Thoughts on CoE variation

General Discussion
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Another discussion on here reminded me that not all classes get the same benefit from this ring due to the varying number of elements to which it can be applied.

What if instead of just mindlessly rotating through the elements 4s at a time, it instead worked on a separate 4-on/12-off timeout basis (don’t call it cooldown unless CDR is meant to be applied) per element?

Basically taking 25% uptime as the basis since that is the most common amongst the classes, the ring provides a benefit for an element for 4 seconds and then cannot buff that element for another 12 seconds. There is no fixed order for the elements, it depends on the skills you use. If you only use one element then it is just a 4s-on/12s-off system. With 2 elements it becomes 4s-A/4s-B/8s-off. If you can manage to use a specific skill for all 4 slots then it would basically be the same as it is now with a custom cycle order, but I don’t think there are any builds out there that use all 4 elements, are there?

It gives a little more control even for the 4-element classes in so far as you can set the start of the rhythm at the start of a battle. Between fights the ring would go silent and its timeouts would go away and then it would just wait to immediately buff your first attack when you start fighting again. At that point it would start its cycle rotating through elements again with a rotating time basis.

I don’t play a lot in groups but I can imagine that synchronizing CoE effects might be a problem with an RNG controlling when the cycles start. With this system, the players would be in control of their element buff offsets and synchronization.

Necromancers will be annoyed to have 25% less uptime - monks might find more use out of it if they have 25% more uptime.

Stacking/exclusion - the new version of the effect could either be restricted to 1-at-a-time or overlapping. If you trigger one element buff then you might have to wait 4s to trigger another if they are exclusionary. Or if it allows them to be simultaneous then you could trigger 2 elements buffed at the same time but after the 4 seconds they’d both lose the buff for 12 seconds.

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https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/meteor-wizard-tal-rasha-build

The Tal Rasha 6-piece bonus is…

Attacks increase your damage by 2000% for 8 seconds. Arcane, Cold, Fire, and Lightning attacks each add one stack. At 4 stacks, each different elemental attack extends the duration by 2 seconds, up to a maximum of 8 seconds.

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I thought of Tal Rasha, and I don’t have much experience with it. But that build doesn’t seem to use all 4 elements as direct damage dealers. Maybe 2-3 of them will do serious damage, but the rest seem to just be there to qualify to keep the Tal Rasha stacks and bonus up…?

In either case, the new semantics would work just as well for this build as the current semantics. That was my main point. This build would get the same damage increase and benefit further by the player having some intentional control over the timing of the CoE rotation.