Storm Shards

Storm Shards

Release date	13 July 2015 (Update)
Members	Yes
Skill	Constitution
Level	70
Type	Basic
Adrenaline	+8%
Equipment	Any weapon
Cooldown	30 seconds
Description
Stack up to 95% (32% in PvP) weapon damage on your target. Trigger all stacked damage using the Shatter ability. Maximum of 10 stacks.
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Storm Shards is a basic ability, unlockable through Raids from either the untradeable Storm Shards and Shatter Ability Codex, or the tradeable Mazcab ability codex. It is unlocked with the Shatter ability. This ability is able to stack on its target. If it hits the target, it will deal no damage, but instead apply 75-95% ability damage (an average of 85%) in the form of a Storm Shard stack. If it misses, no stacks are applied. Up to 10 Storm Shards can be stacked on a target at any given time, at which point the ability can no longer be activated against the target. When Shatter hits a target with Storm Shards stacks, the stacks are removed, and the damage from the stacks is applied in one go, up to a maximum of 30,000 life points. Its damage is reduced to 25-32% ability damage in PvP and the use of Freedom will halve the damage stored. Storm Shards will end if the user does not attack the target for 10 consecutive seconds.

Since the effect of Storm Shards is to "save up" damage to be applied at a later time, one use is in fighting bosses that become more powerful over time, by building up stacks early and then going through later phases more quickly. Storm Shards can carry over on most, but not all bosses with phases. The following bosses are known to transfer stacks of Storm Shards in an abnormal fashion:

• Vorago: Stacks are removed at the start of every phase.
• Nex: Stacks are removed at the start of every phase.
• Araxxor/Araxxi: Stacks transfer completely throughout phases 1-3, even if the player takes the bottom path, ignoring the 10-second rule. When transitioning to Araxxi/phase 4, stacks are halved.
• Telos, the Warden: Stacks transfer completely throughout phases 1-4. If transitioning to phase 5, stacks are halved.

Storm Shards is unaffected by abilities like Berserk and Sunshine; however, the threshold counterpart, Shatter, is affected by damage boosting abilities.

Trivia

• There was a bug where if Storm Shards is used against another player's familiar in the Wilderness, it will not skull the user and the familiar will retaliate. If the familiar manages to inflict damage on the user, it will skull the owner of that familiar instead. This was fixed.