if ONE CW can do all the damage and CC needed in a party then why would you need any other party member? that's a horrible solution.
The CW's AoE damage is what's important.
Because that's their specialty, and its the primary thing that gets you through these types of dungeons. Right now... it does take more than one CW. The solution to that is to increase the damage on the individual CW nukes... but also increase the recast timer on them.
The idea being... the CW's AoEs should as an individual... literally clear the field, leaving only a few strong mobs left for the Fighters and Rogues to take on. But not be able to repeatedly cast. The recast timers on them being equally long would only allow him to use them sparingly.
So quite literally one CW could wipe out the entire crowd of Adds... no more adds.... no more need for a second CW, and then be waiting on recast timers.
A second CW in those shoes has nothing left to nuke except single targets. If you've ever played a CW, you'd know the GWF and Rogue far outclass it in single target damage, but the rogue is useless in AoE situations, and the GWF can only hit a few targets at a time.
So if that ONE CW were able to do the job it actually takes two of them to do, only one would be needed.
Which of course frees up that next spot for the Rogue to actually be used on single targets... ie the weakness of the Mage.
Nope, they won't because the other extra control wizards they just stacked in the party will of course... nuke the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of them in place of the rogue slot they just replaced with another CW, as he's useless in mass mobs.
You're going in the wrong direction here.
If you want other classes to be needed in a party, ONLY ONE CW... will have to be able to do the entire job making any additional CWs a waste of a party slot like the rogue is currently. So the actual solution is the opposite. Basically making it only necessary for one CW to do the job in a party. That would of course mean upping his damage and recast timers both to a level that allows one mage to nuke an entire crowd rather than 3 or 4... because nerfing his damage will just result in more CWs required in party to do the same job.
I think this is meant ironically, but I can't be 100% sure.
Just in case you believe that boosting the DPS of the most over-powered class in any MMO I have ever played, will somehow reduce the demand for parties to stack that class, I have an alternative: nerf CW DPS to FAR below that of any other class and boost their control. Then one Control Wizard would almost always be wanted in parties, but it would be slow down any party that stacked them...
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
I think this is meant ironically, but I can't be 100% sure.
Just in case you believe that boosting the DPS of the most over-powered class in any MMO I have ever played, will somehow reduce the demand for parties to stack that class, I have an alternative: nerf CW DPS to FAR below that of any other class and boost their control. Then one Control Wizard would almost always be wanted in parties, but it would be slow down any party that stacked them...
Nope... I totally meant what I said.
And the Control Wizard is dead, just give that up now, that was nerfed long ago. They're not going go "unnerf" it.
It can't do the job it used to whether you want it to or not.
And the Control Wizard is dead, just give that up now, that was nerfed long ago. They're not going go "unnerf" it.
It can't do the job it used to whether you want it to or not.
Quote from Devs required for your statement.
Right now the easiest way to make the CW better in PvP and less good in PvE is to reduce its damage and increase its Control. If one wizard can control all the mobs but is not the best DPS class, then stacking them is not required, and other classes may actually be wanted...
Unless you actually have some proof to back up your idea that INCREASING CW DPS will somehow make them less wanted in PvE. Because in every single MMO I have played, boosting a classes DPS tends to make them more wanted.....
Right now the easiest way to make the CW better in PvP and less good in PvE is to reduce its damage and increase its Control.
If one wizard can control all the mobs but is not the best DPS class, then stacking them is not required, and other classes may actually be wanted...
Unless you actually have some proof to back up your idea that INCREASING CW DPS will somehow make them less wanted in PvE. Because in every single MMO I have played, boosting a classes DPS tends to make them more wanted.....
Well that's your problem right there...
The CW does not have Control Powers that are AoE except for possibly Dailys. You are perhaps familiar with Singularity only.
The CW control powers are pretty much all single target with only one or two AoE being actual control powers. One of those is a two-three second stun the second AoE power only prones targets.
I fail to see how this will help make anyone able to make it through mass mobs in dungeons.
PRIOR to the action point gain nerf... yes, it was possible, because you could literally run one string of single target control powers then use Singularity or another Daily... THAT fast. So no matter how far away you threw targets, you were bringing them right back to the middle anyway.
That cannot be done anymore POST NERF... now the CWs only have single target Control Powers... with two AoE possibillities that last mere seconds.
Hence... cannot control mass mob situation anymore. The CW you thought you knew is dead in this game... and has been for almost a year now.
Its time to give it up and accept what they are now.
Make CWs have to CHOOSE between control via damage, and control via position. Right now they can very ably do both.
So something like this:
Give Arcane Singularity and Oppressive Force target caps of, say, 5 each.
But, add a feat in one feat tree which grants Singularity an unlimited target cap.
And, add a feat in a different feat tree which grants Oppressive Force an unlimited target cap.
And position the feats deep into the feat tree so that a CW can't choose both.
