The State of Earthquake (Ele) in Legion

[freddy090909]

https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...67044715515904
https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...11778318176256

Earthquake totem will be instant cast, but the big benefit that the perk brought us was the increased damage (earthquake does 4x as much damage after a 3-target chain lightning). Without it, our earthquake will take a huge hit.

The perk allowed EQ to be a great source of damage, even with all of the burst AoE brought by other classes, because it allowed for EQ to be both a single-target and an AoE damage ability. With the perk gone, EQ will go back to being its former low-damage self that does damage over 10 seconds, causing it to lose out massively to all of the burst AoE damage in the game (if EQ does damage over 10 seconds, but adds only last for 5 seconds, we lose a lot of value - may as well just go back to CL spam and use our maelstrom on earth shock).

They could potentially just increase the damage of the totem, but that may cause you to run into an odd situation where EQ is a part of the single-target rotation again (at least during periods of excess maelstrom). What I would propose is to either:

A) Add the perk back in as an artifact trait or passive ability.
or
B) Make EQ's duration scale from 10 seconds down to 5 seconds (same total damage) based on the amount of maelstrom spent. Additionally, remove the cooldown of the totem, allowing you to use it more often with higher DPS during periods of excess maelstrom, but still preventing you from having two down due to the nature of totems.

I'd really hate to see EQ become unused again, because I was very happy with its state during WoD (after the buff to Emp CL). Hopefully Blizzard has something planned to keep it powerful, as it was one of the most interesting parts of our current kit.

[Fearsom1992]

guessing you didn't read the fulll post the devs clearly said those passives are going to be base line from drenor -.-

[freddy090909]

guessing you didn't read the fulll post the devs clearly said those passives are going to be base line from drenor -.-

Which post? The only related post I could find was: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...98987?page=1#4

Which says many Draenor perks will be baked into the abilities, themselves. However, there have been no tooltip updates to CL or EQ to reflect that, so at the moment I'm unsure what their plans are for it. I'm well aware that this is an extremely early build, and everything is likely to change, but I also know it's better to start discussion sooner than later, especially judging by what happened to us at WoD launch.

[Ximaus]

guessing you didn't read the fulll post the devs clearly said those passives are going to be base line from drenor -.-

So what does that mean for Earthquake? The perk was actually for Chain Lightning. Does that mean the 300% damage will proc when you CL 3 targets or does that mean the 300% damage is baked into Earthquake? They don't answer any of that which leads me to think the OP is justified in his concerns.

[chairmanmao]

I mean, presumably they aren't going to drop earthquake from 300% damage down to whatever and just say "fuck it" and not tune anything. They know Enhanced Chain Lightning is a thing.

[Rawklobster]

Here's hoping they increase the jump radius of Chain Lightning to make it easier to obtain that proc for EQ. Anyone else ever had Chain Lightning not behave the way it should when mob placement is not ideal? The jumps seems kind of buggy at times and that makes your EQ AOE go to shit. I get that they want to have those 2 AOE abilities have an interaction but TBH its just a pain in the ass at times.

[Deleted]

They could potentially just increase the damage of the totem, but that may cause you to run into an odd situation where EQ is a part of the single-target rotation again (at least during periods of excess maelstrom). What I would propose is to either:

Seems to me, like you have misunderstood something - as long as an equal maelstrom-value ES is higher single target damage than an EQ is you would never get into a situation where you'd rather pop EQ over ES in single target... why? ES has no CD in Legion

[jimmyolsen]

Seems to me, like you have misunderstood something - as long as an equal maelstrom-value ES is higher single target damage than an EQ is you would never get into a situation where you'd rather pop EQ over ES in single target... why? ES has no CD in Legion

We only have very preliminary numbers available currently; however, at the moment that doesn't appear to be a problem. Earthquake is listed as 127.6% damage for 80 Maelstrom; Earth Shock is listed as 300% at 100 maelstrom. Even if Earth Shock has a 3% per maelstrom scale factor (the highest value possible), that's still 240% at 80 maelstrom, making Earthquake and Earth Shock virtually equal on 2 targets and Earthquake > Earth Shock for 3-targets with 7 seconds of duration or better.

The bigger problem right now is Earthquake versus Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning is listed as 60% on a 2-second cast hitting as many as 7 targets with the artifact ability. That's the equivalent of 300% over 10 seconds, or more than double the amount of damage Earthquake does. Furthermore, Chain Lightning scales with mastery, earthquake does not. Because the artifact talent ramps the targets up so high, there would be little use for Earthquake at all unless the damage were pushed much much higher. Even without overload procs, chain lightning does more damage in 6-seconds than earthquake does in 10.

If they bump up earthquake's damage to compensate, they will have to bump up Earth Shock's. That's not a bad thing, because right now Earth Shock looks to be weak as well. Lava Burst is listed as 184.4% + 50% if Flame Shock is up, for a total of 276.6%. If Earth Shock has a 3% per maelstrom scale factor, that's the equivalent of a 92 maelstrom Earth shock. Lava Burst can overload, it has an increased crit modifier from artifacts, and gains +10% and +13% from talents/artifact (earth shock gains +13% from artifact).

