Oh a nerf is definitely coming, because the AoE effect of EF on tab is probably not intended.
I'm sure as hell every AoE effect in game will be capped at some point. It makes sense you know... following cryptic's logic the Hiroshima bomb should have killed only 5 people. It clearly didn't work as intended.
I'm sure as hell every AoE effect in game will be capped at some point. It makes sense you know... following cryptic's logic the Hiroshima bomb should have killed only 5 people. It clearly didn't work as intended.
lol, so true.
Next they will be saying Arcane Singularity, Steal Time, Repel and Conduit of Ice are not working as intended! Oh, and, of course, Oppressive Force.
Their use of language is so pathetic. If you're going to change the game entirely after months of paying customers, just say so and communicate your new vision.
Makes me realise just how rare companies like Blizzard are.
0
drakenprimeMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 7Arc User
Fury of the Feywild is going to be released in less than a week. Now would be a great time to change your minds about the HORRIBLE, SOUL-CRUSHING, GAME-RUINING changes you are making to every class! I'll admit, I wasn't happy being just an AS-machine. Maybe AS is the thing that really needed to be changed, not everything else. I love my control wizard. I love playing my control wizard. If my control wizard can no longer control anything, then what the hell good am I? It wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for that fact that EVERY dungeon is designed on the idea, "The more adds the better, you can never have too many adds." I do not want to become just a DPS class, I love the control aspect of my character.
It seems that with this new module, you will be changing so many of the things that make each class special, unique, fun, and worth playing. Every class complains that every other class needs to be nerfed, that's how it always is. But that doesn't mean that you have to listen.
Unfortunately, you decided to use this new module to screw things up, rather than add what the game really needs: NEW CLASSES and NEW PARAGON PATHS. We need variety in how we can play our characters, as well as choices in what roles our characters can play. Instead of adding some desperately needed variety, or fixing some annoying problems (like the Tiefling/Tempest Magic issue. I mean come on already, it's ridiculous that hasn't been corrected yet!), you're destroying the classes and little variety that already exists. One of the biggest complaints I hear about this game is the lack of classes. You promised us all new classes with this module, took our money for the Feywild pack, and then said, "Oops, no new classes until the end of the year!"
So, I am asking from the bottom of my heart, please rethink these terrible changes. Before it's too late, please reconsider what you are about to do.
Thanks for listening.
Sincerely,
a heart-broken "control" wizard
Did it enter your thoughts that all of these changes will allow us to do Feywild better?
0
honoraryorangeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
So I ran a little test just now beating on a dummy for about 4 minutes with Magic Missile, and this is what I ended up with:
19 Eye of the Storm procs over 254 seconds. Given an average attack rate of 2.07 per second (which is a little slower than I've measured in the past, but I chalk that up to all of the random people fighting in the trade of blades today, and thus fooling my parser into thinking that the entire time I logged was in combat), and given the assumption that EotS cannot be procced while it's active, that leaves us with a proc rate of 19 /((254 - (19 * 3)) * 2.07) = 0.046, or right around the 5% we'd expect given the new tooltip and the patch note description.
A minimum interval of 4 seconds between two EotS procs
An adjusted crit rate approximately 23 points higher than what was displayed on my character sheet, which is consistent with the EotS uptime we'd expect given all of the above ((19*3) / 254) * 100 = 22.44)
I think it's fair to say that either there is no internal cooldown anymore, or that it's been cut to 3 seconds or so. I'm betting on the former. With the right mix of encounter powers, you'll proc more often than I did, too.
I saw as little as 3 seconds between procs (usually higher though), so I think they just removed the ICD. Definitely makes it pretty interesting and in some ways I think I like it better.
I'm sure as hell every AoE effect in game will be capped at some point. It makes sense you know... following cryptic's logic the Hiroshima bomb should have killed only 5 people. It clearly didn't work as intended.
I just came here to laugh at this.
Here we go -
LOL.
On a serious note,
Shield AP gain is a joke now. Can't wait for the PUG tear overflow when they can't finish a dungeon.
Oppressor can place multiple icy terrains via Alacrity.
I actually tried Alacrity yesterday, and found it is not useful. It required you to kill Chill-affected mobs in order to activate it. But Chill-affected mobs aren't always killed by you. And when you try hard to maintain their Chill and kill them, your cooldowns of EF and IT probably had already ended.
