Lightning Arrow is a lightning based skill which fires an arrow at an enemy which causes nearby enemies to be struck by lightning.
It is a popular beginning skill, especially for ranger classes since it can easily clear out enemies from a good distance.
Not only does Lightning Arrow tear up enemies from good distances but it also has some pretty flashy effects and don’t forget the chance to shock enemies can be a good help in the long run.
Lightning Arrow
Lightning Arrow beings by firing a charged arrow which upon impact will cause 3 more enemies to be hit by lightning bolts that deal the same damage.
Each enemy struck will cause 3 additional enemies to be hit while 50% of the physical damage of the ability is converted to lightning damage.
There is a 0.5% chance to shock enemies per quality of the gem which will allow players to deal even more damage to enemies when the gem quality is upgraded.
Lightning Arrow Skill Gem Builds
There are different builds that make use of Lightning Arrow’s ability to hit multiple targets with its lightning bolts, here are some of the popular Lightning Arrow Builds.
Lightning Arrow Greater Multiple Projectiles Build
Mirage Archer is a very useful skill to use with Lightning Arrow as this creates the opportunity for you to have another copy of yourself in some way to fire off the shots you fire.
The Mirage Archer will target enemies that are even far away from you and with both of you firing Lightning Arrows at enemies, it will be will be easier to clear maps.
This build focuses on using multiple arrows fired from the player as well as the Mirage Archer to hit multiple enemies, striking 3 additional enemies with lighting for each one hit.
Base Build
- Lightning Arrow
- Mirage Archer
- Greater Multiple Projectiles
- Pierce Support/Chain Support
This is the Lightning Arrow Mirage Archer basic build which activate Magic Archer on hit who fires multiple projectiles just like your character.
Greater Multiple Projectiles will increase the amount of Lightning Arrows that are fired and to allow the ability to hit even more enemies, you may choose between Pierce and chain Support.
Using Chain Support will cause the arrow to bounce to another enemy two times, hitting 3 enemies each with lightning every hit.
Pierce will cause the Lightning Arrows to go through enemies, triggering the 3 lightning bolts in the area per enemy hit.
Single Shot Lighting Arrow Build
The more traditional single shot build focuses on hitting enemies shot by shot in order to make use of the additional lightning bolt along with other modifications from support skill gems for Lightning Arrow.
This allows you to focus your shots on targets while aiming for additional effects by adding in other support gems that either different bonuses.
Single shots can pass may only hit one enemy at a time which will require a support gem to aid in hitting multiple enemies but more options for effects depending on the gems used are available.
- Lightning Arrow
- Chain Support
- Added Elemental Damage Support
- Faster Attacks Support/Faster Projectiles Support
Lightning Arrow will and its bolts will be able to hit multiple enemies by adding Chain Support which causes the ability to chain to enemies and even bouncing between them.
The addition of Added Elemental Damage Support will increase the damage of Lightning Arrow along with any other bonus elemental damage added to the builds.
Faster Attacks Support becomes viable when players are after causing certain effects to occur repetitively to deal damage while Faster Projectiles Support can increase the damage as well as speed up projectiles.
Additional Support Gems
Lightning Arrow Critical
- Increased Critical Strike Support
- Increased Critical Damage Support
Lightning Arrow critical build focusing on firing multiple projectiles which can chain to enemies or pierce them.
A higher chance for critical strikes to occur along with higher amounts of damage is achieve with this variation.
Lightning Arrow Cold
- Added Cold Damage
- Hypothermia Support
Both the main projectiles and the lightning bolts will have an additional cold damage and will even chill enemies.
Cold damage will be increased and a will be able to deal damage overtime as well as have the chance to freeze enemies due to Hypothermia Support.
Lightning Arrow Fire DPS
- Combustion Support
- Ignite Proliferation Support
Fire damage will be added to both projectiles and the lightning bolt damage which has a chance to set enemies on fire, causing them to take damage over time.
Ignite Proliferation causes enemies that are ignited to spread the affect to other enemies and more damage will be done with ignite.
Lightning Arrow Improved Lightning
- Lightning Penetration Support
- Innervate Support
Adding Lightning Penetration Support lets lightning damage bypass enemy resistances to lightning allowing more damage to be dealt with Lightning Arrow.
Innervate Support gives an increased chance to shock enemies which causes them to take increased amounts of damage as well as granting you the Innervation buff when you killed shocked enemies.
Elemental Damage
- Elemental Damage With Attacks Support
- Lightning Penetration Support
Increases the amount of all elemental damage that is don’t to the enemies which also includes lightning damage.
This adds up to the total amount of lightning damage as well as causes the attacks to penetrate the lightning resistance of enemies.
In the event that Mirage Archer is not preferred, one may simple replace it with another support gem.
Ascendancy
The suggested ascendancy tree for Lightning Arrow is Deadeye, focusing on getting Far Shot followed by Ricochet.
Far Shot will increase the damage of shots fired by the distance they travel which means the further away you are from the target, the more damage you will do.
At a high to medium distance, your attacks will already do an increased amount of damage while Far Shot also increases the projectile speed of your attacks by 30%.
Ricochet will cause Lightning Arrow to chain to other enemies which will cause another Lightning Arrow to be fired from an enemy that is hit towards another nearby enemy.
When Lightning Arrow chains, so do the additional lightning bolts, causing more enemies to be hit which will add overall area damage and clear out groups of enemies faster.
Enemies hit will receive more damage if there are unused chains, meaning if there is no enemy for Lightning Arrow to chain to, addition 10% damage is received per chain that is unused.
Overview
Lightning Arrow’s additional lightning bolts hit multiple enemies which can allow you to clear out enemies fast early on during the beginning of the game.
Adding Greater Multiple Projectiles makes it easier to make this effect occur more times and with the addition of Mirage Archer Support, you simply double the amount of shots you fire from time to time.
The Mirage Archer is efficient during game play when you are kiting enemies as it fires on its own as long as it has activated which is done when you hit a target with Lightning Arrow.
Making sure that Lightning Arrow can hit even more enemies beyond the effects of Greater Multiple Projectiles will allow you to take advantage of the lightning bolts which make clear large amounts of enemies easy.
