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Wizard Power Adjustments

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  • ron#1747 ron Member Posts: 115 Arc User
    I feel like u just kinda need to up magnitudes and reduce cooldowns. Ray of enfeeblement, Repel, and that hold power, all need a major cooldowm reduction to male wizards more competitive in endgame ST content
  • stepmania#9336 stepmania Member Posts: 9 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    "These are buffs are, mathematically, stronger in magnitude per second. But I think many will see the Fireball change as a slight nerf for AOE situations and a marginally useful buff in single target fights."

    i would like to make a small comparison for a special slot:

    rays of frost:
    magnitude 572-592 +150 from crushing blow
    cooldown 15 sec
    incast
    it gives me stacks of frost

    fireball:
    magnitude 550 + nothing
    cooldown 12 sec
    very very long cast time
    it doesn't give me stacks of frost

    :/

    make the fireball better than the rays of frost or I see no reason to use it
    Post edited by stepmania#9336 on
  • jbball92#2946 jbball92 Member Posts: 23 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    Only smolder or also rime fire smolder? The issue with wizard is that for aoe the animation times. Other classes like TRs can precast and afk in aoe. Fireball steal time and conduit of ice animations make them borderline useless in fast burst aoe like the Forest in VoS for example. There should be a feat that increases the the proc chance of striking Advantage and storm spell at the start of combat by 30-40% for 5 seconds and reduces the proc chance by 10% for 20 seconds after to balance that mechanic and make it viable aoe to compensate for the animation times. The chill mechanic in thaum is also pretty useless aoe despite being a cool power due to the time it takes to apply chill. And the additional chance factor of it. Chill would be more viable if chill also did a magnitude DoT stacked 6x for example each stack adding 5 magnitude. With an additional 20 magnitude “burst” at 6 then a reset.
    Post edited by jbball92#2946 on
  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User
    I agree with bifflinculte that fire damage should do more harm than ice. NPC fire AoE's (like the one in River District that sets the floor on fire for a long time) is very damaging to players & you can't stand in it - why don't our Thaums have this level damage output? It should also have full CA.

    He also makes a good point about non-CC powers should have higher base damage - is it that thaum was always thought of as a support path? It used to have the skills for that but it doesn't anymore so how about making straight Thaumaturgic DPS a real option?
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  • gildriadorgildriador Member Posts: 231 Arc User

    Here are some changes currently in the works:

    Fireball - Reduced cooldown from 18 to 12 seconds. Changed magnitude from 330/750 to 250/550. Currently the cast time is the same but will look into seeing if we can get animation time to bring it down.

    Smolder - magnitude has been doubled

    Striking Advantage - tooltip has been update to reflect that it only works on At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers and that it has a 1 second cooldown. It has been increased to 25% chance and 100 magnitude.

    Imprisonment - is now called Arcane Conduit. The cooldown has been reduced to 12 seconds. It no longer holds the target but instead does 200 magnitude damage. It increases your arcane damage by 15% for 5 seconds. 20% and 225 magnitude when slotted into the special encounter slot.

    Magic Missile and Arcane Bolt now give a stack of arcane mastery with each attack instead of only on the final attack of the combo

    Chilling Cloud now adds a stack of chill to the target with each attack, final attack still adds chill to main target and nearby targets

    Steal Time will need some animation work to change it up so we will see if we can get time for that.


    I'm back from my summer vacation and I'm reading this, I hope I'm not too late at the party...

    1-) I think an increase in magnitude of all at-will could help.

    2-) If I need to choose one power not in this list it would be Lightning bolt

    I agree with the suggestion of other players to increase the magnitude and like the healing power, split the damage when multiple targets are hit by lightning bolt.

    Or if it's too complex. Make it single target in regular slot with high magnitude and AoE in the mastery slot with a slight increase in magnitude and AoE 10'x30' instead of 5'x 30'. It's better to be AoE in mastery because we don't have good options for AoE in mastery slot. And with the change of Imprisonnement, we will have better options for mastery slot single target powers.
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  • radthradth Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    I think the best way to assess what needs changing is to look at the data.
    1. What powers do wizards use most frequently?
    2. How much less damage do those powers deal per encounter/dungeon than other classes?
    3. What buffs do the powers that wizards use need to bring them inline with other classes?
    4. What underutilized powers could be buffed instead so they are preferred to what is currently used?

