Barrage

I think the cast on crit roll is per projectile, so even of you fire 10 of them, all crit, but the CoCS chance is the most matter there....

Maybe we need GGG confirmation how the crit / cast on crit mechanic works on this skill.

Now I'm at A3 cruel now. Ihough I'm 5 level under the area, so cannot comment on that part much...

The Act 2 was fine though.

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jdonk wrote:

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treta wrote:

Delete Barrage. Start over from scratch.

Aimed Shot: After a short delay, you fire a powerful shot that pierces all targets in a line.

200% Weapon Efficiency
0.6 cast time

Consumes frenzy charges, does 40% increased damage per frenzy charge consumed.

Quality bonus is reduced channeling time.

Maybe power charge would fit better thematically? Or both? Power for damage, frenzy for cast time.

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Etwynn wrote:

I was hoping to like fp+coc+barrage to get multiple fp casts on a single target but this doesn't actually work.

This skill doesn't proc multiple spellcasts on cast on crit when all the arrows hit a single target. (I checked this using spark instead of fp).


Is this working as intended? It seems like the only thing people are saying this is useful for (single target CoC) doesn't actually work as people expect. Barrage is therefore inferior to split arrow for CoC aoe and inferior to frenzy for CoC single target.

to get the most advantage out of coc u need multiples of the same spell in the same link as barage coc. for instance theres a big influx of cyclone coc ek ek ek LL. it destroys everything. for freez pulse (which is far inferior to ek at dealing cold damage... u would need barrage CoC FP FP FP. i use a simple 4L and it decimates everything. cyclone cast on crit EK coldsnap.

for defensive measures i would probly do Barrage CoC frost wall/coldsnap, EK EK.

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twintales wrote:

[...]

Not so OP equipments (All self found).

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To sum it up:

- I need increase attack speed node, to compensate the drawbacks.
- I need damage nodes, with decent phys bow to scale the damage. (I don't have a good elemental bow, so not sure how it going to works.)
- Only a Barrage alone is not enough. I need 2 barrages for AoE and single target, or use 2 skills. But Split arrows was performing worse in my case, so I pick 2 Barrages.
- Reflect is not much a problem since I could switch between higher damage one, or lower damage AoE. And I could lower my damage further by shooting from the edge of screen.
- The main threat would be Lightning thorn, but (maybe) single target version could handle it.

Your "Not so OP equipments" includes a ~160 DPS level 35 physical bow. That's a higher DPS bow than my level ~70 Split Arrow Ranger had last league.

With that bow you could basically auto attack and melt everything at your level.

You also have a combined 9 DPS rolls on your other equipment. Saying that's "self-found" (which when it comes to feedback should only be said if it's gear you found on that character) is pretty much out of the question, it's obviously gear you've had from your other characters.

Compare the ability to any other ability you could use instead and you'll be able to provide actually useful feedback.

Since when the "self found" should be applied to only the character you playing for giving feed back. Equipments are equipments. If Bow A works on skill B, the fact is that "A Bow looks like A should works" .-.

Yes, maybe I shouldn't brings up that bow as a proof that Barrage is good. But my intention was that "THAT was working good for me". So other ppl interested in the skill might want to have a try on something similar. Even me when I see ppl said about the Chin Sol, I did feel excited to try it when I reach the level. What was wrong about that?

Same with that "9 damage mods on equipments", that was "the setting that work best on Barrage with me at the current time" What was wrong about that?

To Quote it further more:

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Make sure you concisely state your character build, level, and other complimenting abilities you have when you talk about a skill - The more we know about your character, the better we can understand your feedback.

I just follow as they stated directly, trying to give as much as possible. What was wrong about that?


Next,

Why do I have to compare a skill to another skill, when the purpose of the skill are clearly not the same? In that way, everything would go toward "skill A is better than skill B, since A is doing the thing it it intend better than the B which was not really decided to do so".

But since you wanted that,

On the AoE version, Yesterday before I read your reply, I did try switching Barrage (lv12) with Split arrows (lv10) since they were kind of the opposite of each other, with a similar tree focusing on physical damage, to see what is the different between the two. I don't modified anything else. The Split Arrow was linked with LGoH, Chain, LMP (which was swapped with BM gem for testing).


Split Arrows perform better when the enemy is spreaded out in a big angle. Since most of the arrow would hit, produce more chained arrow bouncing arrow. Which is exactly how it decided to be. It'd take 3-4 shots on the best scenario to kill all the mobs. The listed damage is comparable to the single target Barrage (~350 ish)

In the opposite way, unsurprisingly, damage went down the hill when mobs lining in a line, queuing for head-shot.

