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So are there any wizards that actually focus on control?
spacejew
Member Posts: 1,044 Bounty Hunter
Pretty much what the title says. I see post after post here in the CW forums comparing damage, but no one seems to mention team utility, add lock down, or debuff for team synergy. Especially in the Renegade tree, which at first blush provides the most team utility out of any tree I've looked at. Sure, you do more damage with Renegade too but honestly the team utility is what drew me to it. (Not to say it does the 'most' damage or not, it just does increase your damage along with the teams.)
This matches my experience playing with most CW that do great damage, yet make the dungeon exponentially more difficult for the Cleric and GWF. I also see people saying 'excess control is wasted', but I'm not really sure what they mean by that. Entangling Force on Tab builds 5 instant stacks of Arcane Mastery, which leads straight into a Steal Time which locks down every add in a stupid huge AoE. Ray of Enfeeblement on any CC immune big add's, and Shield to protect my HAMSTER and in a pinch fire off before AS wears off for insane AP gain. A follow up Steal Time pops AS again instantly.
Even building for pure AoE crowd control, the Wizard seems to do pretty darn good damage. I just don't see the point in paying any attention to the 'damage done' column when playing a wizard. If the group finished the dungeon, even though they were under geared and completely inexperienced, that means you did your job right?
Of course, I understand if you're an Ice Mage. Those pretty much outclass GWF in every respect. I'd still want an arcane focused CC wizard in the group though.
The only reason I even ask the above question is because after playing a CW the way I wanted CW to be played on my GWF I've completed every dungeon without any problems in the queue. Maybe it's just because I know all the fights already, but man keeping the add's locked down 100% of the time is pretty boss. Doesn't matter if the rest of the party is incompetent, there's nothing they can do to screw up if the add's are no longer a threat.
I don't really see a point in knocking things off of ledges either. I mean, they're stunned literally all the time and to be honest I have yet to see a pick up group where one of my team mates don't go off the ledge along with the add's. (Yeah, I know, incompetence. I think it's probably happened to us all, at one point or another.)
This matches my experience playing with most CW that do great damage, yet make the dungeon exponentially more difficult for the Cleric and GWF. I also see people saying 'excess control is wasted', but I'm not really sure what they mean by that. Entangling Force on Tab builds 5 instant stacks of Arcane Mastery, which leads straight into a Steal Time which locks down every add in a stupid huge AoE. Ray of Enfeeblement on any CC immune big add's, and Shield to protect my HAMSTER and in a pinch fire off before AS wears off for insane AP gain. A follow up Steal Time pops AS again instantly.
Even building for pure AoE crowd control, the Wizard seems to do pretty darn good damage. I just don't see the point in paying any attention to the 'damage done' column when playing a wizard. If the group finished the dungeon, even though they were under geared and completely inexperienced, that means you did your job right?
Of course, I understand if you're an Ice Mage. Those pretty much outclass GWF in every respect. I'd still want an arcane focused CC wizard in the group though.
The only reason I even ask the above question is because after playing a CW the way I wanted CW to be played on my GWF I've completed every dungeon without any problems in the queue. Maybe it's just because I know all the fights already, but man keeping the add's locked down 100% of the time is pretty boss. Doesn't matter if the rest of the party is incompetent, there's nothing they can do to screw up if the add's are no longer a threat.
I don't really see a point in knocking things off of ledges either. I mean, they're stunned literally all the time and to be honest I have yet to see a pick up group where one of my team mates don't go off the ledge along with the add's. (Yeah, I know, incompetence. I think it's probably happened to us all, at one point or another.)
MoF/Thaum CW SS/Thaum CW IV/Protector GF SW/Combat HR SM/Destroyer GWF WK/Executioner TR DO/Faithful DC
Post edited by spacejew on
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My build's a bit wonky and all over the place, but once I hit a high enough level I can use my free respec and get rid of the things I don't use and tweak it so it works more efficiently. What I'd like is a nice revamp of the oppressor paragon tree and for a nice guide on crowd control that's not disguised as a 'go renegade or thaum for damage' thread.
