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[feedback] Control Wizard from 1-32
zendad01
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 8 Arc User
So this BWE I focused on playing an Elf Control Wizard and overall I enjoyed the experience, I rarely died, but this my be because I am incredibly adept at dodge mechanics. I wish I had thought to screen shot everything for myself so I could be very specific, but I didn't - so please forgive me if I incorrectly name a spell.
Overall my focus was on putting points in anything that was not Ice related. This meant that my first 20 points stayed along the bottom tree overall except for 5 points in boosting the dps gain from Int and 5 points in shortening the CD of my Encounter spells. Once I reached 30 I put my first 3 points into the paragon skill that increases your damage if you are withing 20 yards of the enemy with the plan to eventually unlock Chaos Magic.
The reason I focused on Arcane was because I found the control aspect of the wizard fine the way it was without boosting it. I didn't like Chill as a dps mechanic because it was incredibly hard to tell how many stacks any enemy had anyway. In dungeons for the most part the control wasn't necessary, on trash I may put down an Icy Terrain, and Time Stream(?) was a must have, but bosses seemed completely immune to Control anyway and in those situations it was only about DPS and Dodge, Arcane was clearly a better DPS specc.
For a companion I mainly used the Devout Cleric. Towards the end I had enough gold to buy the Man-At-Arms, but he was so low level it was hard to see if he was effective. I only really needed to consume potions when my Cleric was knocked out, which was basically every boss fight. This isn't the area for feedback on companions, so I'll stick to the point that as a Control Wizard the Devout Cleric is a serviceable companion.
So at 32 I had Icy Terrain in my Special Slot, and then Time Stream, the single target hold, and the repel as my main Encounter spells, for my At-Will I had Arcane Bolts, and Ice Beam, but then at 30 I replaced Ice Beam with the Paragon Power Lightning Rod(?). I found LR to be an interesting idea, but the casting time made it a little ineffectual and it's damage was lackluster, still on AoEing down a big mob, Icy Terrain followed by Time Stream followed by Lightning Rod was a pretty devastating combination that allowed me to plow through mobs with ease.
Where the Control Wizard really suffers is on boss encounters (or any Lieutenant or higher mob that was immune to CC). The single target damage on boss encounters is really lackluster and with them being immune to control effects you spend most of the fights doing little more than teleporting out of damage and spamming Arcane Bolts with the occasional Ice Dagger, not exactly engaging or fun combat.
I only did PvP once because I quickly realized, as I had predicted, the CW's lack of burst DPS coupled with the fact that that most classes, especially a trickster rogue can stun lock you to the point where you are ineffectual made me a sitting target in a PuG match.
Overall I think the Control Wizard is heading in the right direction but there definitely needs some attention paid to how it works on single target fights. My suggestion is to make it debuff things it can't CC in a more aggressive manner.
Overall my focus was on putting points in anything that was not Ice related. This meant that my first 20 points stayed along the bottom tree overall except for 5 points in boosting the dps gain from Int and 5 points in shortening the CD of my Encounter spells. Once I reached 30 I put my first 3 points into the paragon skill that increases your damage if you are withing 20 yards of the enemy with the plan to eventually unlock Chaos Magic.
The reason I focused on Arcane was because I found the control aspect of the wizard fine the way it was without boosting it. I didn't like Chill as a dps mechanic because it was incredibly hard to tell how many stacks any enemy had anyway. In dungeons for the most part the control wasn't necessary, on trash I may put down an Icy Terrain, and Time Stream(?) was a must have, but bosses seemed completely immune to Control anyway and in those situations it was only about DPS and Dodge, Arcane was clearly a better DPS specc.
For a companion I mainly used the Devout Cleric. Towards the end I had enough gold to buy the Man-At-Arms, but he was so low level it was hard to see if he was effective. I only really needed to consume potions when my Cleric was knocked out, which was basically every boss fight. This isn't the area for feedback on companions, so I'll stick to the point that as a Control Wizard the Devout Cleric is a serviceable companion.
So at 32 I had Icy Terrain in my Special Slot, and then Time Stream, the single target hold, and the repel as my main Encounter spells, for my At-Will I had Arcane Bolts, and Ice Beam, but then at 30 I replaced Ice Beam with the Paragon Power Lightning Rod(?). I found LR to be an interesting idea, but the casting time made it a little ineffectual and it's damage was lackluster, still on AoEing down a big mob, Icy Terrain followed by Time Stream followed by Lightning Rod was a pretty devastating combination that allowed me to plow through mobs with ease.
Where the Control Wizard really suffers is on boss encounters (or any Lieutenant or higher mob that was immune to CC). The single target damage on boss encounters is really lackluster and with them being immune to control effects you spend most of the fights doing little more than teleporting out of damage and spamming Arcane Bolts with the occasional Ice Dagger, not exactly engaging or fun combat.
I only did PvP once because I quickly realized, as I had predicted, the CW's lack of burst DPS coupled with the fact that that most classes, especially a trickster rogue can stun lock you to the point where you are ineffectual made me a sitting target in a PuG match.
Overall I think the Control Wizard is heading in the right direction but there definitely needs some attention paid to how it works on single target fights. My suggestion is to make it debuff things it can't CC in a more aggressive manner.
