Make a post saying the one power on wizard you think is most in need of an update and why. You can also feel free to make a suggestion on how to change it.
One power on wizard I think is most in need of an update is: Stacking. It is very problematic.
I agree with all comments suggesting to remove Stacking and/or allow Wizard's the ability to apply full stacks of arcane and chill when using the appropriate powers.
Why???
It takes too long to reach max stacks of chill or arcane mastery. The enemies are already dead or will be dead in a group. Also, stacking affects a wide array of powers in both paragons, I feel reworking it will have the most impact then any single power.
How would I change it?
I would suggest removing Arcane Presence and Chilling Presence and reworking the Arcane Mastery and Chill Mechanics.
Live Version: Arcane Mastery mechanic - Casting Arcane based spells builds stacks of Arcane Mastery, which increases your Arcane damage by 0.5% per stack and stacks up to 5 times. These stacks lasts for 8 seconds and grant many of your Arcane powers additional effects.
Suggestion: Arcane Mastery mechanic - Casting an Arcane based spell will apply max stacks of Arcane Mastery, which increases your Arcane damage by 10%. Max stacks lasts for 8 seconds and grant many of your Arcane powers additional effects.
Live Version: Chill mechanic - Cold based spells Chill your target, Slowing them and stacking up to 6 times. Some Cold powers can freeze targets who are affected by max stacks, Stunning the target. Frozen targets recover sooner if they take enough damage.
Suggestion: Chill mechanic - Casting a Cold based spell will apply max stacks of Chill on your target, Slowing them. Some Cold powers can freeze targets who are affected by max stacks, Stunning the target. Frozen targets recover sooner if they take enough damage.
Removing Arcane Presence and Chilling Presence with this suggested rework would also open two slots for more class features.
When it comes to Wizard, all the pieces are there but it just lacks cohesion. I'll keep it short for the team's benefit.
Thaumaturge is designed for AoE, focused on Chill and Smolder.
Arcanist is designed for Single Target, focused on Arcane and Lightning.
The problem is that before even reaching how/whether or not Powers work, the paths (Arcanist especially) are confused with Powers they either don't need or that should be on the opposite Paragon.
Anyway, I digress; just something to think about.
I want to put forth a change to Fireball.
I feel the prior change that made it ST when slotted in Spell Mastery went in the complete opposite direction to the spirit of the Paragon Path.
Deals an additional 50 Magnitude to Frozen targets. Recharge time is unaffected by modifiers.
When slotted in Spell Mastery, Fireball becomes a Targeted AoE. Magnitude: 750 Range: 80' Radius: 20' Cast: 1.1s Base CD: 18s
Deals an extra 50 Magnitude damage for each stack of Chill on a target. Applies Smoulder to all targets hit.
The problem with Fireball as it stands is that in addition to the long cast time created by the animation, if the target dies before the cast is complete or hits, the Power goes on CD without dealing any damage. This is in addition to the targeting being.. dodgy at best, to begin with.
With these changes you could have the choice between a shorter range weaker Line Target Power that you get the most out of by spamming it at Frozen targets or a Long Range/Radius Heavy Nuke Power.
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therealprotexMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 526Arc User
edited August 2021
My suggestion is Steal Time. There are several aspects that I would like to see changed: - Fix the cooldown bug (probably not restricted to ST) - Shorten casting time, the animation is way too long - Increase magnitude (Arcanists lack in AoE power, increasing the magnitude would help a bit) - Change the interruptibility by enemies: either remove it completely or - a more D&D-like approach - make a will save check (against INT) that can increase in difficulty with the enemy's star level perhaps - If you interrupt it intentionally, e.g. to dodge an enemy's AoE attack, do not set it on full cooldown, reduce the cooldown in that case maybe by 50%
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arbitrarityMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 96Arc User
edited August 2021
I had an idea that was entirely too elegant to pass up, unfortunately.
Fanning the Flame Add: - When a target affected by Fanning the Flame is killed, the effect jumps to the nearest Smoldering target and refreshes duration.
Mastery: - When Fanning the Flame jumps, it triggers damage from/to nearby Smoldering targets immediately. Duration of effect from jumps is reduced to 3s.
Intention: Fanning the Flame is a power that requires a big target with a lot of other enemies. It's worthless against groups of weak enemies. By making it jump between targets, it's much more rewarding to use on weaker enemies, and creates some interesting gameplay. The Mastery upgrade makes it hugely rewarding to use in fast fights, if you can manage to apply Smolder first.
My second choice was Lightning Bolt, which could use longer range, less cast time/travel time, possibly more width/magnitude, and mastery upgrade to chain lightning.