People in this game seem to have a distinct lack of respect for support-minded classes and players.
LOL Touche.
Yea there is so much misinformation in the OP, I don't even know where to begin. It's also been beaten to death on 10,000 other threads. These kinds of posts do nothing except create tension between players. Maybe the absolute BEST advice, is to stop reading guides/builds/etc.. and just come up with the best way you want to play your CW. If 99% of CWs want to place 1st in damage, and all you want to do is be a pure CC Wiz, then do it and forget about what the other 99% are saying.
your idea is somewhat self-centered, the objective in dungeons is not to be the top damage dealer, but to finish it efficiently.
Just like what he said renegade is a big help in the group, everyone can be benefited by its feats.
I know you want to promote your thaumaturge, but you dont have to bash other builds.
Seems to me that all people ever want to talk about with CW's is renegade vs thaumaturge damage. Just as the OP is asking, he wants to know about crowd control, not damage. Personally, I don't give a flying HAMSTER in space about damage; I just like seeing big groups of frozen mobs or mobs flying off into the distance and away from the clerics.
In my honest opinion, CW is an extreme hybrid between crowd control and damage. It's very poorly designed with a giant hodgepodge of feats and abilities that do the same thing in not-so-different ways and yet be so different in playstyle and then yet again do the exact same thing. Finding the build that's right for you with CW is irritating and tiresome, at best, mostly due to the community which is rapidly becoming elitist. Give it another year and you'll be overrun by real elitists like WoW and approaching the asinine elitism seen in the original guild wars where nobody will be invited to groups without a very specific build.
They need to come out with an actual damage-dealing caster class like sorcerer or warlock before people turn the wizard into something it's really not.
I dont quite get it why you have to quote mine, im not against any build here.
but i do agree that it is poorly design, because some feats are not relevant to its path.
I was really just looking for people's opinion. I just looked at the first page of the CW forums, most of the topics I was reading through talk about damage including yours. I'm not even saying it's bad, it does great. I was just seeing if anyone else plays CW as a primarily CC class, because it looks like most of the guides and build discussions center around creating damage yourself first and group utility second, if at all. Seems that doing it that way works fantastically, I see CW that do tons of damage and keep things locked down. I tend to agree it's just what you're looking for. (And my comments about some mages that make things take longer was about them them making things impossible by slotting no CC at all. I should have been more specific.)
I guess I was asking mainly because I was looking for other like minded CC folks that had any decent advice for T2 when approaching it from a 'I don't care about me, I care about the group' perspective. I'm phasing out my GWF and moving over to CW as my primary class because I want to finish T2 content more consistently and I know I can do better than a lot of the CW I've teamed with.
I can totally see where people are coming from if they have a really good group they play with, I'm just trying to PUG effectively. I'm nearing level 60, and I'm just trying to get some perspectives here. Basically I'm asking if if the extra output in damage by switching out some of the CC is really required from the CW to clear the content, or if I can continue focusing completely on debuff/buff/control.
EDIT:
Just wanted to be clear that I'm not advancing a build, I was looking at Cap's damage build guide and used it as a basis for a Chill AoE DPS mage. I just found that I didn't care for the unreliable 'hold' associated with Frozen. Cap made a great comment about Steal Time in my build thread, and after using that ability it made me really look at the Arcane powers and they are really nice if you're not interested in doing pure DPS but want more CC/debuff. Or mix it, if you want. After trying them all out, I decided to respec into Arcane, and more specifically renegade, because it offered a lot of team synergy and I feel that's something that a lot of people dismiss out of hand.
I'm a great player. I'm not the best, but I'm good. If I can use my skill to help out the entire team and not just LOL in their face when they fall behind in raw DPS, then why not? I'm not sure T2 is clearable without the CW picking up some of the DPS slack, but right after a big nerf to the healer class I think a solid CC player will always have a place in groups. I just hope I don't need to pick up any DPS slack, but that's not really what I'm into. If I was shooting for that, I'd just switch to my TR alt for some teleporting facestabbity. (Mainly because I like melee DPS, and rogue is just a blast to play. Not because I think CW is a slouch in DPS or anything.)
