Storm spell is dead, what do arcanists use now?

gradii

I need an alternative to the dead skill which was killed last patch.

bifflinculte

It's still bis...

tom

id suggest using stormspell

gradii

Dude, in that case Arcanist is dead. Mimics I was killing with the exact same setup pre patch are no longer killable with said setup.

If they really nerfed mimic HP this means I took a greater than 50% nerf to my single target damage.

mynaam

SS is still the one i use and it seems to still do most dps on act. They only fixed an exploit where it was being abused. As for lomm/ic i do not see much difference since the change in DPS

gradii

Then what else did they nerf that I use and you don't? somethings changed.

bifflinculte

Just go thauma...

agoraotro

> @mynaam said:
> SS is still the one i use and it seems to still do most dps on act. They only fixed an exploit where it was being abused. As for lomm/ic i do not see much difference since the change in DPS

Fixed and broke it at the same time. Now SS doesn’t crit at all... Unless that’s WAI now

gradii

bifflinculte said:

Just go thauma...

I did lol. but I dont know anything about ST dps on thaum, I only know it has godlike aoe compared to arcanist, and is lacking CC

vorphied

gradii said:

bifflinculte said:

Just go thauma...

I did lol. but I dont know anything about ST dps on thaum, I only know it has godlike aoe compared to arcanist, and is lacking CC

Arcanist is not dead. Been doing ToMM just fine since the nerf. It's a very small difference in overall damage, maybe 3% or so. Annoying, but not game-breaking. Still at the top of the charts when there's no competent Arbiter.

Again, both Wizard specs suck at AoE. You're not going to get good results, period. The only way you see numbers go up in a dungeon is if no one else is killing the mobs so that you have time to use all of your encounters and wait for them to add up to some damage.

As for your LoMM mimics, something is wrong with your rotation and/or your stats. The mimics were very doable at the correct stat caps even before their health got slashed.

gradii

I used the exact same gear, stats, rotation everything pre patch on mimics and killed them. Post patch? no way I can.

tom

gradii said:

I used the exact same gear, stats, rotation everything pre patch on mimics and killed them. Post patch? no way I can.

would you mind posting a picture of you characters gear, stats and powers? I bet we can find whats going wrong.

gradii

tom#6998 said:

gradii said:

I used the exact same gear, stats, rotation everything pre patch on mimics and killed them. Post patch? no way I can.

would you mind posting a picture of you characters gear, stats and powers? I bet we can find whats going wrong.

How would that explain my being able to kill them with the exact same stuff before patch and not after?

vorphied

gradii said:

tom#6998 said:

gradii said:

I used the exact same gear, stats, rotation everything pre patch on mimics and killed them. Post patch? no way I can.

would you mind posting a picture of you characters gear, stats and powers? I bet we can find whats going wrong.

How would that explain my being able to kill them with the exact same stuff before patch and not after?

Because we're telling you our Wizards are fine. We can only guess what might be wrong with yours without knowing what your stats, equipment, and power selections are.

gradii

Thats all well and good but assuming you are telling the truth something was heavily nerfed in wizard that I use and you dont.

vorphied

gradii said:

Thats all well and good but assuming you are telling the truth something was heavily nerfed in wizard that I use and you dont.

*sideeye* Yes, we are all lying to you for the fun of it.

Maybe tell us what you are using so that we can try to help.

- Which encounters, at-wills, dailies, and class features?
- Are you meeting LoMM stat caps?

Eliminating the obvious would be a start. Sometimes the answer is as simple as "companion was mysteriously unsummoned" or "important piece of equipment or companion power was removed from loadout." It may or may not be a core issue with how you're playing or what you're wearing, but as of right now we have no clue.

gradii

I was not at the reccomended power for LoMM pre patch or after yet I killed mimics before patch and not after.

I was using icy terrain, disintegrate, enfeeblement ray, entangling force, arcane empowerment, magic missile, storm pillar.

rjc9000

gradii said:

I was using icy terrain

Use Repel.
Higher level dungeons start making boss fights strictly single target. Sure, there are mobs like the LoMM mimics or imps in IC, but they only show up in small numbers, making those sections "single target with a time limit."

gradii said:

I was not at the reccomended power for LoMM pre patch or after yet I killed mimics before patch and not after.

Item level is a farce, focus more on your stat caps than whatever itemlevel is recommended.

A player could be 28,000 itemlevel, but dump everything they have into Deflect and Awareness, neither of which are very good stats in general (on the PvE side).
The same could go for most random queue players, whom artificially inflate their item level in hopes of a carry, but are nowhere near ready in terms of weapon damage and stats.

If you had the 68,000 ArmorPen/Crit/Accuracy/Crit, weapon damage around the Burnished level, and at least 120,000+ Power, you should be good enough to handle the mimics.

