Generating AP while AE is active is beneficial, but I do not feel that will have an effect of balancing the Arcanist's single target damage.
The intent, as I've said, would be to have the Wizard Arcanist with enough Action Point regen (in combo with the right build) to be able to cast a Daily power between Artifact calls, in addition of course to during the artifact call!
So with stacking all the reasonable action point regen sources, it would be cool to give the ability for the Wizard Arcanist to cast a Daily power every 30s. Making it so you can gain Action Points While in AE would help towards that!
Understood. To reiterate my initial response, Wizards having the ability to potentially cast an "extra" Daily in between artifact calls, in my opinion, would not equate to Wizards being balanced when it comes to single target damage in, say, endgame Trials and even Dungeons. A bit of context that's forming my opinion:
- My understanding is some Wizards are already doing this (casting an extra Daily between artifact calls). - At endgame, the majority of damage done against bosses in Dungeons/Trials occurs during artifact calls. As an example, in a 60 second timeframe, the 10 second window of an artifact call may comprise anywhere from 50% to 100% of all damage dealt.
1. Aspect of the pack is not mandatory. The player chooses to use it when the group offer similar benefits. So you lied. 2. It should benefit ONLY me, because is my Class Skill and not some optional feat.
@rgutscheradev Since we are unable to get Imprisonment back (even though Ray of Enfeeblement and Arcane Conduit are pretty much the same power) and since chances are the wizard wont be touched again for a few years after these changes can you please reduce the cooldown of ice terrain by 3 seconds? It should actually be the same cooldown as the warlocks hellfire ring (11seconds) in my opinion but reducing it by 3-4 seconds (currently 19 seconds) should help increase the amount of aoe damage and help with rotations
Smolder no longer shows visually in enemies buff bar, when using Scorching Burst, Fanning The Flame, Fireball, Furious Immolation. ACT logs confirm Smolder still being applied
Nova - Thaumaturge Wizard Bardtholomew - Minstrel Bard Mariah Carries - Devout Cleric Darth Bane - Thaumaturge Wizard on Xbox
I just (quickly) read through this. I have a sun elf wizard who is my main toon, because I started with her. You can't have a D&D game of any worth without wizards. Is it possible for them to have a new weapon like a wand that would help or let them use a sword instead of orb throwing? I am 72 something and haven't gotten through Sharandar yet, the mobs bore me, I have finished dragonbone vale, I can do the advanced random dungeons if everyone there knows how to play. In short the wizard needs help, I die when people with a whole lot less stats and enchantments are still fighting and I do know how to play-even if it doesn't sound like it. The wizard has been screwed here so why take away something else from them?
As a ranger main who doesn't play wizard at all, I really like these changes to the wizard. Now if you could just "buff" the rogues too that would be awesome
Is it possible for them to have a new weapon like a wand that would help or let them use a sword instead of orb throwing?
I agree to an extent. long time request from wizard players.
Why is it, that all if not most of the other spellcasters in the game, including companions and NPC's have staffs, but the player characters cannot? Surely it can't be that difficult to copy some animations and assets?
Nova - Thaumaturge Wizard Bardtholomew - Minstrel Bard Mariah Carries - Devout Cleric Darth Bane - Thaumaturge Wizard on Xbox
Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested.
Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more.
Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
Tested all the powers on Preview this evening on naked wizards with features that didn't impact numbers, and no feats (just to get baselines). If I don't mention a power, the change was exactly as posted and nothing is noteworthy.
* Magic Missile is 50 mag, but because the last cycle hits 3 times, it's 250 mag in 1.3s or 192 DPS (mps?) * Arcane Bolt is 100 mag, but it's not 0.7s cast, the hole 4 shot cycle takes 3.7 seconds! 108 DPS *garbage* * Ray of Frost is 55 mag, 8 hits in 4 seconds, 110 dps * Storm Pillar's dot is 40 mag over 3 hits in about 1.5s, but the initial hit is 80 mag fully charged * Chilling Cloud takes 1.3s to deliver 80 mag AOE vs Scorching taking 1.7s to deliver 100. * Shield's cooldown feels too long still at 18s, but it will certainly be more useful to throw up quickly in early leveling. * Arcane Empowerment did boost Disintegrate 20% didn't test all powers. I got 3 of them off during the effect. * Ice Storm says 1000 magnitude in the tooltip, but it's still doing 600 magnitude. * Smolder ticks 4 times (every 3 seconds) for 150 mag a tick. Directed Flames hits for 150 mag. * Controlled Momentum says 6s in the tooltip, but lasted 15s and increased my damage 2%. * Spell Mastery slot boosts the damage of anything in it by 10%. Some powers show their +10% damage in the tooltip and others don't.
I haven't tested all the features & feats yet, have a 4 year old to feed. I'll follow up with the rest of it after testing tonight.
I suspect the animation on Arcane Bolt can't be adjusted (maybe it can be sped up?) but if not then it needs to do 177.6 magnitude /per hit/ just to match Magic Missile. Another idea is make the 4th hit a pretty solid AOE? I dunno the power is just trash.