I don't care which class is 'best' at damage, I like variability in what class I'm playing from day to day. I tend to get really bored with the same play style of any class after a few hours. That's why my CW will be level 60 tomorrow, on top of my two other 60's. (They don't take long to get, that's for sure.)
You actually quote my entire post with these statements? I mean NOTHING in my reply had ANYTHING to do with being self centered, NOTHING was about doing damage, NOTHING was about promoting anything or bashing ANYTHING. OMG, I actually gave the advice to play your CW as you see fit instead of following Guides/Spec/Builds!
It seems that some people just want to argue for sake of it.
@spacejew The reason you won't find any build/spec/guide pertaining solely to CC, is because such builds don't exists. You want to force the CW into something that really isn't designed for. Any CW, no matter WHAT the spec can do the exact same CC with the exact same effectiveness. That's why the guildes are just about things that really are different from one tree to the other.
When it comes to CC, no build has better Entagling Force, better Steel Time, Better Shield Pulse and more importantly better Singularity.
You're asking for Party support? I for example the way I am specced, geared, slotted, I do the following:
Plaguefire = Debuffing all target. Good for the entire Party.
Singularities = Good for Entire Party
Steel Time stuns = Good for entire Party
Throwing mobs off the ledges = Good for the entire Party
Constant and continuous Chill Stacking for max Freeze CC = Good for the entire Party.
Elemental Empowerment = 10% debuff on all targets. Good for entire Party
Conduit of Ice = 15% debuff on all its targets. Good for entire party
High Vizier set = % debuff on all targets. Good for the entire party
All this without sacrificing damage. Can you tell me what content do you feel that you need to provide even more support for your party? And if so, what tree/spec/build/feats/powers would you take to give you a huge boost to any of the above?
I'm really sorry but I'm not going to include Plaguefire in any mental calculus I perform on CW. Chill's nice and all but getting any real 'control' out of freeze took too long for it be useful in heavy add fights and the class skills seemed pretty all or nothing on Ice, which seems to constitute most of the 'DPS' abilities (Outside of some Lightening of course.)
So I figured I would concentrate on Arcane Stacks, as they do the most buffage to my CC rotation (Virtually the only stack that does, really). The extra 15% on Orb of Imposition is just too good for me to pass up, and either Evocation or Chilling Presence don't seem like 'enough' on their own if I'm already concentrating on mostly recovery/crit for the Combat Advantage in Nightmare Wizardry. (And yes I have noticed it applies to myself as well, didn't know it did that to everyone. I was hoping it was just shield doing it, guess not 0.o )
Like I said, not arguing builds or anything just wondering if people concentrate on things other than DPS and what they use in doing so. I know you're interested in DPS first, I read your guide, and it has things that helped me but stacking chill isn't something I care to do. I'd have to skip one of the arcane CC/Debuff abilities to fit in on my power bar, and I'm just wondering if you must or if that's just your preference.
Remember, I'm trying to baby sit HAMSTER in PUG's not do champ Guild DPS. I 100% agree with you that Thaumaturge looks solid for DPS. It doesn't offer much team utility in direct support beyond the cap, and the added DPS to me personally doesn't matter. I'm looking for support options, not DPS.
It seems like the answer must be 'no' since no one has really chimed in on it beyond talking about viability of individual feat trees. I have no idea what does/does not work correctly although every day I come across something else. So when things deviate greatly from what the tooltip says it's nice to know. (Such as applying combat advantage accidentally to your entire group.)
I will say this about builds though, when some of the abilities do drastically different things from the tooltip it's more about which build uses feats that actually work versus one's that actively screw you. I would never have expected Nightmare Wizardry to apply to either me or the party. (Although can you confirm it applies to party members, and which abilities do? That's a pretty big deal...if it's just to me I can live with it for now.)
