Recently got this trinket, and after running many runs - and analysing with SWStats - it seems to be accounting for around 6-7% of my total DPS output. I'm an 18/0/43 frost mage, with around 800+ dmg, around 28% crit on bosses, with chill applied.

My question is, are any other casters noticing this as slightly overpowered, even besting the Neltharian Tear in terms of DPS boost (for it's time). From my initial testing, and i might be missing something here, but it seems to be almost an essential trinket. At first glance of the description, the boost isn't immediately obvious, but do the math - it really does equate to a trinket with about 6-7% crit rate (effective). I can't find any other trinket that generates that level of DPS increase, and it's a passive trinket at that.

The Lightning Capacitor

It seems the proc can crit and can work off AoE crits, so it seems outstanding for anyone that enjoys criting with spells (and the guy is not nature immune).

This proc does not scale with +damage gear.

How do the charges store? As an infinite buff on your toon?

I'd be interested to see how often an arcane mage could proc this with Arcane Missles.

I imagine that would represent an increase of almost 100dps.

Yes, it's ridiculous. This trinket dropped for me on our first kill and it has floored me, both on paper and now in practice.

In a raid boss situation with no Shatter happening, it adds an amazing amount of damage. It hits for around 1k and crits for 1.5k. Extra damage per cast = crit rate * (1000 + crit rate * 500) / 3. If your crit rate is up around 30% with Winter's Chill stacked, that's 115 damage per cast.

In PvP with Shatter, it's proc'ing like crazy. Given that you often have one or two charges stored up most of the time in a lasting fight, you can get Frostbolt->Ice Lance->Lighting Bolt crits for 6-7k burst damage. I don't know for sure that Shatter works with the trinket, but it appears to crit a lot.

The effect is like a shaman Lightning Bolt. It has travel time; it's not instant.

The proc is a stacking buff that can be dispelled. It's infinite and persists through logout. No cooldown of any kind.

It can also proc off Molten Armor crits, which means you end up blowing up melee attackers passively on occasion.

Does it scale with +damage?

One of our fire mages its accounting for 12% of his damage its kinda crazy. That trinket is so getting nerfed only trinket in the game to improve DPS by leaps and bounds on a side note that poison trinket from Romeo and Juliet proc rate is awful accounts for about 1% DPS.

Also a warlock we have with it will build up 2 charges hitting rats and squirrels then goes looking for horde to gank.

It procs off molten armor crits and also (if any of you have done mech and stolen the fire shield off the astromage dudes?) fire shield/thorns type procs it seems.

One of our mages was dying of laughter the other day when he managed to gank a rogue with it while afk with molten armor on.

This dropped for us last night and I handed it over to a mage, simply because as an Affliction specced lock, many of my spells do not crit (although I'd love to see that sucker proc 100 times on Ilhoof with SoC imp control).

Is there a ranking of which type of caster it's better for? Maybe Frost Mage > Fire Mage > Destro Lock > Arcane Mage > Moonkin > SM/Ruin Lock? I'd imagine that a Winter's Chill Frost Mage is going to be critting a bunch, possibly more than a Fire Mage (but with Scorch spam thrown in the mix... who knows).

I hope it doesn't get nerfed, but I can just feel it coming down the line.

I'm firmly in belief that this will get nerfed. I can't really think of any other singular item, let alone a trinket, which has the potential to add so much damage to a player's DPS. It's an awesome idea for an item, and very fun, but with the PvP and PvE possiblities it does just seem a little too powerful.

"When I get my lightning capacitator I'm gonna..." I'm sure I'm not the only person who spent some time virtually speccing and gearing up based solely on getting this trinket.

I kind of feel like a warrior.

weak?

Speaking of overpowered trinkets
http://www.thotbott.com/?i=57063
I've gotta run a procwatch test at this, but both thott and wowhead give it a 15% proc, which would equal 75 mp5 under optimal conditions.

With a 40% scorch crit rate, we're looking at 160 dmg per scorch, about 372 +dmg from a single trinket. 250 or so after taking into account coe imp scorch firepower etc

Edit: a few other 'interesting trinkets'

http://www.thotbott.com/?i=59610 < favors scorch spam > fireball on proc, gets you three quick fireballs in 7.5 s~
http://www.thotbott.com/?i=59724 < I would imagine if thott is right it would always stay up with scorch
http://www.thotbott.com/?i=58940 < favors rogues and druids and dw shamans and warriors

I can also confirm it can proc twice, off the same spell. Last evening, i hit a CoC on 4 mobs, crit them all (shatter), and it discharged 2 crit lightning bolts.. I'm wondering if it's also being affected by shatter, which affect all spell types. If not, i just got incredibly lucky.

Also, on Illhoof, an incredibly easy encounter anyway - it proved it's worth ten fold, as i could leave the boss on target, AOE the imps, and given the number of imps, it was proccing almost every cast - literally 1.5 second 1k nukes on the boss, *while* AOEing.

Very impressive trinket in the right situation - and overall, i just keep getting more and more amazed by it's output potential.

http://chuckg.org/dump/2007/lightning_capacitor.jpg

The speculation about AOE is a bit misinformed, I think. Casting SoC on 4 mobs and having it crit across 5-10 mobs is 1-2 charges at most, it's limited on how many charges it can receive in a second. You'll also find that it should be better than Neltharion's Tear, it's a trinket from 4 dungeons ago. I think tear is still 4-6% of your DPS if you're dumping out 1000DPS, or somewhere near there. If you're thinking that a single item averaging around 4-7% of someone's DPS is too much, just take a look at your 1h/2h weapon.