How to deal with CW in PvP?

charmagma

I've been busy leveling my warlock and just ran into IWD and was literally perma-forzen by a CW. I couldn't even get off an ability. The freeze lasts like 3 seconds then they lift choke and it's incredible. This is on a halfling with 21% tenacity, too. I get the QQ I saw in chats, but this goes waaay beyond anything I'd imagined. They're much worse than GWF ever was. Literally could not get off an ability before I was frozen again. This isn't PvP, it's player vs inanimate object. I hope there is a fix forthcoming because PvP in unplayable atm.

pandora1x

Once Storm Spell gets fixed and Creeping Frost toned down (Which will probably happen), expect more people to go Opperssor and just turn everyone into Ice Cubes.

hamletswords

SW is a bad matchup because you have no cc-break. If you're serious about pvp you might want to get a token of free movement to help and work on sprinting defensively.

I got one for my CW and it helps a ton against CWs. Also other classes like GWF.

That being said I can't really perma-freeze on my CW. Maybe an Oppresor can get close to it, but they do less damage. He also could've had a control bonus companion bonus going.

In any case, I don't think they're likely to do much of anything with the control part of what CWs are doing right now. People are more upset about the damage.

ianthewizard2012

Warlock as a ranged striker is more suitable for supporting. If you really want to do 1v1 with classes which can control, usually you need to hit/prone them first and then unleash your striker's high single target damage to reduce as many their hp as possible before they get up.

kweassa

Smother yourself with soul puppies, and hope they take all the flak while you cuss down the CW. Without a CC breaker/immunity/duration cutter, your only chance is to hope one of his major CCs misses you and hits the puppy instead.

Then you can call PETA and make them sue him for hitting soul puppies.

rashylewizz

How did you deal with TR back then? With HR in module 3? With GWF in module 3?

rotatorkuf

rashylewizz wrote: »

How did you deal with TR back then? With HR in module 3? With GWF in module 3?

you mean with HR in any mod

emilemo

charmagma wrote: »

I've been busy leveling my warlock and just ran into IWD and was literally perma-forzen by a CW. I couldn't even get off an ability. The freeze lasts like 3 seconds then they lift choke and it's incredible. This is on a halfling with 21% tenacity, too. I get the QQ I saw in chats, but this goes waaay beyond anything I'd imagined. They're much worse than GWF ever was. Literally could not get off an ability before I was frozen again. This isn't PvP, it's player vs inanimate object. I hope there is a fix forthcoming because PvP in unplayable atm.

Honestly as a SW at the moment I dont see you having a chance at all. Every warlock I've met both on my GF and GWF has been almost a free kill. As for dealing with a single wizard as a fighter, well , as a GWF you run like hell and try to land a cc then attack as fast as you can and then run like hell so more. This stupid tactic can beat any wizard, having good Sprint uptime is a must. As a GF you either must score the first cc or hope his own cc doesnt go thru your Block ( which it will ) if you survive one of his rotations you might get a Bulls in and finish fim off.

Currently in Doms a single wizard is manageable, problem is when there are two and they work together focusing 1 player at a time.

thestaggy

Hit it first and hope no one else interferes. There really is no tactic against the perma-lock they put you under. Once they have you it is GG.

burkaanc

cw counter warlock hard. if they get a cc on you you are dead, you can try to sprint out their cc, but cryptic made sure cw can very well see when to cast and when dont with us glowing blue and stuff.

but you can try to harrowstorm+curse>bargain>killing flames, if they dont die gtfo and try when your skills are off cd, but you shouldnt be 1v1 ppl warlock is great at executing stuff so just zip around 2 and execute low hp targets, havent met many bis ppl but for normal ppl killing flames kills if they are below 1/2~1/3 hp depending on class and gear

meldan3n

I played a Warlock for a while a stopped pretty fast. My problem: activation times. Until you cast an encounter, you will already be frozen by a CW, stunned by a GWF, killed by HR/GF, etc.
It is a pure support class that has decent burst, but less than HR/GF/CW/GWF, and requires you to not be attacked while casting.

