You think I’m foolish? I know all about your Orb of the sin’dorei trickery
Lightning spells are off the table, ggwp
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Jesus christ, that’s fine with me, make this a new shaman spec then, but what do you think of the mechanics???
I think you caught a lot more flak than you deserved. I’m taking my time to read it and give a good feedback post. Probably going to be awhile though.
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Can I have a tanking spec instead? I already have a shield
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Thank you so much!! I’ll make sure to read through your feedback and incorporate it!
Is the rotation Build x3, Spend x1?, surge consumes charges? as in (Build x3, Surge, Thunderstrike), Lightning dash?? Thunderbreak whenever possible?. If that’s the case, Charged up proc doesnt seem fun, as it will only replace one builder with another. If were talking about a volatile storm mage, perhaps a firestorm-like proc would add more fun to the playstyle
The idea is ion bolt—> lightning dash —> ion bolt—> surge —>thunderstrike (guaranteed crit), then instant cast static field and start over.
When max voltage, cast rop and thunderbreak instead of thunderstrike.
It’s actually kind of a complex rotation and changes depending on if you have shimmer, because when you surge 3 times, you also get a free lightning dash withh cd refresh, so you can do 2 lightning dashes, 1 ion bolt, surge and thunderstrike again
The firestorm is a good idea, ill have to think about how to incorporate that. But take note of the passives, they change your rotation significantly (ie what you’ll do to build the 3 static charges changes every surge use)
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Alright, actual feedback post. These are my thoughts as I hit individual parts of your post, so some stuff may be answered later as I get to it.
This is an interesting idea, though I have some concerns. While this would certainly separate it from damn near every other spec in the game, I think this would have some huge balancing issues. The game currently in both PVP and PVE at the highest levels of play focus heavily around trading or timing CDs well. Having a major feature that is meant to do tons of damage but set to apply roughly once every two minutes before factoring in stats seems like it will either be really bad (due to not being able to directly control when you get your big damage) or incredibly OP (what I think will happen with given values though nerfs could swing it in the opposite direction as noted). Essentially, this provides two major ways for the spec to scale increasingly well.
While specs like Beast Mastery have stats that affect their major CD (more haste means more attacks, and more crit means more barbed shot procs which means lower CD on Bestial Wrath), it’s also locked out of doing big bursts of damage and is forced more into sustained damage.
This could cause issues for PVP (getting randomly blown up is never fun, and lack of control could be an issue on the storm mage’s end), as well as M+ / specific boss fights in raid.
It’s a very interesting idea, though I would be wary of how that will play in practice.
Also interesting. Wonder if turning Blink from pure utility to also a damage source could be problematic? Could be a pro / con for the spec, not as problematic as the first part I went over!
Seems pretty standard, no complaints here.
Seems fitting for what you’re going for. Again, I’d be concerned about how that plays out from a balance perspective. I could potentially see scenarios where the storm mage does tickle damage up until this procs, in where they end up doing very absurd amounts or damage all at once.
How is this passive applied? Do spells on the target passively apply it?
Seems fine, depends again how the passive is generated and how lightning dash functions.
Need to read how the abilities function. Could be fine?
Seems good 
. Seems like roughly after every three casts of Ionic Bolt you intend for the Static Charges to be consumed? Does it have a cast time or is it instant?
Again, curious about cast time and potential CD? Seems like your AOE builder. Is it meant to be capped or uncapped?
Having this tied to a passive seems like it might encourage some conflicting gameplay the more I think about it. There are times where you need to position yourself, and using your only movement related ability for generating / dealing damage could get tricky. I’m picturing bosses like the first one in HOA where he does the beams and going through him to deal damage would result in death. Or if they were to create bosses like Krosus back in Legion, or fights with very small platforms that involve positioning?
I think this could be a potential talented option and I would remove the passive, adjust the ability to compensate? Give it an additional affect to make up for the loss of the passive. I think having this as a core part of the rotation baseline will end up leading to various problems.
Seems fine. Curious about cast time if any again.
This confuses me as to where it sits within the rotation. If the goal is to build then spend Static Charge, doesn’t this encourage you to sit at 3 stacks and spam this? If not, what is the situation you would use this?
Aoe spender. Not sure how the scaling / math works out (11 PM, not even going to try and napkin math it haha). Is there a cap to it? Both from Voltage spent or target cap?
Similar question on whether you have considered a possible cap on Voltage use?
Interesting. Seems similar to marksmens double tap talent. Double tap does 50% (edit: was thinking of PVP when I mentioned this) reduced damage for the 2nd aimed shot but fires instantly compared to the 7 second delay here.
