Today I decided to record a couple vids to determine how Storm Armor works, since there doesn't seem to be any precise information around. The skill essentially says "periodially shocks enemy for 100% of your weapon damage", but what is periodically and how is it affected by IAS? These are the questions I wanted to answer.
My results are pretty simple: it shocks the enemy once a second, independant of IAS and number of mobs.
What I did was equip a 0.9 APS weapon with no IAS on gear and just stood next to Nightmare Ghom on MP10 with a lot of life regen. After 90s or so I stopped recording. Then I made another vid with a faster weapon and lots of IAS gear for a total of 2.3 APS. The net result was an average of 1 tick per second for both cases.
EDIT: Just tested against multiple mobs, and the tic rate is the same, 1 hit per second even at 2.3 APS against 3 mobs.
Wait - 1 tick per second, it's always the same. But if you have 2.3 aps instead of 0.9, your dps is likely to be higher (char screen dps, what's considered to be the "weapon damage" that the spell is using) and thus the damage per tick should scale accordingly, right?
Wait - 1 tick per second, it's always the same. But if you have 2.3 aps instead of 0.9, your dps is likely to be higher (char screen dps, what's considered to be the "weapon damage" that the spell is using) and thus the damage per tick should scale accordingly, right?
Correct. To compute the approximate dps gain from the armor, just take your char screen dps and divide by your APS.
That's both interesting and very useless. Can't really think of any way to use that skill for damage then.
Your opinion is noted, but I have seen a few posts asking for the information. Plus, the skill is far from useless and the information can help people decide upon armors to use and it makes it easier to approximate dps gain from shocking aspect. There's a lot of potential customization in terms of skills for CM wizards, and knowing how each skill works helps immensly in deciding what configuration to use for what situations, and what you miss out on, etc.
So it seems that Storm Armor is especially useful if you're running on low APS. That is interesting, in times where most people go for more and more APS (including me, even on Archon spec, as it allows me to more quickly reduce the cooldown), there's light at the end of the tunnel for all these nicely rolled but slow weapons. I wonder which other spells benefit from a lower APS...
Pretty much everything benefits from a slower weapon or less APS with same DPS as higher APS set except Hydra, Archon beam, and to some extent Disintegrate/RoF at least until you run out of AP.
One thing worth mentioning is Life Steal doesn't work with Storm Armor. I'm not sure if it works with Shocking Aspect.
Oh that is not how I meant it, I am sorry. Thanks for the information, I just can not think of any ways I as an Archon wizard could use the skill. Of course this is a different case for CM wizards, I should have elaborated on that.
No problem, and I can agree that it's not very useful for Archon spec. Though if you have a 2h it is an interesting idea to run Scramble, and the Storm Armor affect is kind of interesting (I've been playing around with Scramble for MP2 farming, compared to MP3 with pinpoint and so far I like it). Most of the reason I tested it was to add it to my CM dps simulator.
Pretty much everything benefits from a slower weapon or less APS with same DPS as higher APS set except Hydra, Archon beam, and to some extent Disintegrate/RoF at least until you run out of AP.
One thing worth mentioning is Life Steal doesn't work with Storm Armor. I'm not sure if it works with Shocking Aspect.
Oh that is not how I meant it, I am sorry. Thanks for the information, I just can not think of any ways I as an Archon wizard could use the skill. Of course this is a different case for CM wizards, I should have elaborated on that.
I'm sorry, but this is the second time that I have to ask again for clarification in this thread. Why exactly is the Archon beam not well-suited for low APS? As I learned from this thread, the Archon beam scales completely with APS as it just increases the damage of each tick accordingly. Therefore, I always assumed it doesn't really matter if you have high APS or low APS when running Archon - dps will scale accordingly. However, so far I thought about the Archon downtimes and thus tried to increase APS in order to proc CM more often and reduce the cooldown. Storm Armor seemed to turn this around and make it more worthwhile to get low APS when running Archon such that the dps by Storm Armor is higher.