And before you say "but you probably have more stats than that" , those were the stats that some of my CW guildies did it in Mod 16, when the mimics did not have halved HP, when they were running Ebonzied Orb/Exalted Primal weapon damage, and none of the fancy gear pieces/comp gear from Zok.

Sure, Storm Spell was "bugged" then, but no Storm Spell crits is only a ~5% DPS loss as per @thefabricant . 5% won't make or break runs unless you weren't ready to begin with.

If you still struggle, then try to anticipate when the boss summons mimics and save your encounter powers accordingly to unload when moving to your mimic. Alternatively, you can attempt to abuse the 80' range of CA and hope that someone can shift into position to give you CA on the mimics.

kalina311

@rjc9000 @gradii
I notice icy terrain is no longer procing spell storm with any frequancy .. that may the issue before vs after
or i am just imaging it ...

vorphied

> @gradii said:
> I was not at the reccomended power for LoMM pre patch or after yet I killed mimics before patch and not after.
>
> I was using icy terrain, disintegrate, enfeeblement ray, entangling force, arcane empowerment, magic missile, storm pillar.

rjc9000 summed it up. Power is not everything, and you do need to be sure that you’re hitting the right stat caps.

Icy Terrain is theoretically high magnitude per cast, but obviously neither the mimics nor Arcturia are inclined to stand in it for its full duration.

Also consider using Ray of Frost with the feat that applies damage along with Chill stacks rather than Magic Missile.

kalina311

vorphied said:

> @gradii said:

> I was not at the reccomended power for LoMM pre patch or after yet I killed mimics before patch and not after.

>

> I was using icy terrain, disintegrate, enfeeblement ray, entangling force, arcane empowerment, magic missile, storm pillar.



rjc9000 summed it up. Power is not everything, and you do need to be sure that you’re hitting the right stat caps.



Icy Terrain is theoretically high magnitude per cast, but obviously neither the mimics nor Arcturia are inclined to stand in it for its full duration.



Also consider using Ray of Frost with the feat that applies damage along with Chill stacks rather than Magic Missile.

I disagree single target cw is using all acrane based powers therefore he /she should keep up thier stacks of arcane mastery via magic missile as that is way more sources of damage when encounters come off cool down and syngizes with arcane empowerment daily / and a step above mastery (10 arcane stacks instead of 5 )

who cares that their frost at will is doing a bit more frost damage /utility group damage
single target arcane cw is not a frost based build for killing bosses / end game content ...
personally i use both but for different reasons situation ally also depending if another cw is also running freezing stuff faster ..thereby taking advantage of the double damage chill bonus (target frozen thanks to the other cw player) and having his stacks of mastery fully up to use 4 arcane spells at full damage potential

i do find that ray of frost seems to proc spell storm more then magic missile tho (i think it ticks for -56 times then recycles its' animation )

gradii

When I said power level i meant power. my item level was 21k and I know item level is not as important as stats, my power was 92k and my crit was well over cap cuz RNG did not bless me with all the correct gear. most of my other stats were cap or near cap.

and I repeat I can now not kill mimics I killed before patch- using the same build and gear and powers.

vorphied

kalina311 said:

vorphied said:

> @gradii said:

> I was not at the reccomended power for LoMM pre patch or after yet I killed mimics before patch and not after.

>

> I was using icy terrain, disintegrate, enfeeblement ray, entangling force, arcane empowerment, magic missile, storm pillar.



rjc9000 summed it up. Power is not everything, and you do need to be sure that you’re hitting the right stat caps.



Icy Terrain is theoretically high magnitude per cast, but obviously neither the mimics nor Arcturia are inclined to stand in it for its full duration.



Also consider using Ray of Frost with the feat that applies damage along with Chill stacks rather than Magic Missile.

I disagree single target cw is using all acrane based powers therefore he /she should keep up thier stacks of arcane mastery via magic missile as that is way more sources of damage when encounters come off cool down and syngizes with arcane empowerment daily / and a step above mastery (10 arcane stacks instead of 5 )

who cares that their frost at will is doing a bit more frost damage /utility group damage
single target arcane cw is not a frost based build for killing bosses / end game content ...
personally i use both but for different reasons situation ally also depending if another cw is also running freezing stuff faster ..thereby taking advantage of the double damage chill bonus (target frozen thanks to the other cw player) and having his stacks of mastery fully up to use 4 arcane spells at full damage potential

i do find that ray of frost seems to proc spell storm more then magic missile tho (i think it ticks for -56 times then recycles its' animation )

I assume you're not using Chilling Presence, because Ray of Frost is your only reliable way to achieve and maintain that damage bonus. You're also neglecting the damage the Snap Freeze feat offers, and it adds up.

