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Looking for PvP tips > Wizard to wizard.
elvalianon
Member Posts: 331 Arc User
Hi, I am looking for tips about PvP and especially about wizards. I've got a CW myself and now I've reached lvl 60 I often find it hard to compete with the enemies. My control powers used to be very helpful and it was my power to keep enemies away and then kill them. Now actually these powers seem often useless, since the other classes have developed powers that makes them somewhat resistant to these controlling powers. Once they get close to me they often strike an critical blow and I die in seconds. So I am thinking about resetting my powers and stats, add more defense at least, but I would love to hear about other wizards and how they manage to keep up.
Also I'd like to hear about your opinion on your CW powers and when using them in party's when in a dungeon. The CW seems to be the only class that has powers that may annoy other classes because of blowing the mobs out of target (often rogue's). I sometimes feel limited because of that.
I thank you in advance
Also I'd like to hear about your opinion on your CW powers and when using them in party's when in a dungeon. The CW seems to be the only class that has powers that may annoy other classes because of blowing the mobs out of target (often rogue's). I sometimes feel limited because of that.
I thank you in advance
Post edited by elvalianon on
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1. Gear is helpful. It's not hard to get above 10k. 11k is better but may take some time. Worst case scenario you do GG over and over again and get the T2 PVP gear. It's good.
2. Stick with your teammates. If we're in combat and I see a GF or GWF running my way, I port to my buddies.
3. I go DPS because I can't seem to control anything either. I normally slot RoE, Shield, COI, and either EF, Steal Time of something else.
4. Shield is a great way to hit stealth rogues (also Steal Time).
Good luck.
PS: I went Renegade Spec, but some people love Thaum.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
SO TRUE. cw capacity to dodge is the best
weigh your options and playstyle,some mages will put ALL dmg skills on their encounters, me for 1 i always put 1 PUSH skill to deal with a cleric to force her out of her astral shield, and/or for defending nodes.
VS a tank kiting and channel spells burn their block fast ( ray of frost) when he's frozen, he's usually dead in 1 combo.
vs a Rogue... dodge, shield, and ROE are my best weapons against a rogue untill i can entangle combo him. while rogues are probably the easiest to kill for a mage they are also great counters against mages.
vs a gwf..... well this is perhaps the perfect anti class to the cw, kite and dots, you cant kill a good gwf alone. but if he's persistent... wait for his "unstoppable" to wear off.
********
depending on your set, what you put on your tab can greatly influence your playstyle. While most mages put ICY rays on tab, or some ROE, i use entangling force on tab since i use HV set. and the fact i gain AP and arcane faster this way is very advantageous to my play style.
1. try to have chance 1v1 with people, this most of the time doesn't work that good.
2. depend and support your teammates at all times.
For 1. someone else can give advice, for 2. I'd say slot you powers something like this and learn to juggle them
tab: shards of blah blah avalance blah. This is AWESOME against masses of enemy melee. Hard to use.
encounters:
Repel. push that cleric away, use as interrupt.
Chill strike. use as interrupt.
Entangling force. use as interrupt.
Good luck and prepare to feel yourself superpowered at times and utterly useless for the rest.
- you want to do kills and score: single target damage. It's not that great but it works fine, as long as you don't face a pro team: EF on tab, ice knife, conduit of ice, ray of enfeeblement, and shield. That's my "kill" build.
- you can go full support with aoes. I don't recommend steal time, the casting time is way too long. In gauntlgrym, i like using ice storm and shard of endless avalanche. It's really annoying, does some ok damage but will help your team not to be overwhelmed.
You should be able to learn to solo rogues with shield, it can make them getting out of stealth, and once you see them, RoE should make them visible.
Don't be afraid to get to melee range, don't get isolated, rogues will TP behind you and you'll be on your own. You have a lot of dodge and you'll be safe as long as your team isn't doing random HAMSTER. Try not to get stuck into CW vs CW long-range matches, it's a bit pointless and won't help your team. Focus on clerics and tanks, that's what people expect. Permastunning tanks is your job, and if you don't do it expect a quick death. Chaining EF (tab) and ray of frost should be enough in most situations.
Top melee characters can be a challenge as CW, but anything less than uber is usually food if you approach the battle correctly and are at least comparably geared. CW really does make an excellent ranged striker, but not many of them seem to be built and geared to be truly dangerous in PvP.