This is also why you see the cooldown numbers "pop up" when AE wears off. That's not a bug per se
[...]
called PowerRecharge
There is a cooldown bug that happens while AE is (in the middle of being) active, or when it is not active. We do not mean the snapback to regular cooldowns when AE ends when we say cooldown bug. Also, it is my understanding that all classes occasionally have this problem. I only play Wizard though, so I haven't experienced that myself.
This might be caused by 'PowerRecharge' shirts that reduce cooldowns by 1 second on crit (called Encounter Reprieve). (Or mount insignia bonusses, or mount or artifact powers that reduce cooldowns with PowerRecharge). I don't know exactly what is happening; it definitely feels like a server client mismatch, perhaps the client applies the 1 second PowerRecharge twice instead of once, or the server uses a different internal cooldown for Encounter Reprieve. It seems to me that this bug occurs more often when one has more recharge speed. I wonder how 1 second of PowerRecharge is even supposed to apply when one has 500% SpeedRecharge. I think someone just listed a lot of sources of recharge speed apart from AE, so please refer to that comment if you want to try it out. I definitely use the Heart of the \[color\] Dragon set bonus and the recharge speed boon everywhere.
I will have to test whether the cooldown bug is still present on Preview tomorrow. If this is the case, changing Arcane Empowerment to work with PowerRecharge rather than SpeedRecharge would only make it more buggy. Oh: one thing you could do instead of disabling the Encounter power button until the server is sure the encounter is off cooldown, is have the check hidden and make sure to not play the animation, effects and sounds a power makes. It is really annoying to see your Ray of Enfeeblement hit, hear *hiss*, continue your rotation, and then find out the enemy is not debuffed/green and the power is still off of cooldown, and you just wasted your cooldowns on an un-debuffed enemy.
Example shirt: Mighty Dwarven Body Pattern. "Encounter Reprieve: Whenever you Critically Strike with your Powers, you have a 10% chance to reduce your Encounter Power cooldowns by 1 second. This effect may only occur once every 5 seconds."
* Smolder ticks 4 times (every 3 seconds) for 150 mag a tick. Directed Flames hits for 150 mag.
I would like to see this change to 300 mag every two seconds (50% of Smolder damage). Resons is that Thaumas should have an easier time proccing stuff that's based on 10% damage / heals.
Checked my Thaumaturge AoE build mainly so far on Stronghold Dummies and there seems to be a weird interaction between 'Glowing Flames' and 'Directed Flames' still.
Namely we can proc GF as per it was mentioned on DF per sec on each surrounding targets within target of main 15', however the number of Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs coming from Chilling Advantage/Critical Conflagration are critically low.
My understanding was that we can proc Smolder/Rimefire smolder every 1 second using DF and thus proc GF around main target as well in AoE. This means using Directed Flames and Glowing Flame we are gutting our AoE Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs.
First ACT diagram shows number of Glowing Flames procs against 3-4 Stronghold Dummies vs. Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs using:
Directed Flames
Shatter Strike
Critical Conflagration (main source of Rimefire Smolder on Crit)
Second ACT shows number of Glowing Flames against 3-4 Stronghold Dummies vs. Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs using:
Directed Flames
Chilling Advantage (literally applying Rimefire Smolder on every Ice Feat e.g. RoF/Chilling Cloud/Ice Conduit/Icy Terrain without Critting)
Ord of Imposition (instead of Critical Conflagration, since we don't need to crit to apply Smolder anymore)
Third ACT shows number of Glowing Flames against 3-4 Stronghold Dummies vs. Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs using:
Rimefire Weaving (good 'ole buddy)
Shatter Strike
Critical Conflagration (Smolders from Critting same old same old)
My conclusion is the following based on testing Thaum Directed Flames - Glowing Flames AoE feats below.
Directed Flames agains multiple enemies within '15 feat of each other procs Glowing Flames which is great
however DF seems to bug out the Smolder proc per 1 second for some reason
also Critical Conflagration seems to reduce Smolder Crit change drastically for some reason based on ACT logs
My understanding is that using DF we should be able to proc Glowing Flames agains many targets + Smolder procs every second for 150 mag now. It does not seem to work like that.
I've completed more precise testing down to the tenth of a second in the logs:
At-Wills: Magic Missile | 50 mag | 5 hits in 2.0 seconds | 125 DPS Ray of Frost | 55 mag | 8 hits in 4.6 seconds | 96 DPS Arcane Bolt | 100 mag | 4 hits in 3.7 seconds | 108 DPS Chilling Cloud | 80 mag | 3 hits in 1.8 seconds | 133 DPS Brash Strike | 140 mag | 3 hits in 1.5 seconds | 280 DPS (for comparison, no rage, just straight attacking)
Yup, you read that correctly. You might be thinking "well Ray of Frost is going to pair great with Directed Flames," so I'll let you feel optimistic for awhile.
Encounters: Nothing unusual found here. The tooltips appear to be accurate for these.
Dailies: As mentioned previously, Ice Storm is still 600 mag (tooltip shows 1000). Maelstrom is the most damaging AE assuming your half-hour wind up for that teeny circle doesn't miss. (It's still garbage.)
