Chain lightning appreciation post

Hi,

when it comes to lightning spell sorcs, the discussion is usually:

Nova or Lightning?
However, I think

Chain Lightning is a pretty underrated spell, even compared to these two.

>But

Chain Lightning only deals ~50% dmg of lightning and costs twice the mana - how can it even compete?
Hear me out! That number is deceiving, chains have a few tricks up their sleeve:
- it often hits more enemies: how often does your lightning hit the entire group of enemies? I rarely hit more than half of the group with a single lightning
- re-aiming (either spell tbf) is clunky due to the slow cast frames, making you miss even more enemies
-

Chain Lightning auto aims consecutive hits for you, so you hit more enemies per cast
- if you de-sync from teleporting,

Chain Lightning knows where the enemies are, no need to aim perfectly as long as you hit one
- fast enemies running around makes it even more difficult to hit multiple enemies
- you need to find a good position, by the time I teleporter there I could have got a chain lightnigng off

tl;dr: Lightning hits harder but Chain lightnings hits more. So what is better in practice?

I did two test runs to get some numbers. In each I only used either lightning or

Chain Lightning to kill the monsters. I'd say my equipment is pretty good, but not high-end endgame. I ran all tombs starting in town, including

Duriel. I always used Lightning on

Duriel, there is no point in using

Chain Lightning here.
- Terrorized tombs: 16:35 vs 15:44
- Regulartombs: 13:39 vs 12:50
In both runs,

Chain Lightning was slightly faster.
(go ahead, make fun of my clearing speed )

My thoughts:
- this is just my experience, maybe you can aim better
-

Chain Lightning can certainly compete with the regular Lightning spell, overall, there is really not a huge difference
- the biggest time difference came from tomb layout, not so much the spell itself
- the more items you pick up, the less the spell matters - you spend less time in combat
- The better your gear, the better

Chain Lightning as the extra raw damage matters less
- If you're tight on mana, lightning is much better (I was at ~800 + Insight and sometimes bottomed out with CL)
-

Chain Lightning requires less attention, much more relaxing for long grinding sessions

If you only ever ran one, just give the other a try and see how you like it - It's the same build anyway
Anyway, thanks for reading

I have a

Chain Lightning Sorc build that does a good job of clearing any area in the game. I also have some decent gear but noting excessive such as multiple lightning skiller Grand Charms. Here is a video of me clearing

Chaos Sanctuary in about 3 minutes. Note that when I made it I wasn't trying for a speed run, which you can see by my pauses and walking around. I was just casually playing. I made the video more for diagnostics than show but here it is.

My sorceress use Lightning /

Chain Lightning (with full Tal Rasha's Wrappings with 3

Rainbow Facet: Lightning Death/

Rainbow Facet: Lightning Level-up - https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/182tk0ho )
In practice I use Lightning only against bosses (and sometimes against Uniques that survive more time than they should ).
Even on "linear maps", like "

Arcane Sanctuary", I use mainly

Chain Lightning.
The play is much more smooth

SuperIllu wrote: 7 months ago

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Actualy never heard of someone who plays Lightning as a main spell. AOE on Lightning is just too erratic and too limited to justify the increased damage. Usualy, you play

Chain Lightning against groups and switch to lightning for boss kills. The manacost should not matter on a sorc because of Insight, especialy when you play with

Energy Shield and put 80% pt into energy.

Chain Lighning vs

Nova depends on how rich u are imo. In the end,

Nova is more efficient because it resolves faster. But to even think about playing novasorc, you should have at least Infinity, 35% Vipermagi, Arachnid, to gloves /

Magefist, Griffons, 2x Soj, decent Sorc amu with at least 15% fcr, 70% Lsunder, decent merc, Res charms ...etc

Chain Lightning on the other hand is efficient even with beginner stuff. Get Crescent Moon Runeword and melt faces

Skin of the Vipermagi

Griffon's Eye

The Stone of Jordan

Crack of the Heavens

Yep. It was my initial build

Blubbalutsch wrote: 7 months ago

Chain Lightning on the other hand is efficient even with beginner stuff. Get Crescent Moon Runeword and melt faces

Love

Chain Lightning!

Chain Lightning is even decent when playing SSF (paired with something like

Frozen Orb). I once got all the way to Hell Ancients on HC SSF as a CL+FO sorceress. Damn

Talic! Caught me after a bad

Teleport *shakes fist*

Chain Lightning is cool, it's better than it used to be in D2R after the NextHitDelay changes since it'll be less likely to "miss" if you spam it.

Having said that I've always preferred Lightning, more damage means it's easier to put enemies into hit recovery, less mana cost ofc, it can also double hit if enemies are stacked up close enough, and enemies tend to group up in a sort of linear fashion so it can hit/double hit a lot of enemies at once.

CL is useful for the groups of stragglers that are spread out though I admit! I haven't played a light sorc in a while, I should sometime.

DarkMaster wrote: 7 months ago

Chain Lightning is cool, it's better than it used to be in D2R after the NextHitDelay changes since it'll be less likely to "miss" if you spam it.

Having said that I've always preferred Lightning, more damage means it's easier to put enemies into hit recovery, less mana cost ofc, it can also double hit if enemies are stacked up close enough, and enemies tend to group up in a sort of linear fashion so it can hit/double hit a lot of enemies at once.

CL is useful for the groups of stragglers that are spread out though I admit! I haven't played a light sorc in a while, I should sometime.

No time like the present!

I also use it with my sorceress. Use Blizzard to slow down the crew, then

Chain Lightning to fry those groups of weak monsters (skeletons, imps, flayers, etc.). With

Chain Lightning I actually like to farm the

Flayer Jungle!

Blubbalutsch wrote: 7 months ago

you should have at least Infinity, 35% Vipermagi, Arachnid, to gloves /

Magefist, Griffons, 2x Soj, decent Sorc amu with at least 15% fcr, 70% Lsunder, decent merc, Res charms ...etv

Well, actually you only need 10 FCR on the amulet to reach 105 FCR My son plays a

Nova Sorc with exactly this gear +

Eth.

Sandstorm Trek