With the many strong melee and totem builds, bow skills come in Path of Exile sometimes a little short. In part 3 (Part 1 and Part 2) of the skills revisions, the developers take care of exactly these. The focus is on rain of arrows, barrages and rain of explosions.
Rain of arrows
Rain of arrows in particular is not currently comparable to other skills at higher levels. Once the player had access to support gems, other skills quickly left the rain of arrows behind. To intensify the rain of arrows, the Path of Exile team has decided to use the single arrows, raining to the ground to give a little bottle damage. The following graphic shows how the new rain of arrows will work.
Path of Exile developers to the barrage
Is one of the skills that stands out and is too strong with the right support. Even if the developers ideally bring other skills up to the top level, i.e. buff, would. In case of Barrage a small adjustment downwards is necessary first, i.e. a nerf. Here is the explanation and the thoughts behind it:
This skill is currently the cornerstone of many powerful bow builds. By adding additional projectiles, which can be done in various ways, the damage from barrages to individual targets is hard to beat.
Additional projectiles lead to an extreme increase in damage (since the 25% skill grants more damage for each additional projectile). However, we don't want to simply reduce the damage of the skill as it will lose its usefulness until players can find a way to add additional projectiles.
We are currently experimenting with a version of the skill that has a base number of 5 instead of 4 projectiles and its damage is reduced accordingly. This means that for each additional projectile 20%, the player will deal more damage.
In the long run we are working on alternatives that can keep up with barrage, but since the interaction with additional projectiles is so extreme in barrage, we are practically forced to reduce the damage per additional projectile in order to give other skills a chance. This gives us the opportunity to use other bowing skills with more punch overall.
Explosion rain
In order to make explosive rain competitive again, the conversion physical damage in Fire Damage increased to 100%. At level 20 there is a 25% Damage penetration for fire damage added. So the damage done ignores 25% of the target's fire resistance.
These ideas and changes are so far not 100% safe and whoever has a different or better idea to help their favorite skill to a new level, their feedback and ideas are always welcome at GGG. The Path of Exile developers attach great importance to the cooperation of the community.
