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[PS4] Control Wizard does not have a party role
metalicum1
Member Posts: 200 Arc User
in The Library
CW is in a horrible shape currently. You might think that it is a competitive class because of that damage counting, but the truth is that in any party CW is completely useless. Here is several reasons why. (keep in mind that I am not talking about 4k ilvl Valindra Zerg run, but progress potential)
1) As a pure DPS (let's say SS thaum) CW's hanging there against SW and GWF, but only and only on huge AoE stacks of mobs. (and I would argue that both GWF and SW are outperforming CW even there). The problem is that you don't really need huge AoE dps when you have SW or GWF in the party, because they can handle AoE just fine, but they perform considerably better on boss encounters, i.e. single target damage. And let's face it, racing for DPS on giant stacks of mobs is fun and all, but it is not what we should think about when balancing classes.
2) my 2nd point is an elaboration of the first one. If you want to be useful during boss battles (as a pure DPS), you have to have Focused Wizardry. and even then your best shot is to spam Disintegrate, Ice Knife, and maybe SudSto, chilling strike or so.
At that point, your party SW is laughing to your face, smoking, drinking coffee, and doing twice the damage. As you can see the problem is not that current SS Thaum cannot compete on the damage overall, it is that it mainly does the damage when the party does not need it. if you have less then 4 enemies, your SS Thaum will be outperformed, and rarely the hardest part of any raid/dungeon is when there are more then 4 enemies.
3) the main idea of the class should have been control and support. As I see it, CW should ultimately be a support control class with an interesting pure DPS side build. Instead, currently it is only 1 pure DPS build and 1 almost pure DPS/buff, both which cannot compete with their party counterparts (with SW or GWF on pure DPS, and with Buff cleric as a MoF Renegade). This is, of course, because when **it hits the fans, the heart and soul of the class ("Control") does not work. Because it is not seen on the counter of overall damage, it is not as obvious, but by having its heart completely useless the class is suffering so much it cannot be redeemed until this is changed completely. Imagine, for example, a pure DPS class which gets 95% reduction on damage in dungeons. This is exactly what control wizard has in terms of his controlling powers. But it is even worse, because its DPS encounters and daily powers still has some control aspects, which makes the power more "expensive" (cooldown, lower damage...). Chill Strike is a great example of that, as it is a single target nuke which should do damage, but it also does STUN. the problem is that there is no stun in epic dungeons. Bosses dont care at all, and it is virtually useless to cast a single target spell into a crowd of 10-15 mobs, not even mentioning that you can barely see the stun because of the CC resist.
4) The buffer option, Renegade, is currently playable only in 1 variation. Since you lose a lot of personal DPS, you should focus on the party, which means MoF Swath of Destruction, plus a a CritCon (I don't even have to mention here that the gear, stats, are basically identical for all CW builds currently). Still, I would much prefer to run with buff Cleric then with buff CW, because a) you cannot control which and when proc chaos magic, and b) the buffs are not that interesting to begin with. As a buffer/debuffer, CW is outclassed.
So the point is that currently CW does not have a party role to play. As a DPS it must focus on AoE to be competitive, but than fails hard on boss encounters. As a buff/renegade it is easily outclassed by buff cleric (try to run GF, DC heal, DC buff, SW, and GWF, you will see how pathetic the CW's buffs are). As a controlled it fails hard because essentially nothing worth can be controlled even with all the Control boost you can get (Valindra set, Underdark boon, stats, etc.. ).
My point is that currently, if you delete CW from the game, nothing of substance would be lost. The only area where CW can currently compete is pure AoE DPS, and as I argued, only with a build that the party does not need because of lacking single target damage.
Is there a solution to this? No, not really. Buffing DPS is not an option, since this is not really about CW being highest DPS contender. You can't reduce CC resists substantially in order to meet CWs' potential, because you would create an environment of constantly controlled enemies, as there is simply too much control effects in the game and too many control spells from different classes. Small CC resist reduction would also not help since There are not many items boosting your own control stats.
The only quick option would be to introduce an item, not only specific to Control wiz, but also to a specific path (so that it is not abused by other paths, you have to commit), in this case Oppressor, which would boost control by 500-1000% in Epic Dungeons, raids and so on and also would give an option co control bosses a little. Then, instead of 0,1s you would get at least 1s of of both hard and soft control. You would also not need Spell twisting because rather than spamming encounters, you would need to time you strikes in order to maximize control. And that wont happen.
