Mechanics of linking (Lightning Arrow + Chain + Multiple Projectiles) - HOW it WORKS

hi there,


so i read up alot of posts about LA + chain in regards of damage, dps viability etc... especially in conjunction with (lesser/greater) multiple projectiles...

it took me hours of crawling through posts, feedback forums and third party sites to understand the mechanics of those skills.
and it seems to exist alot of misunderstanding on how things work.

first off, let me show u a post

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

[...] A projectile can only pass through a target in one way. It can pierce, it can fork, it can chain - in that order (or it can fall to pass through at all and explode on that target, ceasing it's movement). A projectile can only fork once.
If you link fireball to fork, chain and multiple projectiles, you'll shoot multiple fireballs. Each of these, on hitting a target, will fork into two. Those forked projectiles, should they hit other targets, will then chain.

so keep that in mind. a projectile can only do one thing at a time.

so a lightning arrow fired... will first hit one enemy, then doing his lightning thingy which means it will hit additional targets and then chain into new targets
if u add multi projectiles, it means that every initial arrow will do this.

what happens now is a bit of a clusterfuck and pretty impossible to follow on screen.
since u will fire 3 - 5 arrows, each hit with one of them will then hit 3 additional targets which of EACH ONE AGAIN will chain up to two additional targets
accumulating something like 3 million hits... well maybe a bit less hits...


to go through this procedure step by step, i made some pictures.

so keep in mind we got Lightning Arrow, Chain and lesser multiple projectiles linked.

to keep things a bit more simplistic i choose a scenario where we're facing only 3 mobs, so the lightning arrow will hit only 2 additional targets instead of three (i've tried it with more mobs it just complicate things alot...) also i am not accounting piercing, since it would complicate things even more. just remember that if an projectile pierces a enemy it will not hit additional targets or chain into additional targets, it simply flies ahead in a straight line.
also each initially fired projectile hits a different mob, so since i am using lmp(lesser multiple projectiles) in this example, i will shoot 3 inital arrows, while each arrow will hit a different mob.

SO... lets check it out step by step.
one initial arrow hits a target:



note that each hit, regardless if it's a initial arrow, a chained hit or a "splitted" arrow from the lightning arrow skill, deals the same amount of damage.

so right now, each enemy is hit 3 times and was dealt 3x the damage shown in the character screen.

ok, now we check out the second initial projectile (generated by the lmp skill).
it does the same as the first projectile:
1. hits a target
2. hits additional targets
3. each projectile chains two times



and finally the third initial projectile



so in the end, each mob was hit 7 times... so we got a total amount of 21 hits.

so lets say u deal 100 damage with these linked skills.
21 x 100
u dealt a total of 2100 damage to the group of mobs with one shot.


alright.
whats left to consider is...
1. all steps happen simultaneously rather than one after another. the order shown in the pictures is just to ensure a bit more "readability" :)
2. normally a group will consist of more then 3 mobs, the total damage dealt is still the same only distributed to the whole group.
3. lightning arrow will hit 3 additional targets instead of 2 (as shown in my example), so in a big enough enemy group where all initial projectiles hit, u will generate even more total hits and therefore deal even more damage.

that said, i should also mention that each added skill massively decreases the damage dealt and the mana costs are just insane :)

but i didnt want to start a discussion if this combination of skills is better than another... i just wanted to share how i think it works.


so... what u think? is my assumption right? did i miss something? tell me your opinon on how this skill combo works...

I've basically did the same thing with my old LS build in order to get the approximate damage numbers for the multistrike/cahin combo. Gameplay mechanics can be pretty painful to calculate with.
But still you whole point seems to be correct.

Thank y for explaining with pictures, it works :P, yesterday i tried out poison cloud with chain and fork, that combo however had, definitely not as big a potential as lightning arrow but it still seemed like arrows shots everywere.