Methodology: i was hitting the central one of the 3 dummies at the place where all 3 are in line, so chilling cloud was hitting all 3 along with other spells, excluding Icy terrain, which was hitting only 2 oh them. Used Storm spell and EotS. Nightmare wizardry instead of bitter cold too(and it was good).
I cant believe Sudden Storm became so powerful, and it is not even on mastery. I'm definitely gonna use it instead of maybe shield, or instead of COI on tab, and COI instead of shield as a standard encounter, or instead of icy terrain, needs more thinking and testing. Next time i will test it on mastery slot and for a longer time.
The only situation where I see reduced AP gain from Shield being a potential challenge is the mob-expelling phase of the dracolich fight. Personally I don't use Shield except for ledge-dumping and keep-away. Change hurts for those who depend on Sing spam, but there are alternatives.
The only situation where I see reduced AP gain from Shield being a potential challenge is the mob-expelling phase of the dracolich fight. Personally I don't use Shield except for ledge-dumping and keep-away. Change hurts for those who depend on Sing spam, but there are alternatives.
I don't think that a 5% AP gain is right for any encounter. If Shield Pulse generated even 1% per target, then that would he superior to its' proposed AP generation. Seems a little off to me.
Popping Shield should be 15% imo. It leaves the CW vulnerable after the pop at which time the CW probably needs a daily.
I really like the other changes coming and I won't mind less Shield Pulse knocking mobs everywhere. 5% just isn't right, though.
Who cares about what people expect? If they get used to singularity bots - it only their problem. Controller archetype doesn't means only control. Primary role of controller is AoE DPS. Secondary - debuffing and CC'ing.
Do you realize that this is simply your opinion but you state it as a fact?
I don't think that a 5% AP gain is right for any encounter. If Shield Pulse generated even 1% per target, then that would he superior to its' proposed AP generation. Seems a little off to me.
Popping Shield should be 15% imo. It leaves the CW vulnerable after the pop at which time the CW probably needs a daily.
I really like the other changes coming and I won't mind less Shield Pulse knocking mobs everywhere. 5% just isn't right, though.
Yeah, the upside is that the AP-gain change makes non-Shield loadouts a little more viable. Or at least, it makes them a little less laughable. (For good or ill, the fact that Shield is our best unlimited-target AoE encounter makes it hard to drop.)
But 5% seems a little low. It's as if the developers explicitly designed Shield pulse with a per-target AP gain in mind (by leaving the base value low), and then forgot about the base value when they changed their minds later. If anything, Shield pulse should have a higher-than-average AP-gain irrespective of the number of targets hit just because of what you said: losing Shield severely cuts our survivability, and recasting it isn't always a trivially easy thing to do what with all the CC that flies around in Epic dungeons.
For my part, though, and all things considered, I really don't mind the AP-gain changes to Shield. I rarely relied on it anyway. It just seems like an odd design decision to make literally our only attack ability with a significant situational trade-off the least valuable AP generator.
I cant believe Sudden Storm became so powerful, and it is not even on mastery. I'm definitely gonna use it instead of maybe shield, or instead of COI on tab, and COI instead of shield as a standard encounter, or instead of icy terrain, needs more thinking and testing. Next time i will test it on mastery slot and for a longer time.
Nice job, Ragulol. Yeah, Sudden Storm's one of those powers that's always tantalized me -- and moreso lately on Preview -- but with the nerf to AP recharge (and thus, the reduction in our ability to consistently bunch mobs together), I'm still not so sure about it.
Its strengths are (obviously) that it has no target cap, and that it has an amazingly short cooldown. In theory, it's therefore perhaps the best pure-damage encounter ability we have. But the disadvantage is both considerable and very difficult to quantify: it has a (relatively) tiny area of effect. So you basically have to use Sudden Storm in concert with Singularity to get full benefit out of the target cap (cramming all foes into a tiny area), but there's no way you'll be able to do it often enough to take full advantage of the shorter cooldown.
FWIW, though, I've been thinking similarly to you lately.
BTW, Sudden Storm Mastery is a little underwhelming at first. From what I can tell, the damage chains are a flat 150 damage (regardless of power). The upside is that they're potentially unlimited.
Why tie Sudden Storm with Singularity so narrowly?
One of my best mid-level power combination was to use tabbed-Entangling Force followed up by Sudden Storm. PvE-wise, it took care of mostly everything until higher levels.