In another POV:

Barrage, with the same settings, showing ~ 100 damage on the tooltips, was doing better when the number of enemies are not...overwhelmed. Basically around a little below the number of arrows shooted was the best conditions (6-7 in my case with LMP). It'd take 3-6 shots to kill a group of 8-10.

It was a hell when > 15 mobs rushing in. A few kiting was needed since the chars was not quite tanky yet, and ~5 level underleveled.

How the mobs spread out was not important since it'd always be "all arrows hit" on the main target, and chained to the rest.

I haven't tested with Frenzy for Single target version yet. But 'd say that Barrage has the best usage for snipe mobs in a little group, best when head-shotting a mob This might change is I could get my hands on some 5L armor to put GMP + LMP on, to see if the AoE version could be better with more arrows.

Insane proc' skill, as probably intended.
I guess the 33% Less Attack Speed combined with the 40% Base Damage has been set so to make Barrage a proc' only skill.

In such design, trully beautiful skill.
We've got plenty of single target skill anyway for ranged (Elemental Hit/Power Siphon/Frenzy/Burning Arrow/Puncture and some can act as such, e.g. Ice Shot/Rain of Arrows)

Barrage is really well designed all in all.

Edit : don't use it as a single target, it's not its purpose and this skill is designed around preventing players from using it as a super single target skill.

Want lag? Try chain, crit proc, this, arctic breath, sparks\ek, firestorm. Ek might be enough for damage of "aoe".

I personally love it It works epicly well at quite a low mana cost (I laughed so hard when i read "costs too much mana" being typed by someone)

I added GMP, Cast on Crit, and three copies of Storm Call to it. Never been happier. It's an epic proc skill.

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Epicly_Curious wrote:

I personally love it It works epicly well at quite a low mana cost (I laughed so hard when i read "costs too much mana" being typed by someone)

I added GMP, Cast on Crit, and three copies of Storm Call to it. Never been happier. It's an epic proc skill.

CoCS will probably be nerfed sooner than latter. currently it is as broken as CWDT was. without CoCS barrage is worthless :/ sadly

probably this - and searing bond - were support gems in the past. as a support - great! but as a standalone skill? meh at best

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sidtherat wrote:

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Epicly_Curious wrote:

I personally love it It works epicly well at quite a low mana cost (I laughed so hard when i read "costs too much mana" being typed by someone)

I added GMP, Cast on Crit, and three copies of Storm Call to it. Never been happier. It's an epic proc skill.

CoCS will probably be nerfed sooner than latter. currently it is as broken as CWDT was. without CoCS barrage is worthless :/ sadly

probably this - and searing bond - were support gems in the past. as a support - great! but as a standalone skill? meh at best

CoC is balanced. The link requirements (and colours) are quite punishing - one link for CoC, one link for the attack skill, one link for something to make that attack skill proc more often (GMP/LMP/Chain/etc), THEN you can add the spell(s).

To proc the spell(s) you need lots of global/weapon crit (so you can't just get spell crit). You also need accuracy because you are using an attack to proc with. Attack speed is quite important to reduced the affect of dry spells (times where you either do not crit for a while or CoC does not proc from crits for a while). Spell damage is important too, (as it is for any spell user).

This is a lot of requirements to make it workable, and it only really gets strong at six links with good gear at higher levels - but then so do a lot of things, hence balanced.

As for Barrage itself, the requirement to use a bow/wand means no dagger (global crit). The extra projectiles coupled with the less attack speed mean about 2.67 attacks per same unit of time as auto-attack (assuming all projectiles make contact), so that is a benefit.

However, other skills have their own benefits that make them useful with CoC (Spectral Throw's piece+return+'able to use with a dagger', Split Arrow's innate gmp, ect), so the question here is whether or not Barrage is better than any of these at CoC (or adds a unique dimension that is not possible with those other skills - which I guess is true for wands, but wands are not particularly good for CoC so this doesn't change anything).

So what if Barrage's only real use is with CoC but other skills already perform this function as well as it (or better)? Well, you then have to wonder whether the skill could be reworked to make it more interesting and perform a unique function (personally, I like the idea of a Gatling-gun style attack where the attack speed increases to ridiculous speeds as the button is held down with the trade-off being a proportionately increased cone of fire - although the range would have to be high to make it useful).