Talk:Chain Lightning

As a necromancer with 60 Armor rating, from a level 22 Krait Arcanoss who would have 20 in air magic, i received exactly 170 damages.

110 X 1.297 (25% armor penetration of 60 = 45 ) = 142.67. However : 110 X 1.542 (25 armor in less from 60 = 35 ) = 169.62, wich i assume the game values a 170.

Conclusion : Either this spell actually take off 25 armor point rather than 25%, or my asuran armor as a bug or the Krait has a bonus of 25.33% of armor penetration upon all spells.

I have note the same "problem with Blinding Surge too, as i had the sames results. lussh 14:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

They also get a damage multiplier for being a higher level. - HeWhoIsPale 14:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, if they have a 20% damage bonus it's correct. lussh 14:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Exhaustion

I still don't quite see why this skill deserves exhaustion... it doesn't do anything special besides a slight AoE. The illogicness behind the majority of prophecies elementalist spells continues to astound me o.O Silavor 00:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

This was once 10/2/10, exhaustion, hit in the area, and did orb-level damage. So you had ele spike teams wtfpwning people with chain lightning. This was before air shields, +hp on armor, and lots of other things -- way back early in the game. So they nerfed it into the ground, and now it's terrible. Now Deathly Swarm is better. IMO 15/3/10 with old specs, or 10/2/10 with no exhaustion, is fair. --70.190.102.87 18:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

If this becomes 10/2/10 w/ no exhaustion, besides it being stupidly strong, Invoke Lightning would need a massive buff.--Ryudo 22:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Would be nice if it didn't cause Exhaustion if it just hit one or two enemies. I don't like Exhaustion, but at least if I got it I would know it meant I hit 3 people. - Elder Angelus 15:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Liquid Flame > This.William Wallace 18:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Flare > This... chain lightning is one of the worst ele spells out there... Will need a huge buff to make me use this spell again on my skillbar demonic barb 10:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Anerf fails at retroactive balancing. This needs to be 15/2/5 without exhaustion to be useful.

Good Use for this Skill

I found a good way to use it. Most people may not be familiar with the build, but sometimes in AB I play Mesmer with all Elementalist skills. It runs 13 Fast Casting with 12 Air Magic, the skills are as follows:

Lightning Orb

Lightning Bolt

Chain Lightning

Gale

Blinding Flash

Glyph of Lesser Energy

Glyph of Energy

Air Attunement

Fast Casting lets you use your spells fast, Lightning Orb casts quick, Chain Lightning is far less than 3 seconds, your one-second spells cast almost instantly. You use the Mesmer primary for Fast Casting because Energy Storage is useless, the Glyphs and Attunement take care of Energy. So the ability to cast spells quicker is more valuable than extra energy you won't use. The build is wicked fun to play, can handle lots of diverse situations and counter things, fast-casting hard-hitting Air spells make for good owning. In this build, Chain Lighting costs no energy, doesn't give Exhaustion, and casts far quicker than 2 seconds, and its AoE effect makes it good for capping shrines in AB - the area of play that the build was designed for. Fun to play build, just thought this skill found a good niche in it. So stop saying it sucks.

See my contribution on the Wastrel's Collapse talk page. Yes, I found a way to use it. Yes, it still fails as a skill. Raine - talk 14:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Sir Bertran

He does NOT carry this skill. I'm removing him from the list. Weaponmaster 01:01, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Update

Holy shiz. They made Chain Lightning awesome again. 72.222.217.198 18:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Sweetness! goin' on my bar fo sure.--70.71.240.170 00:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Great, so now the only difference between this and the Elite Invoke Lightning is 12 damage at 12 Air Magic... O_o - Ander01 01:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Or 18 damage at 18 Air Magic. That's really quite an astute observation Ander. Frankly, I'm glad for the buff, even though I don't use air magic; pre-buff chain lighting was altogether too hard to justify. My hope would be that, rather than nerf Chain Lightning, Anet would buff or change the functionality of Invoke Lightning.70.59.83.70 05:54, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Well that's what I meant. The elite status on Invoke is pretty laughable, while chain lightning feels playable atm. Maybe remove exhaustion completely and add a condition like cracked armor to the Elite? Or raise energy cost to 15 and lower recharge to 5 secs? I don't know, I just don't feel 18 extra damage is worth an elite slot -_- Ander01 22:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

why did it take another 3 years to make this skill useful ? 87.189.230.140

This skill still doesn't feel that great in PvE. More Air in general feels lackluster against Fire, as even after loading an enemy down with weakness and cracked armor neither this nor Invoke Lightening deal as much damage as just coming back against the same foe with a fire build, at the same attribute rank, sans any conditions (except maybe burning, since it's hard to not have it in a fire build somewhere). Fire still dealing more damage aside, its hard to get more than one or two spells off against each foe because of the long casting times, so conditioning them yourself first is somewhat moot unless its a boss. Its dead before the condition served you any use. 68.41.122.155 09:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Compare to Lava Arrows -

Lava Arrows, ~32.5 damage a second for the two seconds it takes to cast it

Chain Lightning, ~28.3 a second for the three seconds it takes to cast it, plus whatever penetration yields

Lava Arrows, 5 energy

Chain Lightning, 10 energy, plus exhaustion or an enchantment

Lava Arrows, recharges in 2 seconds

Chain Lightning, recharges in 10 seconds

Lava Arrows is a stronger skill in pretty much every way, aside from its attribute line not offering blind and cracked armor. -- 11:36, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Flare spam is pretty much the highest theoretical DPS an ele can yield, it just requires more energy regen than an ele can manage without a bip necro babysitting him (and isn't feasible in PvP for obvious reasons). More damage is possible with AoE spells hitting many targets at once (i.e., PvE and HA), but that's not really reliable enough to base damage meters on. -Auron 12:00, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Well Flare is up to 37 with fastcasting. (Like the old dual attunement, "laser of fire" joke build.) Even on single targets for PvE, stuff like Searing Heat, Immolate and Mind Burn destroy that sub-50 dps when you can use them. But all I'm saying is that, Chain Lightning is still pretty lame, even if Lava Arrows can miss. These games always devolve to AoE when it's offered. : / -- 02:43, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Isle of Nameless testing

In several tests on the Isle of the Nameless, this skill and Invoke Lightning each damaged the same three dummies. After hitting the target, it would then damage the target marked adjacent and then the one labeled in the area. Neither spell affected adjacent to foe (the closest dummy to the target), either nearby dummy, nor the second in the area dummy. Walking around the circle and recasting had the same effect.

Accordingly, I've updated the description (and that of Invoke Ltng) to illustrate the more complex result: the struck foes will be roughly in the same line and some closer targets will be skipped. Since the third target is approximately the same distance from the second as the second is from the first, so I think it's safer to say that each struck foe is within adjacent distance of the one before it, although this results in a larger overall AoE than expected. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)