TL;DR: This is a simple build and dump playstyle. for mapping you will basically always use gathering storm, and only hit earthquakes on high health (or deadly) mobs. On bosses you will build 10 charges of gathering storm and drop and earthquake for massive damage.
Expanded Rotation
Melee enemies with Gathering Storm to generate storm stacks. You should have a high attack speed so these stacks will come very fast. When encountering large groups of enemies, you can drop your Earthquake Keep in mind, earthquake now has 2 functions after the 1.0 changes, its base damage, and its dumping of 10 storm stacks per cast via Fury Of The Elements 2/2 that will have a 30% more damage modifier. Its base damage is massive by itself, and has the largest amount of "more damage" modifiers of any skill in the game. On large packs of enemies cast Earthquake at will if there are deadly enemies in the pack. For bosses, you will want to make sure you have 10 stacks of gathering storm for each Earthquake. Cast Warcry on cooldown (Feel free to set up auto casting of Warcry with numlock if you don't want to manage it) This is to keep up the 1% base crit for Storm Bolt with Rending Vortex 1/1 per stack of maelstrom, which will all but guarantee your autobomber hits are critical strikes. The use of Summon Thorn Totem and Summon Storm Totem requires no management and will be auto casted via your Ornate Heorot Idol PrefixChance on hit to summon a Thorn Totem , and Stormcarved Testament.
Expanded skill breakdown
Earthquake:
This build has a nice synergy with Earthquake and Storm Bolt. Earthquake pumps massive damage by itself. We have no need for the Aftershock (because it does not get converted to lightning with the Storm Rift 1/1 node so it wouldn't scale with any lightning penetration or shock we get from our gear) . We will stick to autobombing with the Storm Bolt. That being said, we convert the Aftershock damage to initial hit damage with Seismic Smash 1/1, and make the initial hit occur 3 times with Seismic Tide 1/1. After taking Seismic Smash 1/1 , all sources of Aftershockdamage increases will instead apply to initial hit damage, so we can freely take them for massive "more damage" modifiers to Earthquake.
Warcry:
One complaint that i saw in the discord is lack of attack speed for generating storm stacks with Gathering Storm. Since you want to be absolutely popping off Storm Bolt's everywhere at all times, you need to swing fast to generate fast. We get help with this from Warcry. There is a node in the tree that will give you massive attack speed. We dip into the Berserker 1/1 node, which will do nothing for you initially, and that's unfortunate. Following that we get to Brutality 4/5 , which will increase our stack count of Beserk and the duration. It is still not useful (yet). From here we get to the money with Fury Strikes 3/3, This gives us a whopping 48% additional attack speed, and with Warcry reduced to a 4 second cooldown, you should have this buff available whenever you want it. Attacking this fast makes storm stack generation a breeze, and increases mana gained from hitting with Gathering Storm come very fast.
Gathering Storm:
This is our autobomber skill and the tree will be used entirely to buff that. With Rending Vortex 1/1, you will increase the base crit of Storm Bolt per Maelstrom stack. this combined with other sources of base crit will take you pretty close to 100% crit chance with Storm Bolt. That makes the critical strike multiplier an invaluable stat wherever you can get it. As stated earlier in the guide, we will get mana back with Manafused Storm 1/1. Since we will want base crit for Earthquake, we will want to be using an axe to dip into the benefits of Tempest Weapon 2/2, giving us 2 spell power per 3 melee damage on our axe. We use an Axe because Eagle Wing has up to 4% base critical chance implicit (spells and attacks). Concentrated Storm 4/4 will be a nice "more damage" multiplier for storm bolt, Thunderous Strikes 4/4 does apply for storm bolts, and gives a nice damage boost. A Storm Gathers 3/3 will give you a chance to gain a stack of gathering storm instead of using one, which can be very nice for bossing. Lightning Strikes Twice 1/1 will also be used for bossing and rare mobs, and can have some crazy interaction with multiple bosses and other recasting nodes of Storm Bolt. Lightning Gale 1/1 is a nice utility node, and does not need to be taken. If you get a +4 Gathering Storm on your chest then it can be worth it for map clear speed.
Summon Thorn Totem:
This skill is used for 2 reasons. the first is to stack Shred Armour with the Shred Armour 4/5node. Armor shred does increased elemental damage (at 70% value), so stacking it on bosses will be worth it. The second reason we take this is for Ascendant Circle 8/8, giving us 32% increased spell damage per totem. Summon Thorn Totem will have 5 totems via the Forested Expanse 4/4node and whenever one totem is summoned, you instead summon all 5 via Grove Mind 1/1 . This is easily acceptable since we auto summon these via an idol prefix. I hate summoning totems manually, so this makes it easy.
Summon Storm Totem
This skill is used for the again for Ascendant Circle 8/8, giving us a 6th totem and additional 32% increased spell damage. It will also auto summon once you get a Stormcarved Testament, making it acceptable. Other benefits include utility from Stormrider 4/4, and since everything is shocked this is almost a permanent 40% movement speed buff. We also pick up Grounding Conduit 3/3for 45% increased lightning damage, as well as Blizzard 1/1 to provide a chance for enemies to become Chilled each second.
Alternate skill setup
De-specialize Summon Storm Totem, and pick up Maelstrom
Both of these skills will provide a benefit regardless of whether we have their trees. Maelstrom from the Rending Vortex 1/1 and auto casting when we use Warcry. Storm totem from Ascendant Circle 8/8 and auto casting on hit with Stormcarved Testament.
the question becomes what do you want more, increased lightning damage with 40% movement speed from Stormrider 4/4, or do you want 20% attack speed and 20% movement speed from Windfury 1/1 and Windswept 1/1 with maelstrom (6 stacks or more only) and more autobombing. This will come down to personal preference. I light both Options, and both are easily maintainable.
Maelstrom option will be stronger for map clear, while Summon Storm Totem will be stronger for bossing and single target