Why tie Sudden Storm with Singularity so narrowly?
One of my best mid-level power combination was to use tabbed-Entangling Force followed up by Sudden Storm. PvE-wise, it took care of mostly everything until higher levels.
Well, that's the dilemma.
Part of me doesn't want to tie the two together. Another part of me -- the part that's played a lot of epic dungeons -- realizes that Sudden Storm's main point of unusual appeal is its lack of a target cap. And I also know that Sudden Storm is a little clunky to use; the slow speed of the projectiles (for lack of a better word) often allows targets to run out of the power's small area of effect before they get hit.
The question is whether Sudden Storm's high per-hit damage and its extremely short cooldown are good enough on their own to make up for the power's shortcomings, in other words, even if you only hit let's say three targets on average. In principle, yes, I think it's a decent power. But what do you drop to make room for it?
More specifically: in order for Sudden Storm to become a viable replacement for the now-nerfed Shield pulse in dungeons, you'd have to make use of its unlimited target cap on a fairly regular basis. And in order to do that, you have to be able to bunch mobs reliably and for a decent period of time per shot. (Entangling Force's 5-target drag effect doesn't compare to Singularity in either one of those areas, though it might make for a decent makeshift replacement when Singularity's not available.)
So it's sort of a power-gamer's catch-22: the very reason I'd even think about replacing Shield (nerfed AP gain) with Sudden Storm is the same reason (fewer bunched mobs via Singularity) that gives me pause about Sudden Storm's ability to serve as a replacement.
But I've been known to over-think this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, it seems like Icy Rays mastery bonus is still bugged. At best I see a 20%~ damage increase from using it on mastery vs non-mastery compared to the tooltip's 50%.
Part of me doesn't want to tie the two together. Another part of me -- the part that's played a lot of epic dungeons -- realizes that Sudden Storm's main point of unusual appeal is its lack of a target cap. And I also know that Sudden Storm is a little clunky to use; the slow speed of the projectiles (for lack of a better word) often allows targets to run out of the power's small area of effect before they get hit.
The question is whether Sudden Storm's high per-hit damage and its extremely short cooldown are good enough on their own to make up for the power's shortcomings, in other words, even if you only hit let's say three targets on average. In principle, yes, I think it's a decent power. But what do you drop to make room for it?
More specifically: in order for Sudden Storm to become a viable replacement for the now-nerfed Shield pulse in dungeons, you'd have to make use of its unlimited target cap on a fairly regular basis. And in order to do that, you have to be able to bunch mobs reliably and for a decent period of time per shot. (Entangling Force's 5-target drag effect doesn't compare to Singularity in either one of those areas, though it might make for a decent makeshift replacement when Singularity's not available.)
So it's sort of a power-gamer's catch-22: the very reason I'd even think about replacing Shield (nerfed AP gain) with Sudden Storm is the same reason (fewer bunched mobs via Singularity) that gives me pause about Sudden Storm's ability to serve as a replacement.
But I've been known to over-think this sort of thing.
You're next best solution to gathering mobs into tight groupings would probably to use a gf + cw/chill combo. Have the gf spam the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of villain's menace to grab aggro and then simply have the cw use their CoI/icy/steal to lock them up. It won't be as ''clean'' as a sing, but should prove effective.
After the patch, how much protection will shield actually give you when it's up? How much of a difference will it make? Will it still be viable to have in a slot and used for protection?
I actually tried Alacrity yesterday, and found it is not useful. It required you to kill Chill-affected mobs in order to activate it. But Chill-affected mobs aren't always killed by you. And when you try hard to maintain their Chill and kill them, your cooldowns of EF and IT probably had already ended.
The question is why are you using EF, seriously? :rolleyes: This is a pvp spell. You need something hard-hitting to make a good use of alacrity. Or you need AOE dots to get the kills.
I suggest you try something like: CoI (tab) : refresh chill, aoe dot.
Shield: killing chill affected minions when they get out of stun. Boom, icy terrain is available.
Icy terrain
Steal time: stun + good damage.
Really, if you want to use alacrity there's no room for EF.
0
degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
The question is why are you using EF, seriously? :rolleyes: This is a pvp spell. You need something hard-hitting to make a good use of alacrity. Or you need AOE dots to get the kills.
