Arc feels too underwhelming for a main skill, and useless against isolated targets.
Chain, on the other hand, should synergize better with Arc.

Bouncing Off You
If Arc could bounce off you (without hurting you and using up 1 Chain/Hit everytime it hits you), it means you can hit isolated enemies multiple times (twice by default, and three times with Chain).

So the following property would be added to the Skill:
- Chains off you without dealing damage when no other enemies are in range.

Arc vs Chain
First, Chain (Support Gem), in general, is a little lackluster.
It doubles mana cost, and halves damage dealt, giving you a starting 25% mana efficiency.
Then, it triples the hits, bringing it to 75% mana efficiency.
However, since mechanics like Burn, Freeze and Shock depend on damage dealt, you're really penalizing yourself twofold.

Second, but just as important, Arc, the only non-projectile skill that works with Chain (Support Gem), synergizes extremely poorly with it.
It becomes half as strong, and adds 66% more hits, resulting in lower damage total.
From 3*50%=150% damage, you end up with 5*25%=125% damage.
Not only you deal less overall damage, each individual hit is half as strong.
Since Shock duration is based on damage dealt, it means it will last alot less as well.
To top it off, you're spending twice as much mana.

So I strongly suggest making Arc interact better with "+X Chain" effects.

Suggestion #1 - Give Arc the following properties:
- Chains 1 time. (instead of 2)
- Chains twice the normal amount of times. (bringing it back to 2)

Result:
- Arc behaves exactly the same without Chain (Support Gem).
- Chain (Support Gem) behaves exactly the same without Arc.
- Arc and Chain (Support Gem) synergize better, because instead of +2 Chain, Arc ends up getting +4 Chain because it chains twice the normal amount of times.

As a result, the default amount times it Chains would be 2*1= 2 times - no change here.
With Chain (Support Gem), it chains 2*(1+2)= 6 times, instead of 4. This means it deals 7*25%=175% total damage instead of 5*25%=125%, compared to the default 3*50%=150%.
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Suggestion #2 - Give Chain Support the following properties:
- 25% Less Damage. (instead of 50% Less Damage)
- 33% Less Projectile Damage. (for a combined total of 49.75% Less Projectile Damage)
Note: If it's reduced by a real 1/3, it ends up at a total 50% Less Projectile Damage.


Result:
75% non-Projectile Damage. (only Arc benefits from this at the moment)
50.25% Projectile Damage. (0.75*0.67)
Mana Multiplier becomes more reasonable.
It becomes more synergic with Arc.

Final Result (Suggestions #1 & #2 Combined):
Arc + Chain hit 7 times at 37.5% damage efficiency = 7*37.5%= 262%.
In terms of total damage, it's a 74% increase over the default spell, but accounting for the fact each hit is weaker, thus less effective in terms of Stun and Shock, and that it costs twice as much mana, I say it's a fair deal.

Adding my "Bouncing Off You" into the mix:
You become able to hit single targets for 4*37.5%=150% damage (bounces 3 times off you).
It becomes a reasonable - yet mana expensive - spell against isolated enemies.

It's still inferior to Shotgun Casters for single targets, but the difference becomes less dramatic.

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Nurvus wrote:

Suggestion #2 - Give Chain Support the following properties:
- 25% Less Damage.
- 20% Less Projectile Damage.

This is a good idea. :)

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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Nurvus wrote:

Suggestion #2 - Give Chain Support the following properties:
- 25% Less Damage.
- 20% Less Projectile Damage.

This is a good idea. :)

You don't like Arc bouncing off you? :(
Or Chaining 7 times instead of 5 when Supported by Chain? :(

I like both suggestion 1 and 2. Chaining off of yourself, I think, is better suited for a unique item rather than a core mechanic of Arc. Great suggestions. Thank you for an awesome thread, Nurvus.

I will disagree with one minor detail, though. Chain itself is not lackluster, only when paired with Arc, which seems to be made to be supported by Chain.

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CanHasPants wrote:

Chaining off of yourself, I think, is better suited for a unique item rather than a core mechanic of Arc.

I like the idea of build-enabling unique items, but I'm not with you on making "Arc bouncing" a Unique property.

Other spells, like Spark, Fireball, etc, can all "shotgun", hitting the same target multiple times.
Furthermore, most of the game revolves around spamming one hyper-supported skill.
Those are the two main reasons that led me to suggest Arc should be able to bounce off you when there is only 1 enemy.

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CanHasPants wrote:

I will disagree with one minor detail, though. Chain itself is not lackluster, only when paired with Arc, which seems to be made to be supported by Chain.

Some facts...
Chain - 200% Mana; 50% less damage; +2 targets.
LMP - 150% mana; 30% less projectile damage; +2 targets, allows shotgun on spells.
Fork - 125% mana; 30% less projectile damage; +2 targets; less reliable.
Extra - Since LMP and Fork only reduce Projectile Damage, skills like Lightning Strike can deal full damage on their first hit, and only the projectiles are weakened.

So, not only Chain is alot more expensive, it's alot weaker.
Everything points out that Chain IS lackluster when compared to the alternatives.

I'm merely suggesting that Chain gets its penalty split and lowered to 20% and 25%, thus providing 25% less damage on Arc; and a total of 40% less damage on projectiles.

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Nurvus wrote:

Suggestion #2 - Give Chain Support the following properties:
- 25% Less Damage.
- 20% Less Projectile Damage.

