Thaumaturge Wizard : Critical Conflagration nerf or bug ?

bifflinculte

Heya folks !

You probably haven't noticed, but Critical Conflagration has been severly nerfed. It use to trigger smoler on every critical hits, it's no longer the case. In practice, critical non-fire aoe spells now only trigger smolder on the main target (or on a single target for area spells. Well, sometimes a second foe gets smolder, too).

So, for boss fights, nothing changes.

But for mob trash, that makes a huge difference. Basically, you'll have to play like former dps Master of Flames : first add smolder with fire spells, then add chill to refresh Rimefire Smolder. Smolder damage with Directed Flames has already nerfed from 60 magnitude to 40, total smolder damage is now about 1/4 to 1/3 of your total damage (down from >50% in previous mod).

That doesn't mean aoe thaumaturge has become HAMSTER or that this passive has gone useless, but you'll have to add smolder manually on mob packs in order to keep optimal dps. And Fireball isn't sufficient, since it's bugged and doesn't add smolder on chilled targets. (https://arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1250533/pc-wizard-fireball-does-not-add-smolder-on-chilled-targets)

More details and thaumaturge builds on https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing

theraxin

So, to be precise, it's not a nerf, it's a bug or at least, highly unintended. It happened at the August 1 preview patch notes, with the:

Wizard

• Ray of Frost should only trigger Critical Conflagration one per crit now.
  

Somehow they misunderstood how this bug happens and just nerfed CC. In shorthand, adding a chill stack to refresh smolder procced Directed flames AND Crit conflag, but never actually procced CC twice.

Credits for @quickfoot#7851 who actually explained the error in detail on that patch notes topic.

mebengalsfan

LMAO...no surprise here on the devs breaking things.

bifflinculte

Maybe you're right after all, it's a bug. But I will bet on nerf

thefabricant

bifflinculte said:

Maybe you're right after all, it's a bug. But I will bet on nerf

They are bugs that existed before where the fixes to them were reverted. The extra hit for EF for example or the 50% instead of 75% directed flames. These bugs existed on m16 preview, were reported and fixed and it seems they just merged the broken version back in again.

autumnwitch

I always find it AMAZING how fast things get fixed that benefit players but things/bugs that hurt us linger on for ages. SMH

mebengalsfan

autumnwitch said:

I always find it AMAZING how fast things get fixed that benefit players but things/bugs that hurt us linger on for ages. SMH

Usually those that benefit us that are fixed are issues where the company will lose money, hunt exploit for instance. Issues around classes that are not game breaker can last a while; look at what happened with the warlock and its bug and players eventually just used it as it really helped the warlock damage and even after the devs fixed it, the class was still bugged.

bifflinculte

You may have noticed a significant loss of DPS on Thaumaturge. This comes from recent patch. “Rimefire Smolder can no longer proc rapidly on certain power casts” https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1251656/uprising-preview-patch-notes-nw-115-20190826c-8

That means a great reduction of the smolder procs with Directed Flammes. Magnitude hasn't changed. Smolder+glowing flames combo used to be over 50% of total DPS for trash, it's now about 25%. In others word, Smolder damage has been cut by 2/3 roughly. Multiple bugs on Smolder (especially Critical Conflagration) don't help neither. Same in boss fights, Ray of Frost used to litterally spam Smolder, it is no longer the case.

How the nerf of smolder procs works, is not obvious. I observed that powers cast alone trigger it normally. But typically if you cast several dot powers, you get less smolder ticks than if they were cast independantly. There is no longer multiple procs within a second. So maybe they introduced an icd on Smolder, as they introduced one on Storm Spell.

Magnitude of Wizard spells is quite low compared to other class, additional damage (smolder) is the key for thaumaturge. So, breaking Smolder has a huge effect on total DPS. You feel this strongly by running solo expeditions.

