M15: Control Wizard Class Changes

ruslan1404

thefabricant said:

tenetomb said:

@thefabricant Good to see you arrived to the same conclusion I had ! Dps is pretty nice and goes crazy on execute phase.

Only thing I changed is 2/3 in Blighting power and 3/3 in Arcane Enhancement.

And, as you said, I didn't bother with Nightmare.



However on aoe, I have still not find a gameplay that convince me.

Everything I tried seems underwhelwing atm. Needs more testing !

@tenetomb for trash I run SS Rene with a similar feat distribution (but no focused wizardry) and then storm spell + evocation as class features. CoI or Steal Time on mastery (depending on group), disintegrate, Icy Terrain.

AOE - storm spell + evocation
Single target - Chilling Presence + Arcane Power Field

Off-hand Artifact Class Feature - ?
May be Chilling Presence 3% because it's more important increase all damage to kill the boss faster?
there is exactly 3% after the nerf Chilling Presence?

hustin1

While we're talking about Controllers, I have a bone to pick regarding a couple of Omu critters:

Gorillas -- WHY are these 99.9999999% control-immune?
Raptors in the Tyrant HE: same thing

It feels like a cruelty joke to CC builds.

vorphied

hustin1 said:

While we're talking about Controllers, I have a bone to pick regarding a couple of Omu critters:

Gorillas -- WHY are these 99.9999999% control-immune?
Raptors in the Tyrant HE: same thing

It feels like a cruelty joke to CC builds.

CC builds are a cruel joke. The game is not set up to reward focused CC strength over more powerful, efficient DPS, and you cannot significantly increase your base control power without sacrificing an unacceptable amount of damage potential.

Truly, CWs still bring more than enough control. If the mobs are living so long that control is becoming an issue, there is probably a separate damage issue.

theycallmetomu

cambo1682 said:

I'd have to agree with some others here that I'd prefer to see all 3 paths provide distinct functionality (and viability). I really can't understand why there is an apparent bias against the Thaum path. Most SS mage's were playing it once upon a time because it is a FUN damage path. I have many options as loadouts, that include MoF / SS Opp, Thaum, Rene but of course I am biased towards which I enjoy the most. That changes over time from variant to variant, but that is the hook, I would like to be able to change things up and experiment in different situations with different builds without gimping my toon and consequently the team. I'm sure that is the goal of the devs for all the classes, at least I hope it is.

Please revisit Assailing Force and give some consideration to the feedback that has been provided. The capstone should be something worth putting points in Thaum beyond spell twisting imho (if even for that come mod 15).

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

hustin1

vorphied said:

hustin1 said:

While we're talking about Controllers, I have a bone to pick regarding a couple of Omu critters:

Gorillas -- WHY are these 99.9999999% control-immune?
Raptors in the Tyrant HE: same thing

It feels like a cruelty joke to CC builds.

CC builds are a cruel joke. The game is not set up to reward focused CC strength over more powerful, efficient DPS, and you cannot significantly increase your base control power without sacrificing an unacceptable amount of damage potential.

Truly, CWs still bring more than enough control. If the mobs are living so long that control is becoming an issue, there is probably a separate damage issue.

It's sort of an impossible balancing act. You can be great at either damage or control, or lousy with both. At least Miri finished Omu tonight. Corellon be praised.

While we're talking about changes to CW powers, one thing that has always driven me batty has been Icy Rays. The icon often shows up as "ready" even though it is actually several seconds away from going off cooldown. It also regularly gets interrupted by (I think) at-wills, making it difficult to cast.

vorphied

hustin1 said:

vorphied said:

hustin1 said:

While we're talking about Controllers, I have a bone to pick regarding a couple of Omu critters:

Gorillas -- WHY are these 99.9999999% control-immune?
Raptors in the Tyrant HE: same thing

It feels like a cruelty joke to CC builds.

CC builds are a cruel joke. The game is not set up to reward focused CC strength over more powerful, efficient DPS, and you cannot significantly increase your base control power without sacrificing an unacceptable amount of damage potential.

Truly, CWs still bring more than enough control. If the mobs are living so long that control is becoming an issue, there is probably a separate damage issue.

It's sort of an impossible balancing act. You can be great at either damage or control, or lousy with both.

