When something adds projectiles to Phantasmal blade or storm spread, the result is pretty obvious, given that those have a number of projectiles listed, and you can visually see the extra ones.
But for skills like Trozan Sky shard, or more specifically devastation, that either list 1 projectile (or don,t list a number at all) … while the spell VISUALLY has much more than 1 projectile… what does adding a projectile to them actually do ?
Diviner and stormfang sets both add a projectile to Devastation… am I supposed to see more of those meteors ? or do they hit double or something ?
I googled the same thing about Devastation yesterday for theory crafting and it came up with a reddit post with the answer “Devastation drops its projectiles in “volleys,” and the set adds +1 projectile per volley”. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdawn/comments/l0w1yn/help_in_understanding_the_vitality_devastation/)
Then I tested myself with the +2 proj conduit and it indeed looked like it tripled the amount of Devastation projectiles!
For Trozan’s Sky shard, though the skill does not state it directly, it does have 3 projectiles by default. So an item that adds +1 projectile will multiply total damage by 33%… if all 4 shards hit the same target, which they may not.
Incidentally, that is why you have items like this:
It reduces the area of TSS, which sounds bad, until you realise this means it increases the chances of all projectiles hitting the enemy you want them to hit, because there’s a smaller area to spread them out over.
Devastation is a special situation. Adding projectiles to Devastation increases the number of meteors that fall per volley. By default, Devastation launches 1 projectile every 0.2 seconds for 5 seconds, resulting in 1 x (1 / 0.2) x 5 = 25 projectiles.
Adding a projectile to Devastation means it will drop 2 projectiles every 0.2 seconds, resulting in a literal 100% damage boost overall. As with TSS, there are two kinds of Area modifications the skill can receive:
Target Area, which reduces or increases the spread of the falling projectiles (for TSS, as seen on Chillstrifes)
“Radius”, which is the explosion radius of each individual projectile (for TSS, as seen on Bloodbound Hood)
A low Target Area with high Radius results in projectiles being more likely to overlap their damage.
I’ve been playing 4 projectiles templar Stormfang for a bit now, and I just want to point out that the reduced cooldown from judgment includes hits from heart of wrath… It has permanent devastation uptime…
There has got to be a middle ground where the target area is slightly larger and the conversions don’t mess each other, because as long as your target area is smaller than your radius, you should get the same result
It would be weird if Templar side of Stormfang didn’t have perma Devastation. It’s already far weaker TDM wise than Evoker - even if we use Beronath’s Howl.
What it lacks, it makes up for in mobility. Evoker has to stand there to cast WoA and stack onslaught, while templar alternates between Judgment and devastation while constantly moving and kiting. They also are not really losing damage output while moving: the DoT from judgment is kinda good, and it reaches nearly the end of the screen, and being able to just recast devastation to reposition it means you’re always dishing out damage.
In my testing, they get roughly similar results in-play because of that.
/10characters