Finally, I will echo calls to put Icy Terrain much earlier in the Wizard encounter powers. Players need some early AOE
> @arbitrarity said: > I had an idea that was entirely too elegant to pass up, unfortunately. > > Fanning the Flame > Add: > - When a target affected by Fanning the Flame is killed, the effect jumps to the nearest Smoldering target and refreshes duration. > > Mastery: > - When Fanning the Flame jumps, it triggers damage from/to nearby Smoldering targets immediately. Duration of effect from jumps is reduced to 3s. > > Intention: > Fanning the Flame is a power that requires a big target with a lot of other enemies. It's worthless against groups of weak enemies. By making it jump between targets, it's much more rewarding to use on weaker enemies, and creates some interesting gameplay. The Mastery upgrade makes it hugely rewarding to use in fast fights, if you can manage to apply Smolder first. > > > My second choice was Lightning Bolt, which could use longer range, less cast time/travel time, possibly more width/magnitude, and mastery upgrade to chain lightning. > > Finally, I will echo calls to put Icy Terrain much earlier in the Wizard encounter powers. Players need some early AOE
I was about to suggest a change on these two powers (one per each paragon). Since I also find that, being these two the only elemental-related encounter power for each paragon, they are pretty much useless.
These two, Lightning Bolt and Fanning the Flame, used to be great a few mods before (they both hit hard on a AoE scenario, and Lightning had a wider range). My suggestion would be simply make them as good as they used to be
1
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
edited August 2021
Wow, hard task if we can only talk about 1 power.
I could choose from Thaumaturge path but all the smolder mechanic is unplayable atm so I will pick Lightning Bolt.
Please change this power for Chain Lightning, and make it Targeted, responsive and with a fast animation (not like fireball). It should chain from one enemy to 2 (making less damage) and then to 4 (less dmg). And have something special when used on 1 target only (like more crit severity, dmg or ticks).
And please add a theme to lightning powers, like cooldown reduction, speed increase, ap gain or something
I also encourage the team to review all the bugs that are reported lots of times
I suggest Lightning Bolt. It is just awful. It was meant to be AoE spell but is has a lot of problems so it's not worth to use at all. Here is what I propose:
Remove Lightning Bolt and replace it with Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning would work similar to Lightning Enchantment. When you strike a foe, you have a 50% chance of arcing a bolt of lightning off of them to nearby foe, dealing Magnitude 60 damage. This can chain up to 3 times.
This is tooltip of Lightning Enchantment. It's all nice and fine but as it is Encounter power with cooldown it needs some adjustments. I suggest the following:
Cooldown: same as Lightning Bolt. It should work like single target power for purpose of casting.
Normal: When you strike a foe you deal Magnitude 220 damage and you have a 100% chance of arcing a bolt of lightning off of them to nearby foe, dealing Magnitude 120 damage. This can chain up to 5 times. Range 80', Radius 20'.
Mastery: When you strike a foe you deal Magnitude 250 damage and you have a 100% chance of arcing a bolt of lightning off of them to nearby foe, dealing Magnitude 150 damage. This can chain up to 7 times. Range 80', Radius 25'.
That would help with AoE situation, at least in my opinion.
Also, some smaller sugestions. Give Imprisonment damage equal or higher to Ray of Enfeeblement and increase radius of Arcane Tempest by 5' for both versions. Improve damage of other AoE spells by at least 10-20% each and if possible, lower their cooldowns a bit. By 1-3 seconds at least for each... Preety please.
I don't have suggestions for Thaum's. Didn't play as that paragon in a long time.
Returning spell mastery and chill stacks to 1% per stack
Increase the radius of Arcane tempest. To bring us in line with Hunter and rogue Aoe their powers hit everything plus reduce the damn cast times of and animation of steal time again a Hunter and rogue have hit three aoe encounters by the time it goes off 😤
i stopped playing wizard cause it sucked. no at will dmg. couldnt proc anything. long cooldowns or ghost cooldowns. would you consider changing our weapon to a staff? so Steal time needs work. Lightning bolt needs change. storm pillar at will needs change. someone sometime suggested to be like chilling cloud ( balls of electro) . for sure we need electro mechanic for arcanist paragon. magic missiles need to cast more missiles. arcane bolt is meh almost no one use it. arcane tempest is better than shard but still its a mashup of the previous power. shield is meh. make it create shields for all players when in tab? and make entangling force also suspend midair more enemies when in tab. also too low % for feats to proc stuff
fire and ice one paragon. electro and ice the other. arcane stacks are for both.
• Responsiveness... often I have to tap a button twice or more to get a power activated. • Some powers like Steal time or Icy Terrain are often randomly being cancelled. • The Wizard needs a dmg boost across the board. When having the comparable gear with a different class, the wizard is generally scoring lower, so that definitely needs to be evened out. • Reduce animation time of Arcane Empowerment.