Don't expect to be able to control players to nearly the same extent as you can mobs. IMO the main benefit of control powers in PvP is momentarily disabling encounter usage and other active defense options such as dodging. Unless you are being directly supported by a strong teammate, you still need to able to kill your targets reasonably quickly (dead = controlled). An alternate strategy, especially if your damage is not competitive, is to use skills like Repel along with your EF and such to control space and interrupt encounters.
Quick suggestions:
- Never be the first one on the scene unless you are deliberately baiting enemies (or the opposing team is so weak and disorganized that you are extremely confident in your ability to pick them off while under fire). TRs will look for CWs as the most dangerous enemies they can quickly kill, and it helps your chances not to be standing out in front of the node waving a neon bullseye.
- If your situation is poor, get the hell out. If the enemy CW gets the drop on you and begins what you recognize as a potentially lethal rotation, fight defensively and come back to regain the upper hand. Too many times I see enemy CWs stand around spamming Magic Missiles at me while I kill them because they apparently think they aren't allowed to withdraw and let their encounters cool down.
- Take advantage of the ability to target from range by scanning the field for pieces you can quickly remove from play. There is no reason to unload all of your encounters on the GWF in the middle of Unstoppable when you can shift your reticule half an inch to the side and finish off his less unstoppable teammate.
- Don't be tempted to chase people around the map. Being greedy for the kill is a leading cause of death.
- Confuse enemy targeting by teleporting around obstacles and teammates. If you withdraw for more than a couple of seconds, chances are good that you'll regain the initiative when you begin to attack again. Also a greater chance that the enemy players will have burned through more stamina and will have difficulty dodging your encounters even if they're watching for them.
- Don't become too predictable by always traveling the same path or always camping the same spot.
- Listen for distinctive sound effects such as the "ching-ching" of a CW preparing to cast a daily. Recognizing cues makes it easier to avoid big hits.
- Learn to recognize the animations of powerful defensive skills so that you don't waste your strongest encounters or a daily on highly resistant enemies.
- Watch for obvious signs of stealthed rogues, such as the color of the node changing to contested status when no one is visible. When you suspect a stealthy TR, try to advance on it rather than teleporting away in a panic. The risk of leaving yourself open if you guess wrong is usually preferable to the virtual guarantee of eventual death if you allow the TR to simply keep distance and plink your HP down with CoS.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Then, if not your build at least your skills should be ready for PVP.
Ice Knife as daily is a must.
Then I for example run: Chill Strike in Tab > Icy Rays > Ray of Enfeeblement > Entangling Force
This is the most default PVP build and it's the one most focused on single target DPS..
You can switch Ray of E for Chill Strike in tab slot and get 2 charges, but I personally prefer Chill for it's AOE.
For the equipment? Just get something
But I run High Vizier set.
It gives a nice balanced output with a lot of recovery and decent crit chance
Then the last thing, is play , play and play.
Icy rays has surprise potential, it can briefly stop 2 people. It also tracks down its target far far away. The spell seems to have situational usefulness, as many CW spells do and is not directly very suitable for heavy damage setup. Tabbed icy rays can be deadly in damage too.
IMO armor pen is most important, you need to be able to do effective DPS v. highly armored targets. crit may only compete with it provided you have perfect vorpal and even then you would have to give up on the debuff of the plague.
ray is tabbed. slotted are choke/conduit/chillstrike - conduit is there because of debuff. The passives I use are control extension and 5% constant crit.
I optimized my cw for pvp so I have 26k HP.
I also use 2 oppressor perks instead of renegade, I use 5% dmg buff after chill and 10% running buff after teleport (lets you get away clean a LOT in pvp).
Here for the build+guide
So I probably already have some off the good skills set up for PvP that seem usefull.
Tab: Repel
Slot 1 : conduit of ice
Slot 3: Entangaling force.
Slot 4: the purple ray thing? xD
Daily: I got ice knife and "the black hole thing"
I also bought some new gear with my Glory points, somehow I seem stronger... but that also might be because of the epic teams I was in lately.
My stats and gear are as follows, any advice?
As told by some commenter's. I do try to avoid more than 1 enemy when I am alone, I keep sticking with my team and killing off targets on low health and focusing on targets that are already fighting my team mate(s). When I see a rogue I always try to kill them first since they are my biggest rivals. Other CW's I try to kill off quickly to, since some of them are just so easily to kill and are keeping my teammates from performing. So I guess I am already doing pretty well...?
I guess no-one can help it if there is one epic team that is just overpowering all.
Yes you can, and depending what you're specced, in fact in any situation, repel is horrible on tab.
