Season 3 lightning stormweaver sorc feedback for devs.

Just want to give my feedback for this archetype. I’ve played basically the same build for all three seasons though this season I switched to Arc from spark. Overall the changes from 0.2 to 0.3 for this class were good. The mana cost reduction was great as the cost of skills last season made it nearly impossible to play. I also thought the infusions were a good additition (though not perfect) and thought lightning archon was a good idea in theory but needs to be adjusted to make the investment worth it. Finally while mana costs have been fixed I do think Mana regen still needs a little love as I can still run out of mana playing a multi-skill build despite major investment on gear, ascendancy and passive free into mana regen. Below are a some ideas I had to improve those skills for me. I’m sure other people will disagree and that is cool, but for what I am looking for in the game I want to provide feedback so that it’s atleast heard.

Infusions:

First of all I’m only talking about the arc infusion with lightning. I like the interaction with orb of storms to generate infusions early, but I don’t like waiting sround to collect them. This felt similar to how I played with spark in season 2 so I had no issues using multiple skills. It would be nice if you could auto collect them up to your limit (3) to start the game and then leave them on the ground to collect later if you spend them fast enough to create room. For end game I’d like to see the ascendency node for Storm’s Recollection to be re-worked to granting 2 infusions and eliminating the limit (just have it reset when entering a new zone or map thiugh maintaining infusions if you go back to hideout to sell just to renter the same map). It’s easy to generate the infusions in late game and it sucks to see them lying on the ground. Perhaps you could add nodes on the tree to spend more infusions per arc cast to increase damage as a way to make it feel even better down the road.

Lightning Archon:

The benefits from this don’t support the 5 passive point investment required to turn it equip the power. I have two major issues with the power as is. First is the downtime requirement of the skill (sure you can lower the down time with additional investment on the tree, but I’m certainly not putting 10+ passsive points for what little this power gives you for it still to be down for 1/3 the time at best. Secondly, the 25% more lightning damage is far to low for the required passive point investment. My suggestion would be to rework the shaper of Storms ascendency point to make it if you have lightning archon equipped the buffs gained are permanent (like Constant Gale does with Arcane Surge), the more lightning damage increased to 300% (arc does 200% more damage with infusions for no investment, lightning archon should provide a bigger buff in my opinion because you are investing passive points and now also spending two ascendency points worth of investment.), and provide 50% move speed (Sorc has no move speed nodes unless we path all the way to Ranger to get move speed which is rediculous in my opinion, we don’t need dot be the fastest class, but with 50% ms plus ipnton60’on your boots that puts you at 100-110% after penalties on the high end and between 70-80% on kind of the end game level for most builds (with 25%-30% ms boots). Right now I’ve got level 30 arc and am doing 45k dps with the skill (135k when infused) so a 4x multi for lightning archon would put me at 540k (there are bloodmage spark builds with 2MM dps in town so this level of damage isn’t breaking the bank by any means). Even in a stage 4 sigil of power and a level 30 mana tempest the dps would be 1.7MM (obviously my build isn’t completely min maxed and I’m sure there is more dps to be gained, but just comparing it to other builds walking sround it wouldn’t be an insane outlier currently). You could also make it where lightning archon can’t crit so it doesn’t also benefit from that scaling. Currently crit is the way to max stormweaver dps and it would be nice to make a non-crit version do equal or more dps in my option to give variety to the ascendency. Even if this was only equitable as your 4th ascendency point would be fine with me so you can’t get it too early and trick is like early content.

Mana reg

Currently I am investing 21 passive points plus multiple rolls on high gear and if I want to continue to use multiple skills I can easily run out of mana if I’m not careful. I’m not a particular fan of mana stacking to get more recharge and Don’t want to us MoM and EB either. Sure those styles should be viable but there should be a way to build enough mana without needing to convert Es to mana and run all defenses and the ability to cast all through once source. My suggestion is just to increase the mana recharge from arcane surge from 20% more to 150% more on Constant Gale ascendency node. Personally I don’t mind spending passive points into mana, mana recharge, es, es recharge and es recharge start, but after 20 points in any of these categories plus a ascendency node the “problem” should be solved. We should be able to run around any map with this level of investment and not need to worry about having enough mana. 2k mana should be enough if we are able to build fast recharge. I prefer this style to say having a mana stacker with a high mana pool just to use 1k of the mana anyway. Seems like the 5k is just a waste of a stat, unless you do MoM or invest in taking damage from mana instead of life jewels and gear. Either way those builds are wrecked by the mana syphoning rare monsters on maps, which based on how common that mod is makes MoM, EB to be unplayable currently in higher tier maps because a deal RG causes you to loose so much CP compared to what you earn on a given map.

Miscellaneous


I know there is talk about +levels to skills and spells on gear being an issue, and I flatly disagree for the Sorc. Our weapons and foci don’t come with damage stats and we have to invest so much of our tree on defense and mana for playability and survivability that we need he plus levels to be a source of damage. I’d personally like to see the plus levels to spells be an implicit on wands, staffs and foci and a caster amulet base just like flat maces and bows have implicit physical and elemental damage rolls. Wands could go to +4 foci and amulet could go to +3. Staves should go to +9 as I don’t see why a staff should be less than a wand and focus together though since it’s only one item perhaps +8 is fine. With quality wands could go to +6, foci to +4 and if you get a superior wand or foci with higher qaulity you get +1 level for every 10% over 20% for both items (giving something to chase to further improve the build for those players included to chase mirror level items.) Also this would allow you to remove + levels as a prefix or suffix on items for other classes if it’s deemed too much of an issue (or they can be nerfed). I don’t have an opinion on other classes, as I’ve never played them, but for a Sorc the plus levels are needed.