I gave the caster DPS classes some thought trying to figure out which one is ‘best’ and what combined other class would perfect it. The test results are in, and the winner is:
Earth + Spirit.
But first things first; Earth vs Storm
Fireball vs Ice shards - Ice shards with its concentrated power and clearly the winner of these two. Fireball is too spread out (and imo boring to use).
Volcanic Orb vs Thunderball – Both grenade like attacks with quite some big differences:
VO has much more dps but TB stuns. VO also has a much larger blast radius but VO including all upgrades costs 47 instead of the only 20 needed for TB.
TB is shot in a straight line, which has the advantage that if you miss it can still hit others in it’s path. VO however is lobbed so it can be shot over obstacles. I prefer the latter (lob) technique.
And perhaps most important: VO has a way faster recharge rate.
All in all I consider VO loads of times better than its electrical counterpart. The stun of course has many uses however trash mobs are better disposed of asap and bosses most likely have high stun resistances.
Both classes also have a power-up ability:
Earth enhancement/brimstone vs Storm Nimbus.
It’s quite simple. Earth is better here. Not only because it gives more dps but also because Storm Nimbus has useless upgrades that give retaliation damage and a chill aura to slow attacks. Both of these require you to be in range of melee attackers and for the retaliation you even need to be hit. Not something casters appreciate in general.
There’s also a 3rd attack spell for both classes positioned a little higher in the talent tree. Unlike the other two these differ quite a lot from eachother:
Eruption vs Lightning Bolt:
It’s hard to say which one is better at this point. LB probably has more use during trash clearing with it’s chain lightning effect while the volcano (Eruption) might be very useful to cast under stationery targets like bosses. Both are pretty strong but also have quite long cooldowns.
Next in line: Pets.
Core Dweller vs Whisp.
I don’t particularly like both. To sum it up real simple: Core Dweller is a tank pet with loads of HP. Useful when you’re solo. The Whisp has some stun attack and a strong attack power buff. I consider the Whisp better because it can boost your own attack.
These are pretty much the major comparisons. Both classes also have a shield which absorbs either fire or elemental damage (can be cast on others) but I don’t think most other skills are very useful except two which are completely unrelated from eachother:
Fire:
Stone form. A casters dream. Indestructible for 6 seconds in case you overagro. Just 1 skill point needed. Extra gives more HP regen and added retaliation damage to attackers but are not as important.
Storm:
Spell Breaker. Removes harmful debuffs from allies and beneficial buffs from enemies. A very potent offensive ability but only against special mobs and bosses. I can’t imagine this spell being used often on trash mobs.
So what’s the conclusion?
Earth is in my opinion the true dps caster class.
Storm seems more orientated on support. Either by stuns, slowing effects or beneficial buffs which leads to another conclusion: Storm is the *perfect* secondary class for a Nature healer. Although it won’t need much from the Storm tree, mostly: spell breaker, squall and energy shield but spell breaker alone is worth it for a dedicated healer.
______________________________________
Now that Storm is out of the way, which secondary class is best for Earth?
Not that there are that many choices to combine with. Rogue, hunter and such make no sense. Warrior? If you wanna get buff just get the Core Dweller afterall.
Plague from Nature is a cool offensive spell but the class which has the best synergy with Earth is...
Spirit!
The main reason for this is “
Ternion Attack†from the Spirit talent tree. This drastically increases your staffs dps.
“Staff dps wtf†you say?
Well as I said earlier I don’t consider fireball good as the main skill. Shards is nice but not worth getting the Storm class for. The Volcanic Orb is an amazing strong skill but you can’t use it non stop because of the cooldown. So you need something to shoot in between. Now here comes the synergy part:
Earth enhancement / brimstone which is at the moment horribly overpowered (in the beginning at least) works with staffs for those who didn’t know. And Ternion attack causes your staff to shoot 3 balls with increased damage and attack & movement speed. All of which receive increased fire damage. Oh and on top of that each ball has a large area of effect because of the skill Spirit class gives.
So instead of moving close to hit once with a melee weapon you now have 3 powerballs that have the same effect but are also ranged and with AoE.
Unless they change certain abilities drastically from the demo I suspect this special staff attack is way more useful than either the fireball or ice shard spells and it's much more mana effecient too.
Only 2 things are 100% needed from the Spirit tree. We just discussed the first one above. The other one is the “Dark Covenant†aura. This causes you to lose HP/sec but in return you get lots of energy regen and with the upgrade increased damage *plus* massive life leech. The damage again stacks with the staff and with the life leech you don’t have to worry about the hp/sec loss and you also won’t run out of mana as fast as other casters.
Here’s a simple oversight of the skills for this build:
Fire:
Fire Mastery = 32
Volcanic Orb (+upgrades) = 47
Earth enhancement = 27
Volatility = 12
Stone form = 1
Spirit:
Spirit Mastery: 24
Ternion Attack = 16
Dark Covenant = 16
Total skill points required: 175
This gives you a very solid and fun build. Finding a better staff automatically raises your dps a lot while spells tend to have more or less static dps.
You’ll be able to spend at least another 17 skill points at max lvl 65 and perhaps more depending if quest rewards will give skill points too. These points are best spend at either the life drain spell (Spirit), more points in stone form (Earth), Eruption (Earth) or the Liche King (Spirit) which is the best caster pet in my opinion.
I suspect this build will be the most optimum if you wanna be the best caster dps dealer.
...assuming the demo talent trees won’t fundamentally change a lot at least.
Any comment?