So then CWs have to choose: greater control via damage (Oppressive Force), or greater control via position (Arcane Singularity)?
But if you just nerf all of their damage potential entirely, then this is contrary to all of the stated definitions of control that are D&D 4e compliant, contrary to the clear intentions of the devs, and quite frankly, just stupid.
Make CWs have to CHOOSE between control via damage, and control via position. Right now they can very ably do both.
So something like this:
Give Arcane Singularity and Oppressive Force target caps of, say, 5 each.
But, add a feat in one feat tree which grants Singularity an unlimited target cap.
And, add a feat in a different feat tree which grants Oppressive Force an unlimited target cap.
And position the feats deep into the feat tree so that a CW can't choose both.
So then CWs have to choose: greater control via damage (Oppressive Force), or greater control via position (Arcane Singularity)?
But if you just nerf all of their damage potential entirely, then this is contrary to all of the stated definitions of control that are D&D 4e compliant, contrary to the clear intentions of the devs, and quite frankly, just stupid.
Making CWs choose is fine. However, giving a Control class the same DPS as that of a purely Striker class renders the Striker class irrelevant, as they have no advantages and only disadvantages. Of course a CW can do good DPS , but it runs the risk (as in the current situation) if it is too close to Striker's DPS of rendering the other classes worthless. Having a line with a capstone that significantly boosts CW DPS while vastly reducing its control abilities might be a decent compromise though.
Hence... cannot control mass mob situation anymore. The CW you thought you knew is dead in this game... and has been for almost a year now.
Its time to give it up and accept what they are now.
Clearly not since the Devs have confirmed that CWs will be changed.
We know that the Devs consider their DPS to be 'very much out of order' but nothing was said about their control abilities. What you believe is your prerogative, but stating what the Devs will or will not do without a quote, means that such a statement is no more or less than your personal belief.
Unless you actually have some proof to back up your idea that INCREASING CW DPS will somehow make them less wanted in PvE. Because in every single MMO I have played, boosting a classes DPS tends to make them more wanted.....
I do... And its the REAL game of Dungeons and Dragons. The reason you don't run multiple Wizard parties in the actual game is that only one has ever been needed in a party. That single wizard can literally wipe out an entire room of enemies doing exactly what I told you it does. More wizards are a waste of space.
What balances this is the limited abillity to use them. In other words he can't cast and cast and cast.
So being that he has to use them sparingly, he doesn't sit and nuke until the room is wiped out. At most that wizard will use one or two spells per encounter. But EACH individual spell is game changing.
Now... question for you...
Since you know now the Control Wizard has only Single target control powers... NOT AoE control powers... How will reducing their Damage keep people from Stacking CWs? I already know you can't answer that. How exactly does that improve the parties chance of making it through these AoE infested dungeons.
The truth is... it won't. Because with few exceptions all the other classes are worthless in mass mob situations. Thats not going to change anytime soon.
All you will have ended up doing in the end is shooting yourself in the foot by making them stack more and more of them to get through content. Making less and less space for other party members in PvE.
Bottom line is... if it takes more than ONE mage to do a Mage's job... then of course people will grab more than one mage in overloaded mass mob dungeons. This should be a straight forward concept... be apparently it is not.
I do... And its the REAL game of Dungeons and Dragons.
That proves the opposite actually. When a class was made more powerful then powergamers would play it more.....
When the GWF had its DPS increased then the 'meta' changed to include them. Now suppose we had the current situation but CW damage was reduced to zero and GWF remained the same, then meta would change to including more GWFs.
In every single case I am aware off in an MMO increasing a class's damage made it more wanted. In fact this is the whole idea why weaker classes tend to have their damage and stronger classes have their damage nerfed....
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silverquickMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 1Arc User
That proves the opposite actually. When a class was made more powerful then powergamers would play it more.....
When the GWF had its DPS increased then the 'meta' changed to include them.
In every single case I am aware off in an MMO increasing a class's damage made it more wanted. In fact this is the whole idea why weaker classes tend to have their damage and stronger classes have their damage nerfed....
That's where you made your mistake... Because reducing a 30 cent coin in value to a 10 cents does not suddenly and mysteriously make the price of everything so low everyone want to use pennies instead. They just use more dimes not more pennies so it does nothing.
But I bet you have no clue what ACTUALLY happens in multiple wizard parties do you. They can't take all those mobs down except with multiple nukes. So one will nuke, then another, then another, then another, Generally I do a full cycle of all 4 just for my part, the other mage will then cycle again for another 4 for his part. The third... well you see where I'm going with this..
Your second mistake was assuming Damage equals DPS... it does not.
The Mages... who's Nukes are doing say 9-15K DAMAGE... 3 wizards are doing that much or more damage just to take that group down. But each of those spells has a good 10 second recast timer on the Encounter power. Nuking 3 all at once takes the entire group down doing the job ONE single mage should be doing. BUT it sucks up a lot of party slots, excluding the other classes.
