1) On 10 lvl you get a spell mastery slot on Tab.
3) I use Icy terrain for proc HV on tab, chill strike, CoI and RoE. You can change Icy Terrain for Icy Rays.
4) Cat is best for low-mid gear. If he could get lvl 10 enchantments, than stone will be better.
can you possibly link your build and check the feats out in this one bro is humen so has extra 3 points Link
I would switch Snap Freeze for Tempest Magic. In this build you will always have chills on your targets. With snap freeze, you will only get the benefit on your opening encounter, that's it.
uurbsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 449Bounty Hunter
edited July 2013
I've the Archmage set on my first L60 wizard (Woodelf -- started another as Tiefling, because of attributes & the race bonus), and it worked quite well, as long as I used him--with copticones Thaumaturge build.
I've the Archmage set on my first L60 wizard (Woodelf -- started another as Tiefling, because of attributes & the race bonus), and it worked quite well, as long as I used him--with copticones Thaumaturge build.
Do you have happen to know all the Control Encounters that worked with it?
Hey guys ty for help so far my bro is loveing CW at the moment he uses COI Chillingstrike Entanleforce and **** repel such a pain helping him level when he keeps pushing mobs miles away from me.
anways ive made a few changes to skills and feats here they are Link
would love some feedback on it and changes if needed but he cant change the first passive skill as he already put 2 points in it
Do you have happen to know all the Control Encounters that worked with it?
Based on what I've read, the set bonus applies to Icy Terrain, Chill Strike, Steal Time, Repel, Shield and Entangling Force. That also jives with my experience, although I haven't personally paid much attention to Repel, as I only use it situationally.
But the big one is Steal Time. All of the others will reduce your encounter cooldowns by 1 second. A full cast of Steal Time reduces encounter cooldowns by 4-5 seconds, because Steal Time ticks several times per cast.
But the big one is Steal Time. All of the others will reduce your encounter cooldowns by 1 second. A full cast of Steal Time reduces encounter cooldowns by 4-5 seconds, because Steal Time ticks several times per cast.
Yeah, good reminder. It's definitely a helpful set for new endgame 60s learning to actually control instead of burst nuke of questing.
Based on what I've read, the set bonus applies to Icy Terrain, Chill Strike, Steal Time, Repel, Shield and Entangling Force. That also jives with my experience, although I haven't personally paid much attention to Repel, as I only use it situationally.
But the big one is Steal Time. All of the others will reduce your encounter cooldowns by 1 second. A full cast of Steal Time reduces encounter cooldowns by 4-5 seconds, because Steal Time ticks several times per cast.
hmm I may play around with it for GG PvP running with the zerg
Greetings Copticone. First let me say THANK YOU for the wonderful information. I'm new to the mage class having always been a fighter type. Having a fighter class (GWF) however in NW does not seem to be desirable. After spending time and money gearing, slotting and even getting stone and cat...well...she is basically used only as a bank toon and produces professional workers. Sad but it is what it is. I am enjoying the caster, hehe...very much so, just so much to learn.
My question today is, being human class I have three more heroic points to spend. Been looking at taking 'Fight On' up to 5/5 instead of 3/5 to raise it from 6% to 10%, but that would leave me 1pt. Maybe just stick in toughness? Also looking at 'Learned Spellcaster', but not sure 3/5 for a 3% damage bonus is better or worth it.
I typically run with a TR static partner so I do concentrate more on control then DPS, but I want to be able to take care of myself and I guess the fighter is still in me because I still enjoy saying 'come to mama' to the critters. mawaaraahaahaa
I would love to hear your advice and suggestion.
Greetings Copticone. First let me say THANK YOU for the wonderful information. I'm new to the mage class having always been a fighter type. Having a fighter class (GWF) however in NW does not seem to be desirable. After spending time and money gearing, slotting and even getting stone and cat...well...she is basically used only as a bank toon and produces professional workers. Sad but it is what it is. I am enjoying the caster, hehe...very much so, just so much to learn.
My question today is, being human class I have three more heroic points to spend. Been looking at taking 'Fight On' up to 5/5 instead of 3/5 to raise it from 6% to 10%, but that would leave me 1pt. Maybe just stick in toughness? Also looking at 'Learned Spellcaster', but not sure 3/5 for a 3% damage bonus is better or worth it.
I typically run with a TR static partner so I do concentrate more on control then DPS, but I want to be able to take care of myself and I guess the fighter is still in me because I still enjoy saying 'come to mama' to the critters. mawaaraahaahaa
I would love to hear your advice and suggestion.