Long term solution would be to drastically diminish value of DPS in general, so that there is a need for control during fights, not just burning it down with highest DPS imaginable, substantially reduce the importance of dmg buffs, simplify control debuffs, reduce control resists but at the same time reduce the number of control aspects on several encounters...
1) As a pure DPS (let's say SS thaum) CW's hanging there against SW and GWF, but only and only on huge AoE stacks of mobs. (and I would argue that both GWF and SW are outperforming CW even there). The problem is that you don't really need huge AoE dps when you have SW or GWF in the party, because they can handle AoE just fine, but they perform considerably better on boss encounters, i.e. single target damage. And let's face it, racing for DPS on giant stacks of mobs is fun and all, but it is not what we should think about when balancing classes.
2) my 2nd point is an elaboration of the first one. If you want to be useful during boss battles (as a pure DPS), you have to have Focused Wizardry. and even then your best shot is to spam Disintegrate, Ice Knife, and maybe SudSto, chilling strike or so.
At that point, your party SW is laughing to your face, smoking, drinking coffee, and doing twice the damage. As you can see the problem is not that current SS Thaum cannot compete on the damage overall, it is that it mainly does the damage when the party does not need it. if you have less then 4 enemies, your SS Thaum will be outperformed, and rarely the hardest part of any raid/dungeon is when there are more then 4 enemies.
3) the main idea of the class should have been control and support. As I see it, CW should ultimately be a support control class with an interesting pure DPS side build. Instead, currently it is only 1 pure DPS build and 1 almost pure DPS/buff, both which cannot compete with their party counterparts (with SW or GWF on pure DPS, and with Buff cleric as a MoF Renegade). This is, of course, because when **it hits the fans, the heart and soul of the class ("Control") does not work. Because it is not seen on the counter of overall damage, it is not as obvious, but by having its heart completely useless the class is suffering so much it cannot be redeemed until this is changed completely. Imagine, for example, a pure DPS class which gets 95% reduction on damage in dungeons. This is exactly what control wizard has in terms of his controlling powers. But it is even worse, because its DPS encounters and daily powers still has some control aspects, which makes the power more "expensive" (cooldown, lower damage...). Chill Strike is a great example of that, as it is a single target nuke which should do damage, but it also does STUN. the problem is that there is no stun in epic dungeons. Bosses dont care at all, and it is virtually useless to cast a single target spell into a crowd of 10-15 mobs, not even mentioning that you can barely see the stun because of the CC resist.
4) The buffer option, Renegade, is currently playable only in 1 variation. Since you lose a lot of personal DPS, you should focus on the party, which means MoF Swath of Destruction, plus a a CritCon (I don't even have to mention here that the gear, stats, are basically identical for all CW builds currently). Still, I would much prefer to run with buff Cleric then with buff CW, because a) you cannot control which and when proc chaos magic, and b) the buffs are not that interesting to begin with. As a buffer/debuffer, CW is outclassed.
So the point is that currently CW does not have a party role to play. As a DPS it must focus on AoE to be competitive, but than fails hard on boss encounters. As a buff/renegade it is easily outclassed by buff cleric (try to run GF, DC heal, DC buff, SW, and GWF, you will see how pathetic the CW's buffs are). As a controlled it fails hard because essentially nothing worth can be controlled even with all the Control boost you can get (Valindra set, Underdark boon, stats, etc.. ).
My point is that currently, if you delete CW from the game, nothing of substance would be lost. The only area where CW can currently compete is pure AoE DPS, and as I argued, only with a build that the party does not need because of lacking single target damage.
Is there a solution to this? No, not really. Buffing DPS is not an option, since this is not really about CW being highest DPS contender. You can't reduce CC resists substantially in order to meet CWs' potential, because you would create an environment of constantly controlled enemies, as there is simply too much control effects in the game and too many control spells from different classes. Small CC resist reduction would also not help since There are not many items boosting your own control stats.
The only quick option would be to introduce an item, not only specific to Control wiz, but also to a specific path (so that it is not abused by other paths, you have to commit), in this case Oppressor, which would boost control by 500-1000% in Epic Dungeons, raids and so on and also would give an option co control bosses a little. Then, instead of 0,1s you would get at least 1s of of both hard and soft control. You would also not need Spell twisting because rather than spamming encounters, you would need to time you strikes in order to maximize control. And that wont happen.
