I feel like Hail Storm has a lot of issues going for it. All of its utility and DPS comes from its upgrades. While I understand that some weapons are better with upgrades (obviously) Hail Storm feels consistently like the worst without upgrades. But then you flip the first upgrade, spawning icicles under the satellites, and it suddenly becomes a DPS powerhouse. The difference is night and day, I got the 3 million damage achievement on agony 2 on Ember grounds between the 15-20 minute mark. I feel like the satellites should expire instead of dropping base kit, with one of the other two effects being the base kit. Make the shards dropping one of the scroll upgrades, and make it more impactful, while the base kit is reduced in power.
#Feedback on Hail Storm
fallen crow
cold remnant
I think that Hail Storm base form could be improved slightly with adjusting numbers, while also bringing down the icicle carpet a tiny bit. Drastic changes to function aren't necessary imo. Many abilities are incredibly weak or slightly underwhelming in their base form, and then soaring to great heights with both upgrades. Kugel, orbs (balls&balls), needles and flame strike to name a few. Ring blades is also absolutely pathetic when you first start the game, but becomes a fairly good option later in the game when you have blessings and the upgrades/traits unlocked
fallen crow
I had all traits/blessings unlocked at the time. Is there anything else with all base game upgrades that can go 30 minutes dealing only 150k damage?
winged sentinel
80-90% of the damage potential of the drops is in the ice effect, not the direct damage, even if I increase the direct damage. The only way to change this and have a bigger number to the direct damage rather the ice effect is to switch that first direct damage happens and then frost gets applied. But that decreases the overall damage potential of the ability drastically.
What happens ATM is that in a base 6m radius all enemies get a frost stack, then the direct damage happens and if you trigger an ice explosion on the first enemy, it hits all enemies next to it, causing eventually more ice explosions. And just after that the next direct damage check happpens.
I'Ve made a test with unskilled and naked run with already increasded base damage for hailstorm for 5 mins on viaduct where Ice Effect simply outdamages the direct damagee by 3-4 times, totalling in a total of 700k~ damage.
If I switch it around and have the direct damage be done first, the direct damage doubles but the ice and overall damage drastically decreases down to only half of it.
This change in general with even more base damage could lead to higher direct damage numbers for the skill, yes, but will also to less synergy of the ability with ice effects. So I don' think I will change that and also we'll not change that the drop is the base of the ability. Butn we'll reduce the spikes a bit further.
(The base damage in my test was increased from 200 to 500)
cold remnant
Thank you for such a detailed response. Admittedly the frost cascade was not on my mind as one of the more possible culprits for "low perceived damage output". The ice synergy is definitely more important for the big picture.
fallen crow
I'm pretty satisfied with that response. I didn't expect such in depth testing. Thanks for the info
To be honest I think the other thing is that naked skills also do less DPS since you already have other things going on. So it's probably harder for a proper testing from a player perspective.
winged sentinel
Hailstorm is an ability from the base that works better if you have less going on or if enemies are more gathered around you, something that does currently not happen in endgame as you kill most stuff isntantly.
I believe once we have the shrine of torment, skills and items like hailstorm that do benefit from such scenarios will work better and aree then better testable if they are viable at the endgame. We will go more the route, instead of endless mode, have shorter but always harder runs.