I suggest you try something like: CoI (tab) : refresh chill, aoe dot.
Shield: killing chill affected minions when they get out of stun. Boom, icy terrain is available.
Icy terrain
Steal time: stun + good damage.
Really, if you want to use alacrity there's no room for EF.
EF, now that Shield is getting nerfed, may be your best AP-gainer in Tab Slot. It's also great in Tab to zip mobs together so a GWF can burn through them.
I have tested Sudden storm on mastery and was disappointed. DOT-effect was only 3% of my overall DPS, and it kinda sucks.
But i continued testings of the EotS and nightmare wizardry. Bad thing that dummies die to fast and flying around, so i cant maintain my attacks so they can hit all 3 of them. Methodology was the same as before, but now i discarded Elemental empowerment, because it cannot crit and messes up overall crit statistics.
Type
Damage
MinHit
MaxHit
Hits
Crit%
Flank%
All
2600796
0
15190
1092
75%
44%
Sudden Storm
705977
5291
15190
65
69%
42%
Conduit of Ice
530961
927
3317
247
74%
44%
Chilling Cloud
441299
583
5758
218
70%
50%
Storm Spell
282506
656
3936
139
79%
40%
Oppressive Force
259218
592
13688
89
100%
53%
Steal Time
194705
2217
7785
35
86%
60%
Icy Terrain
186130
369
1067
228
90%
49%
Eye of the Storm
0
0
0
21
0%
0%
Nightmare Wizardry
0
0
0
50
0%
0%
Damage statistics:
27% Sudden storm
20% CoI
17% Chilling cloud
11% Storm spell
10% Oppresive force
7% Steal time
7% Icy terrain
Good bye Shield, hello Sudden Storm
I must add that my crit chance is 38,9% (24 cha\2932 crit) and we can see that EotS is the BEST class feature we can get. Period. Who doesnt want double crit chance?
When 1 our class feature is set, remains the question what another one will be? Storm spell is only 11% of my DPS in test, and i used 3 the most proccing powers for it(Steal time, chilling cloud and Icy terrain), so maybe Chilling presence will give more(up to 18%).
Also i can assume that Nightmare wizardry is superior to the other choises(like bitter cold\reaper touch) bocause avarage uptime is 40+% that gives us more than 24*0.4+=9.6+% DPS increase
Shield is rather useless to slot given its' current proposed AP gain. I am going to swap it for Sudden Storm without any regret. I hate having mobs flying all over the place any way.
I will be happy to finally kill mobs rather than knock them over ledges... although, I am sure that I will be forced to do so in places similar to SP.
Also i can assume that Nightmare wizardry is superior to the other choises(like bitter cold\reaper touch) bocause avarage uptime is 40+% that gives us more than 24*0.4+=9.6+% DPS increase
Nightmare Wizardry really shines with the new version of Eye of the Storm, no question. Whether it's a no-brainer choice for people who decide not to go with Eye of the Storm is another issue; I'm not sure. Unfortunately, Renegade-style builds take a rather significant indirect nerf on Storm Pillar if the new patch goes through as it is now.
Did your tests show a 40% uptime for Nightmare Wizardry for all three targets, or just a 40% uptime period (that is, 40% of the time with at least one target affected by the Combat Advantage debuff)? It's not entirely clear to me from looking over your numbers, but that probably has to do with my being dead tired and dull-witted right now
The question is why are you using EF, seriously? :rolleyes: This is a pvp spell. You need something hard-hitting to make a good use of alacrity. Or you need AOE dots to get the kills.
I suggest you try something like: CoI (tab) : refresh chill, aoe dot.
Shield: killing chill affected minions when they get out of stun. Boom, icy terrain is available.
Icy terrain
Steal time: stun + good damage.
Really, if you want to use alacrity there's no room for EF.
I don't use EF while soloing. I use it in epic dungeons. Because I don't have Steal Time, I have to use tabbed EF to quickly generate AP for Arcane Singularity or Oppressive Force.
I have tested Sudden storm on mastery and was disappointed. DOT-effect was only 3% of my overall DPS, and it kinda sucks.
But i continued testings of the EotS and nightmare wizardry. Bad thing that dummies die to fast and flying around, so i cant maintain my attacks so they can hit all 3 of them. Methodology was the same as before, but now i discarded Elemental empowerment, because it cannot crit and messes up overall crit statistics.
