Why does one spinning skill seem uncapped while another gets a hard limit?

The short version is that it is probably both design and engine practicality. A skill that spawns a lot of persistent entities gets messy fast, because every extra object can mean more targeting checks, hit checks, visual clutter, and server work. A hard cap is an easy way to keep one build from turning into a performance problem as much as a damage problem.

At the same time, the two skills do not really play the same role. One is meant to feel like a flooding storm of projectiles, so uncapped or loosely capped volume fits the fantasy. The other is more of a controlled orbiting setup, so a cap keeps the power budget in a tighter lane. That lets the designers tune damage per object instead of letting stacking get out of hand.

I would not assume the two are treated the same under the hood just because they look similar on screen. One might be using a lightweight repeated effect that is mostly visual plus periodic damage pulses, while the other could be a more literal summoned entity with its own tracking and collision logic. Those choices can lead to very different limits.

From a gameplay angle, the cap also helps keep the Druid version readable. Too many orbiting boulders would turn into a giant moving wall, and then bosses, trash packs, and even your own character become hard to see. So the limit is not only about damage, it is about controlling the chaos.

Honestly, it feels like classic class identity tuning. The Sorcerer gets to lean into spam and screen coverage, while the Druid version is built around a more deliberate rotation where each extra piece matters a lot. If they let the Druid one stack forever, it would stop being a specialized build and start being the only sane way to play it.

Hard caps are also a crude but effective safety valve. They keep edge cases from spiraling when gear, attack speed, or some weird synergy pushes the skill past what the original numbers were meant to handle. Not glamorous, but it works.

If you look at it from a systems standpoint, uncapped persistent projectiles are one of the fastest ways to create runaway scaling. Every new source of attack speed, resource refund, or on-hit trigger can multiply the value of the skill instead of just boosting it a little. That is why developers often put a ceiling on anything that can sit there and keep hitting over time.

The interesting part is that a cap does not always mean weaker. A capped skill can be stronger per instance because the devs know exactly how many can exist at once, so they can tune each one harder. That is probably why the capped version can still feel good even though it seems less flexible on paper.

My guess is there is no single clean answer. It is probably a mix of theme, performance budget, and how much abuse the skill could get from stacking mechanics. One class fantasy is built around chaos and density, the other around a more controlled orbit, so the rules do not have to match.

Also, hard caps are often a sign that the designers found a combination they did not want to support long term. If the uncapped version stays manageable, they may leave it alone. If the capped one was producing weird outlier damage or frame issues, they clamp it early and move on.