Mechanics: Smolder | 150 mag/3 sec for 4 ticks | 50 DPS (Same for Rimefire) Mastery | +10% mag, some tooltips include that already, some don't
Class Features: Swath of Destruction | 10% smolder dmg works, but 3% damage on smolder targets did not work Tested using Magic Missile (5 arcane stacks) then added smolder and continued. Magic Missile damage did not change. Tried on training room and enclave dummies. I also tried spamming Repel (no cooldown) till it was 5 stacks, then added a Smolder to compare. Again the exact same damage.
Feats: Assailing Force works, no text notice though, only a buff icon Snap Freeze is 60 mag, boosted by arcane presence, but not chilling presence Chaos Magic works but no text, just a buff icon Nightmare Wizardry works, but no buff icon, just text Chilling Advantage makes all cold powers create rimefire instead, and you will never have chill stacks. Frigid Wind works and and stacks with Chilling Presence Directed Flames "works" but needs more space to explain. Rimefire Weaving is hard to test--it's making my attacks more effective, I'm not sure of the numbers.
General: Controlled Momentum lasts 15s and buffs 2% damage including yourself. (Tooltip still says 6s)
If I didn't mention a power, it was working correctly and I don't have anything noteworthy to point out.
Directed Flames If you take this feat you will never see a smolder/rimefire icon again. Because of that, applying chill will not refresh Rimefire, so you can't trigger DF that way. Actual smolder powers, or critical conflagration are how you trigger DF. If you take Chilling Advantage that will also trigger it, but don't do that, it's not worth losing Chill (Frigid Winds is 9% damage). As a side note, Ray of Frost is just HAMSTER with this feat; even with Critical Conflagration, it seems it can only trigger DF on the first pulse, despite taking 4.6s for a full channel. If you're thinking about going with Chilling Advantage (after all 150 mag every second isn't bad...) guess again because then Ray of Frost won't trigger DF more than once per 12 seconds! Chilling Cloud (remember, the AOE at-will that is our best DPS?) will trigger DF decently reliably with Critical Conflagration (or Chilling Advantage, again don't use that awful feat), as will Magic Missile. Note that quickly spamming Scorching Burst will NOT trigger DF quickly--it will only trigger if 1s has passed since you last cast it. My suspicion is that the 1s cooldown resets if something would trigger it before 1s passes. Anyway, in multiple parses I did more damage from leaving Smolder as a DOT. As long as directed flames prevents the Smolder/Rimefire buff from appearing, there's no synergy with Chill and frankly it sucks. Just to keep from being ALL doom and gloom, it worked really well with Icy Terrain + Chilling Advantage (again don't use it, it's terrible).
Rimefire Weaving I tested this feat a bunch--it just occurred to me I was wasting my time looking at the Base Damage, as that would not change, only the effectiveness of the attack as their damage resistance dropped. I can see that my attack effectiveness went up, with smolder, chill, and rimefire. I'm not sure if it was the right values honestly.
My final assessment after this first pass?
Directed Flames feels like garbage, and our At-Wills are weak.
> @fritz#8093 said: > Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude > Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested. > > Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build > So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more. > > Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target > Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining > any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
> @fritz#8093 said: > Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude > Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested. > > Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build > So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more. > > Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target > Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining > any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
> @fritz#8093 said: > Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude > Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested. > > Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build > So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more. > > Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target > Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining > any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
So if we use the current Arcanist set up we use on live with the adjustment we lose 10%~15% EDPS. Really??? What’s the point of that ? Surely the whole point of this was to bring both paragons up not drop one. No one wants a nerf to current powers. If you can’t make things better then leave them alone. Devs stated Acanist was holding it own so didn’t need the same work as thaum. They didn’t mention nerfing it would be good 🤣🤣🤣 is this a mistake or just incompetence? I’m honestly in shock
@eugeeco Comparing the at will of a class that isn't specialized in this to one that is doesn't seem sensible. There are always options for buffs via companions and equipment for any type of power.
The problem is that some focus on only 1 of these types.
Once again Thaumaturge is essentially being ignored; the Path that needs the attention and work and Arcanist is being looked at; the Path that doesn't.
Wizard has defined Path roles: Thaum. for AoE and Arcanist for ST; it's hard built into their skillsets but every time Wizard is looked into; Thaum. is either entirely overlooked, given a cursory and ineffectual pass or stripped of an AoE too and given a ST one.
Meanwhile Arcanist; which functions more than competently in its designed ST role, btw; gets constant updates and additions of AoE powers that not only does it not need but shouldn't have to begin with. Most of which end up breaking anyway, when fixes to that Path are literally as simple as minor Magnitude improvements.
You want to know how to fix Wizard?
Start by removing all ST Powers from Thaumaturge and all AoE Powers from Arcanist. Swap them, delete them, make up new ones; whatever it takes. Gone.
Increase the Magnitude of Arcanist ST Powers slowly until they reach the equivalent levels of viability needed in content. This can be done through straight up Magnitude increases, improvements to Feat Synergy or any combination.
Arcanist is now done. No longer pay any attention to it.
Now the hard part begins. Thaumaturge has been ignored for so long that it needs an overhaul. We're talking new animations for certain Powers, rebalancing of Feat synergies and a significant look into Magnitudes for each of its Powers to match the fact they are ALL AoE now, as they should be. Most likely an entirely new Class Mechanic leveraging the use of Fire and Ice and the interactions between them needs to be conceptualized and developed.