Not trying to be belligerent in my objections, but I feel the need to repeat that CW control is really quite adequate the way it's built into the majority of the powers. The best thing you can do is focus on damage, and you'll find that the mobs keel over before your baseline control durations have expired.

It's far better to run with your basic control strength and kill rapidly than it is to have massively boosted control strength and take forever to kill anything.

hustin1

Shatter Strike (Reworked): Whenever you deal damage to a frozen target, you have a 20% chance to shatter them. Shattered Foes are stunned for 5 seconds and lose health equal to 250% of your weapon damage. If a target is immune to being frozen, they will instead be affected by Frostbite. Frostbite consumes all stacks of chill to lower the amount of damage a foe deals by 25% and causes them to take damage as if they were controlled. Frostbite lasts for 8 seconds and can only be applied once every 12 seconds. Additionally, your Chill stacks have their duration increased by 3 seconds.

I'm still confused about the underlined portion. Is it referring only to losing health equal to 250% of my weapon damage, or to something else?

cambo1682

theycallmetomu said:

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Don't get me wrong, Thaum is not useless. I primarily run around doing my solo chores playing SS Thaum because I love the play style. It does sufficient damage to run through your dailies or do whatever you need to do on your own, but I also have invested more into the gear to squeeze as much damage out of the path say compared to my 16K GWF. I don't want to derail things into a comparison of classes, that has no place here, I'm just pointing out that in my opinion it requires more resources, be it time, AD or $ to have my SS perform at what I deem a decent level so that I feel "powerful".

The reality is that in higher level instances / heroics, even though I can get away with SS Thaum for the trash mobs, I am not doing my team or the group any favors by clinging to it for bosses. I swap to either MoF Rene if there is a desire that I play that, or if the group needs help with dps I switch to MoF Oppressor.

I'm ok with that, but I guess I am a little perplexed about why the Thaum path and SS in particular has been shunned so harshly by the devs. I can't help but wonder if there is a movement internally to push play away from powers that have been perceived as problematic rather than to fix or adjust them. I actually think the current Oppressor capstone would be nice to have on the Thaum path since they are reworking it, or something along the lines of what Sharp has suggested. I know these balance passes are few and far between. I would just like to see all 3 paths (and yes selfishly the path I enjoy) be taken care of while we have the devs ear.

theycallmetomu

I just ask because all of the guides online suggested SS was the DPS path, and MoF Renegade dipped into Oppressor was the best support for CW, prior to Mod 15.

Now with the Chilling Presence change, the +crit % when chilling presence is slotted feat isn't exactly useful, so feels like Renegade is Renegone outside of support builds.

(Though, non-support Wizard for serious group content is apparently pretty lackluster at this point anyway so eh)

EDIT: Oh wait, that was removed anyway.

tholan

Maybe i missed the info, or someone has already asked, but...

Has anyone noticed if combat advantage is working on preview?

Usually when you do damage without crit you should see an arrow near the damage done, i can't see any even if nightmare wizardry proc, is just a graphical bug? Or CA is not working atm? Because if is not working how can we test the real potential of the renegade tree?

modlesie

lordnemesis1981 said:

Maybe i missed the info, or someone has already asked, but...

Has anyone noticed if combat advantage is working on preview?

Usually when you do damage without crit you should see an arrow near the damage done, i can't see any even if nightmare wizardry proc, is just a graphical bug? Or CA is not working atm? Because if is not working how can we test the real potential of the renegade tree?

probably not working on previev for now.

frozenfirevr

lordnemesis1981 said:

Maybe i missed the info, or someone has already asked, but...

Has anyone noticed if combat advantage is working on preview?

Usually when you do damage without crit you should see an arrow near the damage done, i can't see any even if nightmare wizardry proc, is just a graphical bug? Or CA is not working atm? Because if is not working how can we test the real potential of the renegade tree?

Yes, it'll be fixed in a future update.

ruslan1404

lordnemesis1981 said:

Maybe i missed the info, or someone has already asked, but...

Has anyone noticed if combat advantage is working on preview?

Usually when you do damage without crit you should see an arrow near the damage done, i can't see any even if nightmare wizardry proc, is just a graphical bug? Or CA is not working atm? Because if is not working how can we test the real potential of the renegade tree?