    Honestly though, I haven't enjoyed the game as much as I did pre-Mod 15. Recovery, movement speed, and lifesteal were my favorite stats. Going from being able to fire a daily and all of my encounters at each mob to the long cooldowns we now experience for everything but at-wills may be more "realistic" with regards to DnD, but it sure isn't as fun. I'm just stating this so that my suggestions at the beginning are taken with a grain of salt from a player who is playing less and less and will likely quit within the next year w/o significant changes to the wizard.
  • alquimistgg#0914 alquimistgg Member Posts: 133 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    Hi everyone, I thank @noworries#8859 for giving us this space and opportunity to discuss this subject, for me this is essential. forgive me for any confusion in the text, it's all google translator's fault.

    I read many messages talking about increasing the magnitude and reducing the countdown of skills, maybe this is not the best way to work these changes, however some very specific balances in this regard can be successfully addressed, although I believe that some more important balances should be within class mechanics like smolder and rimefire, as well as feats and features class. That said, I bring my suggestion that goes a little beyond what I've just said and what I've read in the various posts, and it would probably be interesting to be discussed in all Neverwinter classes.

    It's about base skill modifiers (the initials before the paragon), which automatically adapt to your chosen paragon, I'll use a good example in the game currently that was the modification made in the Warlock's Vampirc Embrance in the healer mini rework in M19 , it is a base skill of the class that is modified if the Soulweaver paragon is chosen, and remains the same if Hellbrinber is chosen, I must say that the most appropriate would be a change if Hellbrings was chosen too, at least a magnitude change and reach to improve the sense of progression, but that's beside the point. the cleric also gets a bastion change that has modified costs and magnitudes depending on the chosen paragon, I would like things like that to be covered in all base skills of game classes.

    Let's bring this vision to our current topic, we have in the wizard's base skills ice skills and arcane skills, no fire skills, which are exclusive to TT, and no lightning skills, which are exclusive to AC. let's use the ice terrain skill, an ice base skill, it could be modified if the Arcanist paragon was chosen, converting the ice element to arcane energy, or transforming it into an electric terrain, just as arcane base skills could be converted to fire or ice skills if the Thaumaturge was chosen. This type of approach would bring more diversity and cohesion to each paragon, making them better match in larger skill options, I dare say that this same concept could be addressed in the features classes too, but this is perhaps more situational.

    I understand that this would be a lot more work compared to simple changes of magnitude, for example, because in addition to programming new interactions in these changes, there would be the visual issue of these changes to be created, especially if approached in all classes of the game, but I believe that would be something very enriching for the game. I know that many will not agree because they prefer to stay in the comfort zone, however I am a big enthusiast of big changes especially when they are made thinking about the improvement and success of the game.

    NOTE: would it be very difficult to program a system that allows us to walk during skill casting? This would improve a lot of time-consuming cast issues and unwanted cancels.
    image - ALQUImist-WL@alquimistgg#0914
  • mayorofartamayorofarta Member Posts: 57 Arc User
    Also, please increase arcane tempest radius as well. As mentioned multiple times aoe suffers a lot and tempest radius is extremely small. Easy adjustment I believe. And bring steal time cooldown to match icy terrain if possible.
  • noworries#8859 noworries Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 651 Cryptic Developer
    edited August 2021



    Chilling advantage and Directed Flames feats are useless and actually grant a malus. If both are taken at the same time, they even break smolder, which no longer deals damage or generates AP (smoldering recovery feat).

    I found the issue with chilling advantage causing that situation. My question now is do people feel there is more than one bug affecting Directed Flames? Other reports were that Directed Flames simply didn't work, but my tests suggest otherwise and the only time it broke was with Chilling Advantage and casting a lot of cold powers.
  • rysiek86rysiek86 Member Posts: 145 Arc User



    Chilling advantage and Directed Flames feats are useless and actually grant a malus. If both are taken at the same time, they even break smolder, which no longer deals damage or generates AP (smoldering recovery feat).

    I found the issue with chilling advantage causing that situation. My question now is do people feel there is more than one bug affecting Directed Flames? Other reports were that Directed Flames simply didn't work, but my tests suggest otherwise and the only time it broke was with Chilling Advantage and casting a lot of cold powers.
    12 seconds cooldown on Directed Flames is the biggest bug (ofc dont get it to serious) But honestly ... 12 sec ??


  • kinentrkinentr Member Posts: 1 Arc User

    I think it would be nice to have a necromancer wizard, it's something I've been waiting for since Beta
  • tgwolftgwolf Member Posts: 501 Arc User
    I'm going to be blunt.

    In terms of fixing things in the short-term, Arcanist specific powers should be ignored for now unless it's bug fixes. It works fantastically if used as intended:; ST Only.

    - Spell Mastery Slotted Ray of Enfeeblement, Disintegrate, Repel and Entangling Force. That is all you should ever have slotted.


    Thaumaturge is where all the attention and work is required.

    Smoulder Magnitude should be 100 and tick every second for 5s. No this will not "break the game".

    At-Wills:

    Magic Missile and Ray of Frost work fine.

    Scorching Burst:
    Keep the current Cast Time with a Magnitude change of 50-200. It has a long Cast Time and should hit hard to match. Plus it would provide the AoE Paragon an Actually Usable AoE At-Will.

    Chilling Cloud
    Works fine, the issue with the current proposed change is that; like with the changes to MM and Arcane Bolt as has been pointed out, stacking and maintaining Chill/Arcane stacks is not remotely an issue.

    Encounters:

    Icy Terrain:
    Change Magnitude to 400. Just a tiny bit more damage would make a difference.

    Fanning the Flame:
    Increase Magnitude 200. Change the Smolder Synergy Magnitudes to 100 each. Reduce the Base CD to 16s.
    As is, this is the biggest joke of a power. The CD is horrendous and the Magnitude is an insult. This would give it strong AoE potential.


    Chill Strike:
    600 Normal. 400 Spell Mastery. Thaum. has little need for anything ST and as-is, the AoE Magnitude is an insult.

    Conduit of Ice:
    300 Magnitude.

    Fireball:
    300 Normal. 600 Spell Mastery. Revert Spell Mastery back to being an AoE. ST Fireball is useless on Thaum. Revert it back to AoE so it isn't.

    Other Encounters are ST and don't matter.

    Dailies:

    Furious Immolation:
    Increase Magnitude to 1000.

    Ice Storm:
    Increase Magnitude to 800. Double damage on Frozen targets.

    Class Feats:
    Any changes would have to be Mechanical most likely and that's not going to help short-term.

    Feats:

    Glowing Flames:
    Change to 40% Damage.

    Chilling Advantage:
    Change the effect to grant Combat Advantage on a target for 4/5 seconds every time Chill is applied.

    Critical Burn:
    No changes, just wanted to mention that if Smoulder is changed to be 100 Magnitude, it will actually be useful by default.

    Directed Flames:
    Just remove the CD. This will make Smoulder, if changed as indicated hit for 400 Magnitude each application. Or at least reduce the CD to 5s; that way Smoulder will alternate dealing its duration as a DoT and being a direct hit.
  • tempus86#1158 tempus86 Member Posts: 165 Arc User

    Here are some changes currently in the works:

    Fireball - Reduced cooldown from 18 to 12 seconds. Changed magnitude from 330/750 to 250/550. Currently the cast time is the same but will look into seeing if we can get animation time to bring it down.

    Smolder - magnitude has been doubled

    Striking Advantage - tooltip has been update to reflect that it only works on At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers and that it has a 1 second cooldown. It has been increased to 25% chance and 100 magnitude.

    Imprisonment - is now called Arcane Conduit. The cooldown has been reduced to 12 seconds. It no longer holds the target but instead does 200 magnitude damage. It increases your arcane damage by 15% for 5 seconds. 20% and 225 magnitude when slotted into the special encounter slot.

    Magic Missile and Arcane Bolt now give a stack of arcane mastery with each attack instead of only on the final attack of the combo

    Chilling Cloud now adds a stack of chill to the target with each attack, final attack still adds chill to main target and nearby targets

    Steal Time will need some animation work to change it up so we will see if we can get time for that.


    @noworries#8859

    The Fireball change is a step in the right direction, but until the cast time is adjusted it doesnt really change things.
    One additional change that would be welcomed would be to increase the AoE radius to 20" since that is what was taken away from the old mastery.

    The Smoulder change is also a step in the right direction, but a simple yet pretty impactful addition would be to make smoulder tick instantly, and again every 3 seconds for 9seconds. It would still deal damage 4 times for a total of 160Mag.
    This would also have a knock on effect to directed flames by default shortening its ICD to 9 seconds, As well as giving fireball a secondary boost to burst

    With the arcane mastery stacks being changed for both missiles and bolt, Arcane bolt is still totally worthless, its slower, and does less damage than arcane missiles, which by default means it will build stacks slower. Its magnitude needs to be increased to 100 to make it a fair comparison or has to do something unique ( which admittedly will take longer so a magnitude increase would be better short term)


  • rafael#5355 rafael Member Posts: 10 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    +

    Hi everyone, I thank @noworries#8859 for giving us this space and opportunity to discuss this subject, for me this is essential. forgive me for any confusion in the text, it's all google translator's fault.

