22.5636% over 12s, doing half to secondary targets.
So, just how bad is this?
Arcane Barrage, instant cast, 0 cost, does 106.62%
Arcane Explosion does 69.012% (with the talent +20%)
Oh but it scales, well so does barrage, but in theory, tempest is soft cap 20 so.
So let’s make numbers. How many targets does it need to do “good damage”?
Considering each new target is 11.2818%, you’d need 20 targets for this to deal 225%+22=247% over 12 seconds
But Whaddoyouknow! Explosion is also, soft capped 20. Meaning, explo with 20 targets would deal… 1380% INSTANTLY
“Oh but Tempest scales with carges, so with 4 charges it increases damage by 268%!”
Except the part where having 4 charges in hand means you’re not using Barrage, and with 4 charges, that with Savant, resonance, arcing cleave and dare i say, bombardment, let’s just say, 347%*4=1388% doesn’t compare for 12 seconds
Testing in dungeons, always using tempest, active full, and the % it has… is around or less than 1%, and that considering the DPS loss of even CLICKING said ability.
Going even farther, let’s run a quick sim with a HORRIBLE build, without any barrage buff whatsoever, and tempest, 10 targets target dummy, to see if Temptest does significant damage in an environment where barrage is heavily nuttered.
Running on my lv63 mage (so not even tier set, no potions or anything besides own mage abilities)
With uptime of 98% Tempest…
Arcane Explosion: 72.7%
Tempest: 15.3%
Barrage: 9.4%
(the missing damage is made out of garbage like two awful trinkets that combined make like 1.4%.
So, in essence, optimal as possible, with barrage as weak as it gets, and still does 61.4% the damage of Tempest, hitting a single target (not even taking the cleave talent, vs 10 target tempest full-time)
Now, running same conditions but with normal AoE talents, with barrage points, also tempest (mandatory, duh), let’s see the damage breakdown:
barrage: 40.8%
explosion: 19%
Arcane Orb: 6.6%
Echo: 10%
Touch magi: 7.1%
Tempest: 6.5% (uptime 84.4%)
Clearly, even with 10 targets, it’s not worth having tempest all the time, and the damage is on par to the generator, orb, for a 4min sim.
Of course this is the utmost ideal situation for Tempest with 10 targets that don’t move, won’t die and won’t go below 35% for bombardment to trigger, aka, utter garbage statistics, and still, tempest sucks.
Why is it mandatory to take then? You just cannot avoid Touch of the Magi, but it’s the only option that leads to it.
Not to say, in ST, uptime is 39.6% and does 2.5% damage… so again, why is it mandatory?