Stormcaller DPS discussion

[soul sky]

Figured I would post this to discuss the best SC spec/rotations. 51SC 8ele 7harb is parsing high(more than Harbinger) for me and also can do excellent AoE. Rotation definitely won't be perfect as I've had limited time testing so any input is appreciated. So far at level 51 I'm doing 4.6-5k on the dummy, self buffed+full id bis gear.

Start:

Raging Storm > Thunderbolt (for 3x electrified)

BASIC rotation with 3x electrified up:

Ice shear > (pop Pouring Rain mid GCD for 1s gcd 15s + Static discharge)
Icicle > Storms Fury(hard hitting Harbinger air move)[Armor procs] > Storm slash spam[armor procs and next icicle proc] >
Ragingstorm/Electrocute when Electrified is 2s > Ice shear > repeat

[Armor procs] refers to the Harbinger armor proccing an instant cast. Priority of proc=

Hailstorm(with target fully Stormcaller debuffed it's ticking for over 4k crits) > Lightning Strike (14-15k crits for me right now)

I've found that Storm Slash with Charged blade+Storm sword tick hits for roughly the same as a Cloud Burst. Lightning field may be better DPS than Storm Slash, unsure. Probably too mana intensive. I believe Static flux is better to use though a combination of both charge consumers could possibly be better

I know the rotation won't be perfect yet, still some things to test:

1) Lightning Storm for single target - it hits like a truck when the target is Stormcaller debuffed. However you must cast Lightning Storm with at least 5-6 seconds left on your Ice shear debuff otherwise it will hit pretty low. Hence I need more time to see if it's worth clipping your electrified/ice shear sooner for a Lightning Storm while also taking into account that you'll be doing much less slashing attacks/proccing armor.

2) Arctic blast. Pretty sure it's worth throwing in there right after an Eldrich armor proc is spent (seems to be a 1s internal cd on it so it won't hurt to use AB instead of a slashing move) since it hits hard. Not tested it DPS wise though. It would be prioritised after Storm's Fury I think.

3) Electric Charge - for a zero damage cast time to apply 5 electrified this seems wasteful/useless? But not tested. My first impression would be that it's better to just use damaging electrified builders but I could be wrong.

4) Also need to test whether it's worth using Lightning Burst now. Electrified can be slightly easier gained alternating with Ragingstorm+thunderbolt and Electrocute+thunderbolt. The question is whether the damage loss of casting the aforementioned electrified builders without electrified already on the target after a Lightning Burst, compared to just doing another Storm slash but refreshing Electrified with only Raging Storm/Electrocute(which will hit more with 3 electrified) and not having to add a Thunderbolt.

5) Eye of the Storm seems to hit a bit lack luster and use up all your charge. Not tested it extensively though. Hopefully it's at least worth it for AoE. Tbh I think it's bugged and should be doing more damage than Hailstorm hence I'm still considering such a deep SC spec for this first beta

If Eye of the Storm isn't worth it then it may be wise to cut down on SC and put the points else where. I'm thinking less in SC more in Harbinger for Slashing damage. Testing testing!

I'm raiding on Live server now so less beta time :P Really interested to know what kind of specs you guys have found!

[Aguni]

I thik electric charge is a non agro generating ability.
So in theory, you could apply it before the tank pulls.

[Berzz]

Figured I would post this to discuss the best SC spec/rotations. 51SC 8ele 7harb is parsing high(more than Harbinger) for me and also can do excellent AoE. Rotation definitely won't be perfect as I've had limited time testing so any input is appreciated. So far at level 51 I'm doing 4.6-5k on the dummy, self buffed+full id bis gear.

