Tempest Shield

Hi PoE Community, my first post :)

I played around with tempest shield for a while now and wanted to give some feedback.

1)
I wanted to make the spell work on my freezing pulse templar (by getting a good amount of increased block nodes), but have given up on it. The dmg reduction wasn't good enough in merciless, maybe its viable at higher levels (with even more block nodes and some nice unique with spellblock), and I will try it on a melee templar with lifeleach. But maybe it just needs
a little buff.

2)
I found the 'tempest shield is active but no visualisation on the character' - bug; its still in the game v0.9.13i. I also got the opposite: 'tempest shield visualised but actually not active' which through me a little bit of guard. But I couldn't reproduce that one.

3) BUG?
I got used to the recasting one area switches, weapon swap, etc. but found another interesting point which probably also belongs to the entire 'tempest shield is not an aura' thing:
>> you can't deactivate tempest shield <<
at least not by casting it again, because that will cast the shield again, provided you have enough mana. This occurred for me first after choosing the keystone 'Eldritch Battery' and suddenly getting a huge amount of extra mana. It confused my quite a bit because I assumed recasting it will turn it off like it did on the time before. To actually turn it off you can use any of the 'annoying' things like area switching, re-equipping the shield, .., or just cast it a lot of times very fast which might lead you to point 2). ;)

(btw. I nearly killed myself by using bloodmagic and de- and reactivation tempest shield in battle - I didn't like it - is there a thread about this already?)

4)
I realy like the game, keep up the good work GGG

Is it possible to cast Tempest Shield with a wand ( for Spell dmg) and the simply change the wand to a mace?
Not with "X" ofc, just putting the Wand in the inventar. Would that work or would the dmg readjust?

I hope this question hasn´t been asked, couldn´t find it though...

well buffs like molten shell and righteous fire do not update on weapon swap (and would be imbalanced for them to be). so likely this follows that pattern.

curious though that maces 10% or 20% elemental effects this skill, so only reason to use wand is if it has more than bonuses a mace would give.

Well if u use a wand with about 100% spell dmg and maybe even lighning dmg...

Since u have to recast tempest Shield in every new area its no big deal to change the weapons. In theory one could change all equip except the shield and the item which has the tempest shield gem, but this seems to be impractical. But just changing the weapon... i´ll give it try

i havent read all the 13 pages here, so sorry if so so and so

tempestshield and volls dont charge up more than once.
i did some tests, taking hits from tons of monsters and everytime only 1 power charge would appear. my base crit chance is 25% atm. definitely bugged.

1 charge per crit. if it isn't making multiple crits, there is something wrong. if it only gives one charge period, something is worse. please explain what is actually going on? are multiple foes gaining shock debuff? it will not happened all at once but gradually.

the crits are still being dealt after acquiring the 1st and only power charge.
this shows because of the shock debuff on enemies/corpses.
my display shows about a 3% increase in cit chance which corresponds with the
power charge gained. i can also see the powercharge on the top left, along with the number 1.
this does not go higher than 1 unless i acquire powercharges by using other skills than tempest shield.

my gem is linked with increased crit chance, life leech and lightning penetration.
it now has a crit chance of 28% and the block chance is 75% (max)
power charges are easily gained by using slower skills, with less crit chance. without bugs tempest shield should gain powercharges at accelerated speed. this it clearly doesnt do. therefore it is a broken mechanic.

I believe then that tempest shield suffers from the "one charge per cast" rule. Tempest shield is only ever cast once and is maintained. Reasonable normally but confusing in this specific case.

Guess that now brings up question on how to fix or balance things for this. Constantly having max charges via tempmest and volls is highly imbalanced yet only ever just one charge period and vanishing is just as wrong. Best suggestion i can figure is have it that power charges gained from tempest shield never go above 1 while triggering as proper.

guess will have to wait on dev input on the situation.

i disagree with the imbalance part. with blocking being lowered in the latest patch, its extremely costly to get block% up high. im also using the perandus shield, which doesnt add much base defense, and nor does volls. with my mana in half my character is very limited in choice of skill.
im using discipline and CI to be able to tank some hits. and im using the dream fragments ring in order to have about 40 free mana. all skills except one are linked with reduced cost...

the big advantage of the niche would be the ability to frequently cast discharge. the mana cost for this is rather high and would require discipline to be replaced by either high energy shield nodes and items in the remaining slots or investing in life points and not using CI. yet nodes are few after investing in blocking.

getting charges from other skills is not difficult but it requires using other skills and not curses or minions or totems or discharge or traps etc. i find the mechanic unnecessarily limiting.

i would really like to get feedback from the devs on this. planning a build for this game and open beta i often find more fun than actually playing it and can provide a nice escape from the obligations in my life.

Maybe just a stupid idea, but wouldn't it be fun if the damage part of this skill was projectile based ? i think it would give this skill some fun options, and allow to make builds around it, instead of just being some sort of personal aura.