However, CM-focused builds such as CMWW require high APS (or let's at least say it simplifies things if your aps is high). Therefore, isn't Storm Armor exactly useless for high APS builds like CMWW?
I'm totally confused now. My conclusion was the opposite of yours - Storm Armor is okay-ish for Archon, but crap for CM-centered builds.
In short, you're right for the most part. There just seems to be a little confusion in my phrasing.
First, I wouldn't say Storm Armor is useless for high IAS CM. My preliminary results are showing that storm armor gives around 10-15% dps increase for a setup I examined with 2.69 APS, 50.5 CC and 19 APoC. But your point is valid that as you increase your IAS the storm armor should represent a lower percentage of your DPS.
Second, I didn't mean that low APS isn't suited for Archon, only that APS doesn't matter for Archon, only char sheet dps does. It just happens to be that high IAS tends to lead to high dps. If you compare 2 chars, each with 100k dps, but one with 1.5 APS and the other with 3 APS, they have the same effective dps from Archon beam. That is true for all hydra spells and Disintegrate/RoF. For the case of other spells used, aside from sig spells, the 1.5 APS build will have higher damage per cast, so you'll have more burst damage before you run out of AP, so you're better off with the lower APS.
Third, I claim Storm Armor isn't all that great for Archon because you tend to blast things in 1 hit anyway, so it doesn't really add much for farming. Against Elites it helps a little but those should die in only a couple seconds anyway, so in terms of pure dps gain, you're likely better off with Pinpoint Barrier. I'd still pick SA though, for Scramble, if you don't need the EHP because running fast is awsome, and great for efficiency.
Hopefully that clears up any confusion, but if not, let me know. I'm running simulations at the moment so my thoughts are half elsewhere.
Thanks - one more time it completely clears up all the confusion, yes!
I'm using Storm Armor + Shocking Aspect for Archon not as a flat DPS increase, but when I'm running on lower MPs it just helps to finish off single mobs at the edge of the screen, where a simple "stop, right-click Archon beam" would cost me too much time. I didn't find any use for scramble at all, because most of the times when I need run speed is when everything around me is dead, and thus Scramble doesn't proc.
With scramble having such a ridiculous requirement to proc, I believe it should be much more movement speed than it is tbh. It should either be 25% all the time, or like 75% when hit.
I think the extra attack per second always going to be better than 5% crit change from pinpoint barrier. If you figure your dps at 100k and your crit dmg at 250% and attack speed at 2.5, then a 5% crit chance is going to add about 12,500 dps. With those same figures tho, you're adding 40,000 per second with each storm armor hit. If you add in the damage from the rune that shocks enemies based on crit proc, I'm sure the number itself is quite higher and I know the lightning has a chance of hitting a crit as well. I think the real difference here is the armor bonus and whether or not you need it.
(for the mathematically inclined, I took the dps multiplied by 2.5 for crit dmg and multiplied by .05 for the addition of the extra 5% crit chance. It's been a while since I took a math class and admittedly the diablo system of figuring damage is a little more convoluted than I care to figure out. If you feel my numbers are off, I would appreciate an explaination into where I did my math wrong)
I think the extra attack per second always going to be better than 5% crit change from pinpoint barrier. If you figure your dps at 100k and your crit dmg at 250% and attack speed at 2.5, then a 5% crit chance is going to add about 12,500 dps. With those same figures tho, you're adding 40,000 per second with each storm armor hit. If you add in the damage from the rune that shocks enemies based on crit proc, I'm sure the number itself is quite higher and I know the lightning has a chance of hitting a crit as well. I think the real difference here is the armor bonus and whether or not you need it.
(for the mathematically inclined, I took the dps multiplied by 2.5 for crit dmg and multiplied by .05 for the addition of the extra 5% crit chance. It's been a while since I took a math class and admittedly the diablo system of figuring damage is a little more convoluted than I care to figure out. If you feel my numbers are off, I would appreciate an explaination into where I did my math wrong)
You're right in saying that Storm Armor is always better in terms of DPS compared to Energy Armor, but there are two things worth mentioning:
1) Storm Armor only makes sense if things ever come close to you
2) Energy Armor with Pinpoint Barrier is less about the dps and the armor bonus, but about the 5% more crit to add on your CM procs.
