Gaudion wrote:
RPZip wrote:
It's a horrible tool except possibly for 5-mans. How often do you see Priests use Psychic Scream in raids? You don't want to lose control of the adds and give them enough time to build aggro on a healer instead of a tank for pretty much the same reasons.
Illhoof? The stairs on Kara? Actually, speaking of the stairs on Kara Thunder could serve a double-purpose there. One, to do damage to the AoE pulls, and two, you could save it until the pull is about halfway over to knock them away from the AoE-ing Mages and 'Locks. I don't really see the AoE nature of the spell or the knockback being a problem if the tanks build AoE threat. How long is it going to take the mobs to run the 20 yards back to a tank, really? Beyond that, it's just going to take half a brain to decide when and where you want to use it, and when it would be better not to.
The point I was making is that in nearly any situation I can think of, you'd be better off
without that 'cool knockback' in a PvE context. The damage you add isn't even going to come close to outweighing the damage the other AoEers would add, and the lost DPS time is a bad idea.
While it may not cause aggro issues if you use it late in the pull, in what way would that be
better? If the tanks have aggro you're wasting time, if the AoE has aggro you're preventing them from just finishing off the mobs.
The spell isn't pure win, but I think it's going to be a lot better in PvE than you're giving it credit for and to call it "useless" or "horrible"... I simply can't agree.
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As for Flame Shock, it's not as good as you might think. My NapkinMath (TM) says that Lightning Bolt will do more damage at about 45% crit rate even with 5/5 Storm blah blah blah, which isn't actually that excessive with the stacking group buffs although it's definitely high. It's also about half the mana cost and has a much higher range, so you can position considerably further away from the boss. Of course, if the coefficients change (or the flat damage range does) from what they are at 70 this may change.
EDIT: With that said, depending upon how good Lava Burst is you may just have to adapt.
You don't need to whip out your trump card and quote DPS math to me just yet, RP. I'm still not even sold on the fact that any kind of spell rotation is going to replace pure LB spam. But assuming Lava Burst is there to induce a spell rotation, you have to assume Flame Shock is going to be part of that (otherwise Lava Burst isn't even worth using), and so if you're going to be Flame Shocking, there's no justifiable reason not to have the 100% DoT increase.
Also, even with your justifications 45% crit is still a very high, end-game raid content figure. I realize a lot of us have been there for a long time and will continue to for a while longer, but let's not forget that it's not the
entire game.
Yeah, the point at which cast-for-cast LB beats it was higher than I initially thought it was going to be; I think I forgot to factor in the effects of CoE at first, which definitely upped the ante.
What I meant was that even if the threshold at which LB beats it is high, the fact that it a) does beat it and b) It's a lot of talent investment for a small gain. If Lava Burst is worth using every ~10s then it'll be worth picking up, but if you want to spam it then it won't be. *shrug*
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Gaudion's right, it's not "horrible" in the least. It isn't the best AoE I've seen, it isn't the best mana-management tool I've seen. But it fulfills both functions decently, and is a great tool for PvP. In fact, it's a well-balanced ability.
I pretty clearly specified PvE, and I stand by what I said too. It's horrible. Soul-suckingly, godawfully bad.
The PvP implications are obvious and a completely seperate matter, though.