Start:

Raging Storm > Thunderbolt (for 3x electrified)

BASIC rotation with 3x electrified up:

Ice shear > (pop Pouring Rain mid GCD for 1s gcd 15s + Static discharge)
Icicle > Storms Fury(hard hitting Harbinger air move)[Armor procs] > Storm slash spam[armor procs and next icicle proc] >
Ragingstorm/Electrocute when Electrified is 2s > Ice shear > repeat

[Armor procs] refers to the Harbinger armor proccing an instant cast. Priority of proc=

Hailstorm(with target fully Stormcaller debuffed it's ticking for over 4k crits) > Lightning Strike (14-15k crits for me right now)

I've found that Storm Slash with Charged blade+Storm sword tick hits for roughly the same as a Cloud Burst. Lightning field may be better DPS than Storm Slash, unsure. Probably too mana intensive. I believe Static flux is better to use though a combination of both charge consumers could possibly be better

I know the rotation won't be perfect yet, still some things to test:

1) Lightning Storm for single target - it hits like a truck when the target is Stormcaller debuffed. However you must cast Lightning Storm with at least 5-6 seconds left on your Ice shear debuff otherwise it will hit pretty low. Hence I need more time to see if it's worth clipping your electrified/ice shear sooner for a Lightning Storm while also taking into account that you'll be doing much less slashing attacks/proccing armor.

2) Arctic blast. Pretty sure it's worth throwing in there right after an Eldrich armor proc is spent (seems to be a 1s internal cd on it so it won't hurt to use AB instead of a slashing move) since it hits hard. Not tested it DPS wise though. It would be prioritised after Storm's Fury I think.

3) Electric Charge - for a zero damage cast time to apply 5 electrified this seems wasteful/useless? But not tested. My first impression would be that it's better to just use damaging electrified builders but I could be wrong.

4) Also need to test whether it's worth using Lightning Burst now. Electrified can be slightly easier gained alternating with Ragingstorm+thunderbolt and Electrocute+thunderbolt. The question is whether the damage loss of casting the aforementioned electrified builders without electrified already on the target after a Lightning Burst, compared to just doing another Storm slash but refreshing Electrified with only Raging Storm/Electrocute(which will hit more with 3 electrified) and not having to add a Thunderbolt.

5) Eye of the Storm seems to hit a bit lack luster and use up all your charge. Not tested it extensively though. Hopefully it's at least worth it for AoE. Tbh I think it's bugged and should be doing more damage than Hailstorm hence I'm still considering such a deep SC spec for this first beta

If Eye of the Storm isn't worth it then it may be wise to cut down on SC and put the points else where. I'm thinking less in SC more in Harbinger for Slashing damage. Testing testing!

I'm raiding on Live server now so less beta time :P Really interested to know what kind of specs you guys have found!

Sniped....NO

Arctic blast is an instant, use on CD.

[soul sky]

Update: I've had time for more testing. 48Harbinger(Arctic blast), 8elementalist (lightning strike), 10harbinger (spellpower+slashing damage) is parsing much higher (without messing up the rotation you can maintain 5-5.2k on a dummy. With messups it will drop to 4.7ish for me).

Same rotation as above. Pre-cast with Electric charge. Added Arctic blast to rotation(use on cd, priority above storm slash spam). Toggling on Charged Blade for Storm's Fury, toggle Static Flux for the other big hitters.

I suspect at 61 it may be better to cut out Arctic blast and go for 40SC 8Ele and the rest into Harbinger for the passive bonuses. Another option may be 40sc 15ele (picking up resist ignore and 5% more crit dmg) and rest into Harb.

[Akashar]

Yep. So far the highest ST build I could find for SC was 48 SC / 8 Ele / 10 HB too.

[Lokken]

Those numbers are really nice but don`t you guys think this spec will be severely limited in raids ?

This is basically a stationary melee spec. You are using a 3 sec channels to refresh stacks (and do dmg too since RS and Electrocute do nice dmg now) and need a boss to stand still for Hailstorm. LS with a armor proc will be a 0.5 cast too. The rest of the rotation is instant cast.

Of course there are many encounters where you can stand in melee and nuke but I think this spec might be less effective than other calling melee specs which are more mobile. If we have to follow the moving boss or move out of AOE, Cleave our dps will suffer (for example when we have to move and elec stacks are dropping). We don`t have any gap closers too so we can`t get into the melee range fast.

This is of course just my assumption. I haven`t tried that spec in raid on Beta nor have I actually played a melee spec in raiding on Live so I might be totally wrong

[Guari]

Those numbers are really nice but don`t you guys think this spec will be severely limited in raids ?

