[3.0] Scion Storm Burst CWC theory

I'm really liking the look for Storm Burst for a league starter skill in 3.0 and especially when used with CWC and I am trying to figure out a decent way to build it. My instinct is to go Scion Elementalist + Deadeye. The Elementalist is fairly obvious as nearly everything it has is good for this type of build. The Deadeye is appealing mostly for the increased projectile damage with distance traveled but has some other goodies too.

Since Storm Burst is both projectile and AOE and I plan to get the AOE nodes near witch and templar so I should have around 50% increased AOE damage from passives. If I do CWC then I would want another projectile AOE skill to go with it and the main contenders I can think of are Fireball and Arctic Breath since those are the only two that I believe can have overlapping AOE explosions.

Of course the Deadeye node will give +2 additional targets pierced so that may nullify that whole idea. How often do you think an ordinary projectile will hit a 3rd target after piercing twice when fired in a direct line? If the AOE explosions only happen on a third enemy hit after 2 pierced ones then that may be too rare to be worth the trouble and it may just be better to pick a non-AOE projectile skill instead.

The Storm Burst would be the primary focus of the build and CWC would just be to add a little extra damage and perhaps apply a different ailment.

What do you guys think?

I am definitely keen to try the same sort of idea. I am going to use frostbolt with 2x frozen trial gems and call of the brother hood ring so storm burst does cold damage. Most likely witch ele.

Well, a witch elementalist would end up being quite different from any scion version.

The main drawback to frostbolt in my mind is that it is not an AOE skill. Storm Burst supposedly does 300% More Area Damage when you stop the channel so you'd be crazy to not focus heavily on AOE damage and radius for a build. So if you plan to do CWC it would be all that much better to use a projectile skill that also does AOE. The more I think about it, the more I think Magma Orb may be the one I use with CWC.

I think something like this might work (non-crit, elemental overload):
Storm Burst - CWC - Magma Orb - GMP - Controlled Destruction - Inc. AOE
(swapping in Slower Projectiles and Conc Effect for bosses)

It's hard to really plan well without knowing the crit chance and effectiveness of added damage for Storm Burst.

Hmmm very true ill let you know how i go with frostbolt. Keep me updated with your build also.

Right now I'm doing a Storm Burst build with a Trickster Shadow. CWC Ball lightning, LMP, increased critical strikes since i'm only up to a 5 link at the moment. Working well but I need more health. I'm also still playing around with other options while farming for gear so hopefully I find a better combination.

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Pheragon wrote:

Right now I'm doing a Storm Burst build with a Trickster Shadow. CWC Ball lightning, LMP, increased critical strikes since i'm only up to a 5 link at the moment. Working well but I need more health. I'm also still playing around with other options while farming for gear so hopefully I find a better combination.

I was runing very similiar build started to have very hard time in maps with high phys damage. Could not get enough physical mitigation to not get rekt by guys like rain of arrow skeleton in cementery.

Aka usual problem with CWC you have to stand still to channel without ~90% ish physical reduction meele are using to get around that issue.

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count2potato wrote:

Hmmm very true ill let you know how i go with frostbolt. Keep me updated with your build also.

You could try elemental equilibrium instead of going AOE focusing on projectile damage.

Burst projectiles are faster than frostbolts soo they would trigger equilibrium effect. Stacking forstbite, and EQ with cold penetration. Most mobs would propably be reduced to 0% resist giving you entire pen as raw damage increase.

That would propably require mom.

Just started new scion to test it. Planing to go Hierophant/Elementalist.

Chest piece CWC+Cold pen+strom burst+frost bolt+crit damage+crit chance.

Helmet spell totem Enfeeble Frostbite Resist or more aoe.

Shield CDWT Chaos Golem Ice golem

Gloves Duration+Vaaldiscipline+Immortal call+Enduring cry.

Main hand CDWT Frost bomb, (the one giving block chance)

Given that it uses elemental EQ no call of brotherhood here.

