Chain

Even with the slight buff to its damage from the beta... Part of the problem is that chain is still boring, and suffers from an issue of missing; as elindred astutely observed, the supports that allow for multi-hit that are the most popular by far all can make targeting and hitting EASIER. (be it by the spray of LMP/GMP, or allowing to reach past obstructing enemies to hit a more important target with Pierce)

A potential solution did occur to me, that could solve both issues, by making it more "interesting/fun" as well as more DIRECTLY addressing the targetting/missing issue:

Add an effect so that the projectile produced through "Chaining" has increased projectile speed.

In other words, the result would be something visibly dramatic: after the initial hit connects with an enemy, it'd let fly a new projectile aimed at the next enemy, but FASTER. (perhaps +50% increased projectile speed) This would, for best effect, also apply again on the second chain, yielding perhaps a combined +100% increased projectile speed.

Overall, it'd pose little risk of making the support "overpowered," as theoretical/optimum DPS would be unaffected. However, it'd both make it more reliable/consistent in its performance, (being more liable to connect its chains rather than waste them) and moreover, give a rather noticeable visible indicator that it's DOING something.



Also, there's another possible combination to adjust its power/performance (that might work best coupled with the one above) that WOULD adjust the DPS side of the equation, and I'm surprised I've not seen any mention or discussion of it; (I still could've missed it) but in the end it's pretty simple, and reflects how abilities "Chain" in many other games:

Make chaining projectiles do progressively less damage upon each stage of chaining.

This would allow for an attractive option to let "Chain" be viewed as a way to genuinely INCREASE damage; (rather than a gamble you'll finish doing up to 150%, but often 100% or 50%) it could allow for the base hit to deal full damage, just with progressively less damage per hit. Visually, this could be accompanied by perhaps having the projectile model reduce in size each time; if coupled with the increasing speed, could result in a lot more visual variety and distinction to the skill that would impose the exact same computing load that the support currently does.

Do projectile speed increases the chain distance between targets?

Chain needs a serious revamp and rethinking.

It's competing gems are
-Lesser Multiple Projectiles
-Greater Multiple Projectiles

The Cons of using Chain
-Has the least amount of damage against LMP and GMP
-More mana cost than LMP
-It's quality gives projectile speed, while LMP and GMP give attack/cast speed for increased DPS

Pro
-Some may say it hits everything in a mob group, but the range is so small it actually misses more often.

Overall...
It has the worst DPS and more mana cost than LMP. It's less effective at clearing mobs than the other skills. It can only be seen used with Arc in a supportive attack to shock enemies.

This support gem really sucks comapred to its potential. It's only useful for projectile skills which don't chain natively.

There are so many more chaining skills now, and for all of them it would be cool to be able to increase the number of chains. The chain support gem is not worth using for those skills.

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Maybe it could do something where it increases the number of (innate) chains that a skill has, then adds two more?

I'm suprised that Chain has yet to receive any love since the buffs to pierce. Let's compare:

Pierce:
50% chance to pierce
21% increased damage @lvl 20
10% projectile damage @ 20 quality

Chain:
skill "repeats" twice 100% of the time (if there's more then 1 target)
31% reduced damage for all hits @ lvl 20
20% projectile speed @ 20 quality

(data per the Wiki)

so not only does the damage suffer via pierce, but it also has a lower benefit ratio for it's quality bonus (speed is nice to a point, but not as beneficial as damage IMO).

When you add to that the fact that Pierce has a bonus damage effect from drillneck, and it's easy to get 100% pierce (tree and ranger/scion bonuses), and Peirce is now becoming the defacto standard now for even Lightning shot builds. Chain is effectively turning into a dinosaur.

the fact that the damage penalty has stayed so high for so long mystifies me. Perhaps it's due to it's penetrating nature whereas GMP and LMP cannot hit whats behind the main target(s). Still, it doesn't explain why pierce got so much love when chain was ignored. Plus, the "stealth" benefits it gets from hitting a target multiple times is not really a benefit, considering how many skills can "shotgun" and thus receive similar benefits from pierce (an example is the popular "spark" build with 100% pierce...it melts bosses faster then chain ever could),not to mention you need 2 targets in order to get this double up.

