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Hard Control and the Unfortunate Bug (Long Post, Numbers Inside)

demattodematto Member Posts: 0 Arc User
edited May 2013 in The Library
Greetings! I play a 60 dwarven wizard on Mindflayer. Love the game. Love D&D. Love Control Magic. There's nothing more satisfying to me than shutting a creature down for the rest of it's rapidly shortening lifespan. In that vein, I've been contemplating the value of Wisdom and the "Control Bonus" stat, which lead me to perform this experiment. There is a TLDR at the bottom.


The goal was to simply observe the durations on some of our control effects, with an eye toward extrapolating a possible valuation of the +CC Bonus and +CC Duration. My thinking is that, with 4 encounters available, if each control effect lasts, say, 3 seconds, then the value of wisdom and orb3 would be far more noticeable, as each encounter would gain roughly a second of control, leading to a four second increase in rotation lockdown, which when coupled with high recovery and naturally high wisdom would lead us to a near permanent lockdown ability, particularly useful in a PVP environment, but potentially useful in some future content that prioritizes small numbers of bulky adds during a boss fight, or casters that can heal a boss significantly while being difficult to damage.

Data Collection was performed on the Training Dummies inside Trade of Blades in the hope that they would have no protection against CCs attempted. Because I already know that freeze breaks early to damage, I discarded any results where someone began attacking my control target. I am not certain if arcane locks like Stun, Daze or Choke break early to damage; in any case, no damage was applied beyond what the spell itself applies. All spells were tested under two different conditions (with and without Orb3), and when possible the spells were gauged in two separate trials. A "Full Cast Trial" starts the moment I press the button to perform the attack and ends as soon as the last debuff wears off (watching only the natural debuff of the spell, not debuffs introduced by feats). The second trial, when possible, was to purely measure the desired control effect of the spell. For the latter two spells tested, this second trial was not performed, as the entire duration of the spell is what I would consider a Control Effect. My second Class Feature for all experiments was Evocation 3. All tests were recorded at 21 Wisdom. No potions were used. All spells were tested at Rank 3. No gear should have affected the durations. As a Renegade spec, none of my feats should have affected the outcome. Each test recorded 15 times and the results were averaged together.

Results
Entangling Force
-Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 6.114 seconds
---Average Duration of Levitation: 5.123 seconds
-No Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 6.027 seconds
---Average Duration of Levitation: 5.131 seconds

Tabbed Chill Strike
-Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 4.283 seconds
---Average Duration of an Unhindered Freeze (impact to end): 3.021 seconds
-No Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 4.528 seconds
---Average Duration of an Unhindered Freeze: 3.087 seconds

Normal Chill Strike
-Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 4.312 seconds
---Average Duration of an Unhindered Freeze: 3.091 seconds
-No Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 4.404 seconds
---Average Duration of an Unhindered Freeze: 3.00 seconds

Steal Time
-Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 6.907 seconds
---Average Duration of the Stun (end of channel to end of debuff): 5.188 seconds
-No Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 6.976 seconds
---Average Duration of the Stun: 5.128 seconds

Icy Terrain
-Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 15.207 seconds
-No Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 15.17 seconds

Ray of Enfeeblement
-Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 5.830 seconds
-No Orb
---Average Full Cast Duration: 5.911 seconds.

Interpretation
Latency and reaction time are beyond my control, and are the most likely source for many of the minor differences, such as when an No Orb trial reports a longer duration than an Orb trial. Similarly, the system which grants the Targets protection to CC, if any, is unknown.

Regarding the initial goal of finding out whether or not a CC Duration Boost is worthwhile to the wizard who chooses to specialize in it, the results of this test seem positive. In a closed environment, many of our powers have durations longer than I had anticipated previously. These durations may lend themselves well to the wizard who chooses to capitalize on a +30% duration increase.

TL; DR The results seem to suggest that Orb of Imposition is bugged and has no effect on the duration of our control powers. I was unable to test whether or not the wisdom stat is properly adding to our CC duration.

Comments

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    honoraryorangehonoraryorange Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I think you should test this on something your level and see if the results are the same. We've already seen that using skills against training dummies gives odd results due to their complete lack of any resists and low level.
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    demattodematto Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I'll keep that in mind for this weekend.
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