POE 3.25 Why Is Lightning Strike Dominant? Triple The Play Of Other Attacks - Path Of Exile Settlers

[@makethecomputersinternetmo4051]

Lighting strike, an imposter among melee skills.

[@wh0reb0t]

Yes the difference is that it's actually good

[@jasonrouse8215]

LS would be fine/balanced if it required you to actually HIT the target to proc the projectiles, much like Molten Strike... It's a bullshit melee skill that lets you hide on the other side of the screen... that's not melee imo. It feels out of place, compared to other skills of the same class... I'm not even talking about the fkd double dip scaling you can achieve.

[@deathwing1234]

because lightning strike is not a melee skill. GGG has successfully gaslight the community into believing LS is by giving it melee synergy. If lightning strike is so melee, then why did you tell us so little about the melee synergies but could list many many PROJECTILE elements that you scaled and could do on the right side of the tree. What happens to heavy strike, cleave, glacial hammer, infernal blow when the boss teleports offscreen into a super degen puddle then compare it to lightning strike. IT is not a melee skill.

[@sirgog]

It's a hybrid melee-projectile skill at heart, which isn't as restrictive as melee, but is more restrictive than, say, Power Siphon.

[@blackwomangamer2637]

Whatever, its the only ranged skill that feel like melee and thats needed because of how shit melee is compared to spells otherwise

[@DuongNguyen-yr5es]

Yeah after all the buff melee still cant compete with spell, and LS is so bs, its just a projectile skill that has melee tag

[@divinityai]

if skill is using melee weapon it's technically melee. Also it has 2 components of damage: half melee/half ranged, so you are wrong it's not melee. Something like frost blades of katabasis has screen-wide range and also melee.

[@Sleepy_Otter]

LS is fun, and I appreciate your love of HoI explosions. Personally I'm surprised there wasn't more hype about Pathfinder Poison Forbidden Rite with the "taken as lightning/chaos" tech this league. I was DoT capped and could stand completely still while pressing life flask every 4 seconds through Uber Cortex, Uber Shaper slam, Uber Uber Elder the entire fight, Uber Exarch ball phase, and Uber Eater hunger slam. By far the most powerful character I've played in the past few years, although it doesn't quite zoom zoom like LS or bow characters.

[@slouch186]

the double hit effect gives it basically the highest base damage effectiveness of any high aps skill.

[@jamessunderlandseventh7410]

Melee skills gonna need another big buff, and that does not include the Lightning strike imposter.

[@tmnumber1]

I got a lucky Nimis in SSF and then put together a Trixter using Splitting Steel. That skill is crazy strong, clear is not quite as good as LS but the bossing is OP AF.

[@esrbin95]

The question is greater than just "ls vs melee" discussion ; it should be about which power level is desired one for the state of the game. In general 'mediocre/B tier" are imo not in a good state - playing these skills is just painful. You can somewhat overcome this with enough currency thrown in to get to a good baseline level for end end game stuff( hitting certain tresholds), but the currency investment requirement is too high - which also effectively throws out these skills from any starter/only character discussion( unless you're completely masochistic ). Yes some of S tier skills/synergies are a bit too strong and some reasonable nerfs are required as u get to cruise through the game but the state of "mid" skills is imo way more dire and not talked about enough. Also - if LS is nerfed ppl will just move to other S tier skills, those people will not go play other attack skills. If possible, I'd like a reply from you on this topic as I'm really interested on your thoughts on it. Also apologies if my tone comes off as combative - I come in peace wanting to exchange ideas.

[@trackts]

Just when I gave in and made a lightning strike slayer on necro settlers (which is dead) people start talking about nerfing it before I get a shot on a regular league that isn't comming until february.... talk about missing the wagon. 😮

[@blackomega34]

Nimis is a cancerous unique that removes all the 'play' from gameplay and trivializes the game. I wouldn't even bother using it for making comparisons between skills, LS is strong even without it in mind.

[@DiegoGonzalez-my4wz]

yeaah thats why its so expensive..........

[@ModArch]

Does HoI benefit from EE's flat added lightning damage to attacks? I always thought it would at most get added spell damage... How are you scaling the explosions for (presumably) adequate clear?

[@anathema1828]

Just to kindly point out that the herald damage is only considered elemental damage and not spell damage 🫡

[@annieleah6507]

Awesome video! How would you compare Lightning Stike to Molten Strike? Do you find the latter to be problematic too?