    I read many messages talking about increasing the magnitude and reducing the countdown of skills, maybe this is not the best way to work these changes, however some very specific balances in this regard can be successfully addressed, although I believe that some more important balances should be within class mechanics like smolder and rimefire, as well as feats and features class. That said, I bring my suggestion that goes a little beyond what I've just said and what I've read in the various posts, and it would probably be interesting to be discussed in all Neverwinter classes.

    It's about base skill modifiers (the initials before the paragon), which automatically adapt to your chosen paragon, I'll use a good example in the game currently that was the modification made in the Warlock's Vampirc Embrance in the healer mini rework in M19 , it is a base skill of the class that is modified if the Soulweaver paragon is chosen, and remains the same if Hellbrinber is chosen, I must say that the most appropriate would be a change if Hellbrings was chosen too, at least a magnitude change and reach to improve the sense of progression, but that's beside the point. the cleric also gets a bastion change that has modified costs and magnitudes depending on the chosen paragon, I would like things like that to be covered in all base skills of game classes.

    Let's bring this vision to our current topic, we have in the wizard's base skills ice skills and arcane skills, no fire skills, which are exclusive to TT, and no lightning skills, which are exclusive to AC. let's use the ice terrain skill, an ice base skill, it could be modified if the Arcanist paragon was chosen, converting the ice element to arcane energy, or transforming it into an electric terrain, just as arcane base skills could be converted to fire or ice skills if the Thaumaturge was chosen. This type of approach would bring more diversity and cohesion to each paragon, making them better match in larger skill options, I dare say that this same concept could be addressed in the features classes too, but this is perhaps more situational.

    I understand that this would be a lot more work compared to simple changes of magnitude, for example, because in addition to programming new interactions in these changes, there would be the visual issue of these changes to be created, especially if approached in all classes of the game, but I believe that would be something very enriching for the game. I know that many will not agree because they prefer to stay in the comfort zone, however I am a big enthusiast of big changes especially when they are made thinking about the improvement and success of the game.

    NOTE: would it be very difficult to program a system that allows us to walk during skill casting? This would improve a lot of time-consuming cast issues and

    Post edited by rafael#5355 on
  • stepmania#9336 stepmania Member Posts: 9 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    "The Fireball change is a step in the right direction, but until the cast time is adjusted it doesnt really change things.
    One additional change that would be welcomed would be to increase the AoE radius to 20" since that is what was taken away from the old mastery."

    The problem with the fireball for the special slot is that even with a magnitude of 750, it does less damage than frost rays and does not give freeze stacks. The updated fireball does not fix this setup.
    I am not using the fireball now and I see no reason to use its updated version.
  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User
    They should make a fireball Daily: huge AoE damage blaster...
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  • mamalion1234mamalion1234 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,415 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    assailing force feat 20% chance to proc up from 10% and chaos magic feat 10% up from 5%.
  • aslan3775aslan3775 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 295 Arc User
    armadeonx said:

    They should make a fireball Daily: huge AoE damage blaster...

    Maybe even a FlameStrike type animation where the fireball explodes and a column of fire rises to the sky!! :o and then leaves the floor in flames causing damage like River District flames.

    Just a thought. I mean, we are 20th level Wizards, after all. Should be a big fireball, right? Or is it supposed to be small, but very hot to provide all that damage in the tabletop version?



  • admiralwarlord#3792 admiralwarlord Member Posts: 611 Arc User
    modlesie said:

    Please take a note- wizard is not performing so badly that he is on the bottom and is unplayable class. His single target is good for example. Wizarrd need a small buff/changes to be good especialy in AoE and att wills area. You better take a note on HR's damage because it is to high and it is far beyond all other classes.

    Exactly, by the requests here, it can be seen that many do not even know the class they play. Only the "Striking Advantage" buff will make the class AOE very strong. I believe if Magic Missile Magnitude was increased by at least +10, Lightinig Bolt would have a similar weapon enchant effect, control immunity when casting Stell Time, Arcane Tempest would gain an area boost and fix a solution for Storm Pillar , reducing the time needed to load the maximum and expanding the area of effect I think it would solve the class problems in the Arcanist path.
  • jbball92#2946 jbball92 Member Posts: 23 Arc User
    Honestly you could ignore any other change for arcanist and just make it so you can gain AP during arcane empowerment and it would bring it on par with other classes ST (% AP gain already works during).
  • demenoss#9306 demenoss Member Posts: 205 Arc User
    armadeonx said:

    They should make a fireball Daily: huge AoE damage blaster...

