Lord Darryn's Voulge: ball lightning question

[Pork]

Hello everyone. New user here. 

I wanted to know if the ball lightning ability is supposed to hit the caster when casting it. Is that working as intended?

Just to be clear, I'm not casting it off walls or anything. What occurs is that when I aim with the line, my caster is at the starting point and will get hit upon casting it.

Somebody help with this answer, thank you.

 

[Boeroer]

I guess it is not intended. But you can use it to your advantage: equip Deltro's Cage Helm and profit from a good shocking lash after casting Ball Lightning. 

[mjo2138]

How do most of you use lord darryns? I find that most enemies have Lower shock AR so I have I on my Eder swashbuckler. 
 

I have tekehu in my party as well, but I cannot justify using it as a stat stick for storm spells. Crusted swordfish gives the best extra penetration I would have needed.

[Boeroer]

For me usually a Barbarian is involved because Carnage applies Static Charge/Thunder in an AoE. If you combine that with a Monk you can have some nice effects with Swift Flurry (and Heartbeat drumming), especially on non-PotD difficulty.

One special build I did with it:
Berserker/Fury - bound the Voulge to the Druid's side of the multiclass. That way I could still use Static Charge (not Static Thunder though) with Carnage but also get the +3 PL to Storms which is pretty nice and stacks mighty fine with Deltro's Cage's +2 PL to shock abilities. That's +5 PL to your Returning/Relentless Storm which translates to +25% base dmg, +1.25 PEN and +5 ACC as well as +25% base duration. Additional +4 PEN for your shock spells via Tenacious(+2), Fury(+1), Heart of the Storm(+1). Also Blood Frenzy applies its DoT with the spells if they crit. Spirit Frenzy would apply Stagger on hit/crit. 
As Berserker you can "abuse" Modwyr in a second weapon slot in combination with Deltro's Cage Helmet: Frenzy (become confused) then cast Dancing Bolts on yourself (and also your enemies in the best case) and that way unlock Deltro's Cage Helmet's shocking lash for your following actions. Then switch to Modwyr (removes confusion - that is important since you don't want friendly fire with Relentless Storm, no no) and switch right back to the Voulge. That gives you electric storm spells with said +5 Power Level and an additional shocking lash (hight of it depends on the amount of shock damage you received from Dancing Bolts). Those storms will trigger Blood Thirst on kill - so you can swing the Voulge and cast even faster - which kills more enemies... and so on. If that's too much micromanagement I'd simply leave out the helmet and forget Modwyr and eat Luminous Lobster instead (resistance gainst confusion).

Casting is pretty fast anyways due to Frenzy and Bloodlust, combined with fast caster - but once you get Blood Thirst it' a lot of fun. I generally like Barbarian/caster combos so this fits very well. 

You need some sort of outside healing though. Or pick Savage Defiance. Because Berserker's self damage is nasty and Furies can't cast Rejuvenation spells.

[mjo2138]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

For me usually a Barbarian is involved because Carnage applies Static Charge/Thunder in an AoE. If you combine that with a Monk you can have some nice effects with Swift Flurry (and Heartbeat drumming), especially on non-PotD difficulty.

One special build I did with it:
Berserker/Fury - bound the Voulge to the Druid's side of the multiclass. That way I could still use Static Charge (not Static Thunder though) with Carnage but also get the +3 PL to Storms which is pretty nice and stacks mighty fine with Deltro's Cage's +2 PL to shock abilities. That's +5 PL to your Returning/Relentless Storm which translates to +25% base dmg, +1.25 PEN and +5 ACC as well as +25% base duration. Additional +4 PEN for your shock spells via Tenacious(+2), Fury(+1), Heart of the Storm(+1). Also Blood Frenzy applies its DoT with the spells if they crit. Spirit Frenzy would apply Stagger on hit/crit. 
As Berserker you can "abuse" Modwyr in a second weapon slot in combination with Deltro's Cage Helmet: Frenzy (become confused) then cast Dancing Bolts on yourself (and also your enemies in the best case) and that way unlock Deltro's Cage Helmet's shocking lash for your following actions. Then switch to Modwyr (removes confusion - that is important since you don't want friendly fire with Relentless Storm, no no) and switch right back to the Voulge. That gives you electric storm spells with said +5 Power Level and an additional shocking lash (hight of it depends on the amount of shock damage you received from Dancing Bolts). Those storms will trigger Blood Thirst on kill - so you can swing the Voulge and cast even faster - which kills more enemies... and so on. If that's too much micromanagement I'd simply leave out the helmet and forget Modwyr and eat Luminous Lobster instead (resistance gainst confusion).