I did make some analysis in chain thread and it turns out chain is really lackluster, unless used with multiprojectile supports on skills that do area damage on all hits (meaningful only on ice shot/LA, practical only on LA and that one only because of shock stacking)

So, to make it short, without changing the nature of the gem completely devs have two options here:
- Leave damage penalty as it is or slightly reduce it, make all skills not activate AoE and special effects on jumps, reduce mana multi.

- Just make all skills activate area and effects on all hits, it will still suck for single target skills but you could get some mileage out of fireball or explosive arrow.

Damage penalty can't be tampered with much because it will break skills that already fire multiple projectiles, most notably Ethereal knives and possibly lightning trap.

My suggestion doesn't tamper with the modifiers much.

Instead of a flat 50% reduction, I'm suggesting that projectiles only get affected by a 40% reduction; while non-projectile skills that can chain (Arc) get affected by a 25%.

But if for some reason the projectile reduction MUST remain close to 50%, then make it:
- 25% less damage
- 30% less projectile damage
Total = 47.5% less projectile damage.
Edited Original Suggestion to reflect this alternative.

Note: Ethereal Knives can be affected by Fork, dealing alot more damage and costing less mana when compared to Chain.
The advantage of Chain in this scenario is the auto-targetting.

Yeah, ethereal knives is one of two spells fork works good with, a good thing forked projectiles are mostly wasted so it isn't OP. However the behavior of chain makes is pretty much the ultimate support for EK barring damage penalty, back when chain had less penalty knives rocked asses with it.

Anyway, while on the subject of chain I find the unfair synergy it has with some AoE skills while not working with others at all holds it back even more then potentially gamebreaking EK. I did make a thread about it some time ago. There can be no true balance and consistency if we have exceptions left and right.
EK being one of them, a multprojectile spell that can't shotgun, lame. It should work like Glacial Thorns in Sacred, low individual thorns damage, great shotgun potential, decent area damage.

And I back suggestion #one with no reserves whatsoever.

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Nurvus wrote:

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dudiobugtron wrote:

"

Nurvus wrote:

Suggestion #2 - Give Chain Support the following properties:
- 25% Less Damage.
- 20% Less Projectile Damage.

This is a good idea. :)

You don't like Arc bouncing off you? :(
Or Chaining 7 times instead of 5 when Supported by Chain? :(

Both of those sound like they'd be much better suited to a unique than a support gem. For example: "chain gems in this item give +2 additional chains", and "your skills can chain to you".

Especially the chain to you one. Support gems should only ever have dps reductions as drawbacks. Giving chain a potentially dangerous upgrade by default makes it bad for players who want to use arc to hit multiple enemies but not themselves.

The other one is also bad - even if it is currently balanced with chain now, it would end up being OP if they released a unique which increased the number of chains. They shouldn't implement a fix which will require another fix later.

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I agree that arc + chain is currently badly implemented, and GGG aren't changing it because they probably saw an arc+chain build that used it in an interesting way once, so they think it's fine.
IMO, they need to fix arc + chain somehow. But the above two suggestions aren't good fixes for it. Changing the damage penalty like you described, however, is an exceptionally good idea. That way arc (and any other chaining skill they might release in future) is still damage-reduced by chain, but not as much; while projectile attacks are reduced by the same amount.

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Nurvus wrote:

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CanHasPants wrote:

Chaining off of yourself, I think, is better suited for a unique item rather than a core mechanic of Arc.

I like the idea of build-enabling unique items, but I'm not with you on making "Arc bouncing" a Unique property.

Other spells, like Spark, Fireball, etc, can all "shotgun", hitting the same target multiple times.
Furthermore, most of the game revolves around spamming one hyper-supported skill.
Those are the two main reasons that led me to suggest Arc should be able to bounce off you when there is only 1 enemy.

The reason I am in favor of this quality being the bonus of a unique is two fold. Firstly, Arc itself simply is not made to be a spam all day, spam all night, main skill. No matter how much we try to make it work as such, even with these suggestions in mind, Arc is still just a support skill. Albeit (with these suggestions in mind) it would (may?) actually be effective as a support skill. Second, chaining off of yourself is a unique property, no other skills behave that way. Unique properties are, pretty much, the purview of unique items. Unique items, which, are also the place to go to turn a support skill into a main skill.

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Nurvus wrote:

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CanHasPants wrote:

I will disagree with one minor detail, though. Chain itself is not lackluster, only when paired with Arc, which seems to be made to be supported by Chain.

. . .

So, not only Chain is alot more expensive, it's alot weaker.
Everything points out that Chain IS lackluster when compared to the alternatives.

I'm merely suggesting that Chain gets its penalty split and lowered to 20% and 25%, thus providing 25% less damage on Arc; and a total of 40% less damage on projectiles.

I suppose I should clarify. Chain is not lackluster for skills it seems intended to be paired with. That is, anything that inherently produces multiple projectiles, and occasionally, a hard hitting / high crit single target skill (like wander elemental hit). I think its damage penalty and mcm are justified by not by its damage multiplication through multiple hits, but the additional behavior that it provides. Those extra hits auto-target and that is significant.

That said, my comment was not directed towards your suggestion for chain's less damage. I have no problem with that, save for the numbers chosen. Since less is a multiplicative attribute, (1-0.2) * (1-0.25) = 0.6, which is only 40% less damage, not 50% less as the gem is currently. You would actually want 29% less of each to remain at a net 50% less for all other skills.