Stormweaver in 0.2... Still spark

After tinkering in standard and playing around in DH with my newbie and working through the campaign, I am still seeing spark as the only real viable spell to push most content.

Arc has some decent single target, however mobility is low enough and targeting rough enough that spark spamming is better.

Ball lightning doesn't cut the mustard in any direct sense. The damage and proj duration hurt it.

Cast on shock is undertuned due to the jewel socket loss and damage nerfs (thus making the threshold harder to hit for a shock), so niche builds that use other cast on's will really trigger CoS/F/I at any reasonable/powerful rate.

Orb of Storms is a ground effect, so no real mobility, and its damage is somewhat low.

Lightning Warp is very strong damage wise, however its super limited use (BL).

Lightning Conduit is only useful as a trigger, similar to arc in the sense that it really is useable when enemies have shock on them. Damage wise, it is only useful when you can double shock enemies.

I am excluding weapon skills since they don't have the teeth nor the flexibility of other skills.

Voltaic mark is a curse/hex/mark skill, so it has a limited use. It can be leveraged, however most combinations of builds wouldn't use it unless it was a main mechanic they want to use (kind of like firewall for spark).

The most abusive mechanic/interaction I see is LightningWarp. You can get its cast speed to 7 times per second, and just stand in an orb of storms to have it fire beams 7+times per second. If you can mana fix/sustain, you could push it further.

However, with ball lightning and my fave stick, sire, increases in proj count, decrease proj movement, you could put a fair amount of orbs out and do overlap LW for flickerstrike like gameplay.

But none of this is as good as spark alone. Even with lowered proj count, spark is going to be the preferred spell for stormweavers.

I think spark is in a balanced spot and all the other skills are just needing some upgrades.
Arc's explosion is nice, and has a decent combo spot. I think maybe having some support to rechain back, or have the more multi like poe1's have for remaining chains...
OoS could use some more combo flavor. I also think the other ground dot aoe elemental skills should get something like that to. Like OoS having a buff for what is cast in it. +Proj, +chain, +duration, etc. Or maybe have spells cast in it cause it to grow in intensity until it explodes.
Ball Lightning is nice to have chain, however I think it should just accept duration support. It does low damage and has super high shock chance for a reason. It is meant to enable shock based effects. I would love to cast some BL's and arc bounce targets, or LW around, however the orbs don't last long enough for either.
Honestly, LW needs a nerf. I see its potential for abuse. Either a +1 second cooldown in it, or damage lowering (20-25% nerf, I think would bring it in line).
Lightning conduit was being hammered with cos spamming in 0.1, and most of that has been toned down. I could see trigger builds still using this, however they seem to focus on specific skills to get the most damage per tick, vs the most use of shocks. I think if CoSFI is boosted in some way, this skill will find more life, but right now, it probably, damage wise, is a little low. Maybe 25% more damage per 5 shock instead of 20.

I would like to see some more meta energy skill options for stormweaver. Like part of the last ascendancy skill for arcane surge. Like 20% meta energy gained. This would kind of push stormweavers to be a storm-weaver with cast on ele ailment in a pure sense, not in a barrier invocation way, or cast on crit spammer. Most builds that leverage those wouldn't be any more destructive than they already are, and it wouldn't really pull them from their existing ascendancy choice for 20% meta gain.

I think it’s all valid feedback on the stormweaver class that would result in it being more fun.

But frankly I’m not seeing the point in providing feedback that makes the game more fun when GGG has made it pretty clear they aren’t trying to make a fun game.

They need to come out and say exactly what their goal is in terms of gameplay pacing and balance. Give examples of classes and builds they are currently happy with so we know where the bar is. And quite frankly so we know whether it’s worth giving feedback.

I have had similar feelings for a while on sharing the feedback. So much noise wherever feedback exists that surely no GGG employee can see it. However, from my experience on the player side and on the engineer side of the screen; not saying it is worse.


It is like the shot not taken always misses.

I would like some focus/scope suggestions from GGG as well. I know it is difficult to put any words out there to a large, fervent crowd. So I understand the silence 95% of the time.

I also know that silence is just as strong as saying something.

I mean, all we have to do is look back. Plenty of times the devs had said 'we aim to do blah', 'we hope to make it by so and so', and the internet hears 'we are doing exactly this' and ' releasing on this date'. Any blowback hurts them no matter what they do. It just hurts less to be fairly silent on most things.