Here again, if you want pvp, i suggest looking at the guide in my Sig, there's a little how to build your stats but after that, you'll see all the information you could dream of for CW PVP.
Here for the build+guide
Why is it horrible on tab? I can blow away more enemies. Although when I think of it... This does not happen often xD. What do you recommend having on tab?
I am thinking of replacing repel with shield.
You answered your own question for the first one.
Shield is horrible also. You might want to look at this before you make your choice.
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Shield
Seriously, just look up at the guide if you want to go for PVP.
Here for the build+guide
I disagree, shield is excellent lifesaver for when the melee enemy is close (and it will be very often since they all got gapclosers), it is one of few skills which got instant CC effect not mentioning the damage reduction can save you completely from rogue big opening crit.
Rogues are the easiest class to kill imo. If you get hit it's because you are not looking at your screen. And no, melee classes can block/avoid it except rogues but there's no reason to use shield for rogues. Damage reduction... read the wiki page. It's not worth it
Here for the build+guide
open with conduit, then entangle,chill. use ice rays if they start dodging to root them. i usually kill them in just that rotation (i use high vizier so i always try to use entangle/chill before i ice rays.)
if that doesnt kill them i ice knife after ice rays hits.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
REASONS:
Chill Strike on TAB: Chill Strike is the best burst damage skill you have available on a single target that can crit easily 5-9k damage depending on your gear and target defense. It has a considerably short cooldown especially when combined with a Battlefield or Champion PVP set. With high enough recovery, you can throw two of these in the time it takes to throw 1 or two RoE on TAB. Due to the nerf on RoE it's even less effective now than before. Chill Strike by default also applies a 1 sec stun to target, which is crucial in PVP since you cancel all enemy skills, and stun them. What makes this skill awesome on tab is it's ability to become an AOE! This means that not only do you stun your target, you also hit surrounding enemies for a huge amount with spread damage. Based on my experience the spread seems to be 15m around your target.
*For added efficiency of this skill, I would recommend slotting either Storm Spell which will benefit all spells, or I think Arcane Presence which adds +15% AOE damage. With this bonus, you can essentially be hitting targets for 10k crits while being 80m away from them. About 5k normals with regular 75% severity. Essentially if setup correctly, you can turn this skill into Ice Knife that can hit a target every 8 sec or so.
Ray of Enfeeblement as Encounter: This is still a very useful and powerful DOT that provides sufficient damage increase in burning down your enemy. The fast DOT ticks, ability to crit, and extra defense debuff makes this skill a must for most CW's out there. Although, I see most CW's use this skill on a TAB slot, it gains no bonuses from Recovery stat, or your character sheet. This skill is mostly a downtime skill for me that I nearly always use after Chill Strike. Chill Strike has a fairly long strike animation, which gives me very little window to cast any other skill after Chill Strike. The closest skill in both effectiveness and cast time is Ray of Enfeeblement. By the time that I land this skill on the target, it is pretty much guaranteed that I will either be stunned, immobilized, or dazed. While these anomalies are in effect, I am still doing damage to the target enemy resulting in a small loss in dps. If I was to change anything here, I would probably replace it with Ice Rays for it's quick cast time and damage burst.
Entangling Force as Encounter: Anytime I do PVP, this skill is always present. There is no other control skill available to a CW that is as powerful and as effective as this skill. If you are lucky enough, and your target is not immune to this skill, it's almost certain that the target you affect this with will probably die once your combo is complete. This works very well after chill strike or Push as both skills disable your target momentarily to give you the time needed to cast this and catch your target. It also provides additional DOT when combined with RoE.
Push as Encounter: This skill is a double edged sword in PVP. This skill provides a nice replacement for shield because not only do you push your target far away, you also disable/stun your target for the duration of the effect. This is a nice disable effect that gives you a window to cast any of your spells consecutively. Because the cooldown on this skill is low, and very close to the cooldown of your Chill Strike on TAB, you can essentially stun lock your target by chaining a lock combo. Beyond that, you can do this every 8.3 sec on average depending on your gear. This is a huge survivability boosters which also gives a nice damaging attack to your target easily hitting them for 2-4.5k.
* Push also has a fun use for knocking people off edges, stands, pillars and anywhere else they might be. I consider this more of a troll skill that can really mess up other mages who only attack from distance or clear advantage location.