Now... take that damage bump it to 45K damage, and put a 30 second recast timer on it. You end up with one wizard doing the work of 3. And no need for Three wizard parties. One wizard will be able to do that job.
Guess what though... the DPS is the exact same.
THIS is how D&D actually works the spells in a group related dungeon. The difference? Yeah much higher damage per spell... same actual DPS.
ONE wizard can now do the job... the other two are just wasted space.
I have an alternative: nerf CW DPS to FAR below that of any other class and boost their control. Then one Control Wizard would almost always be wanted in parties, but it would be slow down any party that stacked them...
I can outdps P.V R8-9 CWs with my G.V R7 GWf in CN! Not to mention DK/VT/MC where Gwfs are clearly superior in dmg and every other class are millions behind...
If a Gwf can't do that there are great builds in barrack section...
THIS is how D&D actually works the spells in a group related dungeon. The difference? Yeah much higher damage per spell... same actual DPS.
ONE wizard can now do the job... the other two are just wasted space.
If you are referring to D&D and roles then you should now know that wizards are the most coolest character always saving the day, defeating the greatest evil and not just some muscle brain who's job is to tank the enemy while mages and ranged are nuking them...
Crazy because on my CW i do ok in PVP using PVE gear while my TR, in pvp gear, gets murdered by every other class. ( I refuse to play perma). Either get CC or proned to death, or a gwf does more dmg with reaping strike than i can do in a full rotation. Absolutely ridiculous.
I think this is meant ironically, but I can't be 100% sure.
Just in case you believe that boosting the DPS of the most over-powered class in any MMO I have ever played, will somehow reduce the demand for parties to stack that class, I have an alternative: nerf CW DPS to FAR below that of any other class and boost their control. Then one Control Wizard would almost always be wanted in parties, but it would be slow down any party that stacked them...
The ONLY thing this would do is change parties from:
It is not a good way to put GS on the table between different class in order to compare effectiveness.
Some class simply have better scaling at certain stats or certain build simply won't grant you high GS.
Some more dedicated PVP build would actually lower GS to obtain certain stats.
Back to your view of CW. They are fine, they are just like before with a bit of nerf regarding the CC resist gained from tenacity. In pug games, I thank god now no more LB+ Impact shot instant pop, when you get caught you don't just die, you get back up dodge away and kite. In premade, well I don't do premade on my CW cause he is undergeared for premade, but judging from What I see from playing premade on other toons CW does seem weaker, but they still dish out great burst with meatball and good CWs can kite you for a good amount of time.
My point: given how CW is god tier in PVE, I would say its PVP performance is somewhat balanced, a bit on the weak side but nowhere like underpowered or a piece of ****. Some may argue wtf is GWF then? Well they are GWF, you can't compete with that sorry...
If there are anything that would need to be improved on CW is that CW should not have 2 Hard counters: HR and TR. Win chance against good HR and TR as CW are pretty slim in general.
The ONLY thing this would do is change parties from:
4CW + 1GWF
to
4GWF + 1CW
Not exactly helpful for any of the other classes.
True if no other changes were made.
However, you can also buff the other classes which would solves the issue. A large DPS boost worked for GWF so it it can certainly work for the GF, and with some threat gen reduction I don't see why it wouldn't work with the HR too. Not sure about the TR as that is less about AoE damage, but 5 viable classes rather than 2 (and even the DC isn't essential in the 'stacking CW' meta, just useful) is an a huge improvement.
Now... take that damage bump it to 45K damage, and put a 30 second recast timer on it. You end up with one wizard doing the work of 3. And no need for Three wizard parties. One wizard will be able to do that job.
...
ONE wizard can now do the job... the other two are just wasted space.
How is this going to help other classes get places in dungeon parties?
All you are saying is that if one character can clear a dungeon by themselves then any more than one isn't needed. Now this is, by definition true. However, it still doesn't give any incentive to take other classes. You will just have 1 CW parties so they can guarantee themselves any BoE drops or multiple CW parties so they can take it in turns to AFK while just one of them runs ahead killing everything....
The real meta of pve is buff/debuff stacking. CWs stack them well, DCs stack them well, what exactly is the tr contributing to party damage? Combat Advantage?
If you want to see the other classes in pve more they need more buff/debuff and wizards need slightly less.
Of course the devs seem to be of the opposite mind. GWF damage came from a bug and running ahead, bug's gone but amazingly so is student of the sword in module 3 so they add nothing once it hits. GF gave groups way more power through knight captain, nerfed it into the ground and they are going to nerf power too. They have other issues like why no gf is ever a tactician and always a conquerer but that's a player fault thing too.
TRs like I said give nothing to party dps and when they got declawed because of pvp of course they became irrelevant. I never leveled my hr but I see like one feat that increases party damage and they made themselves so popular with wizards by bugging shards and reducing party dps.
