Dumb question: equipment that is > 135-145 IL?

spoomeister

I've nearly got my CW purpled-out on equipment, just a couple more pieces to go. Mostly drowcraft gear at the moment.

Apologies for dumb question - feel free to point me to an Arc-approved source if you justifiably tell me to read-the-manual - but what is the best way to get higher level equipment? Do I just need to be grinding to get the resources to refine artifacts further and that's that? Is there better than drowcraft gear to be found / bought? Do I need to switch away from things like Storm King and bits of other campaigns I've yet to finish, and solely do everything possible to help out my guild?

kreatyve

Basically, level up your enchants and your artifacts and your artifact equipment. There is higher level stuff than drowcraft as well, but without knowing the level of your enchants and your artifact stuff, I don't know the best advice to give you.

spoomeister

kreatyve said:

Basically, level up your enchants and your artifacts and your artifact equipment. There is higher level stuff than drowcraft as well, but without knowing the level of your enchants and your artifact stuff, I don't know the best advice to give you.

Hm, when actually listing it out I've got more gaps than I thought. Here's a L70 CW/Spellstorm Mage, current IL 2411. I won't bore ya with the character sheet stats unless that makes a big difference... his ratings are biggest by far on power, then crit and recovery, then defense, deflect, life steal and armor pen in that order.


Gear Lvl Name Ench Lvl
head 122 Black ice cowl drag hoard lesser
armor 135 Drowcraft robes dark 8
arms 135 Drowcraft armlets dark 7
hand 130 Ensorcelled Mulhorand Orb azure 8
talisman 130 Elemental Fire Talisman Rank 35 92/56000
feet 135 Dusk Assault Shoes dark 7
neck 120 Baphomet's Infernal Talisman Rank 2 440/700
rt ring 142 Ring of Rising Deflect +4 azure 8 / rad 8
lt ring 142 Ring of Cowardice +4 azure 7 / rad 7
waist 130 Alliance Ward Belt silvery 8
shirt 135 Drowcraft Tunic azure 7
pants 135 Drowcraft Tights silvery 8

Artifact
Main 96 Bruenor's Helm Rank 71 2,382/44000
Equip 96 Sigil of the Controller Rank 61 4,215/19,800
Equip 96 Globe of the Third Eye Rank 60 maximum
Equip 26 Illusionist's Mask Rank 29 event item, don't care

The neck and waist items, as well as having a spot for the Illusionist's Mask, comes from some (probably clumsy and ill-advised) use of other artifacts to feed the talisman to get it from blue to purple.

FWIW, my main companion is a rank 20 leader. I was intending to save up the 50k AD to upgrade him - I have a bunch of companion XP tomes to spend on him - but I was spending some to move some of the 7s in that main list of enchants to 8s.

Also on the shopping list was saving up the ichor to get a drowcraft cap (lvl 135).

Lastly, I am in a guild but I haven't been coordinating my gaming time with them... so I'm not online for the kinds of runs they'd do to get the huge chunks of guild marks needed to get things like dragonflight stuff. I mean if I timed it right, and did them during a x2 guild marks event, I guess I could get to the 8-12k for armor or 6k for accessories. (At about 2.2k now, needing 50 more seals of protector, but getting the 8-26 more fang of the dragonflight may be the killer.)

So yeah. Any recommendations are very gratefully accepted!

I could especially use some guidance on most efficient places and ways to farm some feeder artifacts, so I can build up the BIT neck artifact. And another non-event artifact... the illusionist's mask is cute and all, but not useful.

And then for the enchantments... dark 10s are going for about 435k-440k on AH, azure 10s about 450k... rank 9s seem to be about a third of that... there's not much way around grinding for that I suppose, or dropping some real-world $$$ on zen.

Oh, and if this factors into it - I'm a (inefficient?) weirdo in that I only have one character. So, I have no alts for doing the farming/grinding/feeding tricks that I've read about there.

spoomeister

Oh! And I have an armor enhancement slot and a weapon enhancement slot that I never use, so if that armor and orb (respectively) are BiS and there's enhancements to permanently put on them, let me know where to go looking / saving up for...

zephyriah

Drowcraft, when made Elemental in Black Ice profession, is a decent armor. It's only a few points below Dragonflight.

A rank 20 companion is not worth upgrading, use your AD somewhere else. If you like leaders and want a decent one, grind the upcoming Siege of Neverwinter in a few weeks. The Battlefield Medic is a great support companion and a personal favorite. 6% boost to incoming healing is a nice active. If you don't get one, they'll be in the AH from players who don't want one and if the price is too high, wait until December. The price will drop like a rock when Winter Fest comes.

