short of removing the control wizard from the game entirely, there is no possible way to take a class where every single worthwhile ability is an AoE ability (on trash encounters) and make it balanced while you still have dungeons designed and optimized FOR AOE DAMAGE DEALING.
no amount of buffing/nerfing/balancing is going to fix a class in a broken system.
That IS the optimal solution, and I will agree with you....
If this was actually reworked, it would solve everything. Because while Mass Mob situations SHOULD be in dungeons. They should not be 90% of all encounters. Balancing Mass Mobs encounters with 3 stronger mob type encounters, will improve the situation dramatically.
Unfortunately no one believes the Devs will actually do it. And because the situation is set up as all mass AoE mob encounters where Single Target Strikers are useless. No amount of nerfing or buffing will change the shoes of single target damagers they're still going to be in the same boat regardless.
silverquick, your ideas will not work. everything you've proposed simply makes 5 CW parties more necessary for speed clearing. If you give wizard AoE abilities MORE damage, even with longer cooldowns, the result will be to have MORE wizards in optimal parties to take advantage of that damage increase, casting spells in a rotation so that no mobs survive after all 5 CWs have cast a single rotation, and run on to the next mass AoE pull.
how can you possibly think there's a way to make that work?
I can answer that
.... and saw it in action....
Ironcally, not from the High end game, but from the low end game. But Yes, I did originally start to think about it the more time I spent in multiple CW/GWF parties on the higher end side (14-15k gs parties), it showed me the strengths of a strong melee damager capable of taking down the stronger mobs, that... while the rest of the mages and I were capable of mass multi-nuking the weaker mass mobs togather... One thing always hitched on us and slowed everything down... the larger... stronger, more elite mobs.
The ones with a lot more health than the normal run of the mill trash. Things like.. the Fomorians, and Fomorian Witches. Without that great weapons fighter, multi mage nuking slowed to a crawl because there were only one or two of them. So... you could nuke down all the redcaps and troll runts, but then hit the little hitch when you got to those one or two stronger mobs. That's when the GWFs came in, and what would have taken the mages a lot longer to burn down because there's only two of them... the GWFs made short work of.
Then I realized... two things...
Its actually taking two of us to do this in 13-14k GS's. If I double my damage, but with longer recast timers, then there'd only be need for one of us. But.... even the two of us attempting to AoE about 2 mobs (Fomorians) doesn't work very well, because there just aren't enough of them for our AoEs to take advantage of... so even if you doubled our damage... two of us with more damage isn't going to make this go any faster.... if we had the same DPS... via longer casting times. It would basically come out the same.
But... the GWFs.... make short work of them in a hurry. That's when the idea started...
What Sealed it though... was the recent Event... Respins Marvelous Game... Where I got to see the merits of this idea in action... I went in with multiple parties. All would go really well, I could toss in one single nuke and it would clear out a swath of all the weaker stuff, but once we got to the ones who survived it. Suddenly we're on a single target after clearing out the weaker stuff... and I couldn't do much with my AoEs anymore.
Suddenly... a single GWF or rogue in equal gear...was just pasting them compared to my single target damage.
I realized at that point, that what causes the dungeons to be like this and eliminate single target damagers is actually the fact that there's so many add mob with so much health you have to nuke and nuke and nuke again, that by the time you actually get to the Elite Mobs isn't actually much left of them for the Strikers.
BUT... sweeping the room of the weaker mobs very fast much like Respins Game... renders all those AoEs much less effective on the Stronger mobs who retain that higher health, where the single target strikers shine. Shards is GREAT, but, unless it hits two or more mobs it doesn't do that much damage. Steal Time is great... on a horde of mobs... but only mediocre on a single target and Shards sometimes doesn't even explode on two targets. Sudden Storm is great on both... so long as they're standing in a line.
In short all the AoEs have serious limitations and damage restraints on single target mobs with the exception of one.
Ergo... being able to sweep the room of the weaker stuff very quickly leaves the one situation mages AoEs are not well equipped for... Single target, high health mobs. Hence, doubling their damage... Or even just adjusting it to sweep the weaker mobs out quickly while leaving longer recast times. Puts the mage in the one situation his AoEs not so good at
....Single Target with high health elite mobs..... BUT the other Single Target Strikers are well equipped to deal with and finally get a chance to shine.
And multiple mages in those shoes still don't get the job done any faster because once you run out of mass mobs, those AoEs become useless. ONLY the single target strikers are equipped for that.