Ithis works just does not do damage from CA.

CW Fit - Phantasmal Destruction. Gives a bonus 25% critical severities in tooltip and dealt damage increase.
Hmmm something wrong.
Because the fit works only if there is a CA hit with a 40% chance

yperkeimenos

Considering Cryptics/PW terrible record of both ignoring feedback and balancing things out, it took a considerable amount of thought to decide whether it'd be worth it to post a feedback, after testing things a bit in preview. Having said that here it is : 1) Being an oppressor I've noticed a good amount of dps drop due to the changes in chilling presence and shatter strike. 2) Chilling presence didn't have to be nerfed but instead you could buff or alter the other class features ,to be more useful and desirable in game play. 3) Shatterstrike is heavily impacted by the loss of the 5% max hit points damage multiplier and the 250% weapon damage simply can't compensate for that loss. Also frostbite,by removing all chill stacks, works against other feats in the oppressor tree,such as cold infusion-alacrity and feats such as chilling presence. Increasing the duration of chill stacks has zero impact because ,for oppressors, it wasn't a problem keeping up chill, to begin with. Instead of that i'd like to see Shatterstrike causing a small reduction in the time enemies are immune to chill stacking. 4) Arcane mastery stacks being applied only by arcane spells further limits and hinders a class that's dps starved when compared to other classes. Lets be real, control just isn't a thing in this game,at least not in endgame content, and damage is still king. So unless that changes,reducing the dps by giving more control is pointless. 5) Imprisonment is the least useful power and personally have never used it nor will i, in the foreseeable future, despite the changes done to it. Instead of encumbering the CW tree it'd be nice if some of the more interesting spells, such as cloudkill, that can be found in DnD, were adopted. That would give the class a much needed diversity and open new possible combos for utilising our powers. 6) All in all i'm not particularly thrilled with these changes and i can safely say that they will not address some of the more fundamental problems plaguing the CW class.

tenetomb

@thefabricant I did a lot more testing on the AoE setup for mod 15.
I tried yours but i had the best results when i swapped Evocation for CP (with its artifact bonus).
Otherwise, everything was the same (CoI on tab, ST, Disintegrate, IT, OF, SS, CP, same feat allocation than your boss loadout but without Focused Wizardry).
It's actually ~7% more dps so considering chill stacks really fast with CoI and IT, it can be worth it.

All of this was on dummies so i'll test this in dungeon when servers will finally let us time to play

mebengalsfan

tenetomb said:

@thefabricant I did a lot more testing on the AoE setup for mod 15.
I tried yours but i had the best results when i swapped Evocation for CP (with its artifact bonus).
Otherwise, everything was the same (CoI on tab, ST, Disintegrate, IT, OF, SS, CP, same feat allocation than your boss loadout but without Focused Wizardry).
It's actually ~7% more dps so considering chill stacks really fast with CoI and IT, it can be worth it.

All of this was on dummies so i'll test this in dungeon when servers will finally let us time to play

But you are renegade and not Thaum...Renegade is a buff path and not DPS path. That is a big issue for many CW. We went from Thaum in mod 12/12b to Opp in mod 13 & 14 and come mod 15 it will be Renegade....

Does anyone see that the CW DPS build is just jumping between Paragon feat path. That is not how CW should be built given we have 3 clear paragon feat paths...

Oppressor - should be a hybrid DPS/buffer with a split focus between both and it currently does this really nicely.
Thaum - should be the highest DPS class and since mod 12/12b it has not performed well at all
Renegade - should be a pure buff path and has been for quite a while but now will become the DPS focus because Thaum is still garbage

Please do some minor rework to Thaum Capstone and Oppressor capstone so that CW can be pure Buffers, DPS and Hybrid.

Like I said in another post, the new feat in the Renegade path should be moved to the Thaum path to provide Thaum builds more damage, it makes sense.

gildriador

After testing the Thaumaturge path more on preview, I want to resume the idea I wrote before and add some more.