Lightning bolt is listed as 80% damage and a 2.5 second cast, but Shamanism is still there to reduce the cast time to 2 seconds and bumping the damage by 70%. I think Shamanism is an error, because it would double CL's damage as well and with lightning bolt separated for each spec now, there's no reason to keep it. If it's not an error, Lightning Bolt at 136% damage (for comparison LB for Resto is 100% + Telluric Currents, Incinerate is 2 seconds for 143.5%, Shadowbolt is 2 seconds for 94.5% - none of those can overload nor have the higher crit modifier). If the fist procs its "next two lightning bolts overload two additional times), Lightning Bolt will do almost as much as a 100 maelstrom Earth Shock even without Shamanism (260%)

Right now, the two maelstrom spenders are weak. Just as Wordup suggested for enhancement, Maelstrom is low-value.

[Ximaus]

Earthquake is listed as 127.6% damage for 80 Maelstrom

That's the current value of Earthquake damage without the Enhanced Chain Lightning buff. So again going back to the OP's concern.

[Glassmage]

it would be nice if they went ahead and scaled up the distance between chainlighting jumps to 20 yards, then scaled damage based on distance from each jump.

[freddy090909]

Seems to me, like you have misunderstood something - as long as an equal maelstrom-value ES is higher single target damage than an EQ is you would never get into a situation where you'd rather pop EQ over ES in single target... why? ES has no CD in Legion

I was more thinking of if they were to increase EQ without also buffing ES, we may hit a break point where EQ is stronger than ES situationally (not to mention, we have things like magnitude that may increase EQ's potential even further). As an example, if EQ's damage was doubled (remember, live EQ does 4x as much as the beta one), it would do slightly more damage than ES at 80 stacks over 10 seconds, but if one or two ticks missed, it would end up below it.

What I was getting at is that both maelstrom spenders would need to be buffed together to ensure that ES remains more valuable than EQ on single target. However, that may prove problematic if they have our single-target damage balanced with a certain value of ES in mind. The Draenor perk had a balancing benefit in that it made EQ usable only during periods of AoE, enabling it to be a very powerful spell on both AoE and single-target damage assuming you could get the perk to proc.

The bigger problem right now is Earthquake versus Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning is listed as 60% on a 2-second cast hitting as many as 7 targets with the artifact ability. That's the equivalent of 300% over 10 seconds, or more than double the amount of damage Earthquake does. Furthermore, Chain Lightning scales with mastery, earthquake does not. Because the artifact talent ramps the targets up so high, there would be little use for Earthquake at all unless the damage were pushed much much higher. Even without overload procs, chain lightning does more damage in 6-seconds than earthquake does in 10.

And this is my biggest concern: we've spent a lot of time in the past using chain lightning as our only AoE ability, even when EQ was available, simply because EQ's damage was tuned too low (especially on short duration AoE) to be worth casting. Just to add onto what you're saying, our legendary item (actual legendary, not artifact) increases our chain lightning's damage on every bounce by 50%. Assuming that scales exponentially, the final target in a 7-target chain will take 11.4x the damage of the first target - with the entire chain doing 32.2x as much damage as a chain lightning without the legendary. With so many things buffing our chain lightning (there's also the artifact trait that causes every single chain lightning bounce to overload after X casts) and so few things effecting our EQ, it's looking very much like we could potentially end up going back to our CL spam from previous expansions and ditching EQ again.

it would be nice if they went ahead and scaled up the distance between chainlighting jumps to 20 yards, then scaled damage based on distance from each jump.

I don't think we need range increases as much as functionality improvements. We saw in HFC (where they specifically changed how chain spells work) that the spell can potentially behave very well and predictably. What we really need is for the bounce range to be based on ends of models instead of centers. That is, if two monsters are side by side with massive models, it should bounce, regardless of where the centers of their bodies are (remember the problems we had on Twin Ogron).

[Kralljin]

With so many things buffing our chain lightning (there's also the artifact trait that causes every single chain lightning bounce to overload after X casts) and so few things effecting our EQ, it's looking very much like we could potentially end up going back to our CL spam from previous expansions and ditching EQ again.

I think EQ will still be used because it's instant.

Also, Magnitude talent works with EQ.

Besides, Ascendance will probably now become an insane AoE CD with Lava Beam and since Lava Beam is a fire spell, it will trigger the Elemental empowerment passive and EQ will most likely trigger the fire damage increase.

[Deleted]

If EQ turns out too weak, then it'll be buffed since its our only AE MS spender.

But honestly, with all the requirements of having FS on targets for ability X, I'm more than glad to see that stupid CL pre cast being gone.