Other than that, as you said you need to work on your artifact equipment and weapons. Don't worry about enchantments until you get your equipment sorted. The stats on the equipment and Artifacts will determine which enchantments you will need most and which to upgrade first.

moogie101

Presently the best armour is the Dragonflight armour. There is better gear with Storm's Thunder HOWEVER you need to grind to get VB & then keep putting it into the armour to keep it at maximum strength & many players are saying all this effort just isn't worth it.

Are you in a guild yet? If so you need to run Dragonflight the "Kill Dragons" missions in the Stronghold with multiple members of your Guild/ Alliance as often as possible to gain what you need to buy the armour from the Armour Vendor Fangs of the Dragonflight. Then get Black Ice Professions up to Level 5 which allows you to turn the Armour "Elemental" increasing the IL & stats. You can also do this with the Drow armour whilst getting what is needed for DF armour to give yourself a boost.

As already said you need to grind to earn the gear to level up your Enchantment stones, artifacts & artifact equipment (Weapons/ neck & waist). Running Sharandar Dailies gives you the stones to increase Enchantment Stones, Dread Ring for Stones to increase Artifacts. Dragon's Hoard & Fey Blessing Enchantments (available via the campaigns Dh Tyranny of Dragons "Dragon Hoard Enchantments & FB Sharandar "Assist Ritual Magic" respectively) also give you stones to level these up.

Also don't forget your companion as levelling him up helps plus you can get him better gear & stones, but obviously this takes time as well. Also have you got your Boons from the Campaigns ads they can make a significant difference.

spoomeister

zephyriah said:

Drowcraft, when made Elemental in Black Ice profession, is a decent armor. It's only a few points below Dragonflight. A rank 20 companion is not worth upgrading, use your AD somewhere else. If you like leaders and want a decent one, grind the upcoming Siege of Neverwinter in a few weeks. The Battlefield Medic is a great support companion ... Other than that, as you said you need to work on your artifact equipment and weapons. Don't worry about enchantments until you get your equipment sorted.

Thanks! I'm on the fence on chasing after DF equipment then based on this... I'll need to see how much I can get (and help guild get...) in a couple sessions with them and then revisit. And thanks for the tip on the Battlefield Medic. I've read a bit about some companions really annoying teams in dungeons, especially annoying the tank, by pulling the boss away from where they need to be pointed or otherwise messing up tactics. No worries there, I assume?

spoomeister

moogie101#4741 said:

Presently the best armour is the Dragonflight armour. There is better gear with Storm's Thunder HOWEVER you need to grind to get VB & then keep putting it into the armour to keep it at maximum strength & many players are saying all this effort just isn't worth it.

Yeah, I've been reading this too. When I get back to that campaign I'm going to be stashing and/or ignoring the voninblood parts in there.

moogie101#4741 said:

Are you in a guild yet? If so you need to run Dragonflight the "Kill Dragons" missions in the Stronghold with multiple members of your Guild/ Alliance as often as possible to gain what you need to buy the armour from the Armour Vendor Fangs of the Dragonflight. Then get Black Ice Professions up to Level 5 which allows you to turn the Armour "Elemental" increasing the IL & stats. You can also do this with the Drow armour whilst getting what is needed for DF armour to give yourself a boost.

See above - I'll need to see if I'm able to run that enough times to get DF armor. I still don't have my professions up to L20 yet (haven't researched more efficient ways to whip through them quickly) but if I spend some time in Coer-Konig and its surrounding areas to get far enough in that campaign to unlock black ice professions further, I could be getting the drowcraft stuff elemental at least (as zephyriah noted above too).

moogie101#4741 said:

As already said you need to grind to earn the gear to level up your Enchantment stones, artifacts & artifact equipment (Weapons/ neck & waist). Running Sharandar Dailies gives you the stones to increase Enchantment Stones, Dread Ring for Stones to increase Artifacts. Dragon's Hoard & Fey Blessing Enchantments (available via the campaigns Dh Tyranny of Dragons "Dragon Hoard Enchantments & FB Sharandar "Assist Ritual Magic" respectively) also give you stones to level these up.

Also don't forget your companion as levelling him up helps plus you can get him better gear & stones, but obviously this takes time as well. Also have you got your Boons from the Campaigns ads they can make a significant difference.

I don't know if I have the patience for The Grind as far as refinement goes anymore, except where I absolutely have to on artifacts and artifact equipment. Kinda sick of Sharandar grinds and getting there with Dread Ring farming too. I have a lesser dragon's hoard already slotted.