EDIT:
One of the big reasons I don't like your Thurmaturge spec is that it doesn't include Ray of Enfeeblement, which I love. I'm also one of the people that like Storm Pillar in certain situations. I also liked Chilling Cloud, but since I'm not trying to stack freeze it's a little redundant. I liked Reaping Strike on a GWF, so I'm definitely in the small minority that doesn't mind charge-up attacks.
I think you are signing off on alot of what I said without even considering their impacts. I Freeze targets every 2-3 seconds, and we're talking 5+ targets at a time, constantly, non stop. Stun unlimited target around me. Debuffing all targets around me by at least 30% (even without counting Plaguefire). I really am not sure what more you are looking for. If you want to pump out more CC out of the CW, you need to ask the Devs for different Powers/Feats. That's really the bottom line. It's not like Classes in this game are really deep or sophisticated in any way. If powers/feat tooltips were written in a much better way, we would have unlocked everything about every class in less than a month. If you are looking for a game where classes can be played in 10+ different ways, and a year later people are still coming up with creative builds for them, this game is DEFINITELY not it.
Enchants are too expensive, both in real world money and my time to play the market, to bother with doing anything with them outside of weekly chances at a Coalescent Ward with weekly coins. As for Plaguefire, don't even get me started on P2W enchants. Have you fully slotted your Tenebrous yet? To be brutally honest, I'm pretty sure some of the enchants make almost any feat setup viable.
I really do understand everything you're saying to me. You're filling in the downtime on Steal Time with freeze. (And please, FFS it's Steal Time, not 'Steel Time'.) It's basically an AoE slow/occasional interrupt. I read your guide. Why are you reposting it? You're trying to sell it a little hard. Perhaps I should throw in Icy Terrain and Chilling Cloud as a filler and stack while their stunned out. It's just that they break so darn quickly that's almost not even worth the 3-4 seconds to stack it. (Keeping in mind that I want to build arcane stacks faster.) I think it's just hard to break myself of thinking of Chill as a DPS stack, but really it's both.
After doing a Spider Temple, I definitely need to take a second look so I'm feating into Icy Terrain to check it out. I should at least consider it given that I'm shooting for Control more than DPS, so really I don't need to take out the Class Features I prefer or the feats I like to use the same rotation. It's also hard to deny that at least Freeze has a CC component, whereas Storm Pillar does not. For boss fights I can always swap things out, and Entangling Force is...less useful in a boss fight and Arcane Mastery isn't as important to build quickly. It was a bad group though, Ray of Enfeeblement still seems hard to pass up unless you've got P2W enchants.
There really aren't any more 'CC' oriented abilities beyond Icy Terrain and Chilling Cloud, and I've already got cloud and can easily fit in Icy Terrain. I wasn't really sure to put my last five points into, so that pretty much answers that.
You're constantly making assumptions about anything that is said. Just FYI, I paid for the Guardian Pack $49 to support the game. Aside from having an Epic mount, it didnt contribute anything else towards my CW in its current state. I later spend $10 just to try my luck on Keys. That's it. That's all I spent. My highest enchant on the CW is Rank6. For Weapon/Armor enchant I am still using Lessers, and not even worrying about upgrading. Since most of the time I am doing PvE, Tenebrous is not even something I want. Stat enchants are much better. Many of the people I run with are in the same boat, and we constantly clear CN, Dreadvault and what not. I have ran with people who turned 60 and then spent $$ to deck themselves out from the AH, and fail miserably on runs.
I am not going to give you anymore advice, since it is definitely not needed. It is very clear that you have a specific picture in your head about the CW class, how it plays out, and what is needed to be successful in the game. You may be completely right about everything.
This was an edit to my above post but I was doing that while you were replying apparently lol.
Yep, works fine although since I'm Renegade I prefer keeping Entangling Force on my tab for add's just to gather them in one place. Really helps a ton with keeping things bunched up on the Icy Terrain and for keeping them clustered enough to hit them all with Chilling Strike's third hit. I can see where you would want CoI on tab for a Thaumaturge, but the chill stacks you get from it being on Tab seem unnecessary to me. Also TBH Arcane Singularity works pretty well to keep them on the patch, but both the hold and the gather are just fine. Plus it builds Arcane Mastery stacks a lot faster for better Steal Time holds in shorter fights while giving you more AP if you feated for it in your base feats like I did.