Long term solution would be to drastically diminish value of DPS in general, so that there is a need for control during fights, not just burning it down with highest DPS imaginable, substantially reduce the importance of dmg buffs, simplify control debuffs, reduce control resists but at the same time reduce the number of control aspects on several encounters...
Aris Meyde CW MoF Renegade
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
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[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
And as I understand it, in current state of the game, unless you are overgeard and zerg the boss, you need tank and healer. this lefts you with 3 slots, and 6 classes options. So there is a reason to take CW and put there something much more effective and useful.
But my argument wasn't even that the SS thaum is not effective enough, my point was that CW has control aspects in the core of the character, and it would be a lot of fun fun to play it that way if it was viable.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
CW needs to put at least double the amount of preparation and party role that the other classes put into, and in the end unless the CW's the buffer type (renegade), there's little to no use for a CW in the team.
This has been going on since the 2nd half of the MOD6 update. CW was somewhat viable due to the Lostmauth' set bonus, but all of that's changed currently.
CW's still a very viable class, however has a very long learning curve and needs a lot of tinkering prior to becoming a killing machine. Furthermore needs a good team who understand and take care of the CW's abilities, allowing the enemies to stay closer instead to spread them out in four different directions.
If the team is bad, the CW will most definitely under perform.
Boss-wise, CW will under-perform since only two spells are the real damage dealers and those are disintegrate and ice knife.
Mob-wise CW is extremely good given that the mobs are situated at one place.
A bit of the strategy's not a bad idea, but in my experience there's maybe 0.01% of players around who care for what CW does. All they care about is the paingiver chart, which i sorely the mentality of the majority of players around.
Despite all of that, yes, CW is in a very bad shape currently because neither damage nor control are the major factors in the teamfights, and neither is the buff ability.
One must ask what is the current role of the Control Wizard?
Cw is the best debuffer right now in the game and the synergy with a cleric and/or tank is phenomenal. While solo Debuffing I do what the image is showing and unless a solo 352% debuff is considered bad then… Please note that this Screen is at the start of 10.5 without HV set or any “broken” companions.
On top of that it offers very good control (i don't mean through control bonus) so much to the point in our guild and alliance we say “nothing moves unless we let it”.
What the game lacks is good players that will go deep and beyond the obvious when it comes to playstyles, builds and in general to think “outside the box”.
C1k4ml3kc3 is right, “A bit of the strategy's not a bad idea, but in my experience there's maybe 0.01% of players around who care for what CW does. All they care about is the paingiver chart, which i sorely the mentality of the majority of players around.”
This a run with a GF tank (as posted on another topic)
Dont get me wrong I m not saying it's the best but hey, its not that bad as people make it appear.
That's it.
So you have to explain what those numbers mean and what build can achieve them, and whether it is really worth it.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
So making your entire team do 347% more dmg (as per second screen) makes the dungeons, Heroics, tiamat, edemo and anything else you participate, finish fast and smooth and definitely worth it.
My analogy is it makes a 2k player fight like 4k. (more or less
The build is my own but I can tell you it’s Mof renegade.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
AN example if the effectiveness is 379% ( 100% is always the armor penetration so debuff 279%)
will be like this: [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Ice Knife deals 7244900 (1910865) Cold Damage to Goristro. SO be sure to always have 60% resist ignore for bosses otherwise you will not see the corrrect values of the debuff.
I can't even play with gear and items because everything is so expensive, and the drop rate basically nonexistent.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
As mamalion said, if you want to check your own debuff, look at your combat log (in chat)
You will see something like
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Ice Knife deals 7244900 (1910865) Cold Damage to xxxxxxx boss]
That means your normal damage (with buffs) is 1910865 and debuffs made it 7244900 or 379.14%
Then there is weapon enchant, you can use r12 Plaguefire, Dread, Are there better for debuff?
Mount powers ?
Lantern as an active artifact?
Are there any companions that can help you? Sellsword?
All and all those would not create those numbers you are implying. Not by far.
So when I ask what these numbers represents, I mean how the hell did you achieved them? Is there a completely different side of game that I don't know about?