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Pheragon wrote:

Right now I'm doing a Storm Burst build with a Trickster Shadow. CWC Ball lightning, LMP, increased critical strikes since i'm only up to a 5 link at the moment. Working well but I need more health. I'm also still playing around with other options while farming for gear so hopefully I find a better combination.

Twith all those AOE nodes you could try maybe vortex... I remember testing it once on hierophant it was absudrly massive with gloves giving it 20% more aoe. Soo with all those tree nodes...

Yes! Vortex was a great add for close up defense. It took down the mobs up close while i was able to continue casting. I'm also not running a curse atm because of mana reserved and I've never been a fan of self cast. Which gloves are you talking about for AoE? I intend to use a Carcass Jack eventually to help with that.

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Pheragon wrote:

Yes! Vortex was a great add for close up defense. It took down the mobs up close while i was able to continue casting. I'm also not running a curse atm because of mana reserved and I've never been a fan of self cast. Which gloves are you talking about for AoE? I intend to use a Carcass Jack eventually to help with that.

I meant templar hierophant ascedancy that was giving extra aoe in gloves. Scion sadly does not get that one. I was using in for leveling on my hierophant to get fake 5L some time ago.

I have curses linked to spell totem as scion hierophant ascedancy gives extra totem in head and there is a totem cluster that gives 100% more crti for 4s after droping a stick.

This means that with hierophant ascedacy i should be able to mantain charges or at least pre-charge to full power charges before boss fight.

Soo far i have Tabula rasa with the oak and mind spiral to get around not having chest piece. I had tull wand gathering dust and doedrie tenure. One gives me extra spell power i would have from harbringer shield other lets mantain charges without ascedancy. I also have curent ungil harmony for 100% more crit chance for 25% less crit multiplier. For belt i dug out bated breath from my unique pile.

Gem setup is stormburst+frostbolt+cold pen+ice bite+crit chance+cwc.

Ofc ill have to upgrade to normal gear once hiting maps. Some decent wand with crit, harbringer shield. Mind spiral ofc will stay as thx to MOM ill have huge mana and almost 20% will turn to extra ES.

I die usualy aviodable death once in a while due to almost no physical mitigation other than 30% ish block. Died 3 times on Gruthkull but that was something i expected fortunatly DPS was enough to make fight short.

If i get spar sire of shards might try some troll build to give mobs taste how avarius fight was. 7 stormburst+ oh god soo many frostbolts. Clear spead on trash would be insane.

Sorry if I'm necroing a dead thread, but just in case someone else was wondering about the same thing... Don't do it. It's not worth it.

Major problem: Storm Burst's effective damage scaling is 10%. Coupled with setup time for each cast, totally unviable for end-game.

I geared out, ran with a Tabula Rasa, running the following:
Storm Burst> GMP> CWC> Ball Lightning>

The last two I ran were Innervate and Life Leech, which took me all the way through to maps, but I could feel the single-target fall off really hard as I got into late act 8.

I swapped it around, tried numerous possibilities, but I couldn't get the damage scaling high enough to make clearing mobs quick and safe. Tier 1 on that build was possible, but frustratingly slow.

After that, I reverted all of my projectile speed passives and gear, and I switched to:
Storm Burst> Crit Damage> Crit Chance> Innervate> Added Lightning> Slow Projectiles

With this, effectively becoming a melee shotgun, I was able to start clearing higher tier maps, but it just didn't feel worth it. The amount of work I was putting into making this build functional, when with the exact same gear and passives I could just slap Spark in place of SB and clear 10 times faster? Didn't make sense.

I think that potential changes to make this skill more viable for endgame would be either to raise that damage scaling from 10% to maybe 20%, or make the orbs stop piercing. If I could hose somebody off and get all of the blasts to hit consistently, single target damage may have been fine.

TL;DR: SB is really fun and interesting and satisfying until you hit late game, then the inherent damage scaling makes it a real struggle to get anywhere worthwhile. Needs expensive gearing to function viably past T6. Seems like a rework is necessary.