For me, the problem of wizard in this game is that it lacks identity. Are we a single target burst dps? An aoe specialist or a support class with those shield and buff from the tab masteries. Its funny cause the dev thinks that having a kind of "draw lot" or fixing a 1 spell of wizard will fix the whole class. No, it does not, and clearly the wizard class is suffering not just from a 1 spell, encounter or feat but because of its over all design. If you want the wizard class to be fun, engaging and align with your over all design, i think the first thing you guys should do is to align it to the type of content u will release in the future. Anyway here is my take:
You have 2 paragons already, Thaum and Arcanist. Make them align into 1 of the fundamentals of being a dps class which is THAUM for AOE and Arcanist for SINGLE TARGET. In this way you can provide the class a real identity and therefore remove all those unnecessary powers and feats that are not fit on those Paragons. And lets just say u gave them those "identity", its time for the team to consider balancing it in terms of the content you will release in the future. Are you going to release a new dungeon/bosses whose MOB mechanics disregard "CONTROL POWERS"? Then i think its time to remove those encounter/feat if ur gonna make the mobs CC immune. In this case you the dev team are the only people that can answer that. Now once we have those kind of idea regarding the content, then its time for you guys to re adjust the class and gave them an identity that it really needs, for example
Arcanist should only focus on having arcane/lightning spell/feat that is primarily focus on dealing single target burst dps. In this case you can put those stuffs at the LEVEL 11 or later part of leveling
Thaum should be the basis of early leveling as theres not a lot of powerful bosses or dungeon that new players or old one will experience while they are leveling. In this case thaum being an AOE specialist will help the new player understand their class and also provide the DND experience you guys are trying to provide as this is mostly the go to of wizard in table top games (throwing fireball at the enemy or slowing them down)
At the end of the day, we want new players to be engage and attach on their class. Specially on a table top base game and an MMO, Wizard are one of the staple and basic class. Make it fun, engaging and over all has an identity. I disagree primarily on the fact that u guys will only change 1 spell or class feature or even cool down. This class needs an overhaul design and love.
Tldr; i disagree on the dev comment regarding 1 spell change only, this class needs an overhaul design and identity.
Remove Action Point Gain restriction from Arcane Empowerment! As we know wizard have relative low damage and maybe giving back to him Arcane Empowerment almost all the time he should back as a good DPS. It's nothing new for an in-game DPS that can stay under the influence of a daily rate almost all the time. Hunters are able to do this since they only need 25% of the Action point to use it. And that's how they manage to stay the whole time with the buff of the Acturi music box set.
I would like to highlight here one thing you should not do and why.
I really liked your last change to the Fireball. It was a straightforward change that clicked the exactly right spot to "now throw away the thauma and do not try to give him another chance". Please, do not do the same to the arcanist.
If the arcanist should do daily solo stuff, he needs the Steal Time power. He needs it. Yes, the power is buggy, yes, when you fight a group of 5, at least 4 mobs have a way to interrupt it. But the power just needs the removal of the bugs, not to be removed from the game!
... additional notes: My build is heavy in recharge speed bonuses (including purple mount collar, boon and 3 dragon hearts) and those few seconds down on cool-downs make the fights a lot less frustrating. My most damaging power is my companion though...
I would not argue against buffing the magnitude of Ray of Frost, but even more I would appreciate if that power did not insist on attacking the air once the combat is over.
I have no idea why arcanist has a charge-up AoE at-will, there is literally no opportunity to use it. (you will get interrupted if you try to use it in fight... the thauma does at least have a reason to open the fight with his AoE at-will, arcanist does not)
And I miss the gathering effect of Entangling force in the mastery slot that got removed in m16.
I play awhile a CW Thaum and my only problems really stacking chills or smolders alas rimefire.. I would like if this reduce or change to double similar element skills activate the effects like frozen or burning or both for rimefire.. The triggered effect deal additional damage and effect like frozen creatures, burning creatures will continue taking damage or DOT like creeping death Warlock, while rimefire instantly combust and deal higher damage. Thank you.
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mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
edited August 2021
Bug Reports:
1:imprisoment and ray of effeblement have their durations swaped. Give ray duration to imprisoment and the opposite to match their tooltips.
2:player get stuck with storm pillar.
3: sometimes the powers go in cooldown and you need relog to unstuck them.
I've been a veteran player since day one with the wizard.
I believe smokder/ fire needs to go and it should be arcane with frost or arcane with lightning based attacks to allow one another to stack based on the path you take. Both can be DPS but one be specifically designed for aoe while the other targets single target only.
Cold and arcane can be aoe
While lightning and arcane can be single target
Also magnitude to any power need to be upgraded as they are way low compared to other classes as well as cook down periods.
The wizard needs a lot of work unfortunaly it's hard to say only one thing. I do appreciate you guys looking into the wizard as it is super fun to play.
I agree with rikitaki as the problem the Wizard has is more about not having a role than one specific power. It can't control bosses/certain creatures and trash mobs can be taken out by the other DPS classes. It's not like D&D ruleset where you need to control/use strategies such as setting traps to get past mobs. DPS is the name of the game in NW and so whatever class has the lowest DPS is going to be the weakest DPS class (class period for that matter).
That said, if I was to name a spell that needs fixing then it's Steal Time. That spell is finicky. The slightest movement and it fails to execute. It sometimes just fails to execute and the animation takes too long when it works correctly. Quite often, it will time out so to speak and take much longer than what was designed.