Any of the options you mentioned is fine. It is important to have a minimum amount of HP to be able to absorb the occasional big hit. If you have less than 22k hp, then definitely max Toughness. I also went with 5/5 Learned Spellcaster on my last respec just because I figured it is a flat increase no matter what I am slotting.
this looks awesome ive been a LONG fan of Chilling cloud and chill strike on tab. this build definatly fills up some issues with my current build.
0
shina78Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited August 2013
I am a lvl 23 CW and just been playing little over a week. I am still learning the basics. A fellow player directed me to your forum.
How would I go about scoring my abilities to maximize this awesome information that you have provided?
I am a lvl 23 CW and just been playing little over a week. I am still learning the basics. A fellow player directed me to your forum.
How would I go about scoring my abilities to maximize this awesome information that you have provided?
Not sure exactly what you're asking. If you are referring to Ability scores, I personally stacked INT and CHA.
Best advice I can give you, is not to follow my spec while leveling up. You're more than welcome to read it, and try to understand it. But it will be much better to get to 60 with experience using the many aspects of the class, before you decide which route to take. Also the spec really comes together when you have all your feat points available.
There are other very informative threads in the forum that would help you understand details about our powers and feats. I suggest you read as much as you can.
For a first character respecing can be expensive, though.
Praying at every opportunity, doing dailies, selling resources and enchants, by the time you hit 60 you should have 60-100k AD. I know this is a "F2P" game, but I think this is like any other hobby. If you can't afford to spend a few $$ here and there to enhance your experience, then you need to tone down your expectations.
I can go on for days criticizing Cryptic and PWE and the many issues I have with the game. But that doesn't diminish my obligation to financially support the game I like to play in order for it to continuously get better. In fact I think only the people that spend money in the game have a right to complain about the issues. I am not saying that everyone needs to go out and constantly buy Zen, but I think there are people who go out of their way to make sure they dont spend a dime. This train of thought is actually what leads some people to constantly find and abuse exploits.
Back to the point, there is no such thing as the "best" spec for any and all situations. A good CW player who understand the class will clear the entire game content with ANY spec. The question will always be, what is the spec that "best" compliments your playstyle. And you can't develop a playstyle when you do try different things.
I've tried this build and I regret it because every encounter that I've been in, it's better to pump out singularities than any other ability available to a CW.
Mastery: Entangling Force/Repel depending on whether or not you need to push mobs off of a ledge
Slots: Repel/Entangling Force + Steal Time + Shield
Nothing else matters. Get your AP up as fast as possible and drop a sing. Mastery of Entangling Force is a huge AP boost and boosted further by proper AP feats, not this freeze <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>... no offense. Good luck.
I wrestled with this myself at first. The thing is that Conduit of Ice really only shines as a control tool if it's on Mastery, and even then only if you combine it with Icy Terrain. So any time you feel (or your group recommends) that you should slot something else in the Mastery slot, the capstone feat of the Thaumaturge tree either becomes irrelevant (because you drop CoI from your rotation entirely) or sort of a burden (because you feel compelled to slot CoI in a non-Mastery slot, and therefore sacrifice control, just to get some benefit out of Assailing Force).
But as I experimented, I came to the following conclusion: tabbed CoI + Icy Terrain offers you better AoE control, over time, than any other combination of powers with which you could replace them. The freeze effect from both of those powers put together is that good -- or if prefer, it's just good enough that it blows away the alternatives, encounter-wise. That our freezy AoE combo also happens to convey a sizable mitigation debuff in a wide area is a delicious layer of icing.
That extra AoE control from encounter powers is often (I think usually) more than worth the loss in AP gain, relative to slotting Entangling Force in tab. If you fire off Shield judiciously, you shouldn't have problems generating AP even without EF, anyway.
Granted, there will be situations in which tabbed CoI isn't the best option. Sometimes you'll want Entangling Force in tab; sometimes you'll want Repel. And in those cases, you may very well have to act as if your capstone feat doesn't exist -- but here's the consolation: every capstone feat is like that, to a greater or lesser extent, at least for Wizards. Capstone feats are not necessarily supposed to be game-defining and playstyle-independent build features; they're just very nice perks. Your reward for investing 20 points in a single tree is that you get to buy one of the three most point-efficient feats available to the class.