You're right in saying that Storm Armor is always better in terms of DPS compared to Energy Armor, but there are two things worth mentioning:
1) Storm Armor only makes sense if things ever come close to you
2) Energy Armor with Pinpoint Barrier is less about the dps and the armor bonus, but about the 5% more crit to add on your CM procs.
Storm armor hits things barely on the edge of the screen (I've had it attack mobs on the other side of a tree that I couldn't even see on my screen, so I'm guessing the range is farther than that). Are you talking about the crit proc rune? I use the extra dmg (100->130%) rune so the range of enemies doesn't matter.
The bolts can crit as well, so I'm assuming they will have a chance of proc'ing CM. I haven't tested it honestly.
I think the extra attack per second always going to be better than 5% crit change from pinpoint barrier. If you figure your dps at 100k and your crit dmg at 250% and attack speed at 2.5, then a 5% crit chance is going to add about 12,500 dps. With those same figures tho, you're adding 40,000 per second with each storm armor hit. If you add in the damage from the rune that shocks enemies based on crit proc, I'm sure the number itself is quite higher and I know the lightning has a chance of hitting a crit as well. I think the real difference here is the armor bonus and whether or not you need it.
(for the mathematically inclined, I took the dps multiplied by 2.5 for crit dmg and multiplied by .05 for the addition of the extra 5% crit chance. It's been a while since I took a math class and admittedly the diablo system of figuring damage is a little more convoluted than I care to figure out. If you feel my numbers are off, I would appreciate an explaination into where I did my math wrong)
You're right in principle.
For Archon, for some actual comparisons, I have around 200k DPS with 2 APS so storm Armor would hit for about 100k average for me. My effective dps single target is 600k because I use teleport rune, which makes it 700k with Storm Armor. If I use Pinpoint, it raises my dps by about 7.5% because I have 284% CD and only 31.5% crit (not counting scoundrel). That would raise my dps to 207.5k for an effective dps of 622.5k, which is a fair amount less than pinpoint, so by your analysis you're correct. If you don't need the extra armor from pinpoint barrier, then it seems storm armor can be decently effective.
For CM the comparison isn't as easy. While it seems you can get a higher theoretically dps gain from Storm Armor than Pinpoint barrier, you also have to factor in the extra armor gained, which makes survival higher, and the extra crit also increases survival. However, if you're farming keys, it's probably best to go with the MP level that lets you use the highest dps setup, which means Storm Armor with Shocking Aspect, and lowering the MP if survival is an issue. For uber bosses, I prefer pinpoint because most of the time your dps is just an extra and the most benefit the group gets from a CM wizard is the stunning of mobs, making the fights much easier, Plus, I'm too scared to try dropping the armor buff against Ghom.
Personally, I think i'm going to keep with SA - Scramble for my Archon runs, probably at MP2 since for MP3 I really need the extra armor for damage reflect. While the scramble isn't active a lot, it's still active a fair amount and the speed boost is really nice, especially for annoying areas where mob density can be problematic with Archon uptime, like Fields and the zone where the keywarden is. I can run MP3 with pinpoint fairly well but I like the complete faceroll feeling of the lower MP, plus the easier time with reflect mobs and annoying elites (I'm talking about YOU phasebeasts and demon tremors!). For CM, I'm going to try switching to the SNS spec with shocking aspect and diamond shards, since it's the highest theoretical dps spec for CM. For ubers, I'll probably keep with pinpoint up to MP6-7 and force armor for higher.
^exactly. Also, fyi, I have an amulet and a ring that both have about 4-500 LOH that I swap into when dealing with reflect damage. They also have the unintended consequence of dropping my dps about 40k, which actually helps quite a bit because with the lower dps, I'm taking less dmg from the reflect mob as well. It's quick and easy to do so it doesn't take much time and when you're done with that mob, swap the two pieces back and move on.