CURRENT SETUP:
- Conduit of Ice on TAB
- Ray of Enfeeblement as Encounter
- Entangling Force as Encounter
- Push as Encounter
The only reason I changed to Conduit of Ice is because I switched to a Thau CW, which provides a nice -15% Mitigation. Having it on TAB is a nice damage boost to not only you, but your team that is attacking the targets you hit with it. The AOE is really nice on TAB and affects multiple targets. Additionally it provides a stack of chill which also gives in my case a 5% damage boost right of the start. This skill also gains 5% damage with every tick, which also ticks very well with Storm Spell. When all said and done, the total damage on this skill is lower than Chill Strike, but the debuff on all targets affected more than compensates for the loss.
Video Review: http://www.twitch.tv/zovya/c/2671017
Even better than shield against melee is the most buggies/annoying/hardest to use tab encounter ever: shards of endless avalance.
Slot it.
Learn to use it.
Giggle behind your monitor when those meleeplayers are punted around like ragdolls.
Scream in rage when that stupid ball gets stuck to some invisible terrain feature.
shards on tab, slot entangling force, repel and chill strike. You now have 4 CC abilities slotted, one of which can be used 2-3 times in most cases.
You damage WILL SUCK so you might aswell go in with blue/green regen gear...and slot each and every defensive slot with +hp.
With setup like this I regularly get least kills and most assists, the amount of death depends on your team though, this is NOT 1vs1 setup. This is AWESOME team support setup.
Nothing makes a CW smile wider that getting tells from opponents asking: why won't you die?
I might really change my repel to shield then. I also have quite a strong Ray of Frost, which can take down enemies like TR and other CW in seconds when combined with my other Ice powers and the Purple Ray thing.
So not much to do about my stats then I guess.
You won't take down a good TR with that setup. You'll be lucky to land ray of frost before getting daggered by TR's that can 2-3 shot you. I play both, TR and CW. Killing CW's with such setup is a breeze in a park.
Video Review: http://www.twitch.tv/zovya/c/2671017
I play CW and GWF in PvP and repel has never changed anything either, it basically means the opposing wizard is an easy kill.
Rogues are easy. All about learning when to TP and when to cast your entangling force and when not to. Once you figure it out, you won't lose to rogues unless badly out geared.
I can see an argument for the real controlling Shard + repel build, especially against geared PvP GF and GWF, but I'd rather control by killing - which is absolutely an option.
OP your biggest problem is your gear. 90% of the people you run into out gear you and that matters A LOT in this game. You might mess around with shard on tab and just be a general CC nuisance hoping your team can carry you until you gear up.
But I would highly recommend you look at jawarisin's build as a long term PvP goal. It's really good.
Actually, I made a bigger smile when they call me a hacker or have some kind of psychic joke. If you want to support, go DC. Cw's are supposed to be un-ignorable targets.
This is so wrong I can hardly find where to begin. i will only correct you on your first sentence, I don't have to patience to type the rest of it: " Chill Strike is the best burst damage skill you have available on a single target that can crit easily 5-9k damage depending on your gear and target defense." Ok so chill strike is NOT YOUR BEST BURST. putting it on tab DOES NOT ADD ANY DAMAGE there is no reason to put it there. 5-9k dmg? Lies, with either a good thaum or decent renegade build, you can expect at least 12k dmg, or 10k+ on heavy armored.
I'll leave it at that.
Sad but true.
Yeah.. repel is just... It has a few very decent use, but it's only good if both you and your enemy plan in running at each other and that you have a few specific feats. Oh and it's only good vs cw. I wouldn't expect anybody to come at you 3-4 times while they are loosing the damage-trade every time. They will just go heal and get back to you later. On a side note, if you miss it, you're dead.
The only time shard will ever ever ever be usefull, is on a gwf assuming they arn't already in unstoppable. But you need it on tab, and sacrificing your tab slot to make you more annoying vs 1/5 classes is definetly not worth it if it means the other 4/5 classes destroy you.
Now, to deal with the "way under-geared" problem. I would suggest you sell all those t5's enchantments you smartly conserved in your inventory. They will give you enough to buy full pvp gear with ok rings // necklace.
Otherwise, pvp or farm enchantments, but keep your head up, this is the hard part, but it will be over soon.
-Jawarisin
Here for the build+guide
I think Remorselord puts Chill Strike on Tab because of the PvP set bonus (which reduces the cooldown of your tab power). I don't agree with him, but he does have a (questionable) reason for slotting it there.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
If you can find me 1 advantage of putting chill strike there over Icy Rays in a realistic PvP scenario, I'll give you 1 million AD.
Here for the build+guide