Pure Lightning storm discussion

Druid
1

I decided to give Lightning storm a go this round from 1 to 100. I played on HC this round so i wasn’t really pushing hard.

At first it felt seriously nerfed, and it was. Even with starting with all the tempers and being able to stack damage to distance, it felt knee-capped. The huge dmg loss from both shep/stam, as well as the immense multiplicative damage loss from thunderstruck really showed in the earlier levels, even with the increase in the base damage.

It was hugely easy to take care of the high spirit cost with all the new aspects and affixes added recently.

The attack speed change with channeling went how one would expect. tap tap tap, etc

Getting an unsung is absolutely mandatory. It is hugely dmg dense, and it is clear that is where they put a lot of the lost damage, but it still felt nerfed.

The reworked runeworkers aspect feels kinda meh to me, im not sure ill use it on the long run. I really think the new changeling’s debt could be good as i usually run a stun build, but i havent gotten that far yet.

In spite of all that. It is soooo much fun to play in infernals.

It seriously shines. I highly recommend giving it a whirl.

I havent figured how or if im going to incorporate the new crit damage over the damage to distance temper. if anyone has any good numbers, id really like to see. i went with distance for leveling due to obvious reasons.

I didn’t get a cataclysm ring, but i wasn’t really looking for one. I don’t really want to push that route due to changing my gear around completely. How did that work out for anyone playing it?

All in all, i really think it was a big step forward this season, but mainly due to the extra survivability, and the new event being absolutely perfect for this type of build.

One change I would really like to see is for the Tempest roar to be removed or an additional aspect added to replace the storm/ww, or to have it enter the game much earlier. I was definitely spoon fed loads of bear gear. piles, and piles of bear gear.

Another change I would like to see is to have Lightning storm change to be able to take advantage of overpower. It feels like a huge hole/mechanic that is missing.

And completely reword quickshift. 100% rework.

Having 1h swords is weird, especially without 2h swords. I really feel like all my weapon choices were butchered, not improved with maces, axes, staves, etc out the window. Pole arm at least has vul, but it is… still kinda dumb, at least give us 2h swords and the grandfather.

Temper lightning storm duration = put down the pipe.

2

i tried some lightning storm - cataclysm build myself with mjolnir and lucion, but… at 90 lvl i deal 40k CRITS with it during cataclysm… in season 4 that was more like 600k at that level and completely unconditional. At this point I’d rather use stampede combo from last season, at least it was doing some damage… Yes, I’m using 925 ilvl weapons.

Not to mention that lucion makes any core skill build unplayble without cata always up, which is almost impossible to do. I have reduced cata cd to 40s, its length is 19s, and i have like 2.5% chance to reduce cooldown by 2 sec from spirit boon. In theory it should literally reset itself, because cataclysm has 90% lucky hit chance, but somehow it never triggers this spirit boon.

Yes, reworked runeworker is complete garbage. Lightning Bolts still do not stack with storm damage xd. Also it’s bugged. Damage is written using BLUE color which means it should scale with amulet/2h weapon but it doesnt.

1 Like
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my crits average around 800k with a high around 2.5mil, and i havent really started running pits. I think they will go up quite a bit, but they are more spiky now as im not using perfect storm anymore. I have no skills on my neck, so it will go up.

I just checked again, those numbers were without my fortify or petrify up. I have retaliation on my 2her.

I’m hitting around 5-15mil a hit on bosses in pits with full fortify and petrify up, and im not using 30x crit dmg boon yet due to crappy gear.

These numbers are going to go way up.

4

did they change how LS works? i can’t seem to recall if it did 2 sets of strikes per one single click before? i am talking about without the unsung ascetic’s obviously.

5

I don’t think so, they might have. With Raging, you should get two right off the bat.

the 3-bolt pattern single target seems the same, as does the full bolt ae spam. You are required to have Raging Lightning Storm now to make it work though, I think, due to last season.

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please link builder with your gear. I just don’t see anything that could boost lightning storm dmg output in this patch since thunderstruck has been nerfed by order of magnitude and there is no longer shepherds.

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i use retaliation in place of shep, dark dance/neck, concussive/audacity /w stun on boots/legs, 40% unsung/tr 2wild/madwolfs/lupine ferocity, full offensive talent other than 3 in EB, 7 glyph 4L, envenom/Wild impluses neck, and im still playing with the other two aspects.

