I couldn’t succeed at getting to the bug report page (tells me it doesn’t exist anymore), otherwise I think it would have been better posted there.
I’ve made a few tries with Disintegrate (I don’t know if that’s the case with other channeling DoT spells), and i’ve taken note of this :
If you activate a buff while channeling, like Arcane Transcendence (or Flame Ward with the appropriate nodes), the damages of Disintegrate stays the same. You have to stop your actual channeling and restart it so that the buffs are taken into account.
I do not know if that is intendend or not, but either way I don’t think it should work like this.
Not only does it add complexity to maximize your efficiency for very little reward compared to other spells (simply keeping your finger down on the key for Lightning Blast will let you benefit from all new buffs since it will be new casts every time, except if you took the channeling node of course), but it also mean that buffs that are randomly proc’d are not added to your Disintegrate if you do not stop and restart your channel (for example, if Disintegrate proc a Lightning Blast, which itself proc a Lightning Aegis, you won’t benefit from the damage buffs on your Disintegrate as long as you don’t restart the channel).
If you do stop your channel and restart, the new damages are properly upgraded depending on the buffs you had at the time of when you started channeling. This also means that if the buffs goes off but you continue channeling, you continue doing damages with Disintegrate as if you still had the buffs… Which is not what I think it should do, but at least that’s an upside to the downside I guess ?
Yes, that’s because for non-channelling skills each cast is a separate use. Channelled skills snapshot their stats at the time of activation. This is how it is supposed to work (whether that’s how you want it to or not).
Well, I find it quite strange because Disintegrate has a node that gives stronger damages depending on how much Shock stack your target has, but as far as my tests are concerned this only takes into account the stacks your target have at casting time too. Is that also intended ?
Personally, I do not think that it is a good thing. For most people, it will most likely render the spell uninteresting because you can’t simply hold it down as is (which is most likely what you might wish from a channeling spell, don’t you ?), and there might be a niche of players that will find a few ways to abuse it (what if I activate Arcane Transcendence first, then hold my Disintegrate and untoggle Arcane Transcendence ? I end up having the buff on my Disintegrate without the cost of it, don’t I ? And if I take this neat little “global mana efficiency but no more mana regen” node from Arcane Transcendence, I can even optimize my Disintegrate by reducing it’s cost with a free buff !).