    +1 (Revert to AoE on Fireball Spell Mastery) (Decreasing casting is needed also)
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  • bifflincultebifflinculte Member Posts: 210 Arc User
    edited August 2021

    armadeonx said:

    They should make a fireball Daily: huge AoE damage blaster...

    +1 (Revert to AoE on Fireball Spell Mastery) (Decreasing casting is needed also)
    Agree, but this implies the need of another st fire encounter. For example, ftf with more than 100 st magnitude... or even a new third fire encounter, in place of icy rays, with same mechanic as icy rays (without the chill and the control ofc), which is in fact the d&d flame arrow spell.
    Post edited by bifflinculte on
  • quietaquafox#0542 quietaquafox Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited August 2021
    i know i am not the number crunching savant of neverwinter but i have played wizard for over 2 yrs. when i play against other people in dungeons, i struggle to get top 3 in DPS. but my alt is a warlock and i just see so much more damage proc from them. if neverwinter is going for more of a D&D approach, then here is how it works in there. Wizards are the big spell damage class, and warlocks are the magic/melee/ranged weapon mix. warlocks give versatility while wizards give all the magic cool stuff. i only state this as a 14yr D&D vet.

    after reading what the recent posts have been, i think i may have a solution to help with the damage issues. alot of power gaming in D&D come from mechanic exploitation, one hidden gem is the "familiar". it can provide the help action and give advantage to attacks FOR ANY ENEMY. maybe the wizard can have a familiar option. you can set it before an encounter or dungeon, elemental can give boosts to fire/lightning/ice....etc. necrotic can boost to undead, and a fiendish one can boost to devils and demons. it doesnt have to be large, but this will give wizard an option to the class making it different from others in that wizard can rely on its familiar to help. even thurmaturge wizard could have a hawk that helps gather mobs in close proximity for those AOE powers. Again please dont be too harsh with your responses, i am just trying to give an "OUT OF THE BOX" suggestion to help both players and neverwinter DEVS.

    thank you for your time.
  • dillygirldillygirl Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 321 Arc User


    Change a magnitude, cooldown, buff/debuff of a power - that is work that can be done quickly as far as the work itself so that becomes more likely to see in an upcoming patch in the next couple of months (many factors besides this work play into when something would go live, such as when we are making new builds and QA time).

    Some suggestions for quick changes that I posted before, but I will repeat because that comment was deleted (it was way too long):
    - For early level balancing, realize that just re-ordering powers can be an easy fix that doesn't affect later levels.
    - Stacking is very big for wizards. An easy way to make this more even between player skill levels could be to increase the magnitude or effect % of those stacks and decrease the maximum number of stacks.
    - You can use the Control Mastery Mechanic to some extent to re-balance CC in PVP. This mechanic was intended for exactly that. I would think that is an easy, developer-needed-only fix, despite you mentioning mechanic reworks are hard.
    - Slightly less quick, but still only-developer, no artist needed: to add an AOE at-will for Arcanist, you could simply change Arcane Bolt to deal AOE damage. It already looks and feels like an AOE power, but behaves as a single target power - basically identical to Magic Missile. Cleric at-will powers Scattering Light and Conflagrate are probably similar to what I mean.

    Here are some changes currently in the works:

    [..]

    Steal Time will need some animation work to change it up so we will see if we can get time for that.

    Thank you for the update and for working on this power. I would just like to clarify that the cooldown bug I mentioned has nothing to do with animation, and is in my opinion a larger issue than the animation itself. I would appreciate it if you could consider to look at the cooldown bug as well. It does not seem to have any consistency, sadly, but if it helps, I have several video snaps of this bug happening. (However, I don't have video editing tools to edit them together, and no platform to host it on that I would be comfortable with sharing on this forum.)

    ______________________

    Since this has not been mentioned in the entire thread, despite several people suggesting to make Thaumaturge ice/fire and Arcanist arcane/lightning only: one of the current functions of lightning is that lightning powers refresh the duration of chill stacks. I can't think of a similar effect it could have if it would only interact with arcane powers.

This discussion has been closed.