Time to hammer out a build
Table of Contents
TL;DR
Patchwerk (single target)
| Covenant | Night Fae |
| Soulbind | Dreamweaver |
| Nodes | Field Of Blossom, Dream Delver |
| Conduits | , , |
| Legendaries | Seeds of Rampant Growth, Windspeaker’s Lava Resurgence |
| Stats | Mastery (800 rating or 57.86%) > Haste » Vers > Mastery > Crit |
Talents
APL
- Storm Elemental
- Fae Transfusion
- Flame Shock, if
<5.4s remaining - Lava Burst
- Earth Shock
- Lightning Bolt
That’s it. That’s the full apl with all necessary conditions.
Unpacking the mess
Let me start with apologizing to everyone.
I'm very sorry.
Sorry for saying 'MACHINE GUN' would be a meme.
Sorry for noticing this abomination this late.
Sorry for your health (fingers).
Sorry for your keyboards.
While writing this blogpost I didn’t realize yet that the MACHINE GUN
would be an actual build. Well, it is.
Storm Elemental uptime
This whole build depends on reaching 100% uptime on Storm Elemental without having to commit to hardcasted Lava Burst. Why not hardcasting Lava Burst? Because Lightning Bolt with 20 stacks of Wind Gust is just as strong. Even with T28: Fireheart 2p active.
Alright so what do we need to reach 100% uptime?
- Seeds of Rampant Growth
- T28: Fireheart 4p
- 800+ Mastery: Elemental Overload rating
- as many Lava Surge empowered Lava Burst as possible
The last bullet point is achieved by:
Voilà. We’ve reached 100% reliably. Yes, without .
Connecting the dots
Once we’re at 20 stacks of Wind Gust, we want to cast as many 0.5-0.8 second casttime Lightning Bolt as possible.
The following substitutions for our usual gameplay can be made.
- Earthen Rage instead of Echo of the Elements
- Aftershock instead of Elemental Blast
- Unlimited Power instead of Stormkeeper
- instead of Flame Shock
While we told you in the past, that all the things we’re replacing now were good, introducing permanent 20 stacks of Wind Gust changes the game.
Echo of the Elements makes our core proc feel meaningful and prevents waste. But if we’re solely interested in Lava Surge empowered Lava Burst casts anyway, we no longer need to prevent that waste. Instead we can grab the free passive damage offered by Earthen Rage.
Elemental Blast prevents us from casting empowered Lightning Bolt. On the other hand Aftershock directly offers more Earth Shock casts, triggering Windspeaker’s Lava Resurgence, therefore generating more Lava Surge empowered Lava Burst, thus more uptime. But to be fair, Elemental Blast is only slightly behind.
Stormkeeper is usually not a choice but a must-have. But what does it offer for single target? We invest one GCD of casttime. We get
- 3 additional Lightning Bolt
- enforcing Mastery: Elemental Overload on the above and the baseline two Lightning Bolt
- next two Lightning Bolt are instant, somewhat negating the invested casttime
Compared to the other talents in that row this is a good trade. Now back to introducing permanent 20 stacks of Wind Gust. Suddenly this investment GCD is worth ~2 Lightning Bolt. This lowers the value a lot because the time gained on those instant Lightning Bolts is a lot less now. Additionally there exists a talent on that row, that loves haste and equivalent effects. Unlimited Power rejoices at the sight of more (potentially) overloading casts within 10 seconds. Going from ~6.6 casts per 10 seconds to up to 14 is quite the jump. This averages out to 1.5 stacks over the whole fight. 3% might not seem like a lot. But…it’s still more than what the other talents offer.
Lastly . A Conduit that didn’t see the light of play yet. When we want to solely focus on casting Earth Shock, Lava Burst, and Lightning Bolt, and the later being able to be cast roughly twice during a normal GCD spending time casting Flame Shock becomes quite the drawback. Alleviating this drawback is all this Conduit is about. It’s worth it.
Downgrading alternatives
- instead of in case you don’t have enough Mastery: Elemental Overload
- Stormkeeper in case you require AoE burst
How to deal with button spamming
While these suggestions might seem stupid, written with tongue in cheek, or straight up a joke, I mean them in the most sincere way. Once you’ve destroyed your finger joints, there is no going back.
[EDIT]: Blizzards stance on using external tools is…opaque. You might risk getting banned. Be careful with your health and monitor the condition of your joints.
Multiple different keybinds
Bind Lightning Bolt to multiple different keys to distribute spamming them over multiple fingers.
Rapid fire functionality on a mouse button
Some mouse (-drivers) offer the ability to rapid-fire click a button. Bind Lightning Bolt to that button and just keep it pressed when you need to spam the spell.
[EDIT]: Blizzards stance on using external tools is…opaque. You might risk getting banned. Be careful with your health and monitor the condition of your joints.
Scroll wheel without resistance
Some mouse don’t have a “click”-resistance when using their scroll-wheel. Some mouse can enable and disable this feature. Bind Lightning Bolt to scroll-up or -down. And spin to win.
[EDIT]: Blizzards stance on using external tools is…opaque. You might risk getting banned. Be careful with your health and monitor the condition of your joints.
Pedal
Get a pedal. Set it up to be spamming Lightning Bolt while pressing down one of them.
[EDIT]: Blizzards stance on using external tools is…opaque. You might risk getting banned. Be careful with your health and monitor the condition of your joints.
But the apl doesn’t specify Lava Surge
Indeed. And it doesn’t need to. The combination of T28: Fireheart 2p and Windspeaker’s Lava Resurgence will ensure basically zero hardcasted Lava Burst.
Prepare yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Bloodmallet(EU)