Type
Damage
MinHit
MaxHit
Hits
Crit%
Flank%
All
2600796
0
15190
1092
75%
44%
Sudden Storm
705977
5291
15190
65
69%
42%
Conduit of Ice
530961
927
3317
247
74%
44%
Chilling Cloud
441299
583
5758
218
70%
50%
Storm Spell
282506
656
3936
139
79%
40%
Oppressive Force
259218
592
13688
89
100%
53%
Steal Time
194705
2217
7785
35
86%
60%
Icy Terrain
186130
369
1067
228
90%
49%
Eye of the Storm
0
0
0
21
0%
0%
Nightmare Wizardry
0
0
0
50
0%
0%
Damage statistics:
27% Sudden storm
20% CoI
17% Chilling cloud
11% Storm spell
10% Oppresive force
7% Steal time
7% Icy terrain
Good bye Shield, hello Sudden Storm
I must add that my crit chance is 38,9% (24 cha\2932 crit) and we can see that EotS is the BEST class feature we can get. Period. Who doesnt want double crit chance?
When 1 our class feature is set, remains the question what another one will be? Storm spell is only 11% of my DPS in test, and i used 3 the most proccing powers for it(Steal time, chilling cloud and Icy terrain), so maybe Chilling presence will give more(up to 18%).
Also i can assume that Nightmare wizardry is superior to the other choises(like bitter cold\reaper touch) bocause avarage uptime is 40+% that gives us more than 24*0.4+=9.6+% DPS increase
I have tested Sudden storm on mastery and was disappointed. DOT-effect was only 3% of my overall DPS, and it kinda sucks.
But i continued testings of the EotS and nightmare wizardry. Bad thing that dummies die to fast and flying around, so i cant maintain my attacks so they can hit all 3 of them. Methodology was the same as before, but now i discarded Elemental empowerment, because it cannot crit and messes up overall crit statistics.
Type
Damage
MinHit
MaxHit
Hits
Crit%
Flank%
All
2600796
0
15190
1092
75%
44%
Sudden Storm
705977
5291
15190
65
69%
42%
Conduit of Ice
530961
927
3317
247
74%
44%
Chilling Cloud
441299
583
5758
218
70%
50%
Storm Spell
282506
656
3936
139
79%
40%
Oppressive Force
259218
592
13688
89
100%
53%
Steal Time
194705
2217
7785
35
86%
60%
Icy Terrain
186130
369
1067
228
90%
49%
Eye of the Storm
0
0
0
21
0%
0%
Nightmare Wizardry
0
0
0
50
0%
0%
Damage statistics:
27% Sudden storm
20% CoI
17% Chilling cloud
11% Storm spell
10% Oppresive force
7% Steal time
7% Icy terrain
Good bye Shield, hello Sudden Storm
I must add that my crit chance is 38,9% (24 cha\2932 crit) and we can see that EotS is the BEST class feature we can get. Period. Who doesnt want double crit chance?
When 1 our class feature is set, remains the question what another one will be? Storm spell is only 11% of my DPS in test, and i used 3 the most proccing powers for it(Steal time, chilling cloud and Icy terrain), so maybe Chilling presence will give more(up to 18%).
Also i can assume that Nightmare wizardry is superior to the other choises(like bitter cold\reaper touch) bocause avarage uptime is 40+% that gives us more than 24*0.4+=9.6+% DPS increase
Something seems bugged to me, eye of the storm only "hit" 21 times, yet you have crits out the wazoo. The patch note said they were toning down the damage from EotS, your results don't seem to jive with the intent of their change. I'm not complaining but I get the feeling that's not intended.
I am baffled by all this talk of replacing shield with some crappy encounter spell. Does no one here actually realize how powerful (overpowered?) shield was? I am using it as my main source of damage (about 30-50% of my dps) and not for punting mobs, critting for around 25k+ and resetting cooldown under optimal conditions and that's with my crappy rank 5 enchants, I was able to outdps PvE specced GWFs rolling g. vorpal by a decent margin. Nothing, and I mean nothing is going to replace the power that shield provided.
I am okay with taking away one of the strengths of shield. Yes, it needed some toning down. But they took away it's AP gain AND DPS output. THAT is bull****.
Comments
I'm sure as hell every AoE effect in game will be capped at some point. It makes sense you know... following cryptic's logic the Hiroshima bomb should have killed only 5 people. It clearly didn't work as intended.