A guide on how to deal with CWs (does not take Warlock into account though):

meldan3n wrote: »

Powers of the "OP" CW and an instruction on how to beat them:

Eye of the Storm: Guaranteed crits for 6 seconds. After it's over, 20 seconds ICD. Know that in the beginning of a fight, a CW has it ready. Make sure you CC him or force him to move. You HAVE TO dodge Entangling Force. This power only matters at the start of a fight. After that, the CW will be in constant movement, so it won't matter much.
Shield: When the CW has a Shield (this shiny sphere-like thing around him), make sure you "touch" him with an At-Will first to destabilize it, or your first hit won't deal any damage. Now, if you're an HR, it might as well be Disruptive Shot.
Ray of Frost: Procs Storm Spell and Assailant like crazy. Gives you a Chill Stacks with every "tick". Freezes you at 6 Chill Stacks. You can see the Chill Stacks and the number on your debuff bar. All stacks are also refreshed immediately at 6.
Entangling Force: Death to anyone but GWF. Once you're caught in it, you can be frozen for a whole rotation. If this happens at the beginning of a fight and the CW has an Ice Knife, you're probably dead (because of Eye of the Storm), unless you're a GWF who can go Unstoppable. Once you're in Entangling Force, the CW will go full Ray of Frost on you. ~9 - 10 sec cooldown. Make sure to count it while fighting to know when the CW has it ready.
Icy Rays: Now, here's the deal. You can't dodge it. Unless you're CC-immune, there's nothing you can do about it. But it doesn't STUN you. So you can still attack. The deadly combo is Icy Rays + Entangling Force, since you won't be able to dodge it anymore. When a CW casts Icy Rays, he is rooted and kinda stunned himself for ~1 - 2 sec. The casting starts with a mark over your head and a *ding* sound. This is the moment to stun the CW, so he can't chain his Entangling Force (Disruptive Shot). Once you've done that, the CW's rotation is broken and you can **** him.
Chill Strike: Very easy to dodge due to the very long casting animation. It will only hit you when you're CC'ed.
Ice Knife: Extremely easy to dodge (long animation, *ding ding* sound way before the Ice Knife hits you).
Icy Terrain: Don't stay in it unless you wanna die. It's way smaller than a node, so there should be no problem avoiding it. If you are a GWF, you might have to move over it. Just know that it procs Assailant and has the same effect on you as Ray of Frost (freeze at 6 Chill Stacks). Don't walk over it without Unstoppable.

This is all you need to know. Never get in a CW's CC rotation. Make sure the CW loses his EotS in the beginning of the fight. If you're a GWF, spam your Unstoppable. If you're a TR who got caught right in the beginning, go ITC. "Touch" the CW once before attacking (3x in case of Barkshield). Always know if the CW has an Entangling Force ready (count his cooldown when you see him use it). He will not have enough time to freeze you just from the At-Will (you will be all over him before he can reach 6 stacks of Chill on you). If you hear Icy Rays being casted, CC the CW immediately. If successful, destroy him!

Now, for the GWF it's easier (if he has practice against CWs). Go Unstoppable as soon as possible, run to the CW, destroy him. He's still the old squishy, just a little bit more tanky due to the Shield. "Yes, but all the dodges…" Go practice. There is a moment between dodges where you can catch the CW. Threatening Rush 1 - 2 times before you Frontline to make him dodge. Frontline. Then destroy him. If you can't do that constantly and the CW is "slipping" away, take a CW from your guild and go practice getting him between his dodges with Frontline. Use the new Sprint in your advantage. When you are too far away and the CW is casting Ray of Frost on you, watch your Chill Stacks. You get frozen at 6. Start sprinting when you're at 5. Freeze avoided.

I hope that will help a bit.

thestaggy

meldan3n wrote: »

I played a Warlock for a while a stopped pretty fast. My problem: activation times. Until you cast an encounter, you will already be frozen by a CW, stunned by a GWF, killed by HR/GF, etc.
It is a pure support class that has decent burst, but less than HR/GF/CW/GWF, and requires you to not be attacked while casting.

A guide on how to deal with CWs (does not take Warlock into account though):

I've noticed that a CW-SW duo can pulverise an enemy team, but on its own a SW is a very easy target for my GF.

koalazebra1

thestaggy wrote: »

I've noticed that a CW-SW duo can pulverise an enemy team, but on its own a SW is a very easy target for my GF.

on its own, a SW can hold the node forever

thestaggy

koalazebra1 wrote: »

on its own, a SW can hold the node forever

Maybe some good ones, I don't doubt that. The closest I've come to that were a couple of SWs that were zooming around the node and hard to kill, but once they stopped to fight I just chewed them up.

