36 replies to this topic

[Loroese]

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.

Edited by Loroese, 11 November 2012 - 08:57 PM.

[Jalatiphra]

the only interesting thing about storm armor is the last rune which procs on crit

[Taisto]

I just wondered this very thing a few days ago so it was really nice to bump into this thread. Thank you for posting this!

[Frerk]

That's both interesting and very useless. Can't really think of any way to use that skill for damage then.

[Bagstone]

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?

[Loroese]

Bagstone, on 11 November 2012 - 09:54 PM, said:

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.

Frerk, on 11 November 2012 - 09:38 PM, said:

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.

[Bagstone]

Thanks for the clarification, now it makes sense.

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...

Edited by Bagstone, 11 November 2012 - 11:45 PM.

[Loroese]

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.

[Frerk]

Loroese, on 11 November 2012 - 11:34 PM, said:

Frerk, on 11 November 2012 - 09:38 PM, said:

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.

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.

[Loroese]

Frerk, on 12 November 2012 - 06:32 AM, said:

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.

[Bagstone]

Loroese, on 12 November 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

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.

Frerk, on 12 November 2012 - 06:32 AM, said:

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.

[Loroese]

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.

[Bagstone]

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.

[dcorp]

I found that Reactive Armor is a great rune on Storm Armor, any mob that manages to hit you or launches a ranged attack is almost always instadead, helps speed up the farming runs.

[Frerk]

Loroese, on 12 November 2012 - 08:02 AM, said:

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.

This was basically my thought too. I recently heard somebody say that "if you don't 1 shot everything you should lower your MP or stop playing archon". It's a bit excessive, but it's sort of right: anything besides elites should pretty much die instantly, so I'd much rather run with pinpoint barrier for elites than with Storm Armor.

It really is a matter of gear(the need for the extra dps or EHP) and above all personal preference.

Sorry for any confusion caused though

[Psychatog]

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.

[JKlimek]

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)

Edited by JKlimek, 12 November 2012 - 03:29 PM.

[Bagstone]

JKlimek, on 12 November 2012 - 03:27 PM, said:

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.

[JKlimek]

Bagstone, on 12 November 2012 - 03:40 PM, said:

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.

Edited by JKlimek, 12 November 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[Bagstone]

JKlimek, on 12 November 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

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.diablofan...t/#entry1080228