Path of the Tempest | Barbarian Subclass, and on combat loops

This is a subclass I've been tinkering on for a couple months (I had started it right after posting my Sun Domain here), and it is definitely one I'm pretty happy with.

As a quick recap, the Path of the Tempest channels the power of a storm through its raging, able to manifest abilities such as teleporting around the battlefield to attack and evade, emitting minor charges to hamper enemies, and creating electric bursts. The 'core' ability of the subclass is certainly its L3, the Lightning Step, which allows for short teleportation and attacking along the line of teleportation (creating an interesting AoE effect). This ability is what I'll be touching on most today, as it is the basis for the rest of the subclass to play on, and ultimately is really what the player will be using most.

In my homebrewing experience, one bit of feedback I've gotten a lot is about a concept I like to call "Combat Loops". Effectively, this is what the player will be doing every fight on a regular basis, with no cost, or rather, no cost that won't likely be gotten back by the next encounter. For example, one could say that the Combat Loop of a fighter is to take the Attack action every turn and use their Action Surge feature on the first round of every combat. Another example is that the Combat Loop of a cleric is to cast Toll the Dead (or Sacred Flame) using your action, starting the first round casting Spiritual Weapon as a bonus action, and using your subsequent bonus actions to continue attacking with it. This loop could be interrupted with other spells, but in general, this is what one could expect (when number crunching) of what a cleric would do. Identifying a subclass or class's Combat Loop helps us analyze it better, ensuring that its damage isn't too low or high. (This is a vital step before you should even think about playtesting. Running the numbers will make sure your stuff is balanced while playtesting will show if it's fun.)

Now, for barbarians, I'll analyze the Combat Loop a bit more specifically. Overall, most barbarians will be spending their turn immediately entering a rage, then taking the Attack action. On subsequent turns, a barbarian will use their action to continue to Attack, while some barbarians (such as berserker) will start using their bonus action to use their subclass features. The Path of the Tempest starts the same as others, and on subsequent turns will be using Lightning Step to move across groups of enemies, so as to proc the lightning/thunder damage. This sort of loop encourages a lot of movement around the battlefield, which should ensure the player is more actively engaged on their turns (as they will need to pay attention to their position much more than the "I attack whatever is nearest to me" that I hear so often!)

In future posts (especially subclasses), I'm going to touch on what the Combat Loop is for the brew, in addition to the rest of the quick recap! Hopefully, I'll have the next brew ready within the next two weeks; a month and a half is much too long!