None of the above is to say that Thaumaturge is the undisputed best build available. Any other Wizard can perform the CoI + Icy Terrain combo described above, if inclined. The only difference is that Thaumaturge gives you a nice damage boost to go along with the standard amount of control. And hey, maybe CoI + Icy Terrain doesn't suit your play style at all; that's reasonable too.
Icy Terrain is not viable in group situations unless you are just using it to proc more AP gain. Conduit of Ice is great for AP gain as well and little else...
Sure it is. Fire off tabbed Conduit on a big dude in the middle of a spawn, teleport nearby, drop Icy Terrain, and then throw Chilling Cloud at your leisure, watching as the mobs freeze intermittently for the next several seconds.
As I said before, you are absolutely right that the typical Thaumaturge power loadout doesn't build AP as quickly as does Entangling Force in the Spell Mastery slot -- but if you're not trying to punt mobs off a cliff, if you're just interested in killing them quickly and safely, tabbed CoI + Icy Terrain is more effective than just about anything else you could slot.
Having a build around freezing mobs is totally pointless because our best AP gain ability, Shield, throws mobs out of the Icy Terrain. This build is NOT viable, or rather, I highly disregard it as being viable.
A Thaumaturge doesn't use Shield pulse indiscriminately. My point was that once you *have* gained enough AP to use Singularity, you use Shield right beforehand to get most of your AP back.
I've tried this build and I regret it because every encounter that I've been in, it's better to pump out singularities than any other ability available to a CW.
Mastery: Entangling Force/Repel depending on whether or not you need to push mobs off of a ledge
Slots: Repel/Entangling Force + Steal Time + Shield
Nothing else matters. Get your AP up as fast as possible and drop a sing. Mastery of Entangling Force is a huge AP boost and boosted further by proper AP feats, not this freeze <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>... no offense. Good luck.
Why did you try this build to begin with? Never once did I say in the OP that this is a Singularity spam spec, which is obviously what you are looking for. Here is the best answer. There is no build for Singularity spam. In fact you can park all your paragon feats and not spend any points and still just walk around with EF on tab and spam Singularities all day.
If you are clearing all T2 Content, farming CN, can Solo dps last boss of DV, can deal with any group of adds (especially the ones that laugh at you when you throw a Singularity), can run any T2 without needing a specific party mix, can compensate for poorly geared/skilled party members, then all the power to you. It may well be the most boring way to play a CW, but hey if it appeals to you then go right ahead.
Others like to enjoy the many facets of the class, which includes massive AoE damage, Single target bursts, mob debuffing, party buffing, survivability/utility, and full CC on mobs not just a gathering ability. For these people I along with others in this forum suggest builds.
Right, I'm just clearing up any potential confusion, because you implied that my advice was based on less-than-epic content when you said the following:
"Mobs in epics, the more difficult mobs, do not freeze ..."
I'm not going to get into a war with you over this; let's just say that our experiences on the quote above differ. As I said before, your approach is certainly viable. I had a fairly extensive love affair with EF in the tab slot myself, so if anyone reading this wants to take your side and try those waters, more power to 'em.
Mobs in epics, the more difficult mobs, do not freeze and therefore walk right out of the Icy Terrain, making it useless to base a spec around. Useful to drop? Sure. Useful to spec for? Nope.
Arcane Singularity is by far the best tool that we have for control and dropping one as often as possible, and/or having one available for critical moments is a must. There is never a time when having a Singularity available is a bad thing. There is often a time when not having a Singularity available is a bad thing.
In situations where killing mobs is a priority over throwing them off of cliffs, it's still better to charge Singularity more quickly. It's great AOE damage, bunches mobs, and stuns them at the end of the duration. Therefore, since Entangling Force Mastery can at times charge even over 50% of our AP meter, it's by far the best choice for the mastery slot.
There are times when I have my Singularity back even before the one I just dropped expires. Nothing that the proposed build can do will top that. Are you freezing mobs often? Sure. Is it better than dropping back to back to back to back to back Singularities? Not even close.
Entangling Force Mastery then Shield Pulse after every Singularity will most likely restore the entire AP bar when specced correctly.
I guess with more difficult mobs u mean big elites, which can't be CCed...guess what, neither freeze nor Singularity works on them...
I agree it isn't literally bad to have Singularity ready, but it isn't necessary when mobs are dead. And this spec gives by far the most dmg output I've tried so far. Also I'd like to know what your Singularity does to ranged mobs/casters who merily continue puting red circles under party's feet. Thing is, the spell just drags the mobs to certain place, but the CC itself (aka mobs not doing anything) is tied only to the very last part of the animation.