If they are not going to allow the Wizard to control bosses/certain creatures to a limiting degree then they should reduce the cooldown time on the spells to give the class a little more damage imo
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amaranthos20Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4Arc User
edited August 2021
So, wizard. I actually left the game back in Mod 7 over the changes to the then "Control Wizard."
Up until that point, the class overall felt beautifully balanced, and the play style was perfect. Tag the biggest mob with Conduit or FtF on tab, teleport into the middle of the group of mobs, drop Terrain, pop Steal Time, then teleport backwards and at-will twice, and watch everything freeze solid while burning to death. It was beautiful; half the fun of the class was the movement rhythm of the skill rotation itself. It FELT and LOOKED like an intricate dance or waltz of death, and it was actually effective on the charts too.
It's cheating a bit, but my suggestion isn't tweaking any one single encounter or mechanic. I just want my waltz-of-doom feeling back again. Neverwinter nailed the mage class better than any other game did at the time, and all these years later that's still largely true. Wizarding is just as much about the flash and the bang as it is about the utility or power, so when you take that away it's just another forgettable fantasy class.
Bring back the ebb and flow of dancing through the battlefield with the Control Wizard. Pick either dps OR cc, keep each type locked into one or the other paragon paths - I don't care and it doesn't matter. Wizard needs to feel like a wizard, and not a weird first year magic student that doesn't know what kind of magic they can even use yet.
"90% of the community in this game uses about .02% of their usable brain functions. When they all combine, they actually have .01%, because stupid people in large groups spread their stupidity." -- Discombobulator
This was posted in the wizard discord Known bugs. So a fix on these would be useful
•*Striking Advantage*: Tooltip states that you have a 20% chance to proc it, but the actual proc rate in game is around 5%. •*Storm Spell*: non-crits and crits are doing the same amount of damage. •*Steal Time*: cancels itself without doing any damage and goes on cooldown fairly frequently. •*Snap Freeze*: only applies damage on the first 6 applications of chill. For example, if you use Ray of Frost on the boss, the first 6 stacks of chill will proc Snap Freeze and do damage. However, if you keep using Ray of Frost, you are able to keep the stacks of chill at 6 stacks, but Snap Freeze will no longer proc. The only way for it to re-proc is to wait for the chill stacks to fall off, then re-apply them. •*Ray of Frost*: animation gets stuck channeling; sometimes going into the air. If the enemy dies when this occurs the wizard will become stuck and only able to teleport to move. •*Arcane Power Field*: not working with A Step Above Mastery. In particular, it only buffs the first 5 stacks of arcane mastery. •*Encounter cool-down bug*: the timers on encounters end, but sometimes when you press said encounters you will still have 2 seconds left again.
I'll "cheat" a bit and offer suggestions for both thaum and arcanist as they are very different dps's.
Arcanist - Make all the AOEs on the ranged class ranged, please. Only arcane tempest (without using TAB) is ranged by default. Lightning bolt is technically ranged, but it's extremely short and the power is bugged anyway. That a ranged dps needs to jump into mobs groups with the melee classes to cast aoes (without having access to powers to actually jump you into the mobs) makes the gameplay of an aoe arcanist bad.
Thaum - Change Chilling Advantage to Flaming Advantage: your powers no longer apply chill stacks, and instead procc smoulder on each hit. The mag damage of smoulder should be added to your powers directly to help with proccing the ribcage, goristro horns, and redcap's cap. This should also bypass the cd of directed flames.
I'd also add that Spell Mastery should be brought back for all encounter powers. On both paragons, less than half the encounters can take advantage of the main wizard mechanic.
Before we go about buffing the Wizard, can we please address some of the many known bugs? Below is perhaps the most impactful bug that impacts the Arcanist damage output.
Bug Report:
The Arcanist feat Striking Advantage is supposed to have a 20% chance to proc (when benefiting from combat advantage positioning), as stated in the tooltip. However, the actual proc chance in-game is around 5%. This has been a bug for over a year now and has been reported countless times. Fixing this, and this alone, would have a very large impact on the Wizard's endgame single target damage.
As others have pointed out, there are plenty of other bugs plaguing the Wizard, but if I'm only allowed to comment about one, then fixing Striking Advantage is my choice.
Imprisonment needs to be made useful. It is the last power you gain as a wizard and should be "more". It should be worth slotting. Add HIGH amount of damage to it and decrease the recharge speed.
Also look at the mag to recharge ratio on all powers. It is WAY off compared to the other classes. You can see this for yourself in a dungeon. By the time I am halfway through a rotation most of the mobs are dead and my team is moving on to the next mob while I am stuck in a buggy animation. Arcane Tempest was a good move in the right direction for this as it's cast time is fairly low compared to the other powers. The mag on it is still too low but at least you get to cast a few encounters rather than trying to cast something else with a really long cast time.
"Thaum- There is no saving that paragon. Scarp it and make a tank- WAR WIZARD 5e D&D. Wizard needs a support paragon, the game needs support players. There are 4 healer classes, there should be 4 tank classes."
This is the best idea in the history of ideas, please make this change to the wizard.
As someone that's played CW since drop on PS4, I have to disagree with ST being Arcanist and AoE being tharum. My reasoning is that Arcanist have more AoE encounters, a faster casting AoE at-will, and more burst damage to keep up with other class in mob burning considering the fact CC no longer exists in the game. Tharum simply takes too long to add stacks of smolder/rimfire and chill. Arcane Empowerment daily is designed around AP gain, with AP gears, mobs produce the most AP with companions like energon. Making arcanist ideal for AoE.
Tharum powers, for example, Fanning the flame is designed for a big target with mobs and Fireball simply takes too long to cast; whereas icy terrain and conduit of ice are good, but mobs will be dead before you get them off together to freeze mobs. Ray of Enfeeblement is a nice debuff we have in ST, and other other encounter powers should be based on stacking smolder/rimfire smolder and chill.
Tharum is designed to burn with DoT, that one feat that turns the rimefire smolder into a bust damage, while keeping chill stacks and smolder stacks was probably the most useful feat we had but now useless. Stacking smolder, rimfire smolder and chill takes too much time to apply to mobs, this to me looks more boss focused to make this mechanic useful. I don't want to be a tharum that needs to be casting arcane spells like repel and entangling force when spells like Fanning the flame, Fireball or icy ray can be reworked to be useful. Arcanist are focused on arcane and lightning with the often ice spell for elemental reinforcement feat (imprisonment can be buffed for them so RoE isn't constantly stacked and both paragon work in synergy). Tharum doesn't have such a feat, so no, I shouldn't be needing to use arcane encounters as main damage skills in a ST fight while relying on critical conflagration to keep up my smolder.
Another problem is our feats don't work, only a few class features are useful and our magnitude are way below every other dps class in game. Fix those first before jumping to fixing any giving skills.
I may have went off topic and mixed a few things up but the general idea is there.
Comments
Noworries said:
One power on wizard I think is most in need of an update is: Stacking. It is very problematic.
I agree with all comments suggesting to remove Stacking and/or allow Wizard's the ability to apply full stacks of arcane and chill when using the appropriate powers.
Why???
It takes too long to reach max stacks of chill or arcane mastery. The enemies are already dead or will be dead in a group. Also, stacking affects a wide array of powers in both paragons, I feel reworking it will have the most impact then any single power.
How would I change it?
I would suggest removing Arcane Presence and Chilling Presence and reworking the Arcane Mastery and Chill Mechanics.
Live Version: Arcane Mastery mechanic - Casting Arcane based spells builds stacks of Arcane Mastery, which increases your Arcane damage by 0.5% per stack and stacks up to 5 times. These stacks lasts for 8 seconds and grant many of your Arcane powers additional effects.
Suggestion: Arcane Mastery mechanic - Casting an Arcane based spell will apply max stacks of Arcane Mastery, which increases your Arcane damage by 10%. Max stacks lasts for 8 seconds and grant many of your Arcane powers additional effects.
Live Version: Chill mechanic - Cold based spells Chill your target, Slowing them and stacking up to 6 times. Some Cold powers can freeze targets who are affected by max stacks, Stunning the target. Frozen targets recover sooner if they take enough damage.
Suggestion: Chill mechanic - Casting a Cold based spell will apply max stacks of Chill on your target, Slowing them. Some Cold powers can freeze targets who are affected by max stacks, Stunning the target. Frozen targets recover sooner if they take enough damage.
Removing Arcane Presence and Chilling Presence with this suggested rework would also open two slots for more class features.
Thaumaturge is designed for AoE, focused on Chill and Smolder.
Arcanist is designed for Single Target, focused on Arcane and Lightning.
The problem is that before even reaching how/whether or not Powers work, the paths (Arcanist especially) are confused with Powers they either don't need or that should be on the opposite Paragon.
Anyway, I digress; just something to think about.
I want to put forth a change to Fireball.
I feel the prior change that made it ST when slotted in Spell Mastery went in the complete opposite direction to the spirit of the Paragon Path.
Fireball should be reworked as such:
Normal: Gains 3 Charges. Line Targeting.
Magnitude: 250
Range: 40'
Radius: 10'
Cast: 0.5s
Recast: 0.5s
Charge CD: 10s
Deals an additional 50 Magnitude to Frozen targets. Recharge time is unaffected by modifiers.
When slotted in Spell Mastery, Fireball becomes a Targeted AoE.
Magnitude: 750
Range: 80'
Radius: 20'
Cast: 1.1s
Base CD: 18s
Deals an extra 50 Magnitude damage for each stack of Chill on a target. Applies Smoulder to all targets hit.
The problem with Fireball as it stands is that in addition to the long cast time created by the animation, if the target dies before the cast is complete or hits, the Power goes on CD without dealing any damage. This is in addition to the targeting being.. dodgy at best, to begin with.
With these changes you could have the choice between a shorter range weaker Line Target Power that you get the most out of by spamming it at Frozen targets or a Long Range/Radius Heavy Nuke Power.
- Fix the cooldown bug (probably not restricted to ST)
- Shorten casting time, the animation is way too long
- Increase magnitude (Arcanists lack in AoE power, increasing the magnitude would help a bit)
- Change the interruptibility by enemies: either remove it completely or - a more D&D-like approach - make a will save check (against INT) that can increase in difficulty with the enemy's star level perhaps
- If you interrupt it intentionally, e.g. to dodge an enemy's AoE attack, do not set it on full cooldown, reduce the cooldown in that case maybe by 50%
Fanning the Flame
Add:
- When a target affected by Fanning the Flame is killed, the effect jumps to the nearest Smoldering target and refreshes duration.
Mastery:
- When Fanning the Flame jumps, it triggers damage from/to nearby Smoldering targets immediately. Duration of effect from jumps is reduced to 3s.
Intention:
Fanning the Flame is a power that requires a big target with a lot of other enemies. It's worthless against groups of weak enemies. By making it jump between targets, it's much more rewarding to use on weaker enemies, and creates some interesting gameplay. The Mastery upgrade makes it hugely rewarding to use in fast fights, if you can manage to apply Smolder first.
My second choice was Lightning Bolt, which could use longer range, less cast time/travel time, possibly more width/magnitude, and mastery upgrade to chain lightning.
Finally, I will echo calls to put Icy Terrain much earlier in the Wizard encounter powers. Players need some early AOE
> I had an idea that was entirely too elegant to pass up, unfortunately.
>
> Fanning the Flame
> Add:
> - When a target affected by Fanning the Flame is killed, the effect jumps to the nearest Smoldering target and refreshes duration.
>
> Mastery:
> - When Fanning the Flame jumps, it triggers damage from/to nearby Smoldering targets immediately. Duration of effect from jumps is reduced to 3s.
>
> Intention:
> Fanning the Flame is a power that requires a big target with a lot of other enemies. It's worthless against groups of weak enemies. By making it jump between targets, it's much more rewarding to use on weaker enemies, and creates some interesting gameplay. The Mastery upgrade makes it hugely rewarding to use in fast fights, if you can manage to apply Smolder first.
>
>
> My second choice was Lightning Bolt, which could use longer range, less cast time/travel time, possibly more width/magnitude, and mastery upgrade to chain lightning.
>
> Finally, I will echo calls to put Icy Terrain much earlier in the Wizard encounter powers. Players need some early AOE
I was about to suggest a change on these two powers (one per each paragon). Since I also find that, being these two the only elemental-related encounter power for each paragon, they are pretty much useless.
These two, Lightning Bolt and Fanning the Flame, used to be great a few mods before (they both hit hard on a AoE scenario, and Lightning had a wider range). My suggestion would be simply make them as good as they used to be
I could choose from Thaumaturge path but all the smolder mechanic is unplayable atm so I will pick Lightning Bolt.
Please change this power for Chain Lightning, and make it Targeted, responsive and with a fast animation (not like fireball). It should chain from one enemy to 2 (making less damage) and then to 4 (less dmg). And have something special when used on 1 target only (like more crit severity, dmg or ticks).
And please add a theme to lightning powers, like cooldown reduction, speed increase, ap gain or something
I also encourage the team to review all the bugs that are reported lots of times
Edit: Typo
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
It currently works at 5%
Remove Lightning Bolt and replace it with Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning would work similar to Lightning Enchantment.
When you strike a foe, you have a 50% chance of arcing a bolt of lightning off of them to nearby foe, dealing Magnitude 60 damage. This can chain up to 3 times.
This is tooltip of Lightning Enchantment. It's all nice and fine but as it is Encounter power with cooldown it needs some adjustments. I suggest the following:
Cooldown: same as Lightning Bolt. It should work like single target power for purpose of casting.
Normal: When you strike a foe you deal Magnitude 220 damage and you have a 100% chance of arcing a bolt of lightning off of them to nearby foe, dealing Magnitude 120 damage. This can chain up to 5 times. Range 80', Radius 20'.
Mastery: When you strike a foe you deal Magnitude 250 damage and you have a 100% chance of arcing a bolt of lightning off of them to nearby foe, dealing Magnitude 150 damage. This can chain up to 7 times. Range 80', Radius 25'.
That would help with AoE situation, at least in my opinion.
Also, some smaller sugestions. Give Imprisonment damage equal or higher to Ray of Enfeeblement and increase radius of Arcane Tempest by 5' for both versions. Improve damage of other AoE spells by at least 10-20% each and if possible, lower their cooldowns a bit. By 1-3 seconds at least for each... Preety please.
I don't have suggestions for Thaum's. Didn't play as that paragon in a long time.
Increase the radius of Arcane tempest. To bring us in line with Hunter and rogue Aoe their powers hit everything plus reduce the damn cast times of and animation of steal time again a Hunter and rogue have hit three aoe encounters by the time it goes off 😤
would you consider changing our weapon to a staff?
so Steal time needs work. Lightning bolt needs change. storm pillar at will needs change. someone sometime suggested to be like chilling cloud ( balls of electro) . for sure we need electro mechanic for arcanist paragon. magic missiles need to cast more missiles. arcane bolt is meh almost no one use it. arcane tempest is better than shard but still its a mashup of the previous power. shield is meh. make it create shields for all players when in tab? and make entangling force also suspend midair more enemies when in tab.
also too low % for feats to proc stuff
fire and ice one paragon. electro and ice the other. arcane stacks are for both.
• Some powers like Steal time or Icy Terrain are often randomly being cancelled.
• The Wizard needs a dmg boost across the board. When having the comparable gear with a different class, the wizard is generally scoring lower, so that definitely needs to be evened out.
• Reduce animation time of Arcane Empowerment.
You have 2 paragons already, Thaum and Arcanist. Make them align into 1 of the fundamentals of being a dps class which is THAUM for AOE and Arcanist for SINGLE TARGET. In this way you can provide the class a real identity and therefore remove all those unnecessary powers and feats that are not fit on those Paragons. And lets just say u gave them those "identity", its time for the team to consider balancing it in terms of the content you will release in the future. Are you going to release a new dungeon/bosses whose MOB mechanics disregard "CONTROL POWERS"? Then i think its time to remove those encounter/feat if ur gonna make the mobs CC immune. In this case you the dev team are the only people that can answer that. Now once we have those kind of idea regarding the content, then its time for you guys to re adjust the class and gave them an identity that it really needs, for example
Arcanist should only focus on having arcane/lightning spell/feat that is primarily focus on dealing single target burst dps. In this case you can put those stuffs at the LEVEL 11 or later part of leveling
Thaum should be the basis of early leveling as theres not a lot of powerful bosses or dungeon that new players or old one will experience while they are leveling. In this case thaum being an AOE specialist will help the new player understand their class and also provide the DND experience you guys are trying to provide as this is mostly the go to of wizard in table top games (throwing fireball at the enemy or slowing them down)
At the end of the day, we want new players to be engage and attach on their class. Specially on a table top base game and an MMO, Wizard are one of the staple and basic class. Make it fun, engaging and over all has an identity. I disagree primarily on the fact that u guys will only change 1 spell or class feature or even cool down. This class needs an overhaul design and love.
Tldr; i disagree on the dev comment regarding 1 spell change only, this class needs an overhaul design and identity.
I really liked your last change to the Fireball. It was a straightforward change that clicked the exactly right spot to "now throw away the thauma and do not try to give him another chance". Please, do not do the same to the arcanist.
If the arcanist should do daily solo stuff, he needs the Steal Time power. He needs it. Yes, the power is buggy, yes, when you fight a group of 5, at least 4 mobs have a way to interrupt it. But the power just needs the removal of the bugs, not to be removed from the game!
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additional notes:
My build is heavy in recharge speed bonuses (including purple mount collar, boon and 3 dragon hearts) and those few seconds down on cool-downs make the fights a lot less frustrating. My most damaging power is my companion though...
I would not argue against buffing the magnitude of Ray of Frost, but even more I would appreciate if that power did not insist on attacking the air once the combat is over.
I have no idea why arcanist has a charge-up AoE at-will, there is literally no opportunity to use it. (you will get interrupted if you try to use it in fight... the thauma does at least have a reason to open the fight with his AoE at-will, arcanist does not)
And I miss the gathering effect of Entangling force in the mastery slot that got removed in m16.
Bug Reports:
1:imprisoment and ray of effeblement have their durations swaped. Give ray duration to imprisoment and the opposite to match their tooltips.
2:player get stuck with storm pillar.
3: sometimes the powers go in cooldown and you need relog to unstuck them.
I believe smokder/ fire needs to go and it should be arcane with frost or arcane with lightning based attacks to allow one another to stack based on the path you take. Both can be DPS but one be specifically designed for aoe while the other targets single target only.
Cold and arcane can be aoe
While lightning and arcane can be single target
Also magnitude to any power need to be upgraded as they are way low compared to other classes as well as cook down periods.
The wizard needs a lot of work unfortunaly it's hard to say only one thing. I do appreciate you guys looking into the wizard as it is super fun to play.
That said, if I was to name a spell that needs fixing then it's Steal Time. That spell is finicky. The slightest movement and it fails to execute. It sometimes just fails to execute and the animation takes too long when it works correctly. Quite often, it will time out so to speak and take much longer than what was designed.
If they are not going to allow the Wizard to control bosses/certain creatures to a limiting degree then they should reduce the cooldown time on the spells to give the class a little more damage imo
Up until that point, the class overall felt beautifully balanced, and the play style was perfect. Tag the biggest mob with Conduit or FtF on tab, teleport into the middle of the group of mobs, drop Terrain, pop Steal Time, then teleport backwards and at-will twice, and watch everything freeze solid while burning to death. It was beautiful; half the fun of the class was the movement rhythm of the skill rotation itself. It FELT and LOOKED like an intricate dance or waltz of death, and it was actually effective on the charts too.
It's cheating a bit, but my suggestion isn't tweaking any one single encounter or mechanic. I just want my waltz-of-doom feeling back again. Neverwinter nailed the mage class better than any other game did at the time, and all these years later that's still largely true. Wizarding is just as much about the flash and the bang as it is about the utility or power, so when you take that away it's just another forgettable fantasy class.
Bring back the ebb and flow of dancing through the battlefield with the Control Wizard. Pick either dps OR cc, keep each type locked into one or the other paragon paths - I don't care and it doesn't matter. Wizard needs to feel like a wizard, and not a weird first year magic student that doesn't know what kind of magic they can even use yet.
Known bugs. So a fix on these would be useful
•*Striking Advantage*: Tooltip states that you have a 20% chance to proc it, but the actual proc rate in game is around 5%.
•*Storm Spell*: non-crits and crits are doing the same amount of damage.
•*Steal Time*: cancels itself without doing any damage and goes on cooldown fairly frequently.
•*Snap Freeze*: only applies damage on the first 6 applications of chill. For example, if you use Ray of Frost on the boss, the first 6 stacks of chill will proc Snap Freeze and do damage. However, if you keep using Ray of Frost, you are able to keep the stacks of chill at 6 stacks, but Snap Freeze will no longer proc. The only way for it to re-proc is to wait for the chill stacks to fall off, then re-apply them.
•*Ray of Frost*: animation gets stuck channeling; sometimes going into the air. If the enemy dies when this occurs the wizard will become stuck and only able to teleport to move.
•*Arcane Power Field*: not working with A Step Above Mastery. In particular, it only buffs the first 5 stacks of arcane mastery.
•*Encounter cool-down bug*: the timers on encounters end, but sometimes when you press said encounters you will still have 2 seconds left again.
Arcanist - Make all the AOEs on the ranged class ranged, please. Only arcane tempest (without using TAB) is ranged by default. Lightning bolt is technically ranged, but it's extremely short and the power is bugged anyway. That a ranged dps needs to jump into mobs groups with the melee classes to cast aoes (without having access to powers to actually jump you into the mobs) makes the gameplay of an aoe arcanist bad.
Thaum - Change Chilling Advantage to Flaming Advantage: your powers no longer apply chill stacks, and instead procc smoulder on each hit. The mag damage of smoulder should be added to your powers directly to help with proccing the ribcage, goristro horns, and redcap's cap. This should also bypass the cd of directed flames.
I'd also add that Spell Mastery should be brought back for all encounter powers. On both paragons, less than half the encounters can take advantage of the main wizard mechanic.
Bug Report:
The Arcanist feat Striking Advantage is supposed to have a 20% chance to proc (when benefiting from combat advantage positioning), as stated in the tooltip. However, the actual proc chance in-game is around 5%. This has been a bug for over a year now and has been reported countless times. Fixing this, and this alone, would have a very large impact on the Wizard's endgame single target damage.
As others have pointed out, there are plenty of other bugs plaguing the Wizard, but if I'm only allowed to comment about one, then fixing Striking Advantage is my choice.
Encounter cool down bug: the timers on encounters end, but sometimes when you press said encounter you still have 2 seconds left again.
Also look at the mag to recharge ratio on all powers. It is WAY off compared to the other classes. You can see this for yourself in a dungeon. By the time I am halfway through a rotation most of the mobs are dead and my team is moving on to the next mob while I am stuck in a buggy animation. Arcane Tempest was a good move in the right direction for this as it's cast time is fairly low compared to the other powers. The mag on it is still too low but at least you get to cast a few encounters rather than trying to cast something else with a really long cast time.
This is the best idea in the history of ideas, please make this change to the wizard.
Tharum powers, for example, Fanning the flame is designed for a big target with mobs and Fireball simply takes too long to cast; whereas icy terrain and conduit of ice are good, but mobs will be dead before you get them off together to freeze mobs. Ray of Enfeeblement is a nice debuff we have in ST, and other other encounter powers should be based on stacking smolder/rimfire smolder and chill.
Tharum is designed to burn with DoT, that one feat that turns the rimefire smolder into a bust damage, while keeping chill stacks and smolder stacks was probably the most useful feat we had but now useless. Stacking smolder, rimfire smolder and chill takes too much time to apply to mobs, this to me looks more boss focused to make this mechanic useful. I don't want to be a tharum that needs to be casting arcane spells like repel and entangling force when spells like Fanning the flame, Fireball or icy ray can be reworked to be useful. Arcanist are focused on arcane and lightning with the often ice spell for elemental reinforcement feat (imprisonment can be buffed for them so RoE isn't constantly stacked and both paragon work in synergy). Tharum doesn't have such a feat, so no, I shouldn't be needing to use arcane encounters as main damage skills in a ST fight while relying on critical conflagration to keep up my smolder.
Another problem is our feats don't work, only a few class features are useful and our magnitude are way below every other dps class in game. Fix those first before jumping to fixing any giving skills.
I may have went off topic and mixed a few things up but the general idea is there.