Until then, Wizard will stay a complete broken mess at best and an unplayable one at worst. Honestly the whole class needs a full teardown and rebuilding but if it can only be half done; all the effort needs to go toward Thaumaturge.
Could I make a quick suggestion on dealing with the wizard balance changes. Can we split out any discussion about the Wizard class in general (it sucks, should have different powers, one paragon should be a tank etc) into a separate thread, and then have one purely focused on bug reports, balance change reviews and testing data?
Think it would help to have a very focused discussion for balancing what we've got, and let the discussion for more widespread future change happen elsewhere.
@admiralwarlord#3792 Our at-wills are absolutely pitiful. I'm not suggesting we need to match Brash Strike--just pointing out that a barbarian standing there swinging Brash Strike with no features or feats is going to obliterate our at-wills. And we ARE comparing--since the whole point is to bring wizard DPS in-line with other classes. But remove the line showing the absolute minimum damage a barbarian does--does that make you feel better about our awful at-wills?
@thx87 Thanks for the pie charts but we have no idea how many times anything happened here, just a percentage. Numbers would probably be more useful.
To everyone complaining about what Arcanist & Thaumaturge should and shouldn't be--last time I checked rogues and rangers can run viable builds in both paragons, even if one is a little better than another. That's the stated goal here so help get to that goal. If your goal is to sit around bitching about 5 mods ago, start a new thread somewhere else. The changes hit Preview and I spent all evening meticulously testing everything to report what did and didn't work, and feedback on what I did and didn't like. That should be your goal here.
@archmage It might be better to at least try to be constructive here.
When you will go to any specialist that tells you- do not repair( your phone, laptop, plumbing etc.) it is a waste of resources- please use that phrase.
@admiralwarlord#3792 Our at-wills are absolutely pitiful. I'm not suggesting we need to match Brash Strike--just pointing out that a barbarian standing there swinging Brash Strike with no features or feats is going to obliterate our at-wills. And we ARE comparing--since the whole point is to bring wizard DPS in-line with other classes. But remove the line showing the absolute minimum damage a barbarian does--does that make you feel better about our awful at-wills?
This was sitting there hitting the boss illusion in the training room (45k rating) with RoF for a few minutes on preview, with CA, to see what the damage makeup looked like (with Snap Freeze + Striking Advantage + Chilling Presence + Storm Spell + Poison Thorn, no BoA). 42% of the dps came from RoF itself, 58% from the other sources.
Scaling to your base numbers, RoF could be argued to enable (96 / 42) * 100 = 228dps in that scenario.
How might that compare to Brash Strike in a similar situation, with any procs it gives?
Test: Ray of Frost + Chilling Advantage Result: 80 ROF hits, 4 Rimefire hits. Notes: The only time Rimefire procs is when there is a >1s gap from last RoF stopping and next starting.
Test: Chilling Cloud + Chilling Advantage Result: 52 Chilling Cloud hits, 12 Rimefire hits Notes: It looks like only the first hit of the cycle is triggering DF.
Test: Magic Missile + Critical Conflag Result: 75 MM hits, 10 Smolder hits Notes: Again seems like DF only checks for trigger on first hit of cycle.
Test: Scorching Burst (full charge) Result: 12 SB hits, 12 Smolder hits Notes: As it's over 1 second between hits and only one hit in cycle it works fine.
Test: Scorching Burst (spamming) Result: 24 SB hits, 1 Smolder hit Notes: As 1 second never passes between hits, DF never triggers again
Test: Icy Terrain + Chilling Advantage Result: 10 IT hits, 1 Rimefire hit Notes: I'm guessing the 1s cooldown isn't quite finished on the next tick so never resets.
Conclusions I think Directed Flames is only checking on teh first hit of At-Wills to trigger, making it really suck with them, and it also appears if the 1s cooldown has not passed when a trigger occurs, it just resets the cooldown without doing anything.
Bug: Directed Flames Proc Rate Too Low You can test this fairly easy by just spamming the Scorching Burst At-Will. You should see a proc every second, but I'm getting one every ten seconds at best.
Really appreciate the detailed explanation, @rgutscheradev. Arcane Empowerment is without doubt overpowered compared to any other daily in the class, but at the same time it's currently the only reason the class can just about keep up with others. I think the changes as they are will likely see a drop in Arcanist dps, but as long as its an ongoing (and collaborative) process to test the impact of changes on preview and adjust if needed, I don't think anyone can argue... well, they can, but they'd be wrong to.
My current thinking is something like a 10% damage buff to Arcanist powers across the board, if we see it's needed. I'd rather do that than have AE continue to be the one ring to rule them all.
Honestly at this point I don't know where the sum total of all these changes has landed, though. It's possible that Thaumaturge is now better than Arcanist, and that Arcanist needs some extra catchup. It's also quite possible that Arcanist is just fine. (Or that Thaum is OP! Did I overdo it with the Smolder buffs?) A lot of stuff has been buffed, one big thing has been (somewhat) nerfed... the nerf always grabs the attention, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's been a net loss. (And it doesn't necessarily mean that there hasn't! It's just really hard to tell.)