For CM the comparison isn't as easy. While it seems you can get a higher theoretically dps gain from Storm Armor than Pinpoint barrier, you also have to factor in the extra armor gained, which makes survival higher, and the extra crit also increases survival. However, if you're farming keys, it's probably best to go with the MP level that lets you use the highest dps setup, which means Storm Armor with Shocking Aspect, and lowering the MP if survival is an issue. For uber bosses, I prefer pinpoint because most of the time your dps is just an extra and the most benefit the group gets from a CM wizard is the stunning of mobs, making the fights much easier, Plus, I'm too scared to try dropping the armor buff against Ghom.
Actually, has someone tried Ice Armor on higher MPs? -12% melee, a chance for freeze, and then depending on your rune 60% armor (Crystallize) or more Frost Novas (Ice Reflect)...
I just did a couple of tries with Ghom on Inferno MP10 and it seemed to work fine, but won't have the time to try this out on ubers in the next few days. Has anyone ever tried that?
For CM the comparison isn't as easy. While it seems you can get a higher theoretically dps gain from Storm Armor than Pinpoint barrier, you also have to factor in the extra armor gained, which makes survival higher, and the extra crit also increases survival. However, if you're farming keys, it's probably best to go with the MP level that lets you use the highest dps setup, which means Storm Armor with Shocking Aspect, and lowering the MP if survival is an issue. For uber bosses, I prefer pinpoint because most of the time your dps is just an extra and the most benefit the group gets from a CM wizard is the stunning of mobs, making the fights much easier, Plus, I'm too scared to try dropping the armor buff against Ghom.
Actually, has someone tried Ice Armor on higher MPs? -12% melee, a chance for freeze, and then depending on your rune 60% armor (Crystallize) or more Frost Novas (Ice Reflect)...
I just did a couple of tries with Ghom on Inferno MP10 and it seemed to work fine, but won't have the time to try this out on ubers in the next few days. Has anyone ever tried that?
I haven't because Shocking aspect is a pretty big dps gain, otherwise Energy Armor with Prismatic Armor is likely a higher EHP gain, since the melee attacks aren't really all that scary, or Force Armor for MP10 since SK and mag have some pretty hard hitting abilities. In my experience it's the poison clouds that do the most damage against ghom, since I'm not high enough IAS to perfmafreeze him and keep him from dropping them. Also, most of the Ice Armor effects seem to proc off melee attacks. The frost nova rune sounds interesting though, but unless you get attacked more than once per second, the storm armor effect does more damage against bosses.
Just because of you guys being so passionate about Storm Armor I'll give it a try on my Archon runs later and see how it goes(Though I'm still apprehensive to a loss of Energy Armor's massive EHP bonus).
This is going to come across as harsh, but really just think of it as a statistical nerd comment.
If you need the EHP from Energy Armor, then you should probably be doing a lower MP. I can farm keys at MP8 but when I'm doing item farming or exp runs, I usually run at mp3 or 4. The reason being is that I can put as much dps items/skills on and absolutely destroy face, which means that despite the loss in MF/GF/Exp bonus from mp8 vs mp4 I'm actually making more gold, getting more items, and more exp because I'm killing that much faster. I find probably six times as many legendaries at mp4 than I do at mp8
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My results are pretty simple: it shocks the enemy once a second, independant of IAS and number of mobs.
What I did was equip a 0.9 APS weapon with no IAS on gear and just stood next to Nightmare Ghom on MP10 with a lot of life regen. After 90s or so I stopped recording. Then I made another vid with a faster weapon and lots of IAS gear for a total of 2.3 APS. The net result was an average of 1 tick per second for both cases.
EDIT: Just tested against multiple mobs, and the tic rate is the same, 1 hit per second even at 2.3 APS against 3 mobs.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Correct. To compute the approximate dps gain from the armor, just take your char screen dps and divide by your APS.