They're still new though, none of them have BI gear and the good ones probably have not yet completed a Profound set, so I'm sure they'll get better once they're geared up and more theorycrafting is done.

hamletswords

thestaggy wrote: »

Maybe some good ones, I don't doubt that. The closest I've come to that were a couple of SWs that were zooming around the node and hard to kill, but once they stopped to fight I just chewed them up.

They're still new though, none of them have BI gear and the good ones probably have not yet completed a Profound set, so I'm sure they'll get better once they're geared up and more theorycrafting is done.

He means with the soul puppet bug they never get sent to spawn and create 50 puppets.

pando83

Meldanen most of your suggestions does not work. Unstoppable is not spammable anymore with determination gain nerf, and storm spell+ RoF is a cheesy unavoidable way to deal massive DPS in a passive easy mode.

Sadly, tons of QQ, many from CWs, about Unstoppable, made the devs go for a double nerf. So now you get 8 seconds Unstoppable after losing 50% HP, and it's less effective unless you're a sentinel.

My guess (not tested it yet) is that most viable build is a passive sentinel build with high power and feated daring shout. Which, if you ask me, is quite lame.

Moving PvP from active and skillful DPS to lame passive DoT is a bad move if you ask me. As lame as spammable roar was, you could dodge it and GWF needed to aim even if just a bit. RoF auto-locks and is like a laser beam. No skill.

CC buff, shield buff and more responsive teleport were all it was needed to make CWs fun and in-line.

Also: the "moment" you say after teleport when a CW is vulnerable is most gone, teleport now is much more responsive and allows CWs to teleport again a really tiny microsecond after they appear. You've to be really skilled to guess where they will teleport and anticipate their movements. On the other hand, all a CW need to do is point RoF and press right mouse.

silverkelt

For the first time ever, my SW will be pve only , there just isnt enough effective tools for me. Maybe second path will reveal more later. But right now I have no wish to play another punching bag toon. My poor DC is bad enough =P

Ill let others theorycraft as I work on boons.

ripyourlipsoff

thestaggy wrote: »

Maybe some good ones, I don't doubt that. The closest I've come to that were a couple of SWs that were zooming around the node and hard to kill, but once they stopped to fight I just chewed them up.

They're still new though, none of them have BI gear and the good ones probably have not yet completed a Profound set, so I'm sure they'll get better once they're geared up and more theorycrafting is done.

I have a s/s in the bug forum of a SW surrounded by 10 puppets standing on the zone, I couldn't target her whilst she sat in the middle of them all!

reziele

Cws are just ridiculous right now with the huge freeze timing plus hard damage. I havent bothered to pvp with my gwf since growing many other classes, but from a sw perspective cw are too tough to beat in the same gs range in lower levels. Have a 19k gs gwf in guild constantly telling me how low geared cw's are freezing him to death. Really, whats the point to gear up then.

jonkoca

Bit of a no brainer tactic, but I just out-dps them to death after the initial choke hold wears off, or I get a disrruptive off first. If there's 2 of them though, I revert to the classic kiss my *** goodbye strategy.

ripyourlipsoff

reziele wrote: »

Cws are just ridiculous right now with the huge freeze timing plus hard damage. I havent bothered to pvp with my gwf since growing many other classes, but from a sw perspective cw are too tough to beat in the same gs range in lower levels. Have a 19k gs gwf in guild constantly telling me how low geared cw's are freezing him to death. Really, whats the point to gear up then.

How is your 19k GS GWF pvper guild mate being Frozen to death? He has Unstoppable and Sprint? You couldn't ask for a better CW counter right now then the CC immune GWF! CW are indeed really powerful with their insta freeze, but complaining as a GWf with the cc immunities and mobility they have no way...

plavia

as a DC I can give you nice advice
go naked
youll die faster
beside that I am out of ideas
ppl say it "very hard to kill DC" so if you die faster then me I guess you are in a better spot

metaplexus

plavia wrote: »

as a DC I can give you nice advice
go naked
youll die faster
beside that I am out of ideas
ppl say it "very hard to kill DC" so if you die faster then me I guess you are in a better spot

Yeah... for the first time in a long time I know I can't go contest a node against a certain player. I'm not sitting at the best skills or the best gear in the game, but heck, mod3 18kgs gwf raising his sword for IBS while I was proned was nowhere near as bad as seeing one 14k CW is right now.

hypervoreian

If the enemy team has one cw things are bad but manageable.If the enemy team has 2 cws or more competitive and/or better gear score all is over.

