Storm Bolts Mechanics Question

Greetings,

I have a mechanics question related to tempest strike/gathering storm and storm bolts: do modifiers on those skill trees that don’t specifically reference storm bolts affect the damage of storm bolts? My understanding of skills that trigger as a result of another skill (e.g. detonating ground triggering from forge strike) is that they typically inherit the modifiers being applied to the skill acting as a trigger. It’s a little less clear to me in this case because of all the places I see the skill appear, including the passive tree. One follow up question: if the modifiers do apply, then I assume they would only apply to storm bolts triggered by the skill in question; does this sound correct?

My plan is to trigger storm bolts as often as I can, using gathering storm to restore mana and build up storm stacks, and then drop a tempest strike with the attuned slam and sky opener passives for big chunky hits periodically. In my mind, it sounds like a way of making the generator and spender relationship a little more interesting by not only restoring resources, but building up stacks that I can expend for a big burst. There are also some weird mechanics to consider like storm bolts gaining a chance to cast again from the passive tree (e.g. conflux passives) and whether those would inherit the bonuses from the skill that triggered the original bolt, as well as other sequential triggers making the mechanics less clear. Either way, the original two questions should help me determine if my plan makes sense.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

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Bumping because I have the same query (e.g. does lightning penetration skill node for gathering storm affect the lightning bolts as well) because I’ve seen some content creators say it does but the tooltip makes me think it’s just the melee attack, which isn’t as good for spell caster build.

In regards to your query I can only tell you that based on testing (converting storm bolts to cold) only Leap Slam seems to be triggering the GS bolts. The rest will stay as lightning when triggered from other skills

According to the skill reveal, the gathering storm modifiers to storm bolts apply to all storm bolts regardless of where they come from. So if Maelstrom casts a storm bolt, it’s the same kind that comes from gathering storm. If it’s not converting with maelstrom, then it is a bug.

It’s garbage, don’t bother. Storm bolts do fuck all damage. It’s either extremely bugged or just extremely underpowered, but i did about 100 damage with stormbolts when you first unlock the skill. I am now level 30 and it hits for 250 damage. I am fully focused on scaling damage, it is actually so horrible.

Meanwhile i went full glass cannon in the same way on Falconer and hit for 10-20k crits at this level. Ridiculous.