It looks like the swan song of Thaumaturge for boss fights, Arcanist takes the lead (even if Arcane Power Field is still bugged). For trash, I haven't tested yet if Storm Spell beats Smolder...

darthpotater

bifflinculte said:

It looks like the swan song of Thaumaturge for boss fights, Arcanist takes the lead (even if Arcane Power Field is still bugged). For trash, I haven't tested yet if Storm Spell beats Smolder...

I though they fixed APF, what is the bug actually? Or they only fixed "A step above mastery"?

bifflinculte

darthpotater said:

I though they fixed APF, what is the bug actually? Or they only fixed "A step above mastery"?

"A step above mastery" has been fixed, but they forgot to update APF. APF overrides arcane presence buff with the double of the initial value. But instead of doubling the actual 15%, it takes the bugged rate of 10%. So, APF only grants 20% buff, instead of 30%.

This is typical, you modify/fix a feat without considering the consequences on other feats. For example, CTA and Tales Of Old: 1) you modify deeply the statistic mechanics of game and 2) you introduce events based on obsolete mechanics, inducing major scaling issues.

darthpotater

bifflinculte said:

"A step above mastery" has been fixed, but they forgot to update APF. APF overrides arcane presence buff with the double of the initial value. But instead of doubling the actual 15%, it takes the bugged rate of 10%. So, APF only grants 20% buff, instead of 30%.

Understand now. Thank you. Trying to make my best on spellstorm (again), because thaum is underwhelming after the nerfs.

mebengalsfan

What gets me is mod 16 update was to reduce complexity to make it easier on the developers to reduce possible bugs and yet here we are mod 17 with similar bugs that made older mods annoying for specific classes in that the classes were over performing or under performing.

Maybe mod 18 we may finally get some of the class bugs fixed, maybe?

theraxin

I would like it, but they wouldn't.

I think the priority should be for them for mod18: Content first, so people have something to do for the next 4 month. We just can't have +7 month of this. Once I get the Lionheart set, the game kind of ends for me and not going to look back until something harder is implemented. General bugfix next, because the whole system rework kind of broke everything and they constantly have to be reaching close and far to patch up things or other fix (like, how the enchantment system just collapsed). The third is the class balance, because having a bugless class that just not wanted in endgame content is worse than a slight annoyance of bugs, but still having the chance for tomm and stuff.

And after ALL of this, they might try to fix everything they can with the classes, but it seems they doesn't really added in extra resources to get at least the first two point seamlessly achieved.

But, that's only would be my priorities, but makes sense, because first you need a hook to make players play (content), next you need the general system to be not broken, so the hook actually works and the last one was explained before.

mebengalsfan

theraxin#5169 said:

I would like it, but they wouldn't.

I think the priority should be for them for mod18: Content first, so people have something to do for the next 4 month. We just can't have +7 month of this. Once I get the Lionheart set, the game kind of ends for me and not going to look back until something harder is implemented. General bugfix next, because the whole system rework kind of broke everything and they constantly have to be reaching close and far to patch up things or other fix (like, how the enchantment system just collapsed). The third is the class balance, because having a bugless class that just not wanted in endgame content is worse than a slight annoyance of bugs, but still having the chance for tomm and stuff.

And after ALL of this, they might try to fix everything they can with the classes, but it seems they doesn't really added in extra resources to get at least the first two point seamlessly achieved.

But, that's only would be my priorities, but makes sense, because first you need a hook to make players play (content), next you need the general system to be not broken, so the hook actually works and the last one was explained before.

You do realize the devs said ToMM is going to be the hardest content for a while. If that is true I guess once you get the lion heart set you can retire for almost a year if not longer. My guess is that within a year time we will get 1 dungeon with a mod (16), 1 trial with a mod (17) and one skirmish (18). This would mean mod 19 we would get the next dungeon but the devs already said it won't be as hard as ToMM. My guess the next trial will replace ToMM for difficulty. If that is the case 12-18 months before we see another hard piece of content.

theraxin

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

theraxin#5169 said:

I would like it, but they wouldn't.

I think the priority should be for them for mod18: Content first, so people have something to do for the next 4 month. We just can't have +7 month of this. Once I get the Lionheart set, the game kind of ends for me and not going to look back until something harder is implemented. General bugfix next, because the whole system rework kind of broke everything and they constantly have to be reaching close and far to patch up things or other fix (like, how the enchantment system just collapsed). The third is the class balance, because having a bugless class that just not wanted in endgame content is worse than a slight annoyance of bugs, but still having the chance for tomm and stuff.

And after ALL of this, they might try to fix everything they can with the classes, but it seems they doesn't really added in extra resources to get at least the first two point seamlessly achieved.

But, that's only would be my priorities, but makes sense, because first you need a hook to make players play (content), next you need the general system to be not broken, so the hook actually works and the last one was explained before.

You do realize the devs said ToMM is going to be the hardest content for a while. If that is true I guess once you get the lion heart set you can retire for almost a year if not longer. My guess is that within a year time we will get 1 dungeon with a mod (16), 1 trial with a mod (17) and one skirmish (18). This would mean mod 19 we would get the next dungeon but the devs already said it won't be as hard as ToMM. My guess the next trial will replace ToMM for difficulty. If that is the case 12-18 months before we see another hard piece of content.

I forgot that mod18 most likely only have a skirmish and I think that was a better life I cannot enjoy anymore because of you.

I kind of want to rant about how introducing a forced skirmish grind, designing the new dungeon to just don't give a challenge and about many other things... the problem is, you are just stating the facts.

Yeah, "I can retire", because there will be nothing left to do. I mean, the graphics are great and I like to lurk around areas, but that's not really a player activity that benefits Cryptic. I definitely would not spend any money if I can only need to log in, convert some rAD, open a box and log out. And a few month before mod16 I even stopped that.

So, to not sound so negative, I'm pretty sure that we will get content, like Tales of Old, to keep players interested and I think they won't hold down the difficulty for the new dungeon if they see the trial losing it's relevance. And I have to dig for the comment, but it was implied that they just keeping down the difficulty in mechanics and group coordination and will raise the requirements with the new mods, which is different, because they are keeping up the difficulty for the trial with the new gears introduced, but that still can mean a challenging dungeon to get that gear from. Which is good for me and I think for a lot of people.

But we need to stop with only introducing a skirmish grind per mod. I even say, just stop making skirmishes if not absolutely necessary. They are not the easy AD gain anymore for beginners, because random queues and campaign keys do that.

mebengalsfan

theraxin#5169 said:

I forgot that mod18 most likely only have a skirmish and I think that was a better life I cannot enjoy anymore because of you.

I kind of want to rant about how introducing a forced skirmish grind, designing the new dungeon to just don't give a challenge and about many other things... the problem is, you are just stating the facts.

Yeah, "I can retire", because there will be nothing left to do. I mean, the graphics are great and I like to lurk around areas, but that's not really a player activity that benefits Cryptic. I definitely would not spend any money if I can only need to log in, convert some rAD, open a box and log out. And a few month before mod16 I even stopped that.

So, to not sound so negative, I'm pretty sure that we will get content, like Tales of Old, to keep players interested and I think they won't hold down the difficulty for the new dungeon if they see the trial losing it's relevance. And I have to dig for the comment, but it was implied that they just keeping down the difficulty in mechanics and group coordination and will raise the requirements with the new mods, which is different, because they are keeping up the difficulty for the trial with the new gears introduced, but that still can mean a challenging dungeon to get that gear from. Which is good for me and I think for a lot of people.

But we need to stop with only introducing a skirmish grind per mod. I even say, just stop making skirmishes if not absolutely necessary. They are not the easy AD gain anymore for beginners, because random queues and campaign keys do that.