When you are using tab CoI+IT combo along with occasional chilling clowds weaved in, mobs are being frozen very often, which interrupts any casts/swing animations on them. I quite disagree with Sing being great AOE damage compared to AOE potential of this spec.
This spec is very viable, I'm clearing CN with it on daily basis. The only time when I switch to tab entangling is on shield duty at Draco.
Comments
3) I use Icy terrain for proc HV on tab, chill strike, CoI and RoE. You can change Icy Terrain for Icy Rays.
4) Cat is best for low-mid gear. If he could get lvl 10 enchantments, than stone will be better.
http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=ixr:4t4hc:b8hv,13h0ih0:6u000:bu0zv:60000&h=0
I would switch Snap Freeze for Tempest Magic. In this build you will always have chills on your targets. With snap freeze, you will only get the benefit on your opening encounter, that's it.
Do you have happen to know all the Control Encounters that worked with it?
anways ive made a few changes to skills and feats here they are Link
would love some feedback on it and changes if needed but he cant change the first passive skill as he already put 2 points in it
Based on what I've read, the set bonus applies to Icy Terrain, Chill Strike, Steal Time, Repel, Shield and Entangling Force. That also jives with my experience, although I haven't personally paid much attention to Repel, as I only use it situationally.
But the big one is Steal Time. All of the others will reduce your encounter cooldowns by 1 second. A full cast of Steal Time reduces encounter cooldowns by 4-5 seconds, because Steal Time ticks several times per cast.
Yeah, good reminder. It's definitely a helpful set for new endgame 60s learning to actually control instead of burst nuke of questing.
hmm I may play around with it for GG PvP running with the zerg
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Nope, but I'll try Xira's build with him in the next couple of days and can check than.
My question today is, being human class I have three more heroic points to spend. Been looking at taking 'Fight On' up to 5/5 instead of 3/5 to raise it from 6% to 10%, but that would leave me 1pt. Maybe just stick in toughness? Also looking at 'Learned Spellcaster', but not sure 3/5 for a 3% damage bonus is better or worth it.
I typically run with a TR static partner so I do concentrate more on control then DPS, but I want to be able to take care of myself and I guess the fighter is still in me because I still enjoy saying 'come to mama' to the critters. mawaaraahaahaa
I would love to hear your advice and suggestion.
Any of the options you mentioned is fine. It is important to have a minimum amount of HP to be able to absorb the occasional big hit. If you have less than 22k hp, then definitely max Toughness. I also went with 5/5 Learned Spellcaster on my last respec just because I figured it is a flat increase no matter what I am slotting.
How would I go about scoring my abilities to maximize this awesome information that you have provided?
Not sure exactly what you're asking. If you are referring to Ability scores, I personally stacked INT and CHA.
Best advice I can give you, is not to follow my spec while leveling up. You're more than welcome to read it, and try to understand it. But it will be much better to get to 60 with experience using the many aspects of the class, before you decide which route to take. Also the spec really comes together when you have all your feat points available.
There are other very informative threads in the forum that would help you understand details about our powers and feats. I suggest you read as much as you can.
For a first character respecing can be expensive, though.
Praying at every opportunity, doing dailies, selling resources and enchants, by the time you hit 60 you should have 60-100k AD. I know this is a "F2P" game, but I think this is like any other hobby. If you can't afford to spend a few $$ here and there to enhance your experience, then you need to tone down your expectations.
I can go on for days criticizing Cryptic and PWE and the many issues I have with the game. But that doesn't diminish my obligation to financially support the game I like to play in order for it to continuously get better. In fact I think only the people that spend money in the game have a right to complain about the issues. I am not saying that everyone needs to go out and constantly buy Zen, but I think there are people who go out of their way to make sure they dont spend a dime. This train of thought is actually what leads some people to constantly find and abuse exploits.
Back to the point, there is no such thing as the "best" spec for any and all situations. A good CW player who understand the class will clear the entire game content with ANY spec. The question will always be, what is the spec that "best" compliments your playstyle. And you can't develop a playstyle when you do try different things.
I wrestled with this myself at first. The thing is that Conduit of Ice really only shines as a control tool if it's on Mastery, and even then only if you combine it with Icy Terrain. So any time you feel (or your group recommends) that you should slot something else in the Mastery slot, the capstone feat of the Thaumaturge tree either becomes irrelevant (because you drop CoI from your rotation entirely) or sort of a burden (because you feel compelled to slot CoI in a non-Mastery slot, and therefore sacrifice control, just to get some benefit out of Assailing Force).
