I was looking forward to trying this set as it looked awesome its awakened form: Cast Winds of Askerkarn and spam some TSS for burst damage with the cooldown reduction.
Only…TSS has a casting animation, meaning you stop casting WoA as soon as you cast TSS.
WoA also has a buildup baked in, so it takes a few seconds to hit peak range and damage, but the TSS cooldown will reset within about 1 second of casting it so casting TSS when off cooldown will just awkwardly pause casting WoA.
Its bizarre.
Is it possible to get rid of the TSS casting animation when using this set? Or tweak the mechanics of WoA so it can continue working through casting TSS?
As it stands, it just doesn’t work as it seems like it should.
Perhaps TSS could get a %TDM multiplier (120-200% or higher) and add CD time (2-3 seconds)? You should easily be able to reduce the CD of TSS with the modifier from WoA while casting and it will make it worthwhile to interupt your WoA to drop a truly painful meteor.
Ignoring the damage aspect of it, the issue is that using these two skills in conjunction is clunky. You cast WoA for like 1 second → TSS cooldown resets → cast TSS → Recast WoA because you stopped casting it when you used TSS → 1 second later use TSS → repeat.
The whole cycle is just annoying and feels wrong. You can’t spam TSS because it has a cooldown, you reduce the cooldown via casting WoA, each step requires you to pause and change what you’re casting.
If you’re fighting trash then its only worth using WoA as it’ll melt them before TSS is needed, if you’re fighting a boss then TSS makes more sense as you can kite but my hope was that you could use WoA for sustain with the ADCTH and use TSS for burst, but you can’t since you stop casting WoA so lose the sustain.
TDM allows adjusting of the net damage a skill does, without having to just shove tons of WD% or Flat damage onto things (The former will directly impact other aspects if being done for skills with <100% WD% for stuff like procs and ADCtH)
Global TDM, especially from outside sources like Onslaught stacks, is where the issue arises as you then start having it leak into other builds besides the one that needs the extra damage.
Of course, adding TDM into Eastern set is iffy due to it being only a 3pc set meaning it could be grabbed for TDM for other TSS builds (Though it does conflict with other major TSS set pieces and TSS is overall… Not very strong regardless of build)
Because arbitrarily adding TDM to just one archetype of a skill that already gets Onslaught Stacks (via WoA) hurts most other versions of TSS that does not. People are suggesting adding TDM modifier on top of onslaught stacks, what about every non Eastern TSS build? We can already add +2 seconds to TSS if you find the intended Eastern Evoker playstyle too awkward.
That’s the nature of specific TDM. It only affects the specific set up. Which is why it’s preferable to global TDM that can affect more than just a specific set up.
Is an entirely separate discussion. One that likely should take precedent over adjusting Eastern.
Though it’s entirely possible to add TDM to Eastern as a short term measure, a way of making this newly released Awakened set playable while discussions and math is done on TSS as a base skill.
Then if TSS gets buffed as baseline, you can then tone back/remove the TDM added to Eastern.
Such is the nature of game development. Things aren’t set in stone and unchangeable.
This particular thread was made on the topic of the Eastern set, thus its comments are directed towards the Eastern set.
More specifically, the suggestion for TDM on Eastern wasn’t even a “TSS sucks, give it free TDM” suggestion. But rather was a suggestion to use TDM to make up for a longer CD TSS so that the overall gameplay of the set was less spammy without losing any damage output.
Discussion of TSS as a skill, is elsewhere (Notably, it has been brought up in the “OP things_” thread, a poorly named thread that covers skills that are over and under performing)
I agree that the short TSS recharge creates an anti-synergy here.
That said, I am actually playing around with WoA and TSS right now, casting TSS whenever it comes off cooldown while channeling WoA, and I think the fact that casting another skill causes WoA to start over is interesting in itself.
It creates a meaningful choice:
either keep WoA going to maintain its maximum range and damage,
or accept losing some of that outer-range coverage in order to use other skills for devotion procs or other effects.
So I don’t necessarily think WoA being interrupted by other skills is something that needs to be changed.
That said, I agree that having TSS and WoA effectively restart every ~1 second is awkward, both intuitively and mechanically.
Rather than simply shortening the buildup time, I wonder if a better solution would be something more along the lines of Wrath of Agrivix: give TSS a longer recharge, but compensate for that with a meaningful additional effect or damage increase.
That would preserve the choice between maintaining WoA and using TSS, while avoiding the strange 1-second TSS/WoA restart cycle.
There’s a common misconception in the game that if a set supports several skills, then you need to use all those skills.
This is not correct.
The Eastern set can be a TSS set OR a Winds set. Trying to play both is a very silly idea. Just pick your favorite and move on. That is what the devs intended.
The way I see it:
Option 1: you get as much cooldown reduction as possible on items and via CDR%, ignore WoA and spam TSS with minimal delay (use that time to cast RR skils, proc devotions, kite, dodge, etc.).
Option 2: use set that adds another charge to TSS (there are 2 possibilities here IIRC).
Option 3: invest heavily into casting speed which cases WoA to increase its radius quicker (prioritizing WoA instead of TSS).
Option 4: Zakull’s Visage adds 1s cooldown to TSS for 80% weapon damage so WoA cooldown reduction is more useful.
Ultimately, you can mix it up but you have decide priorities because you have spam skill and cooldown skill that require different things. Do you want WoA build with supplementary TSS to help with range and proc devotions or do you want TSS with WoA filler.
TSS needs some filler skill anyway. Usually you use Seal of Night or Seal of Skies (depending on your build and damage conversions) and now you have an option to use WoA as filler with a nice bonus of CDR on the skill.
Only range and it takes 2s tops with high casting speed.
I assumed that you’d just play the build around +1s from Zakull and +1s from Offhand. Forgo CDR stacking in favour of better flats & OA - so Heart of Asterkarn over Star Pact, etc. Flat damage isn’t wasted thanks to 80% WD from Zakull.
These would be the core items, yeah. Notice how none give cast speed so that’s a bit problematic - we really need to live on scraps. At least both masteries have cast speed built into them.
double cast speed class, probably not going to be an issue unless aiming for max speed overs/alternatively we ditch the weap since it lowers the cd and doesn’t increase it
The Zakull helmet could be interesting for sustain off of the weapon damage, but if it’s not enough I still think having CDR is helpful to get Dryad and other heal procs more often, which would make the rotation more awkward.
I wonder if maybe WoA could be slightly reworked so that its radius is tied to a hidden charge mechanic like DAR stacks? Allowing a small window of time of not channelling without resetting its radius?
Which would not only help this particular set, but also general WoA usage (Where you naturally want to cast other skills for devo procs/RR/debuffs)