So yeah. I dunno. The obvious thing to do would seem to be to make us all rely on each other to buff each other's damage so we would all want a rainbow comp when possible. Why nerfing everyone hard is the answer is a total mystery to me. Its going to be real ugly down in the low gs bracket.
Groups stack CWs because it makes the run go faster, not because so many CWs are necessary. There is no content in this game that *requires* even one CW to complete. Sure a 5 DC party will take forever trying to clear CN, but it can be done (in principle).
And current dungeon design is to throw a bunch of CONTROLLABLE adds in there. OF COURSE having more CONTROL wizards will make the run go faster, because the dungeon design plays to the CW's strength.
If the dungeons were full of CC-immune minibosses, then parties would be full of TRs and GWFs because they are much better at single-target damage. Then CWs would be crying on the forums about how they never get invited to dungeons because there is nothing for them to control.
If the dungeons were full of fire-breathing superbosses that could one-shot anyone with less than 30k HP (think Fulminorax, but 20 of them), then parties would be full of GFs and tanky GWFs (and healbot DCs) because they would be the only ones who could survive. Then TRs and CWs would be complaining that they never get invited to dungeons because it's just too hazardous in them.
Dungeon design drives the choice of party composition. It isn't some sinister conspiracy among CWs to exclude everyone else.
Nerfing CWs will only lead to stacking more CWs because the essential dungeon mechanics remain unchanged. They would still be full of controllable adds that are easily controlled by the controller class.
And if you nerf CWs so much that they aren't even able to control adds anymore, then that only makes life harder for everyone unnecessarily, and it makes certain content absolutely impossible at the lower tiers. Is that really want people want? Do people really want CWs nerfed so that it really would take 45 minutes to do a Pirate King run, because CWs wouldn't have the ability to round up the adds anymore and so each mob would have to be taken down one by one? But hey maybe you'll have a rainbow party composition! Woohoo!
Nerfing CWs will only lead to stacking more CWs because the essential dungeon mechanics remain unchanged. They would still be full of controllable adds that are easily controlled by the controller class.
And if you nerf CWs so much that they aren't even able to control adds anymore, then that only makes life harder for everyone unnecessarily, and it makes certain content absolutely impossible at the lower tiers. Is that really want people want? Do people really want CWs nerfed so that it really would take 45 minutes to do a Pirate King run, because CWs wouldn't have the ability to round up the adds anymore and so each mob would have to be taken down one by one? But hey maybe you'll have a rainbow party composition! Woohoo!
This is complete exaggeration, presumably to try to convince Devs that nerfing the CW will somehow be bad for the other classes. Whenever the most OP class gets nerfed, the of course dungeons will on average take longer. But the rewards, especially the unbound ones become far, far more valuable because the OP class can't monopolize them.
And as for the Pirate King comment - that is beyond ridiculous. I have run with a 12-14K party without a CW and done that in under 20 minutes.
This is complete exaggeration, presumably to try to convince Devs that nerfing the CW will somehow be bad for the other classes. Whenever the most OP class gets nerfed, the of course dungeons will on average take longer. But the rewards, especially the unbound ones become far, far more valuable because the OP class can't monopolize them.
And as for the Pirate King comment - that is beyond ridiculous. I have run with a 12-14K party without a CW and done that in under 20 minutes.
^truth. pirate king does not need wizards and i even did it once without a cleric (not sure if we had a wizard that time but it was a 5 dps group).
i only really cared about wizards for spider/karrundax as i don't run valindra, castle never, and the pc-killer that is malabog. as for tier 1's, i don't think any of them requires a wizard either.
^truth. pirate king does not need wizards and i even did it once without a cleric (not sure if we had a wizard that time but it was a 5 dps group).
i only really cared about wizards for spider/karrundax as i don't run valindra, castle never, and the pc-killer that is malabog. as for tier 1's, i don't think any of them requires a wizard either.
I have run PK without either a CW or a DC. People just brought Fawns / Lillends / Clerics and it still took under 20 minutes...
Also none of the dungeons whether Tier 1, 2 or 2+ require a CW as pure GWF parties have done them all, even short-manned them I believe.
I've run Karru without a Wizard or a Cleric while on my TR (14k GS - I don't know what the others were) and we didn't have any real trouble, though the first two bosses are rough, as they usually are - and lack of DC matter more than CW. Karru isn't a CW playground like PK, or Spell or most especially CN though as the Ash Disciples and Flame Spikers can and will resist being pulled by Sings.