I can see them continuing to run events like Tales of Old but honestly that gear is for those who truly want to grind out some older content that the gear is somewhat BiS do to its stats but isn't totally BiS given that the difference between that set, Orcus, Lostmauth, etc... are all closer now than before and once we get the fix to damage formula it will be even closer than even now.

I got bored with my wizard and now playing my cleric and after two days I'm bored again. I even tried healing and one thing I love about damage dealers is they expect me to heal them while they stand in the red AoE and than complain when they die in one hit by the boss. I also seen my average runs go in LoMM go from under 30 minutes with me on my wizard with runs now taking 45 minutes. I even pulled in 3 high damaging or so they said wizards with 185k+ power and they simply were not cutting it. They died easily do to low defense, not even 50K and had around 200K HP. In LoMM two or three hits and those players were out; those aren't strong hits either. Add to it that they didn't move out of the red LoMM and that run was disbanned because they simply didn't play the class well enough to beat LoMM.

My wizard doesn't have 200K power like others but I play him well enough to keep up with players that have around 180-200K power.

I may be to the point of just logging, collecting a key, running RLQ and RIQ and finally logging out. I may just log on and get my key or not log on at all.

As for ToMM, I'll probably run it a few times on my cleric and probably won't get invited to groups on my wizard as I don't have the high power many groups will seek even though I typically can keep up with the higher end damage dealers in content.

theraxin

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

theraxin#5169 said:

I forgot that mod18 most likely only have a skirmish and I think that was a better life I cannot enjoy anymore because of you.

I kind of want to rant about how introducing a forced skirmish grind, designing the new dungeon to just don't give a challenge and about many other things... the problem is, you are just stating the facts.

Yeah, "I can retire", because there will be nothing left to do. I mean, the graphics are great and I like to lurk around areas, but that's not really a player activity that benefits Cryptic. I definitely would not spend any money if I can only need to log in, convert some rAD, open a box and log out. And a few month before mod16 I even stopped that.

So, to not sound so negative, I'm pretty sure that we will get content, like Tales of Old, to keep players interested and I think they won't hold down the difficulty for the new dungeon if they see the trial losing it's relevance. And I have to dig for the comment, but it was implied that they just keeping down the difficulty in mechanics and group coordination and will raise the requirements with the new mods, which is different, because they are keeping up the difficulty for the trial with the new gears introduced, but that still can mean a challenging dungeon to get that gear from. Which is good for me and I think for a lot of people.

But we need to stop with only introducing a skirmish grind per mod. I even say, just stop making skirmishes if not absolutely necessary. They are not the easy AD gain anymore for beginners, because random queues and campaign keys do that.

I can see them continuing to run events like Tales of Old but honestly that gear is for those who truly want to grind out some older content that the gear is somewhat BiS do to its stats but isn't totally BiS given that the difference between that set, Orcus, Lostmauth, etc... are all closer now than before and once we get the fix to damage formula it will be even closer than even now.

I got bored with my wizard and now playing my cleric and after two days I'm bored again. I even tried healing and one thing I love about damage dealers is they expect me to heal them while they stand in the red AoE and than complain when they die in one hit by the boss. I also seen my average runs go in LoMM go from under 30 minutes with me on my wizard with runs now taking 45 minutes. I even pulled in 3 high damaging or so they said wizards with 185k+ power and they simply were not cutting it. They died easily do to low defense, not even 50K and had around 200K HP. In LoMM two or three hits and those players were out; those aren't strong hits either. Add to it that they didn't move out of the red LoMM and that run was disbanned because they simply didn't play the class well enough to beat LoMM.

My wizard doesn't have 200K power like others but I play him well enough to keep up with players that have around 180-200K power.

I may be to the point of just logging, collecting a key, running RLQ and RIQ and finally logging out. I may just log on and get my key or not log on at all.

As for ToMM, I'll probably run it a few times on my cleric and probably won't get invited to groups on my wizard as I don't have the high power many groups will seek even though I typically can keep up with the higher end damage dealers in content.

