Originally Posted by
Moshne
We don't have enough information to know if this has any impact in PVE or not. Though reading what is actually said they seem to imply that they view this as a damage increase, not a nerf.
This was stated right after announcing the Lava Burst change. This wouldn't make any sense if they intended this to net lower Lava Burst with no increase to go with it. Merely that they don't think it is enough to fix us completely.
This change is exactly the direction we want to go with Lava Burst. Making it more like Chaos Bolt (and making it easier for them to make the damage scale with our critical strike rating) will favorably impact our stat scaling, and make our best cooldown, Ascendance, actually benefit from all of our stats. It isn't clear if that is included in this or not, but anyone assuming this will be a net decrease is looking for something to be unhappy about. The only numbers included in the post are speaking about relative damage (2.5:1 vs. 1.5:1 with respect to w/ Flame vs. no-Flame Shock.)
The change to needing Flame Shock on the target is mostly a PVP change, making is so you don't lose as much damage if your Flame Shock is dispelled while casting your Lava Burst, it won't have any notable impact on PVE, as we'll of course want to have FS up before casting it, which they stated they want to see continue. There is no reason to assume the total damage with Flame Shock up should be any different than on Live given what was actually said.