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
I posted here just to say that CW is VERY relevant to the content and to the group play both as a dps and as a debuffer and i posted the ACT screens to prove my point. Details about my build will come soon but in the meantime i can tell you don't be absolute, there are better enchants than plaguefire (frost), better companions than sellsword (dancing shield) and lots more. A bit of testing and research will show you that “different side”.
Voodoo
The feats of one player may get a precedence over the feat of another player.The internal mechanics of how feats interact on the specifics of Buff/Debuff ratio is not tracked graph-wise by the software ACT (shown in the video), but can be seen in the CombatLog of the game itself in order to see what feat activated prior to the activation of a specific hit that did millions of damage and you don't know how that happened. You only look at the screen, seeing that big orange number, and you're like "wtf".
Certain feats and powers, debuffs more specifically, multiply certain aspects of other feats and powers.
Given the amount of Weapon Enchantments as well as combinations of Feats/Powers with, furthermore, Damage types AS WELL as the concept of interaction in a timely manner there are A LOT of possibilities to get/deal a particular damage to the enemy.
Discovering THAT on your character can be very time-consuming because the tooltips DO NOT show what is really done with 2nd or 3rd strike of each AT-WILL strike, nor whether they have some extra special powers that work in a combination, so all of that you have to workout for yourself somehow. When you start getting interest into THOSE aspects of the game, you're basically polishing your skills to the maximum.
Now, having that in mind, just think of how BIG the buff/debuff ratio of an entire team can be when all the cards are down on the desk... You get so many combinations and possibilities that you practically need even more time to get it done properly, and sometimes it happens only when certain buffs/debuffs overlap each-other for a fraction of a second, sometimes completely random, and even if you'd like to repeat the thing, you can't really make other 4 people to do it for you unless you REALLY have a patient team of people who're into their class and know the mechanics flawlessly. If the team doesn't really know that (nor they care much), that's tough luck I guess and even if they somehow get into doing that, nobody's to know whether Cryptic might change something in the meantime, thus completely messing your entire concept for the team-build. Happened to me and my friends more than once.
The only SAFE bet that you can really count-on is your raw Weapon Damage.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Maybe it's because we don't have crit severity boosts in feats the way some other DPS classes do? Just giving us the same Devastating Critical option that the GWF & SW have would go a long way to redressing the balance.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Imho I think CW is probably the most varied of all classes. A bis dps thauma CW can keep up with a bis gwf/hr/sw and I am not saying this just to improve my arguments. I am seeing it currently every day in esva. On the other hand a support cw can easily keep up with other support builds. A mof build is maybe even the best support build in the current meta.
All in all I cant agree that CWs are in a bad shape right now. Thanks to SW and GF fixes we are again on the top of the best classes in PvE.
- Literally, three most damaging powers are not critting for CW. That alone makes Vorpal enchantment that much less useful to get, thus even more reducing the CW's damage output.
To put it into more light or a better perspective for those who don't understand :
- Imagine Indomitable Battle Strike not critting? It's practically Ice Knife, but not a daily. It's an Encounter. When Disintegrate does more than Indomitable Battle Strike, then's it's great since it can actually keep-up. But it doesn't do that.
- Imagine Duelist's Flurry without Bleeding, activating only sometimes, not critting? Yeah.
"Became versatile"
CWs were always the most versatile class, they never just "became" that. The mere possibility to put spells into the Spell Mastery slot is a confirmation to that. But right now CW's are not at all that versatile, but they can be at the expense of a lot of actual powers. And nobody wants such a CW in their group, especially when other classes outperform.
- Control doesn't work well on big mobs. On bosses doesn't work at all. That ain't versatile, so all Oppressor builds are going to terribly under-perform. Meaning all WIS builds will be terrible Boss-wise.
- Critting ability's halved, so striving to be a pure DPS build is a terrible choice for a CW right now. That's not versatile.
So, all that's left is the Buff/Debuff of sorts.
If the only logical thing to do is to play as a MoF Renegade, that's the epitome of non-versatility. That's anti-versatile.
Rise to POWER with <House of Power>.
The Exterminator - (NW-DLNXF3BGG)
That's why I say our single target loadout needs improvement because boss fights are what it's all about. There's no point in being the best at mobs when nobody takes them seriously anyway, all DPS classes need to be effective at single target damage because boss fights are the main events within dungeon runs.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox