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Thaumaturge or Oppressor? Few questions for CW
rauffan
Member Posts: 4 Arc User
I'm at lvl 30 right now and I'm still pondering about what path to take. The oppressor branch seems "tankier" for me, more oriented for pve, while thaumaturge focuses on damage without crits. I want something hybrid which could be useful both in pve and pvp. Is it possible? How should I do it?
Also, I've tried both Chill Strike and Conduit of Ice in tab and I am not able to decide which I want. It's true that Chill Strike does absurd damage, but I like the increase of the AoE that Conduit of Ice gets and the slow it gives to the other addons. What do you think?
All comments are appreaciated. Thank you!:D
Also, I've tried both Chill Strike and Conduit of Ice in tab and I am not able to decide which I want. It's true that Chill Strike does absurd damage, but I like the increase of the AoE that Conduit of Ice gets and the slow it gives to the other addons. What do you think?
All comments are appreaciated. Thank you!:D
Post edited by rauffan on
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Thaumaturge and Renegade will contribute the most to personal and group damage. As for Thaumaturge, it might be better to say that it focuses on general damage increase that does not depend on landing critical hits (but still benefits from doing so, obviously). The final feat in Thaumaturge tree is well-loved by all.
Oppressor has a definite role in PvP with its ability to build Chill stacks very rapidly. Damage is still not bad, just not on par with the other two specs.
I'd also consider which passive skills you are likely to slot and which armor set(s) you are planning to use. For example, a Renegade's effectiveness depends largely on having a high crit rate, so you'd plan accordingly if you were investing heavily into that tree.
As for Chill Strike in Tab vs. CoI, I've tried both and find that Chill Strike is my usually preferred choice. Tab CoI is good for applying and maintaining Chill stacks, but the AoE damage on a relatively low cooldown provided by Chill Strike makes it more attractive for me. If you go Oppressor, you will almost certainly tab Chill Strike for PvE since will apply 3 stacks instantly to targets if you take the final feat.
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Eh, I'm less and less sure of that as time passes. Certainly Renegade has a place in PvP. But I'm beginning to suspect it's underrated even in PvE.
So much of this game boils down to gear and power selection (that is, which powers you have equipped at any given time) that it's hard to get too exercised over Paragon Feat bonuses. I'm not sure whether to be pleasantly surprised or annoyed about that, to be honest.
That's worth emphasizing if only because the OP is still leveling. Tabbed Chill Strike is almost certainly the better option for solo leveling -- shorter cooldown than CoI, and burstier damage. Plus, it's easier to use effectively; in solo PvE, a lot of enemies don't have enough HP for CoI to last for its full duration, so you have to pick out the highest HP target for CoI. With Chill Strike, you just kinda aim generally towards the middle of the pack and pwn them, often in one shot.
Conduit becomes far more attractive in dungeons, where the enemies aren't quite so fragile.
But if you have 150k diamonds of AD to spare or this CW is your alt and you have millions of diamonds in your main character, you could go for oppressor until you reach 60 and then respec to Thaum once you reach level 60.
Once you get to 60, you will almost always be in 5-man groups and in my opinion, Thaum provides the greatest benefits (such as debuffing) to the party
Renegade is quite possibly the best possible AP gain.
I recommend Renegade over Thaumaturge, but both are great. Oppressor, not so much.
In PvE, for the most part, you want to gain as much AP as possible, as fast as possible in order to drop Arcane Singularities when you need them. Highest possible uptime on Arcane Singularity is key.
I recommend absolutely no matter what getting 5/5 Controlling Action and Critical Power feats. Arcane Enhancement, for me, is a must... but I won't put it in the same league as the first two feats that I mentioned.
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 (replace Repel on slot with either Icy Terrain or CoI when Repel is not required.)
Dailies: Arcane Sing and Oppressive Force. Only use the sing but in a situation where a wipe is almost certainly about to happen right this second, drop Oppressive Force. Never use OP Force otherwise.
Features: Storm Spell and Eye of the Storm.
Entangling Force Mastery on a pack of mobs is 25% or more AP bar gain alone.
Tell me, why rene is best AP gain? Cause critical action on first tier paragon? Well, it can be taken by any spec (I'm running w this feat). Anything else is same in AP generation.
Next. Controlling action is a waste of feats, tbh. Miserable gain to low numbers. Just take a calc and make some calculations.
Than. EF on tab is a waste of slot, if not a solo CN, which is rather stupid, imo. Running CN with useless classes, when you can take 3 CW and melt down draco... well, I dunno. AP gain from shield is enogh in 95% times.
Why rene is lackluster? It don't provide stabile party buff. And 15% crit severity can't overwhelm 5~25% damage buff from FPT.
EF on tab often restores over 50% of my AP meter alone.
The only goal for a CW should be to charge the AP meter as fast as possible and any feats that affect a positive gain on the AP meter are key. The reason being is that Arcane Singularity should be dropped as often as possible and/or be available at all times.
Thaum is great too, but I prefer to charge my AP mater faster with the Renegage feats. Thaum applies a great mitigation debuff for the party, but imo, charging the AP meter is more important. If I want to debuff mitigation then I can slot or mastery RoE.
Renegade also applies a nice buff via Chaos Magic which can sometimes be a 15% mitigation debuff.
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Well said.
It is good for PVP.
EF on tab regain 25%, maybe 30 with high recovery. Ok, 33% with controlling action, but not 50%. it's simply impossible, unless you have ~6k recovery and Into the Fray buff.
Next your statement is a big-big-big-BIG-BIG mistake. Wizard is a controller. You know what it means in DnD? Damaging group of foes, while CCing them. Keyword is "damaging". When you are recovery bot, you can be easily beaten by cleric.