Interesting. Not sure how I feel about it adding to your resource bar though. Could see situations where it encourages the stormmage to purposefully take damage which I’m not sure is gameplay that should be encouraged?
Thematic and useful without any problems I can see. I like it.
Overall Thoughts
Seems very interesting. I do think there are balance issues with some of the ideas presented, though for a core spec before factoring in possible talents it seems like you have the basis to a unique gameplay loop.
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Well, gotta get rid of fire and frost mages, since shamans are supposed to be the master of the elements. I hate to do it, but you’re right. Its just too much overlap. And we know how mages feel about class overlap and the subsequent removal of every blink-esque ability.
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Thank you so much! I was thinking the same thing for PvP balancing. It would seem that the spec would be really weak until you cast thunderbreak and one shot someone, which would then make it broken.
I’ll address that in a future post when I figure out the numbers, but you’re absolutely right about that.
The lightning dash is intended to be a risky gameplay move. You can either sit there and cast static field safely in aoe or instant cast lightning dash for more damage / charges.
The rotation ill also have on future post, but basically it is as follows (for st):
Ion bolt—>lightning dash—>ion bolt —>surge —>thunderstrike or thunderbreak (guaranteed crit) —> static field (instant cast due to charged up —> ion bolt—> ion bolt —> surge —> thunderstrike —> static field (instant due to charged up) —> lightning dash —> ion bolt —> surge —> thunderstrike —> static field —> lightning dash (fulminant charge, cd resets after cast) —> lightning dash —> surge —> thunderstrike—> repeat.
So, in short, kind of complex but very mobile and oriented around moving with lightning dash
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Glad to help! I’ve posted my own 4th spec thread awhile back over in the hunter section of the forums, and another user over there by the name of Ghorak has posted one. Both heavily focus around bringing back ranged survival as an updated (to fit modern gameplay) 4th spec for the class since its removal has been incredibly contentious in the hunter community ever since Legion. I genuinely enjoy posts like this as seeing new gameplay or thematic niches being explored is always fun.
Yeah, that was one of my major concerns. It just seems like for anyone besides the stormmage they would have a two minute (before factoring in stats) timer or so to kill them before experiencing this.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BouncyOpenBarbet-size_restricted.gif
Interesting. So, I think I understand it a bit more. Thunderstrike is there to get a decent chunk of damage without needing to spend if you don’t want to but isn’t meant to be spammed? Wonder how the math works out if you’re only wanting to use it on crit, but I can see how that works.
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the yugioh gif
I died aylmao.
Ill take a look at your guide too! I love seeing ppl come with new ideas.
rotation stuff
Thunderstrike is intended as a vastly weakee thunderbreak, but still stronger than ion bolt, static field or lightning dash, but only when used to discharge the 3 static charges (hence the 100% increased damage per static charge, because tthe base damage for thunderstrike is actually intended to be significantly lower than even ion bolt, but higher if used to discharge 3 static charges, which increases its damage by 300% and guarantees a crit)
Thank you so much! I hope I’ll see you in my next forum post when I have more on this! (After getting ripped by the shammies)
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Though I love the idea this is too similar to Arcane since we rely on charge build up,personal it is no different and it would be a dps then any other.
Plus,this would enrage shamans ,I think had enough arguments with them about lust already.
Sure! Feel free to take a look!
It’s several months old now, so you don’t have to post in the thread if you don’t want to (can avoid necro threading haha). It also needs to be updated.
If you want a more updated thread with a similar (but still different) take on the same idea, I highly recommend Ghorak’s thread.
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I have to strongly disagree.
The charge on arcane us capped at 4, and you arcane barrage quite often.
This build you build up the equivalent of 1000 charges before discharging them, meaning you dischagr every 2 minutes or so. As a result, you dont have a big cd like arcane power, which arcane has, since this discharge is essentially your big cd.
Lastly, you dont have mana in this spec, which is perhaps the biggest difference with arcane
These are conceptually completely different specs.
I do agree about the shamans tho, and personally this could be a shaman spec, i dont really care.
One, it wouldn’t fly because it would be too op to play which mean it’ll be nerf to the ground just as any spec a mage had. Now,if it were a tank spec with elemental ions as shields and little dps it could fly,But you would have a whole community of shamans coming down from the skies on you.
This could be a shamans dream for tanking .
Well you can’t say its op if i havent given any numbers.
Like our hunter friend here, you can say that if the spec is balanced in pve, it would be a problem for pvp because thinderbreak would one shot someone.
But whether or not this spec is op in pve in the first place isn’t even possible to know without numbers.
I didn’t out in the numbers for that exact reason, im still figuring them out. Right now i wanted an opinion on the mechanic of giant spells acting as cds
But it is an creative idea I’ll give you that.
Why thank you! I appreciate that 