Post edited by zendad01 on
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This is correct. One of the more challenging (therefore to me more fun) aspects of soloing was when I'd go up against packs that featured 2/3 strong enemies along with a few trash. The scenario typically went like this;
Look around to make sure teleport and Repel would not get me in trouble. Lay down Icy Terrain and rush in for Time Drain(?) quickly pick off any trash that survived with Arcane Bolts. Get immediately on one Strong and Stun him, then Repel him away, using Ice Beam to slow/stun him as I dispatch him with Arcane Bolts in between. Usually by this point the other Strong was beating on my Devout Cleric so as the hold comes off CD I'd use it on this one instead. At 30+ when I had Lightning instead of Ice Beam I'd use it, but found that it didn't work as well as Ice Beam.
What I'd really like to see is the ability to have 2 builds. Since most dungeon and solo Bosses are immune to CC it is pretty important that we have access to a Soloing build that is CC heavy, and a group/boss Build that favors among other things Enfeeblement Beam instead. I found swapping spells in and out of the trees annoying.
I'd also like to see the removal of the spell trees listing existing spells as "New Spell" when you level. Arcane Bolts is Arcane Bolts, yes as you level it gets stronger, but listing 10 ranks of it in my spell book to make it look like as I was leveling I was getting new spells is just annoying, especially since the new spell overwrites the stat tooltip on the previous version anyway.
It was mainly the Trickster Rogues giving me grief. I'm not sure what it was but they had an attack the silenced me long enough for them to kill me before I was no longer silenced. It's very hard to tell in PuG PvP since the opposing team had 3 Trickster Rogues what was going on. It could have been multiple attacks hitting me form various sources I just know that I felt completely lackluster in PvP and my Control abilities seemed worthless. This probably would not be the case in organized PvP where teammates would protect me so I could support them.
I found my Control Wizard to be a powerhouse in PvP. Yes, we do not have burst damage, but no class really has much burst damage and everyone takes a long time to kill, which I like. It is all about tactics, not one rotation that knocks someone out. Killing another player takes time, effort, and often the work of several allies.
With my combination of range and control, I consistently led the kill charts and often had the fewest deaths. In some cases I felt a bit overpowered relative to other classes, to be honest.
That's because real bosses have friends. Lots of them. And later on, those friends can make or break the run. We're not there to kill da boss (like a rogue). Those friends the boss has are pretty nasty in large numbers.
That's where we come in. We can AoE lockdown those adds, and pretty much stroll around them DPSing at will. When done, a new crop will come on out. In this way, you don't have random mobs knocking DPS or tank off-target, or making the cleric run for dear life like the Benny Hill scenario.
Why? Because you're there. And nothing escapes the AoEs and holds and slows you can throw down.
Not saying your choice was wrong, but just seems a little inferior for soloing groups unless you did it for another reason.
I had a different setup entirely and could easily solo groups 2 minions and 2 tougher guys. A lot of the times I would teleport into another group or aggro another group but it never really mattered.
My setup consisted of:
Repel in my tab slot (pushed multiple enemies and stacked arcane)
Magic Missle and Ray of Frost for at-wills
Chill strike, Darth Vadar Choke hold, Steal Time as my encounters
Arcane Singularity(at 35) replaced Ice Storm, and the Ice Dagger were my dailies
I picked all feats that lowered recovery times and gave stamina and extra damage. Didn't care about the chill feats as per what you did as well.
I would start the fight with my hold on a tough guy and then repel everyone running to me. then I would chill strike a minion and one shot him. By the time everyone got to me I would pop Steal time and then repel everyone again. My choke would be up again and I would hold the other tough guy while chill striking the first tough guy I held. he would be dead. The minion would usually die during the steal time because after the repel I would have 5 stacks of arcane. A few shots from MM and the other tough guy would be dead. I hardly ever took damage.
Repel is awesome in the tab slot being able to push anything coming at you and not just one person. I couldn't tell you how many times I pushed things into other groups and it would get hairy but i was always in complete control.
When I hit 35th and got the Arcane Singularity things became so much better. At this point My dailies would pop every fight with all my recovery boosts and I would open with it and then mop up whoever is left. My most epic battle was when I was 11th. Someone ran by me in the tower district with 10 battle hardened orcs in tow. This is what happened:
I was in the tower district minding my own business fighting some orcs when a dwarf ran past me. I popped my repel(tabbed) to knock back two bAttletested orcs that were getting close and didn't see the entourage that was following the dwarf. Needless to say I wound up with a bit more than I could chew.
My simple fight of 2 minions and 2 battletested orcs turned into about 12 battletested orcs and 10 minions. Let the madness begin.
I was only 11th at the moment but i had this fight in complete control. I had repel on my spell mastery, chill strike, Darthvaders choke hold and the minor snow storm power thing. MM and ray of frost for my at-wills and the big snow storm for my daily.
I was surrounded right from the get go and i see all these red marks on the ground. I start spamming everything I got. Repel to knock everyone away (it knocks more than four people btw) and spammed my little aoe and choke. I heavily relied on teleport to get away from all the red paths on the ground. I did teleport into another mob in the process but i wound up winning the fight after drinking 4 potions.
The repel with the minor snow storm coupled with the big daily whenever it was up gave me more then enough room to move around avoiding most damage.
That was my favorite moment of his career so far.
What we excel in is controlling battles. If we are in a group doing a dungeon our main job is to deal with Add-ons and protecting the cleric and dps'ers. When nothing else is around but the boss we throw everything we have but mainly deal with add-ons. No one controls the field better then us. And after 35th we are great at it.