Pre 2.0 I made a thread called let's nuke it out. Basically it said if all these classes can hit us for unreal amounts of dmg we should be able to do the same we have way less defenses then any of these other classes so it's is only fair. What we got was synergy between our top tier and the rest of the talents. Perfect but the dmg we can do vs the dmg we take is still not there.

We can be shutdown no one else can be that in of itself thunder blast should do more dmg. Yes it can auto crit but every class has the ability to lock that skill out any time we go to use it. The skill is at no point fully protected and the cast time is 2 secs. Thunder blast should be the hardest hitting ability in game bar none.

My Sorcerer is almost Level 52 now, at ran a full Lightning Spec until today. I tested with only 25 points in Lightning and put the rest (17 points) in Madness to improve Force Lightning and now I have a hard time going back and using Thundering Blast again:

- TB has a cast time of 2 seconds, FL of zero seconds.

- TB has a cooldown of 9 seconds, FL of zero seconds.

- TB costs 50 force, FL effectively has negative cost!

- TB deals about 3800 damage on crit, FL deals about 3000 damage non-crit.

- TB has a 60% chance to trigger Lightning Storm, FL has an almost 100% chance to trigger an instant Lightning Strike with 35% increased damage, which in turn has a 60% chance of triggering Lightning Storm.

The only thing in favour of TB is that you get a guaranteed Effusion, but honestly, when Crushing Darkness, Affliction and Force Lightning tick on a target, something always crits...

Going thundering Blast is a big waste of your time and talents you'll die after the first one or die before you get it off. Lighting spec is horrible for pvp and easy to interupt the only thing you'll end up getting of is shocks and affliction once you plant your feet and try to start casting melee will drop you.. you have 0 defensive abilities except bubble stun and your channeled bubble after that your dead.

Madness gives more survivabilty but bad force management and lack of any burst will also evtually get you killed without really making a difference other than high damage numbers with 1-2 killing blows. A Deception Assasin typically will have mid to high teens for killing blows. Mine has had a record 39 in a game.

Bottom line Thundering Blast = bad.

My Sorcerer is almost Level 52 now, at ran a full Lightning Spec until today. I tested with only 25 points in Lightning and put the rest (17 points) in Madness to improve Force Lightning and now I have a hard time going back and using Thundering Blast again:

 

- TB has a cast time of 2 seconds, FL of zero seconds.

- TB has a cooldown of 9 seconds, FL of zero seconds.

- TB costs 50 force, FL effectively has negative cost!

- TB deals about 3800 damage on crit, FL deals about 3000 damage non-crit.

- TB has a 60% chance to trigger Lightning Storm, FL has an almost 100% chance to trigger an instant Lightning Strike with 35% increased damage, which in turn has a 60% chance of triggering Lightning Storm.

 

The only thing in favour of TB is that you get a guaranteed Effusion, but honestly, when Crushing Darkness, Affliction and Force Lightning tick on a target, something always crits...

If your TB hits for 3800 on a 2 second cast and FL for 3000 on 3 second channel its still not as good. That particular hybrid has an identity crisis as well. It puts two filler against each others, FL and LS. You try and get the conduction bonus going, but don't cast enough FL to get it done, or miss wrath procs.

If you want an hybrid, going for only CL proc and DoT and DF crit damage is better.

That hybrid in PvE will just fall way short of lightning. You gave up TB for wrath and no cooldown on force lightning. Its nice to nuke thrash, got very nice aoe damage, and then what? You are "forced" to use FL instead of LS, you can hope for LS crits on wrath and double procs to get conduction going but it will most likely fall off if RNG isn't absolutely with you. Otherwise you delay a CD and lose dps. And you lack the Deathmark talent to have your DoT hit hard enough.

A channel is still like a cast, that its damage after a set duration. Channel ticks, cast hit at once.

Your number seem off by the way. My TB hits for 7,5 to 8k with my current gear, and my FL crits on a target that isn't armored too much are 2,2k ticks ( so if all crit, 8,8k).

Even if target has low armor, even if all crits its still less damage per seconds than TB. Safe once every minute and a half with a barrage proc and recklessness. If pushback doesnt take off half its damage.

Hm no.... my numbers are correct. I'm still 51, and my gear is far from perfect. I use orange gear, and all my armoring, mods and enhancements are level 50. My earpeace is still 49, but even if I got a new one, I doubt I could get above 4000 damage with Thundering Blast crits.

That said, ignoring the global cooldown, during the cooldown of TB of 9 seconds I can cast three Force Lightnings. The TB crit has to be VERY high to compensate that.

During really longer fights, shielding and healing my tank companion, I sometimes ran out of force and had to use consumption to get some force back. With Force Lightning, I now took out a Level 48 Champion on Corellia, 150,0000 hitpoints, and never got below 90% Force. DOTs, Shielding, FL, FL FL, some healing, DOTs, shielding, repeat till death.

In addition, FL is completely immune to interrupting. Just cast it again, it costs nothing and has no cooldown.