So now I'm rotating the following:
Teleport > Icy Terrain > Tab Entangling Force > Steal Time > Chilling Cloud x2 > Magic Missile x1
I'm obviously packing Shield as well, but it only comes into the rotation when AS is required. Otherwise I need it to keep the add's for punching my teeth down my throat until they freeze. It at least gives me an AoE option on my second at-will that could be called CC.
I'd almost forgotten about Chilling Cloud and after doing a test on a Chill DPS spec I was totally blind to the freeze effect since it most certainly does not work well with pure Chill as a CC. It's pure DPS, versus control, and I didn't much care for it hence the change up with the free respec to a more arcane focus.
I still think that virtually all the enchants are P2W with 1% fusions, but that's an entirely different thread.
EDIT:
Mobs do break the freeze pretty fast, but it's close to enough time for Steal Time to be up again. It's just a way to stretch the CC a tiny bit further. I think with end tier gear it should be enough, and either way the slow is better than nothing.
Also, you should maybe not worry so much about what feats people have chosen and worry more about what other people are trying to do versus what you think they should be doing. Even though you like to say 'play what you want' you've made it pretty clear what you think the only viable option is.
With a game that hasn't even been released yet reliable well tested info does not exist. We need people trying different things.
Funny how the only useful "CC" we get is the Daily Power: Singularity. Repel is hit and miss, especially since it seems they have made many NPCs immune to avoid content skipping. Ice Storm is for idiots who just want to HAMSTER off their tanks and TRs. I suppose one COULD teleport into the melee, Steal Time (tabbed, so that you daze AND speedboost) then immediately Maelstrom (prone all nearby targets) and run out.
Honestly, with how pathetically weak the Oppressor tree currently is (since it's listed under the entirely wrong Paragon Path to begin with), and all of the nasty bugs in Renegade right now, the only really viable option is Thaumaturge (to my chagrin, as I love Renegade playstyle).
You COULD try one of the newer Lifesteal/Regen/Deflect gear builds + Thaumaturge feat spec. One of my guildies says this is working remarkably well in non-exploit CN runs. Requires less healing from Clerics, does moderate-high damage, offers good utility, isn't gimped by totally broken or bugged feats & powers like Oppressor & Renegade are.
I can see where you're coming from, and I appreciate some of the information. I don't appreciate the rampant opinion you've put in, such as saying that Steal Time is only useful as a Tab skill. It's definitely better but it stuns for a pretty darn good duration off of tab. The combat advantage is definitely useful, although the speed buff I don't really need.
I'll try it out, since Entangling Force's gather isn't always useful but it is fairly useful. I also haven't noticed anything breaking the CC on Entangling Force, although I have noticed that Steal Time likes to start it's cool down without applying the effect if I just teleported. (On top of starting the cool down and not applying the effect to mobs during the 'pop up' phase of Arcane Singularity, although sometimes it works so I'm thinking it's a timing issue.)
I see putting Steal Time on Tab with Thaumaturge but TBH Renegade applies it often enough that I feel pretty comfortable leaving some Combat Advantage behind for taking a mean Elite out of the fight pretty much permanently. Freeze is a 'might be useful, might not be useful' immob/hold/slow depending on how much AoE your group pumps out.
I'll be really honest, one of the really nice things about Control Wizards is that your encounters can be switched out and your class skill changed constantly in a dungeon. So I can actually change my loadout, on the fly, based on how competent the group seems. That's a big selling point to me.
People keep implying things heavily without coming out and saying them. So does renegade apply Combat Advantage to my group, or just me? I don't care if it's just me, after all this is a CC rotation. If you don't know for sure, just stop talking about it. I'm fine if add's are getting combat advantage versus me, they're locked down and I'm kiting so I can at least evade when I see the purple face on my life bar. If it applies to the group, then I need to know which abilities apply it and seriously consider a respec.