Your companion advice is different than I got above; the AD probably goes better to getting ways to continue upgrading my artifacts, than getting my healer/leader dude past level 20. I've been getting boons from the campaigns wherever possible; I still need to grind in Dread Ring and Tyranny a bit more to finish those off. Balancing my campaign currencies between trying to get through those to finish the boons, vs. spending a chunk of them to create things like Arcane / Mystic keys, has slowed me there...

moogie101

spoomeister#9137 said:

Your companion advice is different than I got above; the AD probably goes better to getting ways to continue upgrading my artifacts, than getting my healer/leader dude past level 20. I've been getting boons from the campaigns wherever possible; I still need to grind in Dread Ring and Tyranny a bit more to finish those off. Balancing my campaign currencies between trying to get through those to finish the boons, vs. spending a chunk of them to create things like Arcane / Mystic keys, has slowed me there...

Sorry, I meant using companion tokens earned via opening companion lockbox rewards, you're right to not waste AD on levelling them up unless you've got nothing else left to spend on. I'm a long distance Scourge Warlock & so use my Defender companion as my tank so levelling him has been real useful especially once he got to Legendary & gave me 15% of his stats.

Personally I focussed on the Boons first over creating keys, lets be honest unless you're real lucky the keys aren't getting you anything decent from those dungeon chests.

Also don't forget about Leadership Professions, now I'll be upfront & say its a real grind to level up HOWEVER once you've got to level 20 it really opens up. This no longer gives AD which sucks but the rewards for completing the upper tier tasks are refining stones. Presently I've got six characters all level 25 in Professions & constantly running them. Then I save the reward packs for x2 RP events.

You mention you're not using your Armour & Weapon Enhancement slots??? These aren't permanent so can be removed once you get better armour (just costs a bit of gold to remove) so look into getting these as give some great powers. Soulforged for example resurrects you upon death & Vorpal greatly increases your crits.

The only permanent thing is when you Reinforce the Armour which you want to hold off doing until you've decided which armour you are going with.

spoomeister

I'm not using the armor and weapon slots because I haven't found anything that fits into them... keep meaning to research what does go into them and where to find them. But yeah I know how the slots work because I usually keep a demon slaying or thayan slaying one in an overload slpt on the armlets.

Thanks for reply, good stuff there.

sundance777

The link was being difficult, here is a list of all the PvE armor for the CW with stats and where you can obtain: neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Collection/Epic_Equipment_(Control_Wizard)

cscriv79

Augment or bonded companion to boost your stats is a must.

Invest in 1 or 2 greater bags of holding to save all your refinement for a 2xRP event to get the most out of it and rise swiftly.

As a SW I use the Con Artist with bonding stones as my summoned companion but was using the goat augment (was really cheap) before that.

As for your armour slot that will be in refinement on the AH, negation or soulforge should suit you.

Weapon slot will be a vorpal I would imagine with the lostmauth set. Weapon enchant will add a lot to your damage and thus your effectiveness both soloing and in dungeons.

spoomeister

sundance777 said:

The link was being difficult, here is a list of all the PvE armor for the CW with stats and where you can obtain: neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Collection/Epic_Equipment_(Control_Wizard)

Derp, shoulda known to look there. Thanks!

spoomeister

cscriv79 said:

As for your armour slot that will be in refinement on the AH, negation or soulforge should suit you.

Weapon slot will be a vorpal I would imagine with the lostmauth set. Weapon enchant will add a lot to your damage and thus your effectiveness both soloing and in dungeons.

Aha, now I have a better idea what to shop for there. Thanks.

darthjafo

Takes me about 30 to 45 mins to do complete dread ring on my warlock. Depends on how the demonic encounters occur. No one does Escape so that's when I do all the smaller quests

Well of dragons is another great place for stones. I got into a good run a couple times and not only got the lostmauth belt on my first go getting all the dragons but we must have completed about 20 encounters in an extremely short time

spoomeister

darthjafo said:

Takes me about 30 to 45 mins to do complete dread ring on my warlock. Depends on how the demonic encounters occur. No one does Escape so that's when I do all the smaller quests



Well of dragons is another great place for stones. I got into a good run a couple times and not only got the lostmauth belt on my first go getting all the dragons but we must have completed about 20 encounters in an extremely short time

Yeah I've been neglecting WoD for a while... I should give it a try, I think my level is a good 300ish higher than last time i dug into it.

And yeah I hate Escape out of the HE. For whatever reason the only time it's ever worked for me is if I join in an already sizable group about halfway through. I've never had success trying to solo it, and me starting it almost always turns into me solo'ing it.

I do love it in Dread Ring when I can visit the demon hunter, get his quest, join in early on a Dem Slaughter that just started, get enough people in on it to get the bonus encounter, then gallop over to the other HE that's right by the main camp. In and out on 3 HEs and the quest that rewards them, all in like 15ish minutes.

darthjafo

The trick of sorts with escape is to start it and run away so it only has a 4 minute timer instead of 13. Although..if I still have quests to do that 13 minutes is usually enough to get them done