A single mage.... clearing the room trash quickly, leaving only the higher health targets, makes adding a second mage irrelevant, because of the weakness of the mage class AoEs and how they actually function. If this is how things could be adjusted, mages would suck up a lot less slots in parties in order to clear the dungeon.
since the topic of this thread is asking about CW changes in the upcoming mod 3 and we know that there won't be any or none have been announced as of yet, the rest of this thread is speculative and has become a nerf/buff extravaganza.
some people enjoy playing the class and some people don't. we know changes are coming but to what extent those changes will be, we do not yet know and nothing in detail has been given for us to provide feedback for. while feedback is important, changes are based on more than just community feedback.
there are a few things broken with control wizards and we hope that those fixes will be part of the upcoming changes. how CWs will fare after these changes remains to be seen. i don't think it's going to change peoples play styles or party make-ups, but depending on how much the class is changed, it may force CWs to rethink their builds. but that goes for any class balance changes.
since the topic of this thread is asking about CW changes in the upcoming mod 3 and we know that there won't be any or none have been announced as of yet, the rest of this thread is speculative and has become a nerf/buff extravaganza.
some people enjoy playing the class and some people don't. we know changes are coming but to what extent those changes will be, we do not yet know and nothing in detail has been given for us to provide feedback for. while feedback is important, changes are based on more than just community feedback.
there are a few things broken with control wizards and we hope that those fixes will be part of the upcoming changes. how CWs will fare after these changes remains to be seen. i don't think it's going to change peoples play styles or party make-ups, but depending on how much the class is changed, it may force CWs to rethink their builds. but that goes for any class balance changes.
Thank you for trying to put an end to this idle HAMSTER banter. We should be more concerned and making constructive suggestions on the new REQUIRED Black Ice gear. I for one will have to totally rethink my stats when I craft the new armor as I will no longer have the luxury that many geared CWs have of softcapping some stats like recovery allowing me to max power.
The simple fact remains: encounters designed for AoE will NEVER cater to striker classes unless those classes are given AoE abilities, or the encounters themselves are redesigned to make some small iota of sense for the class roles that are constantly talked about by developers, but seemingly never actually understood or implemented by those developers
That's essentially it in a nutshell; and that would have been the best solution a year ago. That is, give every 'striker' class an AoE tree and/or AoE powers to select from. The games been 'balanced' a lot since launch, but the content is virtually the same. So I do agree with you in a lot of ways but not necessarily your conclusions (Not that they're wrong, they're just not the 'only' options). You're completely right when you imply single target DPS is wholly useless in PvE content, and sadly any decent AoE inevitably seems to get nerfed into the ground. (Or even potent single target DPS like TR.)
Maybe Cryptic will eventually figure out that there need to be more, or better thought out, powers for each class to switch in and out. I mean, there isn't even an option to 'save' power slot setups to quickly switch your power bars. That's been something people have been asking for since Beta, and it still hasn't materialized.
What we got instead no one wanted.
Cryptic is basically the king of low expectations in my book. They make great games but never finish them. That's what makes me mad.
As for this thread being about the changes in Module 3; what changes would those be? Oh no, Storm Pillar nerf and FI nerf. Two powers no one used anyway. Done. Thems the changes. The fact most CW don't even care about the changes should be telling in and of itself.
Change those two powers into something that is ever useful in the game you made Cryptic. There's some 'feedback'.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
We strive for 3k + recovery. That is twice what we really need and can get on accessories for lifesteal. So no...not very much.
The best Black Ice set has less Power and no recovery. Spellstorm Mages can softcap our crit/arp/rec from armor and weapons today with HV and Fomorians and artifacts. Then we accessorize for power and/or survivability. I do not play a MOF but maybe the new set is perfect for them due to their lack of eots. All I know is that I do not know any mages that gem for recovery so the lack of recovery will be un welcome to those that have spent millions of AD on enchantments.
Comments
That IS the optimal solution, and I will agree with you....
If this was actually reworked, it would solve everything. Because while Mass Mob situations SHOULD be in dungeons. They should not be 90% of all encounters. Balancing Mass Mobs encounters with 3 stronger mob type encounters, will improve the situation dramatically.
Unfortunately no one believes the Devs will actually do it. And because the situation is set up as all mass AoE mob encounters where Single Target Strikers are useless. No amount of nerfing or buffing will change the shoes of single target damagers they're still going to be in the same boat regardless.
I can answer that
.... and saw it in action....
Ironcally, not from the High end game, but from the low end game. But Yes, I did originally start to think about it the more time I spent in multiple CW/GWF parties on the higher end side (14-15k gs parties), it showed me the strengths of a strong melee damager capable of taking down the stronger mobs, that... while the rest of the mages and I were capable of mass multi-nuking the weaker mass mobs togather... One thing always hitched on us and slowed everything down... the larger... stronger, more elite mobs.
The ones with a lot more health than the normal run of the mill trash. Things like.. the Fomorians, and Fomorian Witches. Without that great weapons fighter, multi mage nuking slowed to a crawl because there were only one or two of them. So... you could nuke down all the redcaps and troll runts, but then hit the little hitch when you got to those one or two stronger mobs. That's when the GWFs came in, and what would have taken the mages a lot longer to burn down because there's only two of them... the GWFs made short work of.
Then I realized... two things...
Its actually taking two of us to do this in 13-14k GS's. If I double my damage, but with longer recast timers, then there'd only be need for one of us. But.... even the two of us attempting to AoE about 2 mobs (Fomorians) doesn't work very well, because there just aren't enough of them for our AoEs to take advantage of... so even if you doubled our damage... two of us with more damage isn't going to make this go any faster.... if we had the same DPS... via longer casting times. It would basically come out the same.
But... the GWFs.... make short work of them in a hurry. That's when the idea started...
What Sealed it though... was the recent Event... Respins Marvelous Game... Where I got to see the merits of this idea in action... I went in with multiple parties. All would go really well, I could toss in one single nuke and it would clear out a swath of all the weaker stuff, but once we got to the ones who survived it. Suddenly we're on a single target after clearing out the weaker stuff... and I couldn't do much with my AoEs anymore.
Suddenly... a single GWF or rogue in equal gear...was just pasting them compared to my single target damage.
I realized at that point, that what causes the dungeons to be like this and eliminate single target damagers is actually the fact that there's so many add mob with so much health you have to nuke and nuke and nuke again, that by the time you actually get to the Elite Mobs isn't actually much left of them for the Strikers.
BUT... sweeping the room of the weaker mobs very fast much like Respins Game... renders all those AoEs much less effective on the Stronger mobs who retain that higher health, where the single target strikers shine. Shards is GREAT, but, unless it hits two or more mobs it doesn't do that much damage. Steal Time is great... on a horde of mobs... but only mediocre on a single target and Shards sometimes doesn't even explode on two targets. Sudden Storm is great on both... so long as they're standing in a line.
In short all the AoEs have serious limitations and damage restraints on single target mobs with the exception of one.
Ergo... being able to sweep the room of the weaker stuff very quickly leaves the one situation mages AoEs are not well equipped for... Single target, high health mobs. Hence, doubling their damage... Or even just adjusting it to sweep the weaker mobs out quickly while leaving longer recast times. Puts the mage in the one situation his AoEs not so good at
....Single Target with high health elite mobs..... BUT the other Single Target Strikers are well equipped to deal with and finally get a chance to shine.
And multiple mages in those shoes still don't get the job done any faster because once you run out of mass mobs, those AoEs become useless. ONLY the single target strikers are equipped for that.
A single mage.... clearing the room trash quickly, leaving only the higher health targets, makes adding a second mage irrelevant, because of the weakness of the mage class AoEs and how they actually function. If this is how things could be adjusted, mages would suck up a lot less slots in parties in order to clear the dungeon.
some people enjoy playing the class and some people don't. we know changes are coming but to what extent those changes will be, we do not yet know and nothing in detail has been given for us to provide feedback for. while feedback is important, changes are based on more than just community feedback.
there are a few things broken with control wizards and we hope that those fixes will be part of the upcoming changes. how CWs will fare after these changes remains to be seen. i don't think it's going to change peoples play styles or party make-ups, but depending on how much the class is changed, it may force CWs to rethink their builds. but that goes for any class balance changes.
Thank you for trying to put an end to this idle HAMSTER banter. We should be more concerned and making constructive suggestions on the new REQUIRED Black Ice gear. I for one will have to totally rethink my stats when I craft the new armor as I will no longer have the luxury that many geared CWs have of softcapping some stats like recovery allowing me to max power.
WTF?
Nope....but a boat load of crit and arp. Really ****s up my power stacking.
That's essentially it in a nutshell; and that would have been the best solution a year ago. That is, give every 'striker' class an AoE tree and/or AoE powers to select from. The games been 'balanced' a lot since launch, but the content is virtually the same. So I do agree with you in a lot of ways but not necessarily your conclusions (Not that they're wrong, they're just not the 'only' options). You're completely right when you imply single target DPS is wholly useless in PvE content, and sadly any decent AoE inevitably seems to get nerfed into the ground. (Or even potent single target DPS like TR.)
Maybe Cryptic will eventually figure out that there need to be more, or better thought out, powers for each class to switch in and out. I mean, there isn't even an option to 'save' power slot setups to quickly switch your power bars. That's been something people have been asking for since Beta, and it still hasn't materialized.
What we got instead no one wanted.
Cryptic is basically the king of low expectations in my book. They make great games but never finish them. That's what makes me mad.
As for this thread being about the changes in Module 3; what changes would those be? Oh no, Storm Pillar nerf and FI nerf. Two powers no one used anyway. Done. Thems the changes. The fact most CW don't even care about the changes should be telling in and of itself.
Change those two powers into something that is ever useful in the game you made Cryptic. There's some 'feedback'.
Does lifesteal entice you though?
The best Black Ice set has less Power and no recovery. Spellstorm Mages can softcap our crit/arp/rec from armor and weapons today with HV and Fomorians and artifacts. Then we accessorize for power and/or survivability. I do not play a MOF but maybe the new set is perfect for them due to their lack of eots. All I know is that I do not know any mages that gem for recovery so the lack of recovery will be un welcome to those that have spent millions of AD on enchantments.
Just my two ADs worth.