I am GF full purified ,fortified deflection BI gear.47k hp 43% DR 26% deflect .I have normal elven and steel grace slotted.
As soon the cws spot me i get focused instantly by 2 cws .Ray,frost,ray ,frost,entagled,ray icew knife.Back to respawn point

The devs did the same mistake after the first round of GWF changes some months ago with mod3.To compensate for dep gash feat the improved the IBS by 30%.And then epic qq followed.Same with cws in mod4.They buffed him unnecesarry.

In current state of pvp if you fall to a team that has more cws than yours you are lost.
There is no defence no tactic to save you.

And the propositions a cw made ,how to face them are laughable.Pitty and pretty lame i would say.

In a midst of battle a cw can pick the most dangerous dps of the enemy team(HR/GF etc) and farm kill him in seconds.
PVP is broken

ianthewizard2012

To players who are unpleasant with Control Wizard's control abilities, I would like to know what you really expect from a Control Wizard.

Control Wizard is born to manipulate enemies with various control powers. If it can't do that, what's the point of this class? Do you expect that it does some 2 or 3 seconds controls, which other classes can already do?

mrhinkypunk

The one thing I'm truly not fond of with CW right now is that there is no variation for PvP. Pretty much all of them seem to be running a almost identical build due to specific last minute changes where a bunch of things were buffed in damage for some reason.

I find I can beat a lot of them on my warlock however it ends up being purely about if I can get my DoT's on them before I am stun locked because as soon as I miss a shift to CC resist I'm held and it's GG, I wont last the CC lock unless a team mate is with me.

What you got to remember is that it's a team game, I don't think a team of 5 CW's would win at all. Would a team of 5 HR's, 5 TR's or even 5 GF+GWF's even after GWF's nerf be a winning team? I think it would be pretty nasty, yeah.

meldan3n

ianthewizard2012 wrote: »

To players who are unpleasant with Control Wizard's control abilities, I would like to know what you really expect from a Control Wizard.

Control Wizard is born to manipulate enemies with various control powers. If it can't do that, what's the point of this class? Do you expect that it does some 2 or 3 seconds controls, which other classes can already do?

Well, I wish there would be a bigger separation of CC and damage. An example of what I mean by that:

- RoF should not freeze the target at 6 stacks just like that. It should be a feature only for Oppressors (and/or maybe Thaums).
- A good EotS should only be reserved for Renegades (high cooldown for Opp/Thaum, cooldown reduction feat for Renegades).
- Less damage on Storm Spell for Thaum/Opp, more damage for Renegades through feats.
- A pure Oppressor should have outstandingly low damage, but feats that make Icy Rays or Repel ignore CC immunity (Tier 5).
- Thaum should be a decent mix of CC and damage. More AoE features.
- Oh yeah… and buff Shard on TAB.

---

But not matter how good or bad the CW is right now. You'll meet the new M4 HRs soon, and you'll forget about CW.

ianthewizard2012

meldan3n wrote: »

Well, I wish there would be a bigger separation of CC and damage. An example of what I mean by that:

- RoF should not freeze the target at 6 stacks just like that. It should be a feature only for Oppressors (and/or maybe Thaums).
- A good EotS should only be reserved for Renegades (high cooldown for Opp/Thaum, cooldown reduction feat for Renegades).
- Less damage on Storm Spell for Thaum/Opp, more damage for Renegades through feats.
- A pure Oppressor should have outstandingly low damage, but feats that make Icy Rays or Repel ignore CC immunity (Tier 5).
- Thaum should be a decent mix of CC and damage. More AoE features.
- Oh yeah… and buff Shard on TAB.

---

But not matter how good or bad the CW is right now. You'll meet the new M4 HRs soon, and you'll forget about CW.

There are players who create CW everyday so RoF needs to freeze the target at 6 stacks otherwise playing CW would be too hard at the beginning.

And in fact, Storm Spell was fine, and we were surprised that it got buffed in Mod 4. Maybe devs wanted to give us a way to counter those unkillable "god mode HR".

emilemo

In a 1x1 the CW is hard but manageable as both a GF and a GWF. If the enemy team has 2 CWs and they work together just a wee bit you're dead.

ripyourlipsoff

Yea, if CW cc going through GF shield is intended, we need something as we are frozen til dead.

valencay

ripyourlipsoff wrote: »

Yea, if CW cc going through GF shield is intended, we need something as we are frozen til dead.

isn't the gf's shield supposed to block cc? in that case is a bug and will be fixed in mod5 (lol)