I think the best option would be to make it, like stated many times here, a reduced damage scale per chain. give it a flat initial reduction of, say, 15% for initial chain, and each successful chain has damage reduced by 10% per chain.

In addition, give us something or somewhere to increase these chains. Example: passive in the tree for . or perhaps a nice juicy elemental quiver that has elemental damage, decent elemental resists, and on top of that "skills chain an additional time" with no penalty modifiers. Chain just needs something to compete with pierce, which is dominating in just about every category at the moment.

the 10% base reduction would be what scales with level. Perhaps it starts at base 25, and scales down per level until it's 10% at lvl 20 (the 18% per chain would still apply).

so @ 20 it would look like this:

15% - 25% - 35% (35%% for the Bonus chain)


My Dream quiver for a bonus chain would look like this:

Kall's Flight - Fire Arrow Quiver
-------------------------------------
2-8 Fire Damage to Attacks with Bows
-------------------------------------
+45 Dexterity
+35 Intelligence
30% Increased elemental Damage to Attacks with Bows
Projectiles Ignore 8% Elemental resists
18% to all elemental resists
15% reduced projectile speed
Skills Chain an additional time

Damage from additional Chain would be based on last skill in the chain link. Thus with the base Chain skill it would only get the additional 35%% Damage bonus.

I feel that these changes would give Chain a competitive edge with Pierce. the reduction still counts, and would prevent chain from becoming the single target killer, but people would have a reason to actually USE it now compared to pierce, the bow god-of-all passives right now.

yeah. Chains global 50-31% less damage is terrible.
It seems to exist solely due to Arc, and Arc is never even played these days.
And it kills Chains viably for several melee skills, which could REALLY use Chain's functionally. Wildstrike, Lit Strike, Frost blades.

20-10% less proj damage.
20-10% less spell damage.

or,
40-20% less damage.
30% more melee damage.



And why are we even discussing this, when aoe explosions from free chains, heralds, cast on crit, discharge, gmp tornado shots, blade vortex, explosive arrow, blast rain, etc are a thing?

This gem really needs a major buff. 2 more skill effect chain isn't going to do anything for anyone and it removes 31% of your damage, only people that might use it would be arc users but even then I doubt they care about this gem at all. Me myself I want to chain a fireball because I think that would look cool but fireball will not trigger the explosion except on the last hit which is bs. If I really wanted to focus on chaining my fireball like I do I can at most get it to +4 though ranger deadeye perk, chain skill gem and a unique bow. 4 chains that will only explode on the last hit isn't going to get me anywhere. Now at this point I'm forced to throw in lesser multiple projectiles and if I do I mine as well take out chain because lmp by it self is so much better then chain and chain is just hurting it. Chain needs to scale to at least +6 chains more if you are going to keep that ridiculous damage reduction on it.

Having more chains would be interesting.
I would expect something like this

lvl 1-21
lvl 1 = 1 chain, 0% less dmg
lvl 7 = 2 chains chains, 7% less dmg
lvl 14 = 3 chains, 14% less dmg
lvl 21 = 4 chains, 21% less dmg


Why negative scaling?
- it gives potential to "stop" leveling at level which you want corresponding with amount of chains which you want, so lvl 14 would be like a best middle ground
- some crazy builds could be build around this
- twist at lvl 20 - you do less dmg per level than at lvl 14 having same amount of chains, while waiting for extra chain effect. Some fun Vaal lotto ahead.

Since current meta is about clearing everything instantly, it won't change much standard game. Some builds that rely on Pierce might reconsider using this altho at max lvl it's global multi from 20% to - 20%, so weighting the link as -40% (still HUGE negative) in exchange to 4 chains potentially, which could be insane, but it would give much needed shift from pure AoE non-projectile builds