I've only done EDV in parties with 2 CWs and have never finished CN, but everything else can be done with one or even zero Wizards. The content drives the party composition. This much is definitely true, but it's the desire for speed that cements it. I doubt it will ever happen, but I'd love to see the epics remade using the heroics as-is but with the mob levels staggered. So a basic T2 mob is level 65, with elites a little higher and brutes (or whatever Maws, Rimefires, Driders etc... are called) higher still, say level 70. Then you'd have stuff that hit harder and needed single target DPS (though it would still hit slowly) and might make GFs and TRs more useful. (The problem with HR isn't that it isn't useful just that it needs tweaking and there are a lot of less than stellar players) The heroic versions don't feature the endless trash/add swarms. The Fiery Descent in Spell looks practically deserted if you're used to the epic version. If any changes were needed past that, add some more of the big stuff in dungeons where they're lacking but it would be a good start at least.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
Like I often do, you should rock in PvP if you have:
1. Full vizier set armor
2. Any set of Weapons (CN, MC, VT)
3. Correct equip (ex: pyrotech rings)
4. Slot the following powers. TAB use ICY RAYS, Q use Conduit of Ice, E use Chill strike, R use Entagleling force
5. THAUMATURGE PATH is a MUST.
This may have been a decent build pre-tenacity. However, this is definitely NOT the build you want to use post-tenacity. You will need tenacity from the profound gear. Pyro rings are horrible to use; check out the new PvP blue rings or greater rings of health. The best CWs use Shard of Avalanche; it's a tricky encounter to master, but worth it. You do not necessarily want to go FULL thaumaturge.
So dungeons need no or only one CW and pure GWF groups?
Youtube is full of 5/4/3 Gwfs doing CN/T2s indeed!
Then I guess no nerf card is needed against that single CW...!
Strawman argument, since a full GWF team is vastly inferior inferior to a (non-CW) GWF + DC + others party.
In fact I, and am sure lots of others, have occasionally done dungeons without a CW or a GWF before, but that is pretty rare in Mod 2 given that in this case you are missing both of the two most powerful PvE classes.
The CW now fills another role, it's not anymore the burst damage CC class, it's a debuff/support damage one. And if you play support (which means never staying alone), you're doing great. If you're not, you'll be chain killed.
It will just cause people to stack more and more CWs in order to get through the PVE content because the other single target classes are useless in Mass Mob situations.
Kinda like shooting yourself in the foot.
Completely wrong. There aren't that many adds at once if you don't pull 5 groups at the same time. If the devs find a way to make people killing groups one by one then all classes will have a role in game. Including rogues. If you can't mass AoE elite adds then you need a TR to kill them and a tank to hold nasty stuff.
Currently, people don't invite rogues because rogues don't want to bring any utility to parties, they're all pvp spec, which means horrible damage, so they won't use smoke bomb, trying to keep up with the rest of the party, and of course, such pvp rogues are utterly useless. I have some pve TR friends and invite them all the time, they deal with maws, driders, or bosses faster than anyone else, and roughly need the time aoe classes need to kill the surrounding weaker mobs. And of course they drop smoke bombs everywhere, which is a great help when you're pulling a crapton of NPCs at once.
I have done many 12-13 minutes ToS runs and ~20 minutes spellplague caverns, and it never happened without one of my TR friends...
I have some pve TR friends and invite them all the time, they deal with maws, driders, or bosses faster than anyone else
I have done many 12-13 minutes ToS runs and ~20 minutes spellplague caverns, and it never happened without one of my TR friends...
Although I don't main my TR, my feeling is that a lot of the QQ about GWFs being better at ST DPS has little or no real basis. From your posts I get the impression you run with (on average) higher GS parties than I do. How does the TR single-target compare to that of a CW or GWF at the top level in PvE? Smoke-bomb is admittedly very nice in certain situations, but is their ST damage high enough and required often enough that TRs are useful in current dungeons at the top end compared to a CW (or even pre-Mod 3 nerfed GWF)?
Comments
The CW's AoE damage is what's important.
Because that's their specialty, and its the primary thing that gets you through these types of dungeons. Right now... it does take more than one CW. The solution to that is to increase the damage on the individual CW nukes... but also increase the recast timer on them.
The idea being... the CW's AoEs should as an individual... literally clear the field, leaving only a few strong mobs left for the Fighters and Rogues to take on. But not be able to repeatedly cast. The recast timers on them being equally long would only allow him to use them sparingly.
So quite literally one CW could wipe out the entire crowd of Adds... no more adds.... no more need for a second CW, and then be waiting on recast timers.
A second CW in those shoes has nothing left to nuke except single targets. If you've ever played a CW, you'd know the GWF and Rogue far outclass it in single target damage, but the rogue is useless in AoE situations, and the GWF can only hit a few targets at a time.
So if that ONE CW were able to do the job it actually takes two of them to do, only one would be needed.
Which of course frees up that next spot for the Rogue to actually be used on single targets... ie the weakness of the Mage.
I think this is meant ironically, but I can't be 100% sure.
Just in case you believe that boosting the DPS of the most over-powered class in any MMO I have ever played, will somehow reduce the demand for parties to stack that class, I have an alternative: nerf CW DPS to FAR below that of any other class and boost their control. Then one Control Wizard would almost always be wanted in parties, but it would be slow down any party that stacked them...
Nope... I totally meant what I said.
And the Control Wizard is dead, just give that up now, that was nerfed long ago. They're not going go "unnerf" it.
It can't do the job it used to whether you want it to or not.
Quote from Devs required for your statement.
Right now the easiest way to make the CW better in PvP and less good in PvE is to reduce its damage and increase its Control. If one wizard can control all the mobs but is not the best DPS class, then stacking them is not required, and other classes may actually be wanted...
Unless you actually have some proof to back up your idea that INCREASING CW DPS will somehow make them less wanted in PvE. Because in every single MMO I have played, boosting a classes DPS tends to make them more wanted.....
Damage is a form of control.
Damage is a form of control.
Damage is a form of control.
Well that's your problem right there...
The CW does not have Control Powers that are AoE except for possibly Dailys. You are perhaps familiar with Singularity only.
The CW control powers are pretty much all single target with only one or two AoE being actual control powers. One of those is a two-three second stun the second AoE power only prones targets.
I fail to see how this will help make anyone able to make it through mass mobs in dungeons.
PRIOR to the action point gain nerf... yes, it was possible, because you could literally run one string of single target control powers then use Singularity or another Daily... THAT fast. So no matter how far away you threw targets, you were bringing them right back to the middle anyway.
That cannot be done anymore POST NERF... now the CWs only have single target Control Powers... with two AoE possibillities that last mere seconds.
Hence... cannot control mass mob situation anymore. The CW you thought you knew is dead in this game... and has been for almost a year now.
Its time to give it up and accept what they are now.
So something like this:
Give Arcane Singularity and Oppressive Force target caps of, say, 5 each.
But, add a feat in one feat tree which grants Singularity an unlimited target cap.
And, add a feat in a different feat tree which grants Oppressive Force an unlimited target cap.
And position the feats deep into the feat tree so that a CW can't choose both.
So then CWs have to choose: greater control via damage (Oppressive Force), or greater control via position (Arcane Singularity)?
But if you just nerf all of their damage potential entirely, then this is contrary to all of the stated definitions of control that are D&D 4e compliant, contrary to the clear intentions of the devs, and quite frankly, just stupid.
Making CWs choose is fine. However, giving a Control class the same DPS as that of a purely Striker class renders the Striker class irrelevant, as they have no advantages and only disadvantages. Of course a CW can do good DPS , but it runs the risk (as in the current situation) if it is too close to Striker's DPS of rendering the other classes worthless. Having a line with a capstone that significantly boosts CW DPS while vastly reducing its control abilities might be a decent compromise though.
Clearly not since the Devs have confirmed that CWs will be changed.
We know that the Devs consider their DPS to be 'very much out of order' but nothing was said about their control abilities. What you believe is your prerogative, but stating what the Devs will or will not do without a quote, means that such a statement is no more or less than your personal belief.
I do... And its the REAL game of Dungeons and Dragons. The reason you don't run multiple Wizard parties in the actual game is that only one has ever been needed in a party. That single wizard can literally wipe out an entire room of enemies doing exactly what I told you it does. More wizards are a waste of space.
What balances this is the limited abillity to use them. In other words he can't cast and cast and cast.
So being that he has to use them sparingly, he doesn't sit and nuke until the room is wiped out. At most that wizard will use one or two spells per encounter. But EACH individual spell is game changing.
Now... question for you...
Since you know now the Control Wizard has only Single target control powers... NOT AoE control powers... How will reducing their Damage keep people from Stacking CWs? I already know you can't answer that. How exactly does that improve the parties chance of making it through these AoE infested dungeons.
The truth is... it won't. Because with few exceptions all the other classes are worthless in mass mob situations. Thats not going to change anytime soon.
All you will have ended up doing in the end is shooting yourself in the foot by making them stack more and more of them to get through content. Making less and less space for other party members in PvE.
Bottom line is... if it takes more than ONE mage to do a Mage's job... then of course people will grab more than one mage in overloaded mass mob dungeons. This should be a straight forward concept... be apparently it is not.
That proves the opposite actually. When a class was made more powerful then powergamers would play it more.....
When the GWF had its DPS increased then the 'meta' changed to include them. Now suppose we had the current situation but CW damage was reduced to zero and GWF remained the same, then meta would change to including more GWFs.
In every single case I am aware off in an MMO increasing a class's damage made it more wanted. In fact this is the whole idea why weaker classes tend to have their damage and stronger classes have their damage nerfed....
That's where you made your mistake... Because reducing a 30 cent coin in value to a 10 cents does not suddenly and mysteriously make the price of everything so low everyone want to use pennies instead. They just use more dimes not more pennies so it does nothing.
But I bet you have no clue what ACTUALLY happens in multiple wizard parties do you. They can't take all those mobs down except with multiple nukes. So one will nuke, then another, then another, then another, Generally I do a full cycle of all 4 just for my part, the other mage will then cycle again for another 4 for his part. The third... well you see where I'm going with this..
Your second mistake was assuming Damage equals DPS... it does not.
The Mages... who's Nukes are doing say 9-15K DAMAGE... 3 wizards are doing that much or more damage just to take that group down. But each of those spells has a good 10 second recast timer on the Encounter power. Nuking 3 all at once takes the entire group down doing the job ONE single mage should be doing. BUT it sucks up a lot of party slots, excluding the other classes.
Now... take that damage bump it to 45K damage, and put a 30 second recast timer on it. You end up with one wizard doing the work of 3. And no need for Three wizard parties. One wizard will be able to do that job.
Guess what though... the DPS is the exact same.
THIS is how D&D actually works the spells in a group related dungeon. The difference? Yeah much higher damage per spell... same actual DPS.
ONE wizard can now do the job... the other two are just wasted space.
I can outdps P.V R8-9 CWs with my G.V R7 GWf in CN! Not to mention DK/VT/MC where Gwfs are clearly superior in dmg and every other class are millions behind...
If a Gwf can't do that there are great builds in barrack section...
If you are referring to D&D and roles then you should now know that wizards are the most coolest character always saving the day, defeating the greatest evil and not just some muscle brain who's job is to tank the enemy while mages and ranged are nuking them...
The ONLY thing this would do is change parties from:
4CW + 1GWF
to
4GWF + 1CW
Not exactly helpful for any of the other classes.
Some class simply have better scaling at certain stats or certain build simply won't grant you high GS.
Some more dedicated PVP build would actually lower GS to obtain certain stats.
Back to your view of CW. They are fine, they are just like before with a bit of nerf regarding the CC resist gained from tenacity. In pug games, I thank god now no more LB+ Impact shot instant pop, when you get caught you don't just die, you get back up dodge away and kite. In premade, well I don't do premade on my CW cause he is undergeared for premade, but judging from What I see from playing premade on other toons CW does seem weaker, but they still dish out great burst with meatball and good CWs can kite you for a good amount of time.
My point: given how CW is god tier in PVE, I would say its PVP performance is somewhat balanced, a bit on the weak side but nowhere like underpowered or a piece of ****. Some may argue wtf is GWF then? Well they are GWF, you can't compete with that sorry...
If there are anything that would need to be improved on CW is that CW should not have 2 Hard counters: HR and TR. Win chance against good HR and TR as CW are pretty slim in general.
True if no other changes were made.
However, you can also buff the other classes which would solves the issue. A large DPS boost worked for GWF so it it can certainly work for the GF, and with some threat gen reduction I don't see why it wouldn't work with the HR too. Not sure about the TR as that is less about AoE damage, but 5 viable classes rather than 2 (and even the DC isn't essential in the 'stacking CW' meta, just useful) is an a huge improvement.
How is this going to help other classes get places in dungeon parties?
All you are saying is that if one character can clear a dungeon by themselves then any more than one isn't needed. Now this is, by definition true. However, it still doesn't give any incentive to take other classes. You will just have 1 CW parties so they can guarantee themselves any BoE drops or multiple CW parties so they can take it in turns to AFK while just one of them runs ahead killing everything....
If you want to see the other classes in pve more they need more buff/debuff and wizards need slightly less.
Of course the devs seem to be of the opposite mind. GWF damage came from a bug and running ahead, bug's gone but amazingly so is student of the sword in module 3 so they add nothing once it hits. GF gave groups way more power through knight captain, nerfed it into the ground and they are going to nerf power too. They have other issues like why no gf is ever a tactician and always a conquerer but that's a player fault thing too.
TRs like I said give nothing to party dps and when they got declawed because of pvp of course they became irrelevant. I never leveled my hr but I see like one feat that increases party damage and they made themselves so popular with wizards by bugging shards and reducing party dps.
So yeah. I dunno. The obvious thing to do would seem to be to make us all rely on each other to buff each other's damage so we would all want a rainbow comp when possible. Why nerfing everyone hard is the answer is a total mystery to me. Its going to be real ugly down in the low gs bracket.
Groups stack CWs because it makes the run go faster, not because so many CWs are necessary. There is no content in this game that *requires* even one CW to complete. Sure a 5 DC party will take forever trying to clear CN, but it can be done (in principle).
And current dungeon design is to throw a bunch of CONTROLLABLE adds in there. OF COURSE having more CONTROL wizards will make the run go faster, because the dungeon design plays to the CW's strength.
If the dungeons were full of CC-immune minibosses, then parties would be full of TRs and GWFs because they are much better at single-target damage. Then CWs would be crying on the forums about how they never get invited to dungeons because there is nothing for them to control.