Thaumaturge Feats:

balanced#2849 said:

Class Features:

• Far Spell: Removed and replaced with "Power Surge"
• Power Surge (New): Encounter powers have a 25% chance, and Daily powers have a 100% chance, to grant you Power Surge for 4 seconds. Power Surge increases the damage of your At-will powers by 20/40/60/80/100%

Replace it to increases the damage of all our dailies and adjust the damage and the up-time to be balanced for an increase in damage for dailies. The % damage of our total DPS from our Dailies is a lot bigger than our at-will.

Transcended Master: Replace Shard of Endless Avalanche by Disintegrate, we need more single target damage. This feat could be good for Single target load-out.

Snap Freeze: your cold based at-will and encounter powers deal an additional 2/4/6/8/10% damage to targets who are not affected by chill
"edit: the damage bonus only work for your first hit with a cold power because usually the rest of the fight all your targets have a stack of chill, it's why nobody use it."
Replace by : your arcane based at-will and encounter powers deal an additional 2/4/6/8/10% damage to targets who are affected by chill.

Destructive Wizardry: apply the damage increase with a 50% charged Storm Pillar

Assailing Force : The target cap need to be reworked it's too weak for a DPS path capstone. If it's too much work at least allow it to critic and benefit from debuff.

Oppressor Feats:
Chilling control : Sudden Storm now applies 1/2/3/4/5 stacks of chill to target hit by the primary strike.
Replace by :The Damage of Sudden Storm is increased by 1/2/3/4/5% when you hit a target affected by chill.
Renegade Feats:Phantasmal Destruction: Critical Severity increased to 5/10/15/20/25% (up from 3/6/9/12/15%)
Renegade doesn't offer enough compared to other support, share the critical severity with the allies. If it's too much it could be a % of the total value.

Thanks

mebengalsfan

cambo1682 said:

theycallmetomu said:

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Don't get me wrong, Thaum is not useless. I primarily run around doing my solo chores playing SS Thaum because I love the play style. It does sufficient damage to run through your dailies or do whatever you need to do on your own, but I also have invested more into the gear to squeeze as much damage out of the path say compared to my 16K GWF. I don't want to derail things into a comparison of classes, that has no place here, I'm just pointing out that in my opinion it requires more resources, be it time, AD or $ to have my SS perform at what I deem a decent level so that I feel "powerful".

The reality is that in higher level instances / heroics, even though I can get away with SS Thaum for the trash mobs, I am not doing my team or the group any favors by clinging to it for bosses. I swap to either MoF Rene if there is a desire that I play that, or if the group needs help with dps I switch to MoF Oppressor.

I'm ok with that, but I guess I am a little perplexed about why the Thaum path and SS in particular has been shunned so harshly by the devs. I can't help but wonder if there is a movement internally to push play away from powers that have been perceived as problematic rather than to fix or adjust them. I actually think the current Oppressor capstone would be nice to have on the Thaum path since they are reworking it, or something along the lines of what Sharp has suggested. I know these balance passes are few and far between. I would just like to see all 3 paths (and yes selfishly the path I enjoy) be taken care of while we have the devs ear.

Whenever the CW is fixed and a bug is removed from the class it takes a damage loss. Rarely do we see adjustment for added damage back into the class to get it back to where it was, so the CW is a bit behind with each mod when a bug is fixed.

This update has potential to allows us to use a variety of personals but with Chilling Presence still providing a 24% increase to our damage, we will continue to use that as one of our primary personals. I rather see Chilling Presence dropped down to 12% and our powers get another 15% increase in damage. This way, we have even more personals to use other than Chilling Presence.

Than I would like to see the Thaum Cap Stone do a bit more for us damage wise, something similar to what Sharp listed.

I also would like the Oppressor to go back to the one we currently have in mod 13/14 as I like how it operates, maybe a slight decrease in the damage bonus but not a big drop.

The good news is the CW is finally getting some attention. The bad news is that the renegade buff path is currently the best path for us. Some additional work is needed in the Thaum path and the Oppressor may need some additional tweaking.

tgwolf

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability..

thefabricant

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

tenetomb said:

@thefabricant I did a lot more testing on the AoE setup for mod 15.
I tried yours but i had the best results when i swapped Evocation for CP (with its artifact bonus).
Otherwise, everything was the same (CoI on tab, ST, Disintegrate, IT, OF, SS, CP, same feat allocation than your boss loadout but without Focused Wizardry).
It's actually ~7% more dps so considering chill stacks really fast with CoI and IT, it can be worth it.

