I don't understand Ember Bolt

[Speusippus]

As far as I can tell, leveling up Ember Bolt only adds a couple dozen poison damage points (if even that much?). The knockback level and weapon-based damage stay the same throughout all levels. (You also get a couple of bolts added along the way to level ten, IIRC.)

Is Ember Bolt only really good for one point, and only towards the beginning of the game? Or am I missing or misunderstanding something about it?

I've seen comments on guides to the effect that Ember Bolt is a pretty nice skill, that it "scales nicely" as you level up, and so on. Right now, I'm not seeing how this can be.

[TormakSaber]

More bolts is more damage is more knockback.

[kvdk]

As far as I can tell, leveling up Ember Bolt only adds a couple dozen poison damage points (if even that much?). The knockback level and weapon-based damage stay the same throughout all levels. (You also get a couple of bolts added along the way to level ten, IIRC.)

Is Ember Bolt only really good for one point, and only towards the beginning of the game? Or am I missing or misunderstanding something about it?

I've seen comments on guides to the effect that Ember Bolt is a pretty nice skill, that it "scales nicely" as you level up, and so on. Right now, I'm not seeing how this can be.

> damage is "per bolt", so the damage shown is not the actual damage done
> the knockback is really usefull against champions

bolt is pretty much the best skill - but between levels 1 & 30, lance and lightning do more damage, but then bolt becomes better again

[Speusippus]

Why does Bolt become better past level 30?

[Speusippus]

Do you get more bolts as you level it up? The torchlight calculator doesn't seem to think so.

Also, does poison damage do damage over time, or is it just like all other elemental damages, just doing a single burst of damage on contact?

[kvdk]

bolts all count as seperate, and all are capable of doing seperate damage

and bolt becomes better past lvl 30 because the weapon damage + bolt amounts (you need to keep +ing bolt for this score) is high enough to do good damage..

and if you got some speedup items to increase cast speed, you can literally do insane damage!

[Speusippus]

"Keep +ing Bolt"--you just mean up to level 10, right? There's no way to level it past 10, is there?

Or does +ing mean something I'm not aware of?

So is the idea that past around level thirty, ten percent of weapon damage ends up being significant enough to make bolt better than lance?

[konfeta]

Well, for comparison's sake, my level 50's alchemist lance deals an average of 4k DPS, with ability to boost it up to 12k. Which hits multiple targets. Not sure how Ember Bolt damage compares to that.

[garce]

My summoner is lvl 100 and the only direct damage I do is through my wand and through bolt. I find bolt to be excellent for knocking baddies back towards my minions - who then grab aggro. Bolt also easily handles the masses of low hp critters that tend to swarm me.

With bolt, I've found no need for web. I just push 'em back to the front lines.