I am curious how others build their Stormsingers for cap play (raids and R10s).
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Suggestions and opinions are very welcome
Heyas!
I also thought I would not be able to play without Mass Hold when I first started with Stormsinger, but ended up ditching it for the better DPS and quite frankly rarely if ever miss it by now.
I usually open fights with a combo of Soundburst (one of the most underrated CCs in the game in my view, rarely see people using it to effect) and BoGW and if by the end of the six seconds the group is not finished yet I just cast another soundburst for extra 6 seconds CC. And that's without counting the G shout stun. Both work on more stuff than Hold does and still have 100% uptime with the very short cool down - and with a higher DC than my Hold would have with the bonuses to Evocation. If I do need a longer duration CC situationally, I still have the single Hold Monster (when dealing with venges) and Hold Person for humanoids. If I need a second longish duration CC, or the mob saves against the Hold, there's Irresistible Dance. And since I usually solo at r8s, if needed and with preparation there's also the Dballs. Oh, and of course there's always Cut The Strings, as well.
I do miss Heal, but with my playstyle (soloing with FvS and Muse hires besides the others) I don't really need it much - I rarely ever get hit, and when I do the hires heal me quick enough.
So, all that said, my split is 42 Stormsinger, 31 Spellsinger, 8 Falconry and 16 H-Elf (I don't really miss Dragonborn's extra DCs and the call lightning storm SLA from the dragon mark adds some nice free extra DPS to the fold - not to mention how great it is for flavor - currently got 123 Evocation DC before the +3 reaper boost and rarely stuff saves even on r10s). Destiny wise, I go with 35 FS, 32 Primal, 6 Magus (with the Discipline feat taken at 18 for -95% threat reduction, -115% with Dark Diversion - this way even the hires can keep aggro away from me, and there's always Diplo for the odd times they don't).
No Draconic? Nope. I lose some burst DPS but with the hires added DPS from the Primal mantle, plus the fact they can efficiently tank and keep aggro on most high reaper content I find that the fact I rarely have to kite (so don't really miss wings either) and can focus entirely on nuking the mobs more than compensates for the slightly lower DPS on paper (every second spent looking away from mobs is a DPS loss). And there's also less worry about mana with Evergreen proccing all the time.
Then T5 Stormsinger gives me another great single target DPS option in Iceberg - in the end having Thunderstroke + Iceberg is almost like having Gruin+Ruin (less damage but also lower cooldowns).
And when I do end up in a group I find it still performs well enough with all the versatility with the CC and decent enough damage, and the heals from the shouts and occasional Cocoon/Cure criticals still do enough to keep melee toons topped of for most of the time when there's no dedicated healer.
Cheers,
NH
