The importance of Gathering Storm

[Rinayu 0]

Hi!

I'm reviewing some of my logs from previous raids, and am wondering how you guys rate the importance of Gathering Storm, and whether you actively try to only have 3 runes regenerating or if you let Gathering Storm just take a back seat and don't focus on it.

From some research I found that it does have a massive effect on the dps, when successfully extending your Gathering Storm from 10 stacks to a re-cast which refreshes the duration with 10 stacks it can have a huge impact as shown in the below log. (Check Buff Uptimes)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/GdFYfB6hxgzRncKr#fight=18

Please let me know if you've done any personal research and any insight. :)

[Drtain 74]

all I can say is i believe it to be very important.

[Orpheus1772 0]

Im sad that frozen soul isnt synched with gathering storm and just expires after the normal RW duration - sure, most of the time you wont be able to get additional targets to make it stronger, but it still annoys me that blizzard wasnt able to add this.

[demonardvark 556]

When outside of a breath I do try and focus a bit on RW. Now, that is with using the gathering storm talent. If I find that remorseless winter is close to coming off CD and I have 2-3 runes, I will derp for a couple seconds to ensure that I can burn more runes during its duration, this is a big dps buff. Now where that sweet spot of waiting versus spending is, I don't have a hard number for that. However, if using a breath build with it (not sure why storm breath never caught on, dude on mmo who came up with that was clever imo) it does behoove you to get the maximum benefit out of your abilities. 

tldr, try to save as much as you can to buff it, but don't wait more than maybe 3-5 seconds of its CD to conserve runes. doing nothing for extended periods is more punishing than potential gain. 

 

[Shells 64]

Winter is coming...................

 

If it works for the Starks its good enough for me.

Its a pretty solid damage increase for something your going to be using on CD or close enough to it in any case.

[demonardvark 556]

21 minutes ago, Shells said:

Winter is coming...................

 

If it works for the Starks its good enough for me.

Its a pretty solid damage increase for something your going to be using on CD or close enough to it in any case.

yeah its actually pretty interesting, last night I was doing high mythic +'s with my group, first boss of maw I derped and forgot I couldn't AMS through his fear, so my breath crapped out on me. By delaying the entire fight 3-5 GCDs to shove everything into gathering storm, I was able to pull off top dps over three other very talented dps (mage, lock, and a brutal arms warrior). So there is certainly something to conserving some juice for RW, again the sweet spot is difficult to find. Well not difficult just time consuming. So the laziest answer might be to say delay RW if possible to when you have 4-5 runes available, or will have generated the 4th or fifth rune during. That's just a pulled out of my bum answer, testing will be necessary for sweet spot. 

also yes you read that correctly, 4 dps total, that wasn't a mistake, most guild maw runs we skip a healer and just muscle plow through it, very entertaining to do.