Lightning Rod: A Shadow of its Former Self

TL:DR The 30% activation rate renders the once great notable to merely decent.

I am very surprised to see how heavily it is used among lightning attackers. TBH, I am hesitant to post anything with math in it. But here goes nothing.

In 0.1 when the node always activates, the effective improvement is roughly speaking 11% to 15% more damage depending on how min-max spread of the base damage is. This is a conditional expectation calculation which would involve double integration to solve. I didn't, but simply run simulations using lightning concoction as a baseline. This gives around 13% more damage improvement. A hefty chunk to be sure.

Lightning concoction is a bit of in-between the extreme of Spark, which has very low min damage, and the attack base which converts from relatively narrow min-max range of physical attacks. Spark users would see higher-end improvement while physical conversions would tend toward the lower end of more damage improvement.

At 30% activation, the node now gives less than 4% more damage to physical conversions users. A typical 10% increased damage small passive usually translates into around 1.5% more damage, depending on how much increased damage % you already have on the tree and how gem level scales increased damage in that case.

Taken into account pathing, especially when you are not stat-stacking, this isn't worthwhile. You are better of grabbing any increased damage nodes nearby. As for anoint, well, Lightning Rod is still decent but not multi divine good. In fact, a 25% inc damaged with extra perk notable can be better overall, not to mentIon being cheaper. A case could still be made about lightning spell users. But for attack-based players, save yourself some divine and anoint something else.

If you are a merc or huntress/ranger pathing south, it is still worthwhile to pick it up. But if you are pathing mostly east and north, look for something else.