Here are the results of some controlled ACT tests I did with an Arcanist Single Target build, in an effort to establish the relative strength before and after the changes. It's purposefully very specific and based on the commonly accepted old rotation/feats/meta for ST builds. I have ACT logs, should you want them, but for starters here are the summary results. Usual caveats of it being one person's results and a controlled scenario in the training room apply.
Focus was on at-will (RoF) + encounters (RoE + EF + R + D) + one of Arcane Empowerment of Icy Knife daily, using a set number of the same rotation. No use of extras such as mount powers, artefact power, BoA etc, nor any feats that produce unpredictable results (Chaos Magic, Assailing Force) to reduce variability in establishing a baseline. For that reason, the results may under-represent the true % difference compared to going "all out", but I think it is worth highlighting regardless.
Some initial thoughts
1.) The changes do look to have brought the paragon's dailies into closer alignment, largely thanks to the recharge speed bonus reduction for Arcane Empowerment (I used to be able to get 13-14 encounters from it, now 9-10).
2.) I think it will be a struggle to get absolute parity between the dailies, without losing the fun/purpose of AE. From a playstyle perspective, its a bit more boring to use now, simply because less is happening. AE is a unique feature, and perhaps having it as a daily constrains it (when potentially the paragon could be build around the concept). As an example, I agree with the suggestions made to enable AP gain during AE, even if it swings things slightly more in favour of that daily, because it gives a unique playstyle to the paragon around maximising AP gain.
3.) If no other changes were made, I think the 10% buff to all Arcane powers you had in mind won't be far off the mark. Obviously other combinations of feats/class features/powers need testing, but not convinced it will be possible to make up the difference.
4.) The big unknown in all of this is how the Wizard class compares to other dps classes in endgame content on live, since the BoA nerf, based on Cryptic's overall data. There seems to be a general consensus amongst players that Wizards benefitted more than most other classes, and are now relatively less well-off. That needs to be taken into account, when deciding on further balance changes. What does that data say currently?
P.S. Given the bug reports raised around Thaum, I haven't done the same testing with it, since I figure they need fixing before any conclusions could be drawn. AOE powers/scenarios are not covered here either.
@drago thanks for the numbers, that's very helpful to see from an endgame player. On preview in my gear I'm averaging 100kish on both Arcanist and Thaum. On Thaum I'm not using Directed Flames of course and I *am* using Chilling Cloud for my at-will. I also really like Arcane Conduit on Arcanist as it's not a dot, and I can refresh it during the AE cycle.
After talking with some other folks it looks like Directed Flames won't proc if any damage has been done in the last second, period. Not just if something tries to trigger smolder/rimefire.
Comments
- My understanding is some Wizards are already doing this (casting an extra Daily between artifact calls).
- At endgame, the majority of damage done against bosses in Dungeons/Trials occurs during artifact calls. As an example, in a 60 second timeframe, the 10 second window of an artifact call may comprise anywhere from 50% to 100% of all damage dealt.
2. It should benefit ONLY me, because is my Class Skill and not some optional feat.
Since we are unable to get Imprisonment back (even though Ray of Enfeeblement and Arcane Conduit are pretty much the same power) and since chances are the wizard wont be touched again for a few years after these changes can you please reduce the cooldown of ice terrain by 3 seconds? It should actually be the same cooldown as the warlocks hellfire ring (11seconds) in my opinion but reducing it by 3-4 seconds (currently 19 seconds) should help increase the amount of aoe damage and help with rotations
Please take my advice, but when cutting AE, increase the magnitude to 630
Bardtholomew - Minstrel Bard
Mariah Carries - Devout Cleric
Darth Bane - Thaumaturge Wizard on Xbox
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Why is it, that all if not most of the other spellcasters in the game, including companions and NPC's have staffs, but the player characters cannot? Surely it can't be that difficult to copy some animations and assets?
Bardtholomew - Minstrel Bard
Mariah Carries - Devout Cleric
Darth Bane - Thaumaturge Wizard on Xbox
Discord ◆ Youtube ◆ Twitter ◆ Twitch
Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested.
Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build
So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more.
Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target
Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining
any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
Bug -Rimefire smolder from my thaum party mate was added on my combat log to my arcanist damage.
Feedback- pls do not fix. (humor)
* Magic Missile is 50 mag, but because the last cycle hits 3 times, it's 250 mag in 1.3s or 192 DPS (mps?)
* Arcane Bolt is 100 mag, but it's not 0.7s cast, the hole 4 shot cycle takes 3.7 seconds! 108 DPS *garbage*
* Ray of Frost is 55 mag, 8 hits in 4 seconds, 110 dps
* Storm Pillar's dot is 40 mag over 3 hits in about 1.5s, but the initial hit is 80 mag fully charged
* Chilling Cloud takes 1.3s to deliver 80 mag AOE vs Scorching taking 1.7s to deliver 100.
* Shield's cooldown feels too long still at 18s, but it will certainly be more useful to throw up quickly in early leveling.
* Arcane Empowerment did boost Disintegrate 20% didn't test all powers. I got 3 of them off during the effect.
* Ice Storm says 1000 magnitude in the tooltip, but it's still doing 600 magnitude.
* Smolder ticks 4 times (every 3 seconds) for 150 mag a tick. Directed Flames hits for 150 mag.
* Controlled Momentum says 6s in the tooltip, but lasted 15s and increased my damage 2%.