[bloodmoth13]

Earthquake doesnt need to be more DPS than chain lightning to be used, it just needs a higher damage per execute. its instant cast, and if it rivals CLs dps then it will be used.
basically it just needs to do more damage than a single chain lightning, but itd be nice if it dealth heavier damage over time.
Remember we can also multi dot now with flame shock, especially with the 'magnitude' talent

- - - Updated - - -

If EQ turns out too weak, then it'll be buffed since its our only AE MS spender.

But honestly, with all the requirements of having FS on targets for ability X, I'm more than glad to see that stupid CL pre cast being gone.

Yeah it was necessary at the time to make sure EQ wasnt used single target, but when it competes for resources for a high damage single target ability, then we dont have to worry. That was clunky ramp up, this is a much better design

[Ximaus]

What we really need is for the bounce range to be based on ends of models instead of centers. That is, if two monsters are side by side with massive models, it should bounce, regardless of where the centers of their bodies are (remember the problems we had on Twin Ogron).

It's currently based on the distance between mob hitboxes. If you CL two adds walking in the center of the room of the Gorefiend encounter it will jump to Gorefiend as well and give you 3 targets. If you CL the Doomfire when the Doomfire and Deathcaller are out it will jump to Archimonde (unless he is half a screen away) and hit all 3 targets. Twin Ogron had a really small hitbox in addition to the actual ranged spell impact point being the center of their bodies.

[dreaderus]

Hey guys lets keep this thread updated.

would be dumb to nerf the damage of earthquake.

also hope that they keep the graphic it looks great.

[jimmyolsen]

Earthquake doesnt need to be more DPS than chain lightning to be used, it just needs a higher damage per execute. its instant cast, and if it rivals CLs dps then it will be used.

True, DPS is not the best measure, but because EQ is a DoT, the amount of time mobs will be alive is a major contributing factor in it's DPET.

Hypothetical: 20% haste, 40% mastery - 1.25 gcd, 1.67 CL cast time, 3 targets
If CL receives the 1/3 mastery modifier that it did in MoP, that gives a 65.1% [(1 - (40/3))^3] chance of not receiving any overload procs (for simplicity sake, I won't factor in the damage of multiple procs)

EQ's DPET = 127.8% / (1.5/1.2) / 10 secs = 10.2% DPET for each second of duration. Factor in haste scaling for ticks, and you get 12.24%.
CL's DPET = [60% + 60%(.349)(.75)]/ (2/1.2) = 45.4% DPET.

Thus EQ would need 4 seconds of duration to compete with CL (even before considering the possibility of a single CL proccing overload multiple times).
As mastery increases that duration need increases further, and this does not account for the artifact talent guaranteeing overloads. If we ever reach SoO levels of mastery, you would need almost 5 seconds of EQ uptime to match the DPET of Chain Lightning.

Remember, you need maelstrom in order to drop EQ to begin with, so unless you have EQ ready for the spawns, it might come too late to warrant usage.

[freddy090909]

True, DPS is not the best measure, but because EQ is a DoT, the amount of time mobs will be alive is a major contributing factor in it's DPET.

This is why I loved the concept of chain lightning buffing EQ. It allowed you to make use of your earthquake with no regard for how long AoE phases would last, because buffed EQ would do great damage to even one target.

We saw how much effect raid comp can have on Ele's AoE this expansion (demo locks in BRF), as well as how great it can be if we take full advantage of it (Xhul), and the central reason was really just that our main source of AoE takes 10 seconds while many other AoEs take only one or two GCDs. Empowered chain lightning made that basically a nonissue this expansion, as long as we could get the proc. But, if EQ only does borderline-usable damage next expansion, it may become a real problem again.

In the end, what I think it comes down to is that EQ needs some kind of change to help it become more obviously usable anytime we run into an AoE situation. Whether that means increasing its damage to make it significantly stronger than CL, decreasing its duration so that it takes less time to bypass CL in DPET, or adding back in the perk, something needs to be done.

That said, it might just be a matter of tuning at this point. As was mentioned above, all of the maelstrom spenders look to be a bit weak at the moment (then again, our generation is also extremely high, which is less of a problem with something like ES that isn't locked behind a 10sec cooldown).

[Nyoken]

Well....our chain lightning is gonna get buffed like hell, eventually CL is gonna be hitting 8 targets and the dmg for each jump is gonna be increased by 50% with one of the legendaries so, don't expect earthquake to be THAT good as it is right now.

[Notes]

That's the current value of Earthquake damage without the Enhanced Chain Lightning buff. So again going back to the OP's concern.

Yup. another issue with this is that right now it takes 1 CL cast to drop a instant cast 300% EQ, In legion even with all the CL buffs and hitting more targets i doubt it will be 80-100 maelstorm for 1 CL cast, meaning EQ will not only have lost its 300% dmg but will also have much shorter uptime due to having to generate maelstorm, which by that time depending on fight the adds can be dead (like on xhul, manno)