Next your mistake is that rene can charge more AP. Well, it's nonsence. Paragon feats don't provide any AP gain boost exept controlling action, which can be taken by any spec. As for mitigation debuff... thau can apply it via any arcane spell, not only RoE and CoI.
And the last mistake "Sometimes" is a keyword. First, it can be applied only 1-2 targets, when thau applies it to 5 targets. Second, as you know, it's RANDOM. Random is always worse than stability.
To be fair -- and this is why I said earlier that I'm not sure about Renegade being "lackluster" -- Conduit of Ice isn't up full-time either. Between its random mitigation debuff, and its random (and very small, in the grand scheme of things) power buff, Chaos Magic probably gives you anywhere from half to two-thirds of the damage-boosting value of Assailing Force when you're fighting a single target. And it'll give anyone near the target a non-trivial heal effect as a bonus.
And then you've got Nightmare Wizardry, which Thaumaturges also technically have access to, but in that case they're giving up something fairly significant.
Point being that I think Thaumaturge is better in multi-target situations, and therefore I think it's generally better in high-end content -- but it's not obvious to me that Renegade isn't also very good given a different play style preference.
I have less than 2500 recovery......... on a group of mobs my mastery EF restores 20% to 50% AP. On really large groups it can restore 60%.
It is just a fact. Are there really people with over 9000 recovery??? Why would you assert something so ridiculous? Oh well.
I really enjoyed Thaumaturge but I now much prefer Renegade and tbh they are both nearly the same imo.
So true. That’s why I’m so hesitant at choosing powers and feats. I still need to find the proper gear anyway, so I might change my mind as I get at the endgame.
Thank you all again!
I've added some life steal (700), and now i can operate on my own on adds without any support from (lousy) DCs. Oppressor helps me doing that. So, let's sum it up, oppressor is for people willing to play a tankier control-focused CW. Just don't forget to take icy terrain/alacrity feat. Thaumaturge will get you more dps but less control.
I'm not trying to "sell" my build, but i know oppressors are rare, so people may not know it's a good choice.
And no, there are no people with over 9000 recovery. "Over9000" means "a lot", just google it to clarify.
The Critical Power feat could potentially double it. I think that's what he's talking about.
Renegade will top the damage charts every time with the right gear/setup.
aaaaaannd we should just take your word for it?
Would like to hear your rational, and what exactly is this "right gear/setup". Not starting a debate. I am just genuinely curious of any new insight about the tree that you might have.
Next comes Nightmare Wizardry, which would grant chances of Combat Advantage (which in turn entails more damage).
Third is Phantasmal Destruction, which makes dealing critical hits while having Combat Advantage stronger.
Fourth is Chilling Advantage, which ups the chances of scoring critical hits with cold-based powers.
Or at least that's how I'm reading it, from looking at the feat list. I figure with a CW sporting endgame gear, with a vorpal enchantment to his weapon, having a Charisma score around 24 plus whatever gear he might get and the extra percentages could get him close to 40-50% crit chance, with crit severity around 100ish% - then add in cold-based powers, at point-blank, while proccing combat advantage from his crits and then getting even better crits while that procs would end up showing some pretty impressive damage numbers.
I'm not sure if that's any good (my own test wizard is only lv33 so far), but it sounds like all those things from the Renegade tree could snowball into something pretty powerful - especially if you're in the crowd that scorns 'excess CC' and tout that there is no such thing as 'excess DPS'.
Second, while the same as above, anyone can proc Combat Advantage you don't need feats for it. So in a sense the benefit of the Feat is diminished by whatever chance any other CW can manage to be in Combat Advantage. Not to mention it is a chance of a chance.
Third, Phantasmal, while a nice boost, it still only benefits you if you happen to crit. Assume it will often be available when you crit (which is at the most 40% of the time. I have yet to see a CW with 50% crit), again it is still vulnerable to RNG.
Fourth, Chilling Advantage, I personally don't know of any Renegade that would take Chilling Advantage over Masterful Arcane Theft.
Now all that is fine, and I am not arguing the viability of a Renegade CW. Now take a look at my Thread. There is also another Thauma thread. Read Grimah's guide. Read some other threads and take a close look at the Thauma feats. Take a look at Malevolant Surge, Tempest magic, Frozen Power Transfer, Elemental Empowerment, and Assailing Force. You will see that all of them offer a direct and constant damage bosst. Nothing is a chance of a chance. Nothing needs special positioning or only proc under special circumstances. Practically everything you will do as a CW will have a nice damage boost constantly, while also constantly buffing the damage of the entire party. I spent the first half of my CW's life as Renegade. Even before the Renegade nerf, thauma was still great.
I have 3500 recovery and last night I went to one of the CW foundry test quest to test the EF on mastery and it does recover 50% of AP everytime. Did it like 20 times on the group of 5-8 mobs clustered together. So there is truth to what freedumb4eva is saying/stating. Granted I have 5/5 Critical Power so I am assuming 5% increase per target = +25% on top of the 25% = 50%?
Reported this bug.
I'm not altogether convinced it's a bug. Or if it is a bug, then the feat could stand a substantial boost once the bug's fixed.
Right, the thing is that AP regeneration is already so easy in a target-rich environment that I don't see how the Critical Power feat constitutes an outlandish advantage. At least Critical Power is somewhat random. If you don't crit, the bonus doesn't apply. And (at least as far as we know) it has a lengthy internal cooldown, so if you crit at the wrong time, you might get nothing for it.
Or, if you wanna look at it from a more self-interested point of view: we probably don't want the devs to re-examine the notion of multi-target AP bonuses in the general case. Think Shield pulse.