But as I experimented, I came to the following conclusion: tabbed CoI + Icy Terrain offers you better AoE control, over time, than any other combination of powers with which you could replace them. The freeze effect from both of those powers put together is that good -- or if prefer, it's just good enough that it blows away the alternatives, encounter-wise. That our freezy AoE combo also happens to convey a sizable mitigation debuff in a wide area is a delicious layer of icing.
That extra AoE control from encounter powers is often (I think usually) more than worth the loss in AP gain, relative to slotting Entangling Force in tab. If you fire off Shield judiciously, you shouldn't have problems generating AP even without EF, anyway.
Granted, there will be situations in which tabbed CoI isn't the best option. Sometimes you'll want Entangling Force in tab; sometimes you'll want Repel. And in those cases, you may very well have to act as if your capstone feat doesn't exist -- but here's the consolation: every capstone feat is like that, to a greater or lesser extent, at least for Wizards. Capstone feats are not necessarily supposed to be game-defining and playstyle-independent build features; they're just very nice perks. Your reward for investing 20 points in a single tree is that you get to buy one of the three most point-efficient feats available to the class.
None of the above is to say that Thaumaturge is the undisputed best build available. Any other Wizard can perform the CoI + Icy Terrain combo described above, if inclined. The only difference is that Thaumaturge gives you a nice damage boost to go along with the standard amount of control. And hey, maybe CoI + Icy Terrain doesn't suit your play style at all; that's reasonable too.
Sure it is. Fire off tabbed Conduit on a big dude in the middle of a spawn, teleport nearby, drop Icy Terrain, and then throw Chilling Cloud at your leisure, watching as the mobs freeze intermittently for the next several seconds.
As I said before, you are absolutely right that the typical Thaumaturge power loadout doesn't build AP as quickly as does Entangling Force in the Spell Mastery slot -- but if you're not trying to punt mobs off a cliff, if you're just interested in killing them quickly and safely, tabbed CoI + Icy Terrain is more effective than just about anything else you could slot.
That's not always true. Singularity isn't necessarily our best control tool.
A Thaumaturge doesn't use Shield pulse indiscriminately. My point was that once you *have* gained enough AP to use Singularity, you use Shield right beforehand to get most of your AP back.
But just to be clear, I've been talking about epic dungeons this entire time.
Why did you try this build to begin with? Never once did I say in the OP that this is a Singularity spam spec, which is obviously what you are looking for. Here is the best answer. There is no build for Singularity spam. In fact you can park all your paragon feats and not spend any points and still just walk around with EF on tab and spam Singularities all day.
If you are clearing all T2 Content, farming CN, can Solo dps last boss of DV, can deal with any group of adds (especially the ones that laugh at you when you throw a Singularity), can run any T2 without needing a specific party mix, can compensate for poorly geared/skilled party members, then all the power to you. It may well be the most boring way to play a CW, but hey if it appeals to you then go right ahead.
Others like to enjoy the many facets of the class, which includes massive AoE damage, Single target bursts, mob debuffing, party buffing, survivability/utility, and full CC on mobs not just a gathering ability. For these people I along with others in this forum suggest builds.
Right, I'm just clearing up any potential confusion, because you implied that my advice was based on less-than-epic content when you said the following:
"Mobs in epics, the more difficult mobs, do not freeze ..."
I'm not going to get into a war with you over this; let's just say that our experiences on the quote above differ. As I said before, your approach is certainly viable. I had a fairly extensive love affair with EF in the tab slot myself, so if anyone reading this wants to take your side and try those waters, more power to 'em.
I guess with more difficult mobs u mean big elites, which can't be CCed...guess what, neither freeze nor Singularity works on them...
I agree it isn't literally bad to have Singularity ready, but it isn't necessary when mobs are dead. And this spec gives by far the most dmg output I've tried so far. Also I'd like to know what your Singularity does to ranged mobs/casters who merily continue puting red circles under party's feet. Thing is, the spell just drags the mobs to certain place, but the CC itself (aka mobs not doing anything) is tied only to the very last part of the animation.
When you are using tab CoI+IT combo along with occasional chilling clowds weaved in, mobs are being frozen very often, which interrupts any casts/swing animations on them. I quite disagree with Sing being great AOE damage compared to AOE potential of this spec.
This spec is very viable, I'm clearing CN with it on daily basis. The only time when I switch to tab entangling is on shield duty at Draco.