* Spell Mastery slot boosts the damage of anything in it by 10%. Some powers show their +10% damage in the tooltip and others don't.
I haven't tested all the features & feats yet, have a 4 year old to feed. I'll follow up with the rest of it after testing tonight.
I suspect the animation on Arcane Bolt can't be adjusted (maybe it can be sped up?) but if not then it needs to do 177.6 magnitude /per hit/ just to match Magic Missile. Another idea is make the 4th hit a pretty solid AOE? I dunno the power is just trash.
This might be caused by 'PowerRecharge' shirts that reduce cooldowns by 1 second on crit (called Encounter Reprieve). (Or mount insignia bonusses, or mount or artifact powers that reduce cooldowns with PowerRecharge). I don't know exactly what is happening; it definitely feels like a server client mismatch, perhaps the client applies the 1 second PowerRecharge twice instead of once, or the server uses a different internal cooldown for Encounter Reprieve. It seems to me that this bug occurs more often when one has more recharge speed. I wonder how 1 second of PowerRecharge is even supposed to apply when one has 500% SpeedRecharge. I think someone just listed a lot of sources of recharge speed apart from AE, so please refer to that comment if you want to try it out. I definitely use the Heart of the \[color\] Dragon set bonus and the recharge speed boon everywhere.
I will have to test whether the cooldown bug is still present on Preview tomorrow. If this is the case, changing Arcane Empowerment to work with PowerRecharge rather than SpeedRecharge would only make it more buggy. Oh: one thing you could do instead of disabling the Encounter power button until the server is sure the encounter is off cooldown, is have the check hidden and make sure to not play the animation, effects and sounds a power makes. It is really annoying to see your Ray of Enfeeblement hit, hear *hiss*, continue your rotation, and then find out the enemy is not debuffed/green and the power is still off of cooldown, and you just wasted your cooldowns on an un-debuffed enemy.
Example shirt: Mighty Dwarven Body Pattern. "Encounter Reprieve: Whenever you Critically Strike with your Powers, you have a 10% chance to reduce your Encounter Power cooldowns by 1 second. This effect may only occur once every 5 seconds."
Checked my Thaumaturge AoE build mainly so far on Stronghold Dummies and there seems to be a weird interaction between 'Glowing Flames' and 'Directed Flames' still.
Namely we can proc GF as per it was mentioned on DF per sec on each surrounding targets within target of main 15', however the number of Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs coming from Chilling Advantage/Critical Conflagration are critically low.
My understanding was that we can proc Smolder/Rimefire smolder every 1 second using DF and thus proc GF around main target as well in AoE. This means using Directed Flames and Glowing Flame we are gutting our AoE Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs.
First ACT diagram shows number of Glowing Flames procs against 3-4 Stronghold Dummies vs. Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs using:
Second ACT shows number of Glowing Flames against 3-4 Stronghold Dummies vs. Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs using:
Third ACT shows number of Glowing Flames against 3-4 Stronghold Dummies vs. Smolder/Rimefire smolder procs using:
My conclusion is the following based on testing Thaum Directed Flames - Glowing Flames AoE feats below.
- Directed Flames agains multiple enemies within '15 feat of each other procs Glowing Flames which is great
- however DF seems to bug out the Smolder proc per 1 second for some reason
- also Critical Conflagration seems to reduce Smolder Crit change drastically for some reason based on ACT logs
My understanding is that using DF we should be able to proc Glowing Flames agains many targets + Smolder procs every second for 150 mag now. It does not seem to work like that.Can you check it please?
At-Wills:
Magic Missile | 50 mag | 5 hits in 2.0 seconds | 125 DPS
Ray of Frost | 55 mag | 8 hits in 4.6 seconds | 96 DPS
Arcane Bolt | 100 mag | 4 hits in 3.7 seconds | 108 DPS
Chilling Cloud | 80 mag | 3 hits in 1.8 seconds | 133 DPS
Brash Strike | 140 mag | 3 hits in 1.5 seconds | 280 DPS (for comparison, no rage, just straight attacking)
Yup, you read that correctly. You might be thinking "well Ray of Frost is going to pair great with Directed Flames," so I'll let you feel optimistic for awhile.
Encounters:
Nothing unusual found here. The tooltips appear to be accurate for these.
Dailies:
As mentioned previously, Ice Storm is still 600 mag (tooltip shows 1000). Maelstrom is the most damaging AE assuming your half-hour wind up for that teeny circle doesn't miss. (It's still garbage.)
Mechanics:
Smolder | 150 mag/3 sec for 4 ticks | 50 DPS (Same for Rimefire)
Mastery | +10% mag, some tooltips include that already, some don't
Class Features:
Swath of Destruction | 10% smolder dmg works, but 3% damage on smolder targets did not work
Tested using Magic Missile (5 arcane stacks) then added smolder and continued. Magic Missile damage did not change. Tried on training room and enclave dummies. I also tried spamming Repel (no cooldown) till it was 5 stacks, then added a Smolder to compare. Again the exact same damage.
Feats:
Assailing Force works, no text notice though, only a buff icon
Snap Freeze is 60 mag, boosted by arcane presence, but not chilling presence
Chaos Magic works but no text, just a buff icon
Nightmare Wizardry works, but no buff icon, just text
Chilling Advantage makes all cold powers create rimefire instead, and you will never have chill stacks.