This is basically a stationary melee spec. You are using a 3 sec channels to refresh stacks (and do dmg too since RS and Electrocute do nice dmg now) and need a boss to stand still for Hailstorm. LS with a armor proc will be a 0.5 cast too. The rest of the rotation is instant cast.

Of course there are many encounters where you can stand in melee and nuke but I think this spec might be less effective than other calling melee specs which are more mobile. If we have to follow the moving boss or move out of AOE, Cleave our dps will suffer (for example when we have to move and elec stacks are dropping). We don`t have any gap closers too so we can`t get into the melee range fast.

This is of course just my assumption. I haven`t tried that spec in raid on Beta nor have I actually played a melee spec in raiding on Live so I might be totally wrong

As trion stated most fights are supposed to be melee friendly, in fact they claimed in one of the reveals (harbinger?) that they had tested every raid fight with all melee comps and that it was do-able. So it shouldn't be an issue.

Also, You can use thunderbolt to refresh your stacks instant (or if they drop completely use Electric charge) raging storm does do good dmg but its not the end of the world if you are moving and need to do something else.

This spec so far feels very awesome, finding it harder then defilemancer was!

Now my thoughts on the dmg is, that pyro, lock, ele, and maybe even necro are going to out-scale them due to the fact that they get big bonuses with 61 points (the final 3 abilities all look pretty strong in the root trees), and this build doesn't really get a whole lot from 10 more points to allocate. This is all single target i'm talking about.

[Lanfeara]

Don't go for 15 ele. The +5% crit dmg doesn't worth it.
With the ele gift you g et +2.5% of overall dmg + 5% dcc. Even hardcapped it's a dps loss over a pure boost into harb (+5% dmg overall).

See some maths :
Let's say you hit 1k. You have 5points remaining to spend into a soul.
Spend them into +5% dcc in ele.
You get +2.5% dmg
You'll hit for 1025.
If you crit you'll hit for 1025x2 +5% = 2152.5

Now let's spend them into harb : +5% overall dmg.
You'll hit 1050.
Crit = 2100

But for now we have 20% crit rate (25% with ele)...
So 1050*75% + 2100*25% = 1312 avg dps
And 1025*75% + 2152*25% = 1307 avg dps

With a higher crit rate it would worth it. But in theses maths I didnt take into acount the fact that the 5 pointd in harb boost your salshing attack by 5% (I didnt because I don't know the exact % of dps slashing attack represent in your parse).

Also, don't say all these maths are bullshit because of additive/multiplicative stuff. I don't find the post anymore but there's 4 groups of additive buff (that are additive within the group only). Those groups are multiplicative with each other so soul tree buff and gift do are multiplicative with each other.

[soul sky]

Don't go for 15 ele. The +5% crit dmg doesn't worth it.
With the ele gift you g et +2.5% of overall dmg + 5% dcc. Even hardcapped it's a dps loss over a pure boost into harb (+5% dmg overall).

See some maths :
Let's say you hit 1k. You have 5points remaining to spend into a soul.
Spend them into +5% dcc in ele.
You get +2.5% dmg
You'll hit for 1025.
If you crit you'll hit for 1025x2 +5% = 2152.5

Now let's spend them into harb : +5% overall dmg.
You'll hit 1050.
Crit = 2100

But for now we have 20% crit rate (25% with ele)...
So 1050*75% + 2100*25% = 1312 avg dps
And 1025*75% + 2152*25% = 1307 avg dps

With a higher crit rate it would worth it. But in theses maths I didnt take into acount the fact that the 5 pointd in harb boost your salshing attack by 5% (I didnt because I don't know the exact % of dps slashing attack represent in your parse).

Also, don't say all these maths are bullshit because of additive/multiplicative stuff. I don't find the post anymore but there's 4 groups of additive buff (that are additive within the group only). Those groups are multiplicative with each other so soul tree buff and gift do are multiplicative with each other.

Yes we know that crit damage becomes better with more crit chance But you've also got to take into account the 4% resist ignore from Elementalist too.

[Armine]

Yes we know that crit damage becomes better with more crit chance But you've also got to take into account the 4% resist ignore from Elementalist too.

Do we know how that will function in PvE? Will bosses have an innate 20% resistance to spells?