All of this was on dummies so i'll test this in dungeon when servers will finally let us time to play

@tenetomb I tried a CP setup, but in the groups I run in I generally use Steal Time on mastery as monsters don't live longer then 2 power casts and running faster makes a bigger difference overall to clearspeed. Due to this, I found that Storm Spell did more damage. Maybe in slower groups, CP makes more sense.

ruslan1404#8974 said:

thefabricant said:

tenetomb said:

@thefabricant Good to see you arrived to the same conclusion I had ! Dps is pretty nice and goes crazy on execute phase.

Only thing I changed is 2/3 in Blighting power and 3/3 in Arcane Enhancement.

And, as you said, I didn't bother with Nightmare.



However on aoe, I have still not find a gameplay that convince me.

Everything I tried seems underwhelwing atm. Needs more testing !

@tenetomb for trash I run SS Rene with a similar feat distribution (but no focused wizardry) and then storm spell + evocation as class features. CoI or Steal Time on mastery (depending on group), disintegrate, Icy Terrain.

AOE - storm spell + evocation
Single target - Chilling Presence + Arcane Power Field

Off-hand Artifact Class Feature - ?
May be Chilling Presence 3% because it's more important increase all damage to kill the boss faster?
there is exactly 3% after the nerf Chilling Presence?

Yes, you got it about right.

tgwolf

theycallmetomu said:

cambo1682 said:

I'd have to agree with some others here that I'd prefer to see all 3 paths provide distinct functionality (and viability). I really can't understand why there is an apparent bias against the Thaum path. Most SS mage's were playing it once upon a time because it is a FUN damage path. I have many options as loadouts, that include MoF / SS Opp, Thaum, Rene but of course I am biased towards which I enjoy the most. That changes over time from variant to variant, but that is the hook, I would like to be able to change things up and experiment in different situations with different builds without gimping my toon and consequently the team. I'm sure that is the goal of the devs for all the classes, at least I hope it is.

Please revisit Assailing Force and give some consideration to the feedback that has been provided. The capstone should be something worth putting points in Thaum beyond spell twisting imho (if even for that come mod 15).

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Thaum. is for Solo play, it provides more Damage than other paths and makes up for the lower damage a CW should have by default.

Renegade is for group play, to provide buffs/debuffs and with the right build, a Zero CD Encounter spewing machine.

tgwolf

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If all you were using it for was CA you aren't using it correctly.
That's like saying the only reason to include a GWF in a party is because it can run.

Any DPS class will do a better job over a CW at DPS, and I don't say "other" DPS class because like it or not, that isn't what you're there exclusively to do. If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade, zero CD build does and will do considerably better with these changes, then you are replaceable.

Of course if you're a premade and most of you are 2k+ higher than the min iLvL for the content you're running, it doesn't matter what you do. You're a joke that gets exponentially funnier the more overgeared you get.

theycallmetomu

tgwolf said:

theycallmetomu said:

cambo1682 said:

I'd have to agree with some others here that I'd prefer to see all 3 paths provide distinct functionality (and viability). I really can't understand why there is an apparent bias against the Thaum path. Most SS mage's were playing it once upon a time because it is a FUN damage path. I have many options as loadouts, that include MoF / SS Opp, Thaum, Rene but of course I am biased towards which I enjoy the most. That changes over time from variant to variant, but that is the hook, I would like to be able to change things up and experiment in different situations with different builds without gimping my toon and consequently the team. I'm sure that is the goal of the devs for all the classes, at least I hope it is.

Please revisit Assailing Force and give some consideration to the feedback that has been provided. The capstone should be something worth putting points in Thaum beyond spell twisting imho (if even for that come mod 15).

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Thaum. is for Solo play, it provides more Damage than other paths and makes up for the lower damage a CW should have by default.

Renegade is for group play, to provide buffs/debuffs and with the right build, a Zero CD Encounter spewing machine.