If the dungeons were full of fire-breathing superbosses that could one-shot anyone with less than 30k HP (think Fulminorax, but 20 of them), then parties would be full of GFs and tanky GWFs (and healbot DCs) because they would be the only ones who could survive. Then TRs and CWs would be complaining that they never get invited to dungeons because it's just too hazardous in them.
Dungeon design drives the choice of party composition. It isn't some sinister conspiracy among CWs to exclude everyone else.
Nerfing CWs will only lead to stacking more CWs because the essential dungeon mechanics remain unchanged. They would still be full of controllable adds that are easily controlled by the controller class.
And if you nerf CWs so much that they aren't even able to control adds anymore, then that only makes life harder for everyone unnecessarily, and it makes certain content absolutely impossible at the lower tiers. Is that really want people want? Do people really want CWs nerfed so that it really would take 45 minutes to do a Pirate King run, because CWs wouldn't have the ability to round up the adds anymore and so each mob would have to be taken down one by one? But hey maybe you'll have a rainbow party composition! Woohoo!
This is complete exaggeration, presumably to try to convince Devs that nerfing the CW will somehow be bad for the other classes. Whenever the most OP class gets nerfed, the of course dungeons will on average take longer. But the rewards, especially the unbound ones become far, far more valuable because the OP class can't monopolize them.
And as for the Pirate King comment - that is beyond ridiculous. I have run with a 12-14K party without a CW and done that in under 20 minutes.
^truth. pirate king does not need wizards and i even did it once without a cleric (not sure if we had a wizard that time but it was a 5 dps group).
i only really cared about wizards for spider/karrundax as i don't run valindra, castle never, and the pc-killer that is malabog. as for tier 1's, i don't think any of them requires a wizard either.
I have run PK without either a CW or a DC. People just brought Fawns / Lillends / Clerics and it still took under 20 minutes...
Also none of the dungeons whether Tier 1, 2 or 2+ require a CW as pure GWF parties have done them all, even short-manned them I believe.
I've only done EDV in parties with 2 CWs and have never finished CN, but everything else can be done with one or even zero Wizards. The content drives the party composition. This much is definitely true, but it's the desire for speed that cements it. I doubt it will ever happen, but I'd love to see the epics remade using the heroics as-is but with the mob levels staggered. So a basic T2 mob is level 65, with elites a little higher and brutes (or whatever Maws, Rimefires, Driders etc... are called) higher still, say level 70. Then you'd have stuff that hit harder and needed single target DPS (though it would still hit slowly) and might make GFs and TRs more useful. (The problem with HR isn't that it isn't useful just that it needs tweaking and there are a lot of less than stellar players) The heroic versions don't feature the endless trash/add swarms. The Fiery Descent in Spell looks practically deserted if you're used to the epic version. If any changes were needed past that, add some more of the big stuff in dungeons where they're lacking but it would be a good start at least.
This may have been a decent build pre-tenacity. However, this is definitely NOT the build you want to use post-tenacity. You will need tenacity from the profound gear. Pyro rings are horrible to use; check out the new PvP blue rings or greater rings of health. The best CWs use Shard of Avalanche; it's a tricky encounter to master, but worth it. You do not necessarily want to go FULL thaumaturge.
So dungeons need no or only one CW and pure GWF groups?
Youtube is full of 5/4/3 Gwfs doing CN/T2s indeed!
Then I guess no nerf card is needed against that single CW...!
Strawman argument, since a full GWF team is vastly inferior inferior to a (non-CW) GWF + DC + others party.
In fact I, and am sure lots of others, have occasionally done dungeons without a CW or a GWF before, but that is pretty rare in Mod 2 given that in this case you are missing both of the two most powerful PvE classes.
Completely wrong. There aren't that many adds at once if you don't pull 5 groups at the same time. If the devs find a way to make people killing groups one by one then all classes will have a role in game. Including rogues. If you can't mass AoE elite adds then you need a TR to kill them and a tank to hold nasty stuff.
Currently, people don't invite rogues because rogues don't want to bring any utility to parties, they're all pvp spec, which means horrible damage, so they won't use smoke bomb, trying to keep up with the rest of the party, and of course, such pvp rogues are utterly useless. I have some pve TR friends and invite them all the time, they deal with maws, driders, or bosses faster than anyone else, and roughly need the time aoe classes need to kill the surrounding weaker mobs. And of course they drop smoke bombs everywhere, which is a great help when you're pulling a crapton of NPCs at once.
I have done many 12-13 minutes ToS runs and ~20 minutes spellplague caverns, and it never happened without one of my TR friends...
Although I don't main my TR, my feeling is that a lot of the QQ about GWFs being better at ST DPS has little or no real basis. From your posts I get the impression you run with (on average) higher GS parties than I do. How does the TR single-target compare to that of a CW or GWF at the top level in PvE? Smoke-bomb is admittedly very nice in certain situations, but is their ST damage high enough and required often enough that TRs are useful in current dungeons at the top end compared to a CW (or even pre-Mod 3 nerfed GWF)?