I seen on paragon boards online builder that sorc has damage buff to crackling energy. I didnt even know it does some damage I though it only put some mana on the ground.
Can someone explain what it does and how big damage it does compared to spells? It seems the whole paragon board for lightning sorc is really luck luster compared to others elements.
Small pools of lightning energy that damages nearby things when picked up.
Theres a passive that gives you mana whenever you pick up a crackling energy.
Theres various skills that interacts with them.
A bit of additional info.
Some of your lightning spells upgrades and passives will allow you to spawn a small ball lightning when doing damage with lightning spells. When you pick it, you receive 3 charges of Crackling Energy. You can stack up to 12 charges. They seemingly have no duration, so can be accumulated. Whenever enemies are nearby, these charges automatically discharge to hit several enemies (1 hit to multiple enemies per charge, but they have a target cap, so if you are surrounded by a horde of enemies it will hit only some of them).
There are also passives that provide additional benefits from Crackling Energy - regen Mana, summon Lightning Spear (from its enchantment) and so on.
Crackling Energy build is fun and chaotic, but has its own risks. The major one is that orbs usually spawn in place where your lightning spells hit the enemy, so you often need to run to that space to pick them and that space can contain a dangerous boss, an AoE damage pool and so on. If you play a melee sorc, disengaging from your current target to pick the orb and re-engage to target can be irritating. I sincerely hope that there would be a passive / paragon / legendary effect that allows to pick them from some range to address mentioned issues. Their RNG based spawn is already enough as a limitation.
Some additional thoughts about lightning spells and Crackling Energy are in this thread - Diablo 4 Beta and Sorcerer Feedback (Updated after Server Slam)
Truthfully I found it unrewarding.
In combat it is not generally a great tradeoff to stop dealing damage and avoiding damage to seek them out, meaning you mostly pick them up after combat and then having stocked up the charges are generally expended on trash as you engage your next encounter.
That is not to say some may not enjoy it–different strokes for different folks. However if you enjoy Lightning as a theme there are offerings, generally critical hit or stun related, you can focus on.
It is possible to pick orbs in combat with minimal dps / time loss in 2 cases:
However, I can agree that Crackling Energy might be not rewarding enough and could use a boost. Making its charges hit only enemies and not breakable objects could be a good QoL boost as well.
Necromancer Blood orbs is quite similar in concept.
It seems that many here do not know the way of The Crack
All hail The Crack
I mean uh, no its bad, buff it
or you look deeper and see their potential.
It is an endgame mechanic if you looking for dpsing with it, but it can be quite strong. AS btw increases the frequency of it hitting.
When I seen the online paragon builder I am very dissapointed, cracling energy is like only legendary power for light sorc and looks pretty bad overall.
There is no way if I am ranged caster I would want to run into mobs to pick up something on ground.
I think either via some passive, item or paragon or glyph or something they should give you the ability to suck in the crackling energy when using some skill (or a set of skill options) similar to how in WoW Brewmaster monks can consume their healing orbs with expel harm.
So how much damage does the crackling energy do? Is it some % or? It’s odd that there is no information anywhere on this.