Sorry, i dont really save my build on websites, but it is fairly self explanatory. Ill try to make one in the future when the season gets a bit boring.

Great season so far, new content is super fun.

8

Any updates on Lightning Storm?

Do we still have to give ourselves RSI constantly tapping right click, or can we just hold down to channel?
Not sure if they changed this or if it matters now.

Overall, everything I read about LS seems kind of bad :confused:

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Slidestorm on the other hand is insanely powerful. I was able to facetank annihilate totmented Duriel right when I hit 100.

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Some guy in my D4 FB group did T6 internals at lvl 85 with the landslide storm build… I think he used the Maxroll one…

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I have gone a pure lightning build with cataclysm, lightning bolt & lightning storm, hurricane etc. thought I would go wearwolf uniques so my skills are like level 15+. Mjolnic ring etc.

In my head I thought this would be so good, but it sucks, and I can’t figure out why… Is some damage calculation bugged?

Someone mentioned with lightning storm you can’t hold it down and have to keep clicking it… Why is that?

12

Im still playing pure WW/lightning storm, and im really really trying to make it work in the high end, but it just doesnt really cut it yet.

I think the biggest issue is the lack of overpower. It is an entire damage bucket that is missing on the ww/storm-type builds.

It’s still fun, and it is really quite good if you can slaughter your enemies, but the reality is it just doesnt have what it takes to fill any comparison that uses overpower.

I can see at the super super high end game to be able to do T8, but it will take a lot to do it.

I just recently moved to softcore and my character is around 50 hours old and im just at the point where i could probably do a 7, but it would be hugely hard and not worth the effort. the end boss is the real issue.

The whole attack speed makes it sort of weird. The 3-bolt single spam is still the best single target damage, but since you end up having a good amount of attack speed, it’s real easy to miss the 3-bolt pattern as it passes so fast, and if you miss, it is still worth it to wait for the timer to reset and try again. It is worth it to prep it beforehand. (an addition, ive been doing he 3bolt out of habit, but there has been a change here that will need some testing, i actually think just a normal 1 bolt, would is comparable, if you hit 1 bolt, you get 2 bolts after it for some reason, it “feels” like similar damage, but will need to be played with)

Another big issue ive found in comparison to any bear-type build is that the bear helm actually has defense where the TR still had absolutely trash stats. You still need to waste an entire slot for armour, and it is pretty much pointless to use a tyreals/shako even though it really helps with the defense in higher teirs.

I thought about trying to use a tassets of the dawning sky to help with the resist increases, but the item has no armour on it what so ever, so you you end up sacrificing wildheart boots, which also have no defensive stats.

I can kill tormented, but nothing like a sorc.

I have so much movement speed, i would actually remove it from gear if i could, but they force it on you with this build.

The new cata ring is mandatory for the 100x buff, it adds so much that it feels absolutely required, but it is very hard to gear for cooldown reduction and pure damage. A real benefit of cataclysm is applying immobilize/cc to everything.

Cataclysm is awesome for leveling, but it isn’t great higher up as it doesn’t scale well at all. It might work at the 0.0000001% player level, but i dont have it in me to try.

Lightning storm still has the same issue of locking your character if some other abilities forces your character to move, like the lilith suck in during pits, but that is nothing new. I think all channeling skills have this issue though.

Two basic changes i would like to see is:

  1. Tempest roar has the max spirit removed and replaced with armour.
  2. Thunderstruck cap being raised, or something else to help compensate for the lack of overpower.

and 3.
give us some aspects that dont suck. They all suck atm.
Lightning dancer is kinda mandatory, but it really is just… good for the lowest of the low trash.

and 4.
Change lightning storm duration temper and actually have it do something for lightning storm that increases our damage.

and 5.
The only real viable option for quickshift is to just twist in maul. It’s worth it to do this, but it adds nothing other than quickshift and wildheart, and the defense talents. It’s a really stupid mechanic, but it is mandatory imho.

Current status is pit 101 on farm, 2min clears. Nm100 is a joke. Tormented are easily soloable, but it would take awhile to carry a 4person. T6 is fine, but T7 damage isnt there yet.

Just a small add, i havent tried lilith since s0, but the build deleted her. So that’s good, high Infernals seem to be the only real issue and maybe high pit pushing.