Frigid Wind works and and stacks with Chilling Presence
Directed Flames "works" but needs more space to explain.
Rimefire Weaving is hard to test--it's making my attacks more effective, I'm not sure of the numbers.
General:
Controlled Momentum lasts 15s and buffs 2% damage including yourself. (Tooltip still says 6s)
If I didn't mention a power, it was working correctly and I don't have anything noteworthy to point out.
Directed Flames
If you take this feat you will never see a smolder/rimefire icon again. Because of that, applying chill will not refresh Rimefire, so you can't trigger DF that way. Actual smolder powers, or critical conflagration are how you trigger DF. If you take Chilling Advantage that will also trigger it, but don't do that, it's not worth losing Chill (Frigid Winds is 9% damage). As a side note, Ray of Frost is just HAMSTER with this feat; even with Critical Conflagration, it seems it can only trigger DF on the first pulse, despite taking 4.6s for a full channel. If you're thinking about going with Chilling Advantage (after all 150 mag every second isn't bad...) guess again because then Ray of Frost won't trigger DF more than once per 12 seconds! Chilling Cloud (remember, the AOE at-will that is our best DPS?) will trigger DF decently reliably with Critical Conflagration (or Chilling Advantage, again don't use that awful feat), as will Magic Missile. Note that quickly spamming Scorching Burst will NOT trigger DF quickly--it will only trigger if 1s has passed since you last cast it. My suspicion is that the 1s cooldown resets if something would trigger it before 1s passes. Anyway, in multiple parses I did more damage from leaving Smolder as a DOT. As long as directed flames prevents the Smolder/Rimefire buff from appearing, there's no synergy with Chill and frankly it sucks. Just to keep from being ALL doom and gloom, it worked really well with Icy Terrain + Chilling Advantage (again don't use it, it's terrible).
Rimefire Weaving
I tested this feat a bunch--it just occurred to me I was wasting my time looking at the Base Damage, as that would not change, only the effectiveness of the attack as their damage resistance dropped. I can see that my attack effectiveness went up, with smolder, chill, and rimefire. I'm not sure if it was the right values honestly.
My final assessment after this first pass?
Directed Flames feels like garbage, and our At-Wills are weak.
> Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude
> Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested.
>
> Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build
> So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more.
>
> Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target
> Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining
> any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
> @fritz#8093 said:
> Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude
> Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested.
>
> Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build
> So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more.
>
> Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target
> Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining
> any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
> @fritz#8093 said:
> Bug: Arcane Tempest Mastery Magnitude
> Arcane Tempest now has a lower magnitude on Spell Mastery (330) than normal (350). Maybe the tooltip is just wrong, haven't tested.
>
> Feedback: Arcane Empowerment Build
> So far the current standard ST build is down 10%-15% DPS based on limited dummy tests although I'm having an easier time to cap the stacks of Ribcage etc. during AE (probably thanks to the slightly higher magnitudes and +% damage). So that +10% Arcanist encounter magnitude is a must (!!!!) to compensate. Since Wizards were behind the pack to begin with, I think it should be even more.
>
> Feedback: Thaumaturge Single Target
> Thaumaturge is still not competitive in single target. Additionally I'm having a hard time maintaining
> any consistent stacks of Ribcage etc. I hoped Smolder damage might be able to hit that threshold and proc Ribcage, but I'm not having any success so far, at least not consistently. That said, my character on preview is not ideal and in a party with more buffing it might be different.
So if we use the current Arcanist set up we use on live with the adjustment we lose 10%~15% EDPS. Really??? What’s the point of that ?
Surely the whole point of this was to bring both paragons up not drop one. No one wants a nerf to current powers. If you can’t make things better then leave them alone. Devs stated Acanist was holding it own so didn’t need the same work as thaum. They didn’t mention nerfing it would be good 🤣🤣🤣 is this a mistake or just incompetence? I’m honestly in shock
The problem is that some focus on only 1 of these types.
You will fill up 50 pages with bugs because this is exactly how thaum functioned from the day of release.
All good builds of thaum were made by bugs and exploits. The dps build, the buffing build pre mod 16 and after mod 16.
Name a thaum build you liked before, and I will tell you what bugs it exploited.
I suggested years ago to delete thaum and make a Tank paragon- School of Abjuration.
I understand that there are no resources for that.
It is mind boggling for me to see veteran wizards come here and post straight face about thaum fixes when they know better.
.
It might be better to at least try to be constructive here.
Wizard has defined Path roles: Thaum. for AoE and Arcanist for ST; it's hard built into their skillsets but every time Wizard is looked into; Thaum. is either entirely overlooked, given a cursory and ineffectual pass or stripped of an AoE too and given a ST one.
Meanwhile Arcanist; which functions more than competently in its designed ST role, btw; gets constant updates and additions of AoE powers that not only does it not need but shouldn't have to begin with. Most of which end up breaking anyway, when fixes to that Path are literally as simple as minor Magnitude improvements.
You want to know how to fix Wizard?
- Start by removing all ST Powers from Thaumaturge and all AoE Powers from Arcanist. Swap them, delete them, make up new ones; whatever it takes. Gone.
