Suggested power changes to the Control Wizard

zomd

I figured I'd make a thread for suggestions to alter existing powers (rather than just suggesting new powers).

Storm Pillar

The charge up time for storm pillar makes it difficult to use. At will powers should feel at will, but the charge up time basically acts like a cooldown, but worse.. since it's up front making targeting in a chaotic battle more problematic than it should be.

Suggested change: Make storm pillar a "ray" of electricity that builds electrical charges. Once a certain number of charges is reached the energy releases doing aoe damage around the mob. If it kills the mob, it can leave behind the storm pillar.


Steal Time

The speed buff is problematic for me. It feels like i'm skating on ice which makes maneuvering really difficult. Cap the speed buff so it's fast, but not so fast as to disorient players.

Suggested change: Instead, have the mastery add AP directly to the caster and party based on the amount of time stolen. That makes sense to me.

Maelstrom of Chaos

Suggested change: since knocking mobs off ledges seems to be such an integral part of doing T2 dungeons, let Maelstrom of Chaos be targeted in the air (ie, don't require the circle to be on the ground). That way, I can take any mobs around me and toss them over the ledge.

This would greatly increase this spell's usefulness, especially with another CW in the party. One can singularity, the other can maelstrom afterward.

kitsunekisu

Personally do hope something happens to CW at will powers besides MM. They seem very lackluster and highly pointless to use imo.

jubbathehatt

I have to agree about the At Will powers. There really doesn't seem to be any point in using anything except Magic Arrow and Frost Ray (is that the name?) as the higher level powers don't actually seem to be as powerful (although area of effect of the sudden storm At-will is good).

For the sake of experimentation I'm trying out all the at-will powers as I go along (currently level 36) and to be honest, I really don't think there was any point putting points into the later ones. I think the ideas are good but I'm not sure that the implementation is quite right.

angelwings1337

There is really no point for Crytpic to make these minor tweaks to the CW when the still have the GWF as the big elephant in the corner that really needs to be fixed. And they have the same problems with charge based at wills.

Maybe they could decide to just scrap all the charged based at will in the game in one move.

jubbathehatt

There is nothing wrong about making suggestions that may be looked at in the future.

For all we know they have separate teams working on the different classes, in which case our comments are likely to be taken note of immediately.

knoteskad

We really need a chain lightning skill.

Storm Pillar or Sudden Storm should be the sacrificial lamb for that lol.

I really wish we had other viable at wills. =/

firefly113

I agree with Storm Pillar. It's awkward to use and doesn't really reward it very well. The additional damage from the DoT seems negligible unless it's a crit, and charging will root you. Being rooted is very bad when big monsters or angry GWFs are chasing you.

I liked Chill Strike. It's a slightly under damaged Magic Missile that adds chill with every third strike. With the talent that boosts at will damage, it seems to do just fine for me. I actually use it more than ray of frost, though mostly because I also use the PBAoE that puts an ice slick at my feet. I let that freeze people.

I would love to see Storm Pillar replaced with Chain Lightning. It is bizarre that a wizard specialized in storms doesn't get chain lightning. That's about the same as a pyromancer not getting fireball.

If they made an at will chain lightning that you needed to charge, but bounced among enemies among a moderate area, that would totally be worth the risk of sitting in one place to charge it for a second or two. Make it zap one target for light damage if spammed and zap many for moderate damage when charged. Storm Pillar is really not that great at all.

Admittedly, the power that summons a chaos meteor totally changed the way I play my control mage. I wish more spells were as interactive and innovative as that one.

knoteskad

I think some abilities' spell mastery bonuses should be buffed too IMO.

There are a lot that I wish I could use together, like Entangling mastery with the other masteries that make stuff aoe.

I think Ice Terrain mastery should either make it tic twice as fast or create an icy path from the point you target and yourself (that the missile basically travels along).

That would make it perfect for kiting since mobs will just run out of it super fast, atleast they'd have to run down the path and would get slowed enough.

I think Entangling should get a new mastery entirely too TBH, the pull doesn't really fit with the skill IMO, it has nothing to do with it. I think Repel mastery should suck mobs up around the one you target and knock them back in a pack and maybe knock them down so they actually stick together for a short time, would reward you for clever use against walls/corners etc. Vacuum mobs together and knock em into a wall for a nice mini singularity effect. Would still be situational.

Entangling's mastery could instead make the person start pulsing aoe dmg/slow, or do an aoe knock up, or just do a mini aoe choke.

Chilling Cloud IMO should either chill on every attack and make every attack an aoe, or have the chill last a lot longer. If you stop spamming even for a second to dodge or something you will completely lose your stacks which is just silly. At the very least the CC tree should get a feat that increases chill duration or something.

Or, chill should be reworked to tic down every 2-3 seconds 1 stack at a time instead. So a nice phat 5 or 6 stack chill wouldn't just completely vanish if you neglect it for 3 seconds, it would slowly tic down 1 at a time and be MUCH less punishing. Would fit the theme too, having people "thaw" off over time.

Sudden Storm I think should stay the same, but have it's animation cut in half so it's a lot faster to fire off. Considering all it's limitations like short range and small column size, as well as the travel time on the spell it has a lot of downsides. The mastery I think in addition to the little dot should double it's range.

As discussed before, Storm Pillar having a chain lightning affect would be sweet. I actually expected the second part of it it to be aoe or chain or something, having it only affect one target at a time was a dissapointment, that and the splash range for the primary strike is incredibly small, and is the only part that procs the 10% dmg feat. The primary part is also buggy and doesn't crit or proc stuff. Also if they insist on keeping it like a charged cast power they need to make it so it auto fires if you hold down your mouse button each time it's full then refire automatically, it's a PITA otherwise.

Also I would love it if the final feat for the CC/Oppressor tree made it so all your CC's had a bonus effect depending on the type of CC and this bonus would apply could apply to CC immune targets. Chill (or slows in general like Stop Time) would gain -recharge speed debuff, knockbacks/prone would interupt, stuns could gain a dmg or defense debuff (chill strike, and freeze at 6 stacks are stuns).

And Chill debuffs should affect cc immune targets but just not slow or stun them. However this feat would make the stun portion apply the debuff at 6 stacks when frozen, and the recharge speed debuff (hopefully affecting mobs). It would make it a true controller class/spec. Maybe even using Repel for clutch interupts on abilities.