Well, I liked playing wizard while thaum was playable... Arcanist does not feel right on mobs, or at least couldn't find the right build yet. And lomm is not encouraging in loadout changes, like if they forgot to make a campfire after the bosses and the before boss one always feels too far. Technically, there is a campfire after Arcturia, but the Boreworm one is almost midway to Trobriand.

And Arcanist feels as 1 broken daily carrying the whole paragon, which is worse than how Smolder was on Thaumaturge before the annihilation of the paragon.

But lomm feels the opposite for me. I went on a ton of run, even where I and 1 other dps just carried an almost nondamaging 3. through the dungeon in like 30 min. And it was smooth too. It's more annoying when a tank/healer can't hold their role, but on the tank's side, it was never a major setback for us. Bad healers can stuck a group in Boreworm or make us abandon the whole thing and that's when I start getting upset.

It's more of a problem for me when the tank misdirects the 1. Trobriand AoE and the 4 gets raised before the second chance. Or when the attack misses because the tank couldn't hold and the top DPS just (obviously) wasn't prepared. But that's still manageable, mostly because I have greater stone of healths from the winter festival 2 years ago

And it's slowly the 6. month of lomm, so people getting really toxic if it seems that effort needs to be made for the chest. I'm guilty of it, I listen to podcasts or just zoning out at the daily REQ, so I'm kind of excited when I see that it might be challenging with this group, but manageable. Or someone having very close DPS to me, so I can push myself for the Paingiver chart (which I definitely lost after the thaum nerf). But when I don't entertain myself with petty minigames, it's a cakewalk.

bifflinculte

Thauma is still good against boss, but you have to use single target control spells, they have high magnitude and will trigger Shatter Strike (and Smolder with Icy Veins). Spam Smolder with Ray of Frost, that's enough. Drop the dot spells Terrain and coi, they have low dps and won't trigger much more Smolder anymore.

lardeson

bifflinculte said:

You may have noticed a significant loss of DPS on Thaumaturge. This comes from recent patch. “Rimefire Smolder can no longer proc rapidly on certain power casts” https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1251656/uprising-preview-patch-notes-nw-115-20190826c-8

That means a great reduction of the smolder procs with Directed Flammes. Magnitude hasn't changed. Smolder+glowing flames combo used to be over 50% of total DPS for trash, it's now about 25%. In others word, Smolder damage has been cut by 2/3 roughly. Multiple bugs on Smolder (especially Critical Conflagration) don't help neither. Same in boss fights, Ray of Frost used to litterally spam Smolder, it is no longer the case.

How the nerf of smolder procs works, is not obvious. I observed that powers cast alone trigger it normally. But typically if you cast several dot powers, you get less smolder ticks than if they were cast independantly. There is no longer multiple procs within a second. So maybe they introduced an icd on Smolder, as they introduced one on Storm Spell.

Magnitude of Wizard spells is quite low compared to other class, additional damage (smolder) is the key for thaumaturge. So, breaking Smolder has a huge effect on total DPS. You feel this strongly by running solo expeditions.

It looks like the swan song of Thaumaturge for boss fights, Arcanist takes the lead (even if Arcane Power Field is still bugged). For trash, I haven't tested yet if Storm Spell beats Smolder...

It's this patch that broke it, not the august patch. With the previous patches, it still procced on every crit, but now its just inexistent, and like stated previously, on none fire based powers, it only procs on main target, which sux and also has an icd.

The other major issue i've noticed is the internal crit chance, seems they nerfed the crit to abyss, cause one thing is not doing any rimefire damage and another is having ur dailies on crit once or twice in a full lomm run. Seems like a really struggle to get this paragon to even crit now. It's the main reason arcanist is event good in aoe these days, cause thaum just completely sux.

thefiresidecat

I would really really like to see the preview for where they are goiing wiht the over all rebalancing. I'm afraid to start building for tomm because it's too hard to say where the dice will fall. they are probably dragging their heels on fixing this because of that. (my guess anyway)

bifflinculte

lardeson said:

It's this patch that broke it, not the august patch. With the previous patches, it still procced on every crit, but now its just inexistent, and like stated previously, on none fire based powers, it only procs on main target, which sux and also has an icd.

