It has all these nice buffs to nature damage, but still requires us to cast LVB, like a lot, in order to proc ice fury, and power of the maelstrom (which needs a buff btw… 25% chance to overload an LB for 25% overload dmg, it’s pretty pathetic…)
The lightning rod window is only 8 sec, between flame shock, LVB, icefury + FS, ele blast, how many GCDs do we actually have, to cast LB???
In short, the hero talents are NOT supported by enough specialization talents.
The lightning build should probably revolve around storm elemental, CDR, and casting more LB/CLs to utilize lightning rod.
Storm elemental is way under tuned for over 2 years already… It should give 30% LB/CL cast time reduction for 10 casts, or something similar.
For stormbringer to work, Ele has to shift away from LVB…
Potential fixes:
1: Volcanic surge PVP talent… Lava surge now buffs LB/CL, we still cast LVB occasionally, but the # of LVB is limited because it doesn’t get refreshed by lava surge.
2: Icefury being a choice node, proc from LVB, OR LB/CL
3: Replace lava burst with tempest…(just like wither replacing corruption/immolation)… This actually will solve a LOT of the problems, and make the hero spec viable.
4 Likes
Lightning rod duration, application, and refreshing was always an issue with the talent since it was always right on the cusp of propriety, but never there. In many ways, I wish that Lightning Rod was for Lightning as Flameshock is for Magma. With the primary way being that they both last for 15 seconds and could be refreshed by a proc from a major cooldown. Trying to maintain LRs during a fight really does eat away at GCDs and from the attention of the shaman, especially while juggling a bunch of other concerns in a priority driven rotation.
So just to work off the same page:
Lightning Rod (LR)
Earth Shock, Elemental Blast, and Earthquake make your target a Lightning Rod for 8 sec. Lightning Rods take 20% of all damage you deal with Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning.
Of course it would require a lot of logical rules to follow, but the general set of changes would be something like
- Duration extended: from 8 seconds to 15 seconds
Spread preferences:
- if the primary target of ES, EB, or EQ does not have LR, apply it.
- If the target has LR which is above 8 seconds in duration, apply LR to a nearby enemy target (within 8yds),
- otherwise refresh the current target’s back to 15 seconds, preferring to refresh LR on targets with LR below 8 seconds.
Generally, this means that we’d see most LRs applied to the primary target and about 2-3 nearby targets. Shaman can maximize the spread of LR by manually optimizing applications.
- Maximized duration can occur just about once every 2 minutes. When Stormkeeper is cast, LRs on enemies within 30yds will be refreshed to 8/15 seconds duration.
- QoL to ensure that damage is maximized, particularly for AoE encounters where the spread and maintenance of LRs were achieved via Earthquakes.
3 Likes