I want this class in NW.
lol, so true.
Next they will be saying Arcane Singularity, Steal Time, Repel and Conduit of Ice are not working as intended! Oh, and, of course, Oppressive Force.
Their use of language is so pathetic. If you're going to change the game entirely after months of paying customers, just say so and communicate your new vision.
Makes me realise just how rare companies like Blizzard are.
Did it enter your thoughts that all of these changes will allow us to do Feywild better?
I saw as little as 3 seconds between procs (usually higher though), so I think they just removed the ICD. Definitely makes it pretty interesting and in some ways I think I like it better.
I just came here to laugh at this.
Here we go -
LOL.
On a serious note,
Shield AP gain is a joke now. Can't wait for the PUG tear overflow when they can't finish a dungeon.
It is happening to almost every other class. The CW population isn't special
Or they will just run with CWs that have absolutely no issue with AP.
TYPE
DAMAGE
ENCDPS
AVERAGE
MEDIAN
MINHIT
MAXHIT
HITS
SWINGS
TOHIT
CRIT%
FLANK%
All
2 723 256
12 190,04
1 610,44
856
0
16 105
1 691
1 691
100,00
44%
33%
Sudden Storm
697 390
3 121,71
10 107,10
11 573
5 839
16 105
69
69
100,00
52%
62%
Conduit of Ice
586 290
2 624,40
2 035,73
2 243
814
3 951
288
288
100,00
63%
42%
Chilling Cloud
453 294
2 029,07
1 912,63
1 754
604
5 497
237
237
100,00
65%
49%
Storm Spell
294 175
1 316,81
2 028,79
1 663
627
4 713
145
145
100,00
66%
47%
Oppressive Force
248 990
1 114,55
2 766,56
735
337
14 191
90
90
100,00
83%
54%
Steal Time
231 010
1 034,06
6 600,29
6 681
3 032
8 539
35
35
100,00
94%
66%
Icy Terrain
193 821
867,60
781,54
837
347
1 204
248
248
100,00
71%
53%
Elemental Empowerment
18286
81,85
37,09
37
34
41
493
493
100,00
0%
0%
Eye of the Storm
0
0,00
0,00
0
0
0
25
25
100,00
0%
0%
Nightmare Wizardry
0
0,00
0,00
0
0
0
61
61
100,00
0%
0%
Methodology: i was hitting the central one of the 3 dummies at the place where all 3 are in line, so chilling cloud was hitting all 3 along with other spells, excluding Icy terrain, which was hitting only 2 oh them. Used Storm spell and EotS. Nightmare wizardry instead of bitter cold too(and it was good).
I cant believe Sudden Storm became so powerful, and it is not even on mastery. I'm definitely gonna use it instead of maybe shield, or instead of COI on tab, and COI instead of shield as a standard encounter, or instead of icy terrain, needs more thinking and testing. Next time i will test it on mastery slot and for a longer time.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I don't think that a 5% AP gain is right for any encounter. If Shield Pulse generated even 1% per target, then that would he superior to its' proposed AP generation. Seems a little off to me.
Popping Shield should be 15% imo. It leaves the CW vulnerable after the pop at which time the CW probably needs a daily.
I really like the other changes coming and I won't mind less Shield Pulse knocking mobs everywhere. 5% just isn't right, though.
Do you realize that this is simply your opinion but you state it as a fact?
Yeah, the upside is that the AP-gain change makes non-Shield loadouts a little more viable. Or at least, it makes them a little less laughable. (For good or ill, the fact that Shield is our best unlimited-target AoE encounter makes it hard to drop.)
But 5% seems a little low. It's as if the developers explicitly designed Shield pulse with a per-target AP gain in mind (by leaving the base value low), and then forgot about the base value when they changed their minds later. If anything, Shield pulse should have a higher-than-average AP-gain irrespective of the number of targets hit just because of what you said: losing Shield severely cuts our survivability, and recasting it isn't always a trivially easy thing to do what with all the CC that flies around in Epic dungeons.
For my part, though, and all things considered, I really don't mind the AP-gain changes to Shield. I rarely relied on it anyway. It just seems like an odd design decision to make literally our only attack ability with a significant situational trade-off the least valuable AP generator.