Your opinion is noted, but I have seen a few posts asking for the information. Plus, the skill is far from useless and the information can help people decide upon armors to use and it makes it easier to approximate dps gain from shocking aspect. There's a lot of potential customization in terms of skills for CM wizards, and knowing how each skill works helps immensly in deciding what configuration to use for what situations, and what you miss out on, etc.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
So it seems that Storm Armor is especially useful if you're running on low APS. That is interesting, in times where most people go for more and more APS (including me, even on Archon spec, as it allows me to more quickly reduce the cooldown), there's light at the end of the tunnel for all these nicely rolled but slow weapons. I wonder which other spells benefit from a lower APS...
One thing worth mentioning is Life Steal doesn't work with Storm Armor. I'm not sure if it works with Shocking Aspect.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
No problem, and I can agree that it's not very useful for Archon spec. Though if you have a 2h it is an interesting idea to run Scramble, and the Storm Armor affect is kind of interesting (I've been playing around with Scramble for MP2 farming, compared to MP3 with pinpoint and so far I like it). Most of the reason I tested it was to add it to my CM dps simulator.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
I'm sorry, but this is the second time that I have to ask again for clarification in this thread. Why exactly is the Archon beam not well-suited for low APS? As I learned from this thread, the Archon beam scales completely with APS as it just increases the damage of each tick accordingly. Therefore, I always assumed it doesn't really matter if you have high APS or low APS when running Archon - dps will scale accordingly. However, so far I thought about the Archon downtimes and thus tried to increase APS in order to proc CM more often and reduce the cooldown. Storm Armor seemed to turn this around and make it more worthwhile to get low APS when running Archon such that the dps by Storm Armor is higher.
However, CM-focused builds such as CMWW require high APS (or let's at least say it simplifies things if your aps is high). Therefore, isn't Storm Armor exactly useless for high APS builds like CMWW?
I'm totally confused now. My conclusion was the opposite of yours - Storm Armor is okay-ish for Archon, but crap for CM-centered builds.
First, I wouldn't say Storm Armor is useless for high IAS CM. My preliminary results are showing that storm armor gives around 10-15% dps increase for a setup I examined with 2.69 APS, 50.5 CC and 19 APoC. But your point is valid that as you increase your IAS the storm armor should represent a lower percentage of your DPS.
Second, I didn't mean that low APS isn't suited for Archon, only that APS doesn't matter for Archon, only char sheet dps does. It just happens to be that high IAS tends to lead to high dps. If you compare 2 chars, each with 100k dps, but one with 1.5 APS and the other with 3 APS, they have the same effective dps from Archon beam. That is true for all hydra spells and Disintegrate/RoF. For the case of other spells used, aside from sig spells, the 1.5 APS build will have higher damage per cast, so you'll have more burst damage before you run out of AP, so you're better off with the lower APS.
Third, I claim Storm Armor isn't all that great for Archon because you tend to blast things in 1 hit anyway, so it doesn't really add much for farming. Against Elites it helps a little but those should die in only a couple seconds anyway, so in terms of pure dps gain, you're likely better off with Pinpoint Barrier. I'd still pick SA though, for Scramble, if you don't need the EHP because running fast is awsome, and great for efficiency.
Hopefully that clears up any confusion, but if not, let me know. I'm running simulations at the moment so my thoughts are half elsewhere.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
I'm using Storm Armor + Shocking Aspect for Archon not as a flat DPS increase, but when I'm running on lower MPs it just helps to finish off single mobs at the edge of the screen, where a simple "stop, right-click Archon beam" would cost me too much time. I didn't find any use for scramble at all, because most of the times when I need run speed is when everything around me is dead, and thus Scramble doesn't proc.
(for the mathematically inclined, I took the dps multiplied by 2.5 for crit dmg and multiplied by .05 for the addition of the extra 5% crit chance. It's been a while since I took a math class and admittedly the diablo system of figuring damage is a little more convoluted than I care to figure out. If you feel my numbers are off, I would appreciate an explaination into where I did my math wrong)
You're right in saying that Storm Armor is always better in terms of DPS compared to Energy Armor, but there are two things worth mentioning:
1) Storm Armor only makes sense if things ever come close to you
2) Energy Armor with Pinpoint Barrier is less about the dps and the armor bonus, but about the 5% more crit to add on your CM procs.