I'm thinking the same, they probably set an icd on Smolder.

Adding Smolder on packs is already bugged, now Smolder itself has icd... A reasonnable nerf would have been to reduce the damage from Directed Flames (for example, from 75% of total Smolder damage to 50%). Modifying the occurence of smolder completely breaks the mechanics itself but also the gameplay of the paragon.
Thauma used to be based on dot and dealing quite low damage but very often, while Arcanist is based on dealing higher damage thanks to arcane stacks buffs.

There's also another bad joke on Thauma paragon. Wth did they do to Fanning the Flame ??? It used to be mof encounter with highest damage. They just kept the very long cd and put a ridiculous magnitude.
The more the target is surrounded by mobs, the more damage it deals. But even with 10 mobs (this almost never happens), it couldn't defeat a hamster. This encounter is absolutely useless.

mebengalsfan

thefiresidecat said:

I would really really like to see the preview for where they are goiing wiht the over all rebalancing. I'm afraid to start building for tomm because it's too hard to say where the dice will fall. they are probably dragging their heels on fixing this because of that. (my guess anyway)

As for class balancing, it will be done by the devs simply by adjusting the damage formula. Than once that is fixed they will monitor how each class performs. Hopefully the devs not only monitor that but fix any class feature bugs.

thefiresidecat

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

thefiresidecat said:

I would really really like to see the preview for where they are goiing wiht the over all rebalancing. I'm afraid to start building for tomm because it's too hard to say where the dice will fall. they are probably dragging their heels on fixing this because of that. (my guess anyway)

As for class balancing, it will be done by the devs simply by adjusting the damage formula. Than once that is fixed they will monitor how each class performs. Hopefully the devs not only monitor that but fix any class feature bugs.

I don't think this is the case. I think it's a little more in depth than this from what I've read so far. I could be wrong.. but I sure would like to see what it looks like on preview before I spend 20 or 30 mil on my wizzy....

theraxin

Btw, the patch notes are up. I did not know this was a thing, so I'm kind of scared where CW will be after:

"Chaos Magic: The Power Surge buff no longer incorrectly affects powers other than At-Will powers."

maruda

thaumaturg is very weak now. My wizard lost 40-50% of aoe dmg.

bifflinculte

maruda#1373 said:

thaumaturg is very weak now. My wizard lost 40-50% of aoe dmg.

I think that aoe Arcanist with Snap Freeze, Nightmare Wizardry, Storm Spell and Arcane Presence now beats aoe Taumaturge.

maruda

Of course, that I can change but what's the point to give more options since they are useless.
Earlier I could compete in dmg with other classes, and now there is a serious problem catching up with others. Another magician's problem is that he has very slow skills. Definitely the slowest of all classes.

bifflinculte

Finally i was right, it wasn't a bug but was intended hahaha. Devs were horrified that smolder could deal any good damage, and now definetely broke Directed Flames.

The Rimefire Weaving feat will buff party dps, Thauma becomes officially hybrid dps support class. In short, Thauma is the pre mod 16 Master of Flame paragon.

Despite buff of Chill strike, Icy Rays and Shatter strike, Arcanist will always have better dps than Thauma. The Storm Spell, Nightmare wiz/Striking Advantage and Arcane Empowerment trio is unbeatable.

thefiresidecat

I did spend 10's of millions on my wizzy.. I have to say I regret it. I also regret doing the same for my pally. the wizzy is so one note. it's great for it's one niche but it's not a jack of all trades. and now it's getting nerfed again.. so it will still (to the best of my understanding, which may be entirely wrong) be a one trick pony but now be not the best at what it does.. just a mediocre one trick pony.