[@NoNameHQ]

I agree with a lot of what's said in here, but then why are you aiming a nerf at Sniper's Mark? The complaint is with VLS/LS' ability to way outperform the rest of the melee skills, so why incidentally tack a nerf onto a curse that is so important for scaling other projectile attacks as well as a number of other projectile skills as well? For what it's worth, I think Sniper's Mark is quite the overperformer as a curse anyways, but that's mostly because of how the splits interact with Nimis/Returning Projectiles, and not necessarily the actual numbers on the curse

[@lifeloverNorris]

The funny thing is LS became offmeta in the past few leagues, when it was actually already good. The perfect storm of changes propelled it to the top.

[@lagarttemido]

Im running wild strike on SSF slayer. Atm 35/40, lvl 100, and have done uber cortex easier than what is shown on the video (might be a difference in map rolls ofc). I will try the other ubers soon, but Im worried because it took me literally over half an hour to kill Kosis on wave 15/15 simulacrum. Maybe that's due to not abusing the projectile tag the gem has. For another point of reference I can do The Feared with some scary mods somewhat easily (none to 4 portals average, over 70% iq). Most of my tankiness comes from Svalinn, no doubt about it.

[@aminbiazar2082]

well, the problem wwith cortex is that he goes to full ES from time to time, so you need some damage to defeat him

[@jasonrouse8215]

@@aminbiazar2082 PoE would be a bit more fun if certain damage types were more effective vs. ES, Armor, and Evasion. Not as an added complexity, but as an actual core mechanic. It probs won't work for PoE 1, but I'm hoping PoE 2 will at least consider it. Same with Damage reduction/ mitigation... peeling back layers of defence to more easily deal with certain resistance types, and I don't mean just simply removing/ reducing the numbers, but actively engaging in combat mechanics that strip/ break layers. Much like weakspots... we will definitely have the movement to be able to with the new WASD moveset... but it would also need to be oldschool MnK accessible like PoE1. Then again, I'm doing everything other than Ubers/ The Feared on a 5 link with Power Siphon totems.... so it really isn't that bad either. Ah... I don't touch Simu, my pc can't handle it, lol. That's also the same reason I don't play LS or Wretched Defiler Spectres.... too many projectiles and my old ass pc can't handle it. It's kinda silly how some skills double dip due to their tags, and others (usually "minions"), don't get scaling on certain supports because minion skills can't be modified... Then there's slams... Volcanic Fissure of Snaking is mental if you get knockback & quality on it... but it's useless vs. many bosses, cause you can't knock them back. Damn, I don't even think it scales with AS, even though it would be awesome if Attack Speed influenced how fast the fissure travels, much like Proj Speed on the base skill gem. I did maven with GC Volc fissue or snaking... wasn't quick... but it was doable with me dying only at the memory game (I suck under pressure, okay?!)... and that's with the gimped damage from the GC nerfs to/ addition of Auto Exertion... I liked the old "your warcries are instant" keystone... I don't like the "Automation" changes they implemented some time ago.

[@lagarttemido]

​@@jasonrouse8215 Yeah I love melee and I hope it is better in PoE2.

[@jasonrouse8215]

@@lagarttemido I can't say if it will be better or not, but what I can comment on is that it "looks satisfying"... the fluidity of the motion, the heft behind the swings... all of it. Now we just need to see how that handles when you introduce latency... cause I doubt GGG tested for that, since it's usually an after thought. I hope they prepared properly for this launch... there's a lot riding on this.

[@ILikeGuns1992]

Sniper's Mark is almoust non-factor since crit builds would use Assassin's Mark anyway. You didn't covered 2 of the most important things that make LS such a good skill. First you can use it as ranged skill basically. Second it can double hit. That's massive.

[@callmeconvay7977]

Any MB+200div trickster build should be able to get better value out of any melee skill than this, though. When switching out one lightning attack strike skill for another makes his damage go from multiple times the dot cap to something my RF build out-performs, that's a real problem.

[@turbobanana]

Before the video even starts, I’m guessing single target damage and slightly better ranged functionality. On my zenith jug I actually map with frost blades, just feels better to me.

[@dukeofdream]

You should do another video for Splitting steel... I was playing CI SS on normal settlers on a mirror tier build... I started necro settlers with CI LS... People said you can't swap to SS unless you have nimis and mageblood... Well i switched to SS at lvl 88 with only 8k ES and both the damage and the clearing is so much better than LS.. A nerf is coming to it for sure in 3.26....

[@alessandrosarti8291]

No shot SS gives you better dmg and clear than LS

[@dukeofdream]

@@alessandrosarti8291 try it out for yourself... I just swapped the gem on my LS build...