Oh okay, I never use my DPS build in "serious" content anyway (anything more advanced than Intermediate queue). So it sounds like my priors were in the right spot after all.

thefabricant

tgwolf said:

theycallmetomu said:

cambo1682 said:

I'd have to agree with some others here that I'd prefer to see all 3 paths provide distinct functionality (and viability). I really can't understand why there is an apparent bias against the Thaum path. Most SS mage's were playing it once upon a time because it is a FUN damage path. I have many options as loadouts, that include MoF / SS Opp, Thaum, Rene but of course I am biased towards which I enjoy the most. That changes over time from variant to variant, but that is the hook, I would like to be able to change things up and experiment in different situations with different builds without gimping my toon and consequently the team. I'm sure that is the goal of the devs for all the classes, at least I hope it is.

Please revisit Assailing Force and give some consideration to the feedback that has been provided. The capstone should be something worth putting points in Thaum beyond spell twisting imho (if even for that come mod 15).

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Thaum. is for Solo play, it provides more Damage than other paths and makes up for the lower damage a CW should have by default.

Renegade is for group play, to provide buffs/debuffs and with the right build, a Zero CD Encounter spewing machine.

Renegade has the clear advantage for solo play, it gives reliable combat advantage which is a much bigger buff then any of the other paths will give you. Thaum is as dead as the dodos.

tgwolf said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If all you were using it for was CA you aren't using it correctly.
That's like saying the only reason to include a GWF in a party is because it can run.

Any DPS class will do a better job over a CW at DPS, and I don't say "other" DPS class because like it or not, that isn't what you're there exclusively to do. If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade, zero CD build does and will do considerably better with these changes, then you are replaceable.

Of course if you're a premade and most of you are 2k+ higher than the min iLvL for the content you're running, it doesn't matter what you do. You're a joke that gets exponentially funnier the more overgeared you get.

Oppressor, currently on live, provides better, more reliable buffs then renegade and does more dps provided there is somebody else providing CA. The crit buff and chaotic growth are useless and a 10% buff that can be procced 100% of the time is stronger then a 30% buff which is only up some of the time

frozenfirevr

tgwolf said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade

Mind telling me what all 'supporting benefits' you currently providing as a Renegade?

theycallmetomu

frozenfirevr said:

tgwolf said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade

Mind telling me what all 'supporting benefits' you currently providing as a Renegade?

... virtually the entire feat tree is support stuff.

Though, the +crit% chance stuff is pretty useless once everyone and their mom has maxed their crit chance on their own.

cambo1682

I'm witnessing the one reason I currently have a MoF Rene loadout...even in our own thread. -_-
Sometime it's just easier to switch loadouts and let people eat what they ask for... but I find current Rene is a bit of a lotto compared to Oppressor and the Oppressor can do decent damage while providing the same passive buffs and nice instance wide support through feats. Shame it is changing, I quite like it.

The elephant in the room has been called out, though I think we all have known it. "Thaum is dead as dodos'" I hope that the balancing team takes note of that and there is time to revisit that part of the final build. My fear though is that the TR and DC threads are burning so hotly that we will not get much more than we currently see.

frozenfirevr

theycallmetomu said:

frozenfirevr said:

tgwolf said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade

Mind telling me what all 'supporting benefits' you currently providing as a Renegade?

... virtually the entire feat tree is support stuff.

That's what you'd feel, but when you actually look at it, there's nothing of much use (for an endgame group) except an unreliable Chaotic Fury and maybe, to a minor extent, Abyss of Chaos.

metalicum1

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

theycallmetomu said:

cambo1682 said:

I'd have to agree with some others here that I'd prefer to see all 3 paths provide distinct functionality (and viability). I really can't understand why there is an apparent bias against the Thaum path. Most SS mage's were playing it once upon a time because it is a FUN damage path. I have many options as loadouts, that include MoF / SS Opp, Thaum, Rene but of course I am biased towards which I enjoy the most. That changes over time from variant to variant, but that is the hook, I would like to be able to change things up and experiment in different situations with different builds without gimping my toon and consequently the team. I'm sure that is the goal of the devs for all the classes, at least I hope it is.

Please revisit Assailing Force and give some consideration to the feedback that has been provided. The capstone should be something worth putting points in Thaum beyond spell twisting imho (if even for that come mod 15).

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Thaum. is for Solo play, it provides more Damage than other paths and makes up for the lower damage a CW should have by default.

Renegade is for group play, to provide buffs/debuffs and with the right build, a Zero CD Encounter spewing machine.

