I find this ability underwhelming in general, It feels strong early game but late game as the mobs become more spread out and fights (haste modifiers and so forth) tend to be faster I didn’t find it held up so well lacking useful utility for sorcerer. It wasn’t really a useful “get off me” ability when it feels like everything is faster than the flash ignoring the gravitational pull, inevtiably jumping on you, nor was the aoe good enough to justify not using elemant blast, and any single target merit certainly is laughable in contrast to other options.
I think it would feel a lot better if it generally could cast a lot faster and generally served as an interesting complement to ranged elemental blast in providing better utility itn exchange for less damage. Something somebody with good positioning may actually be able to get away with no running flame ward (which really opens interesting new builds) because they are able to keep enemies spaced out/slowed/stuned at times, if a tad riskier.
The big picture is there ought to be some node paths created that could allow the ability to improve more in utility and possibly size/aoe of both the ball itself and the explosion. You do that and/or just make it do a little less damae (if it can hit any weaker) while grossly improving the awful cast speed.
some idea nodes for improving utility
increase strength of gravity,
node that makes it lager and explosion is bigger, has knockback and slows enemy…
at baseline feel like it should cast and travel a bit faster, explosion a little larger.
possibly a node that allows it to have a delayed explosion, lingers a bit beore exploding dealing damage over time or on hit and can be proc’d by lightning blast (direct hit or chain), would be satisfying to set off a chain reaction, alternatively maybe allow lightning to chain off same enemy after htting the orb and just have the orb pulsate and deal damage when it is hit.
It certainly needs to be better at dealing with groups. Keep in mind the only aoe node in the entire tree leaves a dot on the ground BUT QUADRUPLES THE COST. There are relatively few decent damage increases, no element conversions. The zero mana upgrade removes explosions and thus removes the only useful part of the skill.
If I were to give it upgrades, I would concider a boomerang upgrade for its movement(to pull enemies TOWARDS you), multiple explosions while travelling instead of just the final one, increased pull rate, multiple projectiles and a total conversion to frost where it slows instead of pulls as skill tree options. Also the projectile should deal damage over time while it makes contact prior to the explosion.
I personally don’t like this idea at all I just with is had a longer range and faster travel speed while having a bigger hit box without completely gimping the skill to get it
This is basically the direction I want to see. Orb contact is a little bigger, explosion I think at baseline should be larger, travel faster, and I also think the cast speed feels a bit slow…it might even be slower than meteor to cast. But I think that it should still contrast with ranged elemental blast as something other than a point click big nuke and as some of the buffs may be pushing more on its effectiveness as a crowd control/positional tool which is more focused on cast speed/gravity/size. I like the idea of quickly footing around and keeping an otherwise scary group of enemies relatively contained at a distance/grouped up. I like the idea of having it knockback with slow as that would interestingly support some of the damage gates and ability interactions behind keeping the enemy at x meters away. Having a path on the tree to improve explosion size and cc vs raw damage also would be nice variation.
I agree the skill has major potential but atm there is no reason to take that over say Nova, that has stun, shock major area and damage. Throw slow or chill on your weapon too. It just doesn’t stack up.
Oddly enough, that’s the reason I chose it for in my latest build. I wanted to take advantage of passives that only proc when casting very expensive spells, and this node was the only way I could get an expensive lightning spell.
Sounds to me like there is a missing gap in the unique list for increasing spell costs.
Or maybe those passives that proc on 40 cost should be cumulative instead of per individual spell. shatterstrike for example hits 39 mana per hit which is just 1 mana too little.