Nice job, Ragulol. Yeah, Sudden Storm's one of those powers that's always tantalized me -- and moreso lately on Preview -- but with the nerf to AP recharge (and thus, the reduction in our ability to consistently bunch mobs together), I'm still not so sure about it.
Its strengths are (obviously) that it has no target cap, and that it has an amazingly short cooldown. In theory, it's therefore perhaps the best pure-damage encounter ability we have. But the disadvantage is both considerable and very difficult to quantify: it has a (relatively) tiny area of effect. So you basically have to use Sudden Storm in concert with Singularity to get full benefit out of the target cap (cramming all foes into a tiny area), but there's no way you'll be able to do it often enough to take full advantage of the shorter cooldown.
FWIW, though, I've been thinking similarly to you lately.
BTW, Sudden Storm Mastery is a little underwhelming at first. From what I can tell, the damage chains are a flat 150 damage (regardless of power). The upside is that they're potentially unlimited.
One of my best mid-level power combination was to use tabbed-Entangling Force followed up by Sudden Storm. PvE-wise, it took care of mostly everything until higher levels.
Well, that's the dilemma.
Part of me doesn't want to tie the two together. Another part of me -- the part that's played a lot of epic dungeons -- realizes that Sudden Storm's main point of unusual appeal is its lack of a target cap. And I also know that Sudden Storm is a little clunky to use; the slow speed of the projectiles (for lack of a better word) often allows targets to run out of the power's small area of effect before they get hit.
The question is whether Sudden Storm's high per-hit damage and its extremely short cooldown are good enough on their own to make up for the power's shortcomings, in other words, even if you only hit let's say three targets on average. In principle, yes, I think it's a decent power. But what do you drop to make room for it?
More specifically: in order for Sudden Storm to become a viable replacement for the now-nerfed Shield pulse in dungeons, you'd have to make use of its unlimited target cap on a fairly regular basis. And in order to do that, you have to be able to bunch mobs reliably and for a decent period of time per shot. (Entangling Force's 5-target drag effect doesn't compare to Singularity in either one of those areas, though it might make for a decent makeshift replacement when Singularity's not available.)
So it's sort of a power-gamer's catch-22: the very reason I'd even think about replacing Shield (nerfed AP gain) with Sudden Storm is the same reason (fewer bunched mobs via Singularity) that gives me pause about Sudden Storm's ability to serve as a replacement.
But I've been known to over-think this sort of thing.
You're next best solution to gathering mobs into tight groupings would probably to use a gf + cw/chill combo. Have the gf spam the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> out of villain's menace to grab aggro and then simply have the cw use their CoI/icy/steal to lock them up. It won't be as ''clean'' as a sing, but should prove effective.
Good luck to them!
The question is why are you using EF, seriously? :rolleyes: This is a pvp spell. You need something hard-hitting to make a good use of alacrity. Or you need AOE dots to get the kills.
I suggest you try something like: CoI (tab) : refresh chill, aoe dot.
Shield: killing chill affected minions when they get out of stun. Boom, icy terrain is available.
Icy terrain
Steal time: stun + good damage.
Really, if you want to use alacrity there's no room for EF.
EF, now that Shield is getting nerfed, may be your best AP-gainer in Tab Slot. It's also great in Tab to zip mobs together so a GWF can burn through them.
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But i continued testings of the EotS and nightmare wizardry. Bad thing that dummies die to fast and flying around, so i cant maintain my attacks so they can hit all 3 of them. Methodology was the same as before, but now i discarded Elemental empowerment, because it cannot crit and messes up overall crit statistics.
Type
Damage
MinHit
MaxHit
Hits
Crit%
Flank%
All
2600796
0
15190
1092
75%
44%
Sudden Storm
705977
5291
15190
65
69%
42%
Conduit of Ice
530961
927
3317
247
74%
44%
Chilling Cloud
441299
583
5758
218
70%
50%
Storm Spell
282506
656
3936
139
79%
40%
Oppressive Force
259218
592
13688
89
100%
53%
Steal Time
194705
2217
7785
35
86%
60%
Icy Terrain
186130
369
1067
228
90%
49%
Eye of the Storm
0
0
0
21
0%
0%
Nightmare Wizardry
0
0
0
50
0%
0%
Damage statistics:
27% Sudden storm
20% CoI
17% Chilling cloud
11% Storm spell
10% Oppresive force
7% Steal time
7% Icy terrain
Good bye