- Increase the Magnitude of Arcanist ST Powers slowly until they reach the equivalent levels of viability needed in content. This can be done through straight up Magnitude increases, improvements to Feat Synergy or any combination.
- Arcanist is now done. No longer pay any attention to it.
- Now the hard part begins. Thaumaturge has been ignored for so long that it needs an overhaul. We're talking new animations for certain Powers, rebalancing of Feat synergies and a significant look into Magnitudes for each of its Powers to match the fact they are ALL AoE now, as they should be. Most likely an entirely new Class Mechanic leveraging the use of Fire and Ice and the interactions between them needs to be conceptualized and developed.
Until then, Wizard will stay a complete broken mess at best and an unplayable one at worst. Honestly the whole class needs a full teardown and rebuilding but if it can only be half done; all the effort needs to go toward Thaumaturge.Could I make a quick suggestion on dealing with the wizard balance changes. Can we split out any discussion about the Wizard class in general (it sucks, should have different powers, one paragon should be a tank etc) into a separate thread, and then have one purely focused on bug reports, balance change reviews and testing data?
Think it would help to have a very focused discussion for balancing what we've got, and let the discussion for more widespread future change happen elsewhere.
@thx87 Thanks for the pie charts but we have no idea how many times anything happened here, just a percentage. Numbers would probably be more useful.
To everyone complaining about what Arcanist & Thaumaturge should and shouldn't be--last time I checked rogues and rangers can run viable builds in both paragons, even if one is a little better than another. That's the stated goal here so help get to that goal. If your goal is to sit around bitching about 5 mods ago, start a new thread somewhere else. The changes hit Preview and I spent all evening meticulously testing everything to report what did and didn't work, and feedback on what I did and didn't like. That should be your goal here.
Scaling to your base numbers, RoF could be argued to enable (96 / 42) * 100 = 228dps in that scenario.
How might that compare to Brash Strike in a similar situation, with any procs it gives?
Test: Ray of Frost + Chilling Advantage
Result: 80 ROF hits, 4 Rimefire hits.
Notes: The only time Rimefire procs is when there is a >1s gap from last RoF stopping and next starting.
Test: Chilling Cloud + Chilling Advantage
Result: 52 Chilling Cloud hits, 12 Rimefire hits
Notes: It looks like only the first hit of the cycle is triggering DF.
Test: Magic Missile + Critical Conflag
Result: 75 MM hits, 10 Smolder hits
Notes: Again seems like DF only checks for trigger on first hit of cycle.
Test: Scorching Burst (full charge)
Result: 12 SB hits, 12 Smolder hits
Notes: As it's over 1 second between hits and only one hit in cycle it works fine.
Test: Scorching Burst (spamming)
Result: 24 SB hits, 1 Smolder hit
Notes: As 1 second never passes between hits, DF never triggers again
Test: Icy Terrain + Chilling Advantage
Result: 10 IT hits, 1 Rimefire hit
Notes: I'm guessing the 1s cooldown isn't quite finished on the next tick so never resets.
Conclusions
I think Directed Flames is only checking on teh first hit of At-Wills to trigger, making it really suck with them, and it also appears if the 1s cooldown has not passed when a trigger occurs, it just resets the cooldown without doing anything.
You can test this fairly easy by just spamming the Scorching Burst At-Will. You should see a proc every second, but I'm getting one every ten seconds at best.
Focus was on at-will (RoF) + encounters (RoE + EF + R + D) + one of Arcane Empowerment of Icy Knife daily, using a set number of the same rotation. No use of extras such as mount powers, artefact power, BoA etc, nor any feats that produce unpredictable results (Chaos Magic, Assailing Force) to reduce variability in establishing a baseline. For that reason, the results may under-represent the true % difference compared to going "all out", but I think it is worth highlighting regardless.
Some initial thoughts
1.) The changes do look to have brought the paragon's dailies into closer alignment, largely thanks to the recharge speed bonus reduction for Arcane Empowerment (I used to be able to get 13-14 encounters from it, now 9-10).
2.) I think it will be a struggle to get absolute parity between the dailies, without losing the fun/purpose of AE. From a playstyle perspective, its a bit more boring to use now, simply because less is happening. AE is a unique feature, and perhaps having it as a daily constrains it (when potentially the paragon could be build around the concept). As an example, I agree with the suggestions made to enable AP gain during AE, even if it swings things slightly more in favour of that daily, because it gives a unique playstyle to the paragon around maximising AP gain.
3.) If no other changes were made, I think the 10% buff to all Arcane powers you had in mind won't be far off the mark. Obviously other combinations of feats/class features/powers need testing, but not convinced it will be possible to make up the difference.
4.) The big unknown in all of this is how the Wizard class compares to other dps classes in endgame content on live, since the BoA nerf, based on Cryptic's overall data. There seems to be a general consensus amongst players that Wizards benefitted more than most other classes, and are now relatively less well-off. That needs to be taken into account, when deciding on further balance changes. What does that data say currently?
P.S. Given the bug reports raised around Thaum, I haven't done the same testing with it, since I figure they need fixing before any conclusions could be drawn. AOE powers/scenarios are not covered here either.