It's like TRs not using smoke bomb because most think "TRs must focus on single target damage". fk that.
CWs can also focus on damage, it's not like they can control more that what they do anyway...
I want this class in NW.
I don't know, I've seen a whole lot of mages shooting lighting and while a lot of them seem to use one or two of the CC abilities few seem to use them all together. Including me I guess, since I'd forgotten about Freeze. Still need to try running it through Spider Temple, I'll do that today.
That's exactly the point. All CWs no matter what feat they use, pretty much have access to the same CCs. CC consists of Freezing, Stunning, Slowing, Knocking Back, and gathering mobs in a tight bunch. Knowing what to slot for a given fight, and when to use said abilities is what separates one CW from the next. Some people think it's all about spamming Singularities, yet in terms of PURE CC (aside from using it to knock things off the ledges) it's not high on the list. Mobs can still swing at you up until the moment they get sucked up. Range mobs/casters can still fire their AoEs while being sucked up.
So like you said, after you've mastered the timing of these CCs, there is only one thing left a CW can do to make things even much better for the party, and that's DPS.
Or buffing the groups damage along with your own, that seems legitimate enough as well. I was just fishing for a solid CC rotation which has been pretty well settled for me. Obviously not perfect for every fight, but it's good for trash clearing through Spellplague and Spider.
Entangle on tab is pretty nice CC when combined with icy terrain and CoI; while they're in their group you can use chilling cloud if you have good cold damage through feats. Throw in ray of enfeeblement on the tougher mobs for debuffing purposes. Add in a decent wisdom score and your crowd control will last longer; I've seen my entangle last a good 5-6 seconds in PvE and I'm only lvl 39. It's not much in the way of damage, but then, I'm not there for damaging mobs, I'm there to keep mobs from damaging my party.
My biggest issue with ice-based crowd control is chill doesn't last nearly long enough and frozen is too easily broken via damage. Fix this and add better crowd control options and the oppressor path will be more viable.
Nightmare Wizardry is proc'ing on me when I cast shield, haven't seen it proc on my teams yet but the text just might not show up. I'll need to play with the text to show team mates cast floaters. It seems to proc on me from Magic Missile somehow too, I'm thinking maybe the Renegade cap buff is applying Nightmare Wizardry as well?
I've been using Entangling Force on Tab for the five Arcane Stacks, so really it depends if Shard gives stacks for hitting multiple targets. It states on the tooltip it slowly builds arcane stacks while I'm near it...how effective is that? Also, is Shard target capped? If not, and if you had enough recovery, I might consider swapping out non-tabbed Steal Time and seeing how that went. Don't get me wrong, Steal Time is awesome but the five target limit on it makes me want to try other options at the very least.
I tried CoI on tab, even though I'm not a Thaumaturge, and it seemed like the extra chill stacks were superfluous. Maybe if your group just pumps out mad AoE DPS, since they'll shatter faster, but TBH if your group is that amazing it's all for the slow effect and not the freeze anyway. (In my mind, coming from a 'control' standpoint.) Chilling Cloud and Icy Terrain totally stack it fast enough if you go Icy Terrain > Steal Time > Chilling Cloud X2. They'll freeze just after the 'stun' wears off. At least it does with 2k Recovery and a 17 Wisdom.
It's just really hard to give up instant 5 Arcane Stacks, a strong hold effect, and a mini-gather all-in-one. It makes it so easy to keep a lot of add's stacked in your Icy Terrain.
Of course, on really long big boss fights I take Entangling Force out and put in either Push (For extra add knock offs), Ray of Enfeeblement (For dragons or elder brains!), or conceivably even Conduit of Ice (for the slow effect it puts on enemies trying to attack a kiting cleric). Sometimes I even switch these out mid-fight depending on the phase, but it's risky unless the tank has the bosses attention.
I think that's what I like most about the Control Wizard, Encounter abilities are actually encounter abilities, you're not really locked into anything except your 'spell book' of powers. Some of the powers look like easy skips too if you're only into CC.