Ball Lightning

Ball Lightning is a lightning spell that creates a slow-moving projectile which periodically zaps nearby enemies.

Skill functions and interactions

• Strike interval: Lightning bolts will strike nearby targets every 150 milliseconds while they are inside the area of effect of the ball. This restriction is shared between multiple balls fired on the same cast (such as when using ). Balls cast by do not share a 150 ms cooldown between each other because every trap is a separate cast. Likewise for .
• Projectile speed: The base projectile speed is roughly 48 units per second. Reductions to projectile speed such as can increase the amount of time an enemy spends within the ball's area of effect, resulting in a higher potential number of lightning strikes per cast.
• Area of effect: Increases and reductions to area of effect will alter the range of the ball, making it hit enemies further away or closer. Modifiers to area damage (such as ) do not apply.

• Fork and Chain: Ball Lightning projectiles will always pierce, and therefore can never fork or chain.

• Tooltip damage: The tooltip DPS assumes that the skill will only hit once per cast. A more accurate estimate can be obtained using the calculator on the following link (Updated for 3.15). It is worth noting that the calculation will not be precise for general use, as enemies will move around and the skill will not pass over them using its entire diameter. However, it should be fairly reliable when the skill is used on stationary targets.

Alternative quality

The alternative quality Divergent Ball Lightning granted Projectiles have 0.5% chance to be Supercharged per 1% gem quality.

Supercharged Projectiles have 50% more Area of effect and deal 50% more damage.

Gem level progression

Level			Mana Cost	Lightning Damage	Exp.	Total Exp.
1	28	67	12	3 to 48	0	0
2	31	73	13	3 to 57	199345	199345
3	34	79	14	4 to 68	285815	485160
4	37	85	15	4 to 81	401344	886504
5	40	92	15	5 to 95	554379	1440883
6	42	96	16	6 to 106	477437	1918320
7	44	100	16	6 to 118	583786	2502106
8	46	104	17	7 to 131	710359	3212465
9	48	109	17	8 to 145	1355511	4567976
10	50	113	18	8 to 161	1138877	5706853
11	52	117	18	9 to 178	1368233	7075086
12	54	121	19	10 to 197	1638338	8713424
13	56	125	19	11 to 217	1956648	10670072
14	58	130	20	13 to 240	3655184	14325256
15	60	134	20	14 to 264	3017327	17342583
16	62	138	21	15 to 291	7759995	25102578
17	64	142	21	17 to 321	15138193	40240771
18	66	146	22	19 to 353	26083825	66324596
19	68	151	22	20 to 388	62620247	128944843
20	70	155	23	22 to 426	211708088	340652931
21	72	159	24	25 to 468	N/A	N/A
22	74	N/A	24	27 to 513	N/A	N/A
23	76	N/A	25	30 to 563	N/A	N/A
24	78	N/A	25	32 to 617	N/A	N/A
25	80	N/A	26	36 to 676	N/A	N/A
26	82	N/A	26	39 to 740	N/A	N/A
27	84	N/A	27	43 to 810	N/A	N/A
28	86	N/A	27	47 to 886	N/A	N/A
29	88	N/A	28	51 to 968	N/A	N/A
30	90	N/A	28	56 to 1058	N/A	N/A
31	91	N/A	28	58 to 1106	N/A	N/A
32	92	N/A	29	61 to 1156	N/A	N/A
33	93	N/A	29	64 to 1208	N/A	N/A
34	94	N/A	29	66 to 1263	N/A	N/A
35	95	N/A	29	69 to 1319	N/A	N/A
36	96	N/A	30	73 to 1378	N/A	N/A
37	97	N/A	30	76 to 1440	N/A	N/A
38	98	N/A	30	79 to 1504	N/A	N/A
39	99	N/A	30	83 to 1571	N/A	N/A
40	100	N/A	31	86 to 1641	N/A	N/A

Trivia

Ball Lightning was accidentally added to the game in an unfinished state in version 1.1.0 and was removed shortly afterwards. It was officially added to the game in version 1.1.5. A history of the skill can be found in Supporter newsletter 73.

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Ball Lightning.

Alternate skill effects

Ball Lightning has the following alternate skill effects:

Version history

Version	Changes
3.12.0	Now has a base radius of 18 (from 22). Now deals 3 to 48 lightning damage at gem level 1 (from 3 to 57), up to 22 to 426 lightning damage at gem level 20 (from 28 to 533). Now has alternative quality.
3.11.0	Now deals 3 to 57 Lightning Damage at gem level 1 (from 3 to 48), to 28 to 533 Lightning Damage at gem level 20 (from 22 to 426). Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 50% (from 40%). Now costs 12 mana at gem level 1 (from 13), up to 23 mana at gem level 20 (from 25). Now has a base cast time of 0.7 seconds (from 0.75).
3.6.0	Mana Cost at gem level 1 is now 13 (was 14). Mana Cost at gem level 20 is now 25 (was 27). Now has a cast time of 0.75 seconds (from 0.8). Now deals 3 to 48 Lightning damage at gem level 1 (from 2 to 35) and 22 to 426 Lightning damage at gem level 20 (from 22 to 420). Now has an added damage effectiveness of 40% (from 35%).
3.3.0	Now deals 2-35 lightning damage at gem level 1 (up from 2-32), up to 22-420 lightning damage at gem level 20 (up from 14-260). Now has an added damage effectiveness of 35% (up from 20%). The projectile's base speed is now 33% faster. The projectile hits 33% more frequently to compensate. The base radius has increased by 10%. Disabled the "Reduced Ball Lightning Projectile Speed" enchantment from appearing. Ball Lightning no longer has a 10% damage boost against players.
2.6.0	Ball Lightning's radius has increased from 16 to 20 units.
2.1.0	Damage increased by around 20% higher at level 20.
2.0.0	Base radius increased by 33% (from 12 to 16). Damage reduced. At player level 68 it should deal approximately 24% less damage.
1.2.0	Damage has been increased by 30% at all levels. Critical chance increased to 5%.
1.1.5	Added to the game.