Renegade has the clear advantage for solo play, it gives reliable combat advantage which is a much bigger buff then any of the other paths will give you. Thaum is as dead as the dodos.

tgwolf said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If all you were using it for was CA you aren't using it correctly.
That's like saying the only reason to include a GWF in a party is because it can run.

Any DPS class will do a better job over a CW at DPS, and I don't say "other" DPS class because like it or not, that isn't what you're there exclusively to do. If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade, zero CD build does and will do considerably better with these changes, then you are replaceable.

Of course if you're a premade and most of you are 2k+ higher than the min iLvL for the content you're running, it doesn't matter what you do. You're a joke that gets exponentially funnier the more overgeared you get.

Oppressor, currently on live, provides better, more reliable buffs then renegade and does more dps provided there is nobody else providing CA. The crit buff and chaotic growth are useless and a 10% buff that can be procced 100% of the time is stronger then a 30% buff which is only up some of the time

If you acutally look at the data from runs of uptime of Chaotic Fury, you would find out that uptimes of each buff are not the same. Fury had in many cases uptime comparable to Nexus and Growth combined (who knows why).
Fury is much better than oppressor buff.

frozenfirevr

metalicum1 said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

theycallmetomu said:

cambo1682 said:

I'd have to agree with some others here that I'd prefer to see all 3 paths provide distinct functionality (and viability). I really can't understand why there is an apparent bias against the Thaum path. Most SS mage's were playing it once upon a time because it is a FUN damage path. I have many options as loadouts, that include MoF / SS Opp, Thaum, Rene but of course I am biased towards which I enjoy the most. That changes over time from variant to variant, but that is the hook, I would like to be able to change things up and experiment in different situations with different builds without gimping my toon and consequently the team. I'm sure that is the goal of the devs for all the classes, at least I hope it is.

Please revisit Assailing Force and give some consideration to the feedback that has been provided. The capstone should be something worth putting points in Thaum beyond spell twisting imho (if even for that come mod 15).

I still don't understand the apparent consensus in this thread that Thaum isn't useful. Can someone explain that to me? I switched out of Renegade to Thaum because my experience at the time showed it was actually mode damage! Then again, that was before I got a Razorwood.

Thaum. is for Solo play, it provides more Damage than other paths and makes up for the lower damage a CW should have by default.

Renegade is for group play, to provide buffs/debuffs and with the right build, a Zero CD Encounter spewing machine.

Renegade has the clear advantage for solo play, it gives reliable combat advantage which is a much bigger buff then any of the other paths will give you. Thaum is as dead as the dodos.

tgwolf said:

thefabricant said:

tgwolf said:

frozenfirevr said:

Guess we're back to renegade builds for support then?

Will chaos magic proc from DoTs?

If you were running anything else in groups then you were a liability.

If you were running renegade in premades in mod 14 then you were a liability. The only time renegade made sense in m14 is when there is literally no other way to gain combat advantage.

If all you were using it for was CA you aren't using it correctly.
That's like saying the only reason to include a GWF in a party is because it can run.

Any DPS class will do a better job over a CW at DPS, and I don't say "other" DPS class because like it or not, that isn't what you're there exclusively to do. If you're not maximizing your ability to provide supporting benefits as a Renegade, zero CD build does and will do considerably better with these changes, then you are replaceable.

Of course if you're a premade and most of you are 2k+ higher than the min iLvL for the content you're running, it doesn't matter what you do. You're a joke that gets exponentially funnier the more overgeared you get.

Oppressor, currently on live, provides better, more reliable buffs then renegade and does more dps provided there is nobody else providing CA. The crit buff and chaotic growth are useless and a 10% buff that can be procced 100% of the time is stronger then a 30% buff which is only up some of the time

If you acutally look at the data from runs of uptime of Chaotic Fury, you would find out that uptimes of each buff are not the same. Fury had in many cases uptime comparable to Nexus and Growth combined (who knows why).
Fury is much better than oppressor buff.

Even if it has 50% uptime as you state, it still doesn't directly mean it's better. You see, 50% uptime for a 30% buff doesn't equate to 15% increase. A constant buff even if smaller is worth more. Even boss fights are, often times, quite short and a randomized buff might never even proc in that duration.