[@HXRDWIREDGaming]

Master of the coat swap, flawless lol

[@dante5526]

I'm running regular vaal smite on a trickster with a fairly different setup than yours an my boss dmg is better than if i switched to LS, im going to try and gem swap to lightning strike of divine judgment and see how it compares but to regular smite but just by looking at the video you have no attackspeed. imo LS is amazing for mapping, especially LS of arching, the clear is comparable to a bow character but you dont havevto give up defenses, and this is why its such a dominant skill, but if you want to boss its not that great, molten strike or smite (regular) feels way better imo

[@matheusgoes3568]

Man I was trying to see what is good in occultist on PoE ninja because I'm a profane bloom enjoyer, and boy, wtf hexblast is completely dominant

[@sirgog]

There'll also be a number of "Propane Boom" setups. Elementalist or Occultist ascendancy, Forbidden Jewels to get whichever is missing, Profane Bloom or Shaper of Flame. Occultist is pretty versatile but just... 5-10% worse than other choices in general. A lot of Occy builds just swap to Trickster for power.

[@EiJoYuJo]

I go 17k es this is a crazzzzzyyy build

[@hayze7006]

ss dps got slashed in half due to previous sniper's mark nerf, it feels shit to play without nimis now. another nerf to snipers mark would kill the skill

[@sirgog]

Other skills that are balanced around Mark could have their numbers reassessed if Mark is nuked. Sniper's Mark is still bustedly OP for such a trivial opportunity cost.

[@MrDeothor]

Molten strike: great bosser, bad mapper Lightning strike: bad'ish bosser, great mapper, great eye cancer Split Steel: decent bosser, decent mapper Smite: lol DualStrike of Ambidexterity: ??? bosser, great mapper It's not snipers mark fault. That mark was so heavily nerfed i still feel lil bit like i got scammed. Problem lies directly with projectile-melee'ish builds. To fix them their projectile dmg needs to scale less and they shouldn't be able to synergize with nimis - as long as nimis is part of equation, those skills are either the best with or terrible without. Only then can you balance them around. Lots of pure-melee skills are still a joke and could easily be buffed by 30-40% and people would still avoid them. 1 more thing: smite of divine judgement isn't "in the middle". You have barely any DPS while (ab) using trickster. It's god-awful and you look at it through the prism of "what non-tricksters can get". If that's the best the skill can do, you might aswell use basic attacks.

[@racketship3618]

i personally would still swap to a damage aura over herald for bosses

[@daath912]

Which 50% aura would you use to replace a 25% herald?

[@maksymilian6555]

Perfect time for new vid. Thanks

[@matthewbrown6397]

'Cause projectiles.

[@Sindraelyn]

What is that pretty thumbnail and where can I find a high res wallpaper of it?

[@jeffreyhodes]

It's just ai generated slop

[@anathema1828]

LetsGo

[@Weltszmelc]

tl:dr its ranged skill with melee tag

[@anemah2461]

Cause LS won't be in poe 2 to abuse like we can in poe.

[@kai-xuanyao4666]

LS is a bow skill on a sword..

[@raz0rh00f]

6:47 69% is only kinda nice? 😏

[@sztywnymisza5422]

Also point blank

[@harborwolf22]

Nimis is non-existant on console. So sick of the shitty economy.

[@vlad0219]

Hi guys, any idea good pob for t17 and uber boses for slayer ls. Thx

[@VincePoE-uu1qh]

easy: double hit

[@MDLeide]

I typed out a whole long comment saying a bunch of things, but I deleted it in favor of just saying this: I think it is a little weird to spend the first 5 minutes of a 10 minute video titled "Why is Lightning Strike so Dominant?" talking about how your have a super-scuffed trickster that you couldn't be bothered to gear correctly, in your words.

[@marc-andreblais5818]

i think its not ls that is too strong but rather most other melee skills that are still much too weak. poeple have always loved projectile skills and with the melee buffs, stars aligned to make this one a bit stronger hence why everyone is playing it. lets not forget that you must invest a considerable amount in your build for ls to feel good tho, i trivialise most ubers with my ls but have invested over 5 mirrors in my build

[@blackwomangamer2637]

Only well rounded melee skill

[@GE_Photon_Lord]

I hope they don't nerf trickster to the ground and maybe only adjust escape artist to balance out the power it got from new bases. Nerf ephemeral edge instead, it's just ridiculous.

[@sirgog]

I expect a bunch of small tweaks that add up. Escape Artist the only think in the ascendancy. I do like E-Edge promoting a non-crit playstyle for once though. I mean you can crit with it, but basically noone does.

[@Crustle1]

I agree, I tend to play Trickster for DoT builds so would be a shame if those got gutted unintentionally due to other OP builds!

[@GE_Photon_Lord]

@@Crustle1 Yep

[@bioazard5639]

Yes they need to nerf Escape artists by 50% and EE from 20 to 15

[@nermu]

I hope they nerf this skill to death. I hate the animation, the fx and everything about it.

[@sirgog]

I honestly like the skill and would be more likely to play it if it wasn't so hegemonic