You can also maintain Arcane stacks indefinitely as long as you have a target, even without using Magic Missile. Step Above Mastery gives you 10 seconds vs. 8 seconds on your stacks, and they are all refreshed whenever one is applied, so this is not difficult to do with encounters alone on single-target (never mind that Arcane Empowerment also cuts your ramp up time to almost nothing).

vorphied

gradii said:

and I repeat I can now not kill mimics I killed before patch- using the same build and gear and powers.

We heard you, and there is no explanation other than some very obscure bug or else user error. I think many characters with 90kish Power might struggle with LoMM DPS checks even with capped Acc/ArP/Crit, especially before the nerf.

It can also be that another player was assisting you on one or more previous occasions, but you didn't notice.

Frankly, any number of explanations are more likely than the game suddenly working differently for you than it does for everyone else. I'm truly not saying that to be insulting - rather, I don't want you to waste your time searching for a problem that most likely does not exist. Instead I'd focus on fine-tuning your build and rotation and continuing to improve your character, because the issue is almost certainly in that direction.

gradii

I was alone in my corner so its unlikely I had help with my mimics, but it could definitely be a bug, this game is one of the top 4 buggiest games I've ever played, although its not in the top 2.

durugudesu

gradii said:

I was alone in my corner so its unlikely I had help with my mimics, but it could definitely be a bug, this game is one of the top 4 buggiest games I've ever played, although its not in the top 2.

I have a question, how many mimics do you think needs to be killed for the mimic phase to end? Do you see the mimics dying on the floor or just vanishing immediately? and how many do you usually kill?

gradii

durugudesu said:

gradii said:

I was alone in my corner so its unlikely I had help with my mimics, but it could definitely be a bug, this game is one of the top 4 buggiest games I've ever played, although its not in the top 2.

I have a question, how many mimics do you think needs to be killed for the mimic phase to end? Do you see the mimics dying on the floor or just vanishing immediately? and how many do you usually kill?

theres 2-3 mimics each phase and I keep close watch on my own corner, I assume each corner spawns the same number.

I dont remember for sure if it was 2 or 3 but I know if a mimic got through I would see it happen. mimics which reach the boss in the middle turn into butterfly golems.

vorphied

> @gradii said:
> (Quote)
> theres 2-3 mimics each phase and I keep close watch on my own corner, I assume each corner spawns the same number.
>
> I dont remember for sure if it was 2 or 3 but I know if a mimic got through I would see it happen. mimics which reach the boss in the middle turn into butterfly golems.

Mimics stop spawning after X number are slain in total, so you will see fewer mimics in your corner if the other corners are cycling through mimics quickly. If one corner is killing quickly and the others are struggling, the high DPS corner will have a higher case load. If I help with a LoMM, I’ll do my corner and also assist the neighboring corner between spawns since killing more mimics will cause the phase to end.

This may or may not be relevant, but just an FYI.

theraxin

I'm sorry to tell you, but after proper testing, Storm spell is still BiS and Arcanist just rolls over thaums in endgame.

In your specific circumstance it might have got way worse, but that only means that your crit severity has a bigger impact on your character than your power. This might change as stacking up power has a higher ceiling than stacking crit severity, which can be capped up way faster.

gradii

theraxin#5169 said:

I'm sorry to tell you, but after proper testing, Storm spell is still BiS and Arcanist just rolls over thaums in endgame.

In your specific circumstance it might have got way worse, but that only means that your crit severity has a bigger impact on your character than your power. This might change as stacking up power has a higher ceiling than stacking crit severity, which can be capped up way faster.

So are you saying that my specific stats caused the storm spell to be a way way bigger nerf for me due to those stats than it is for most people?

theraxin

gradii said:

theraxin#5169 said:

I'm sorry to tell you, but after proper testing, Storm spell is still BiS and Arcanist just rolls over thaums in endgame.

In your specific circumstance it might have got way worse, but that only means that your crit severity has a bigger impact on your character than your power. This might change as stacking up power has a higher ceiling than stacking crit severity, which can be capped up way faster.

So are you saying that my specific stats caused the storm spell to be a way way bigger nerf for me due to those stats than it is for most people?

The "most people" is negotiable, because almost every player starts with very low power and relatively high crit severity. The non-power stats are also easier to cap and as you progress, additional sources of damage pile onto your damage, making a single effect less significant. Like how Rank 14 Bilethorn weapon enchantment makes ~15% of damage dealt and how the journal set let you use your daily more often by the envenomed, while also dealing their little damage.

The point is, as you progress, you will get more items, more procs and your dailies will load faster, also the power will be more equal in helping your damage. Thus making the Storm Spell passive take less % of your damage.