Small quality of life, but I kind of wish excess Maelstrom, energy generated that goes above the cap, should just be converted into discount ST damage using the old Earthen Rage ability. I’m not talking about a perfect or fantastic conversion of maelstrom to damage (which should be what Earth Shock and Earthquake represent) Even if it’s just conversion of 13% conversion of damage overtime (~260 dmg per maelstrom), I’d suspect it’d barely amount to 2% of overall damage
A) Alleviates over-capping during various abilities such as Stormkeeper and Icefury that can’t be full accounted for nor can they be avoided to maintain proper form
B) In PvP in particular, pooling and overcapping is a strategic decision. And even if you’re not pool full, you’re certainly pooling at half.
C) Provides the player in-game feedback as to the times, amount, and severity of their gameplay
D) Provides developers meta-game feedback as to the times, amount, and severity of the maelstrom energy economic issues
Yes, it’s true purpose isn’t as a buff to damage directly, but a data rider to tell developers how much Maelstrom feels terrible. Hahaha. Cause you can tell a developer to check the energy levels of characters all day long to support a long and detailed log crawl all you want, but that Rogue-ian/Druidic focused mind has already tuned all that out if it isn’t related directly into damage ratios or better yet raw damage. Their concept of energy left on the table in the form of builders or spenders that you might not want to immediately spend all of all the time is foreign when their paradigm is flipped on its head.
Look, I’m not saying you have to have a socio-economic deep dive analysis of the vectors affecting the micro economic exchange of maelstrom to damage to understand elemental. But for an aspect that is treated like a core gameplay mechanic, when you look at the overall impact of the ability in the mix of damage. It often just feels like the two Maelstrom spenders perform little better than controlled trinkets.
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