Casting is pretty fast anyways due to Frenzy and Bloodlust, combined with fast caster - but once you get Blood Thirst it' a lot of fun. I generally like Barbarian/caster combos so this fits very well. 

You need some sort of outside healing though. Or pick Savage Defiance. Because Berserker's self damage is nasty and Furies can't cast Rejuvenation spells.

 Thanks!  That would be the best of both worlds as a beserker/fury! It seems like the AOE of carnage is smaller than POE 1, but still that means 2/3 mobs will be affected- which is good!  I like WoTEP 2h even though the cone is small on eder - i need to check if int affects the cone's radius. 

I I gave the +2 PL elec armor to Tekehu (druid).  I will add deltro's cage helm to eder along with Lord Darryn's and test if the dmg proc applies to melee shock attacks.  Most mobs have a weak AR to electricity, (as in Skyrim, most mobs are weak to fire). Interesting trend I have noticed. 

I dont think I would mind the micro too much to get maximum PL,  at least for boss fights or difficult encounters. I am playing on POTD upscaled on my 3rd run (I have so much more time now due to COVID 19!)    I thought Dancing Bolts was foe only, but if it procs the Cage helm then that is amazing! A lot of stuff in this game is not explicitly so I am glad you told me.  On a different note,   I was reading an old post where you mentioned that blunderbuss multi-**** applies the attack effect to all mobs (e.g., if a rogue using confounding blind, so it will apply to all mobs attacked) I will test it again for 5.0 but that seems like a deal breaker. 

By the way, I see you live in Romania? I used to live there for 5 years in the Satu Mare region  Buna Ziua! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Boeroer]

59 minutes ago, mjo2138 said:

 I like WoTEP 2h even though the cone is small on eder - i need to check if int affects the cone's radius.

INT does affect the AoE size of WotEP. As do Rings of Overseeing and such. Even Shared Nightmare (Cipher passive).

1 hour ago, mjo2138 said:

 I thought Dancing Bolts was foe only, but if it procs the Cage helm then that is amazing!

It ususally is, but a confused Berserker will hit himself (since confusion has the effect that foe-only becomes friendly fire).  But fiddly... 

1 hour ago, mjo2138 said:

 By the way, I see you live in Romania? I used to live there for 5 years in the Satu Mare region  Buna Ziua! 

Bună seara! I do - for professional reasons. We are moving back to Berlin in June. It was a nice time here in Bucharest. My wife has been to Satu Mare several times now but I didn't manage yet - although we did trips to almost all other regions. My favorite so far was Maramureș which is right besides Satu Mare.

[mjo2138]

44 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

INT does affect the AoE size of WotEP. As do Rings of Overseeing and such. Even Shared Nightmare (Cipher passive).

It ususally is, but a confused Berserker will hit himself (since confusion has the effect that foe-only becomes friendly fire).  But fiddly... 

Bună seara! I do - for professional reasons. We are moving back to Berlin in June. It was a nice time here in Bucharest. My wife has been to Satu Mare several times now but I didn't manage yet - although we did trips to almost all other regions. My favorite so far was Maramureș which is right besides Satu Mare.

Thanks for the tips! I understand now. 

 

after I posted I immediately though you might be  living there for professional reasons - a friend of mine (from germany) worked in the energy sector there for a while. 

 

Thanks again!