Storm armor hits things barely on the edge of the screen (I've had it attack mobs on the other side of a tree that I couldn't even see on my screen, so I'm guessing the range is farther than that). Are you talking about the crit proc rune? I use the extra dmg (100->130%) rune so the range of enemies doesn't matter.
The bolts can crit as well, so I'm assuming they will have a chance of proc'ing CM. I haven't tested it honestly.
Storm Armor does not proc anything, see http://www.diablofans.com/topic/77837-skill-proc-coefficients-complete-list/#entry1080228
You're right in principle.
For Archon, for some actual comparisons, I have around 200k DPS with 2 APS so storm Armor would hit for about 100k average for me. My effective dps single target is 600k because I use teleport rune, which makes it 700k with Storm Armor. If I use Pinpoint, it raises my dps by about 7.5% because I have 284% CD and only 31.5% crit (not counting scoundrel). That would raise my dps to 207.5k for an effective dps of 622.5k, which is a fair amount less than pinpoint, so by your analysis you're correct. If you don't need the extra armor from pinpoint barrier, then it seems storm armor can be decently effective.
For CM the comparison isn't as easy. While it seems you can get a higher theoretically dps gain from Storm Armor than Pinpoint barrier, you also have to factor in the extra armor gained, which makes survival higher, and the extra crit also increases survival. However, if you're farming keys, it's probably best to go with the MP level that lets you use the highest dps setup, which means Storm Armor with Shocking Aspect, and lowering the MP if survival is an issue. For uber bosses, I prefer pinpoint because most of the time your dps is just an extra and the most benefit the group gets from a CM wizard is the stunning of mobs, making the fights much easier, Plus, I'm too scared to try dropping the armor buff against Ghom.
Personally, I think i'm going to keep with SA - Scramble for my Archon runs, probably at MP2 since for MP3 I really need the extra armor for damage reflect. While the scramble isn't active a lot, it's still active a fair amount and the speed boost is really nice, especially for annoying areas where mob density can be problematic with Archon uptime, like Fields and the zone where the keywarden is. I can run MP3 with pinpoint fairly well but I like the complete faceroll feeling of the lower MP, plus the easier time with reflect mobs and annoying elites (I'm talking about YOU phasebeasts and demon tremors!). For CM, I'm going to try switching to the SNS spec with shocking aspect and diamond shards, since it's the highest theoretical dps spec for CM. For ubers, I'll probably keep with pinpoint up to MP6-7 and force armor for higher.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Actually, has someone tried Ice Armor on higher MPs? -12% melee, a chance for freeze, and then depending on your rune 60% armor (Crystallize) or more Frost Novas (Ice Reflect)...
I just did a couple of tries with Ghom on Inferno MP10 and it seemed to work fine, but won't have the time to try this out on ubers in the next few days. Has anyone ever tried that?
I haven't because Shocking aspect is a pretty big dps gain, otherwise Energy Armor with Prismatic Armor is likely a higher EHP gain, since the melee attacks aren't really all that scary, or Force Armor for MP10 since SK and mag have some pretty hard hitting abilities. In my experience it's the poison clouds that do the most damage against ghom, since I'm not high enough IAS to perfmafreeze him and keep him from dropping them. Also, most of the Ice Armor effects seem to proc off melee attacks. The frost nova rune sounds interesting though, but unless you get attacked more than once per second, the storm armor effect does more damage against bosses.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
This is going to come across as harsh, but really just think of it as a statistical nerd comment.
If you need the EHP from Energy Armor, then you should probably be doing a lower MP. I can farm keys at MP8 but when I'm doing item farming or exp runs, I usually run at mp3 or 4. The reason being is that I can put as much dps items/skills on and absolutely destroy face, which means that despite the loss in MF/GF/Exp bonus from mp8 vs mp4 I'm actually making more gold, getting more items, and more exp because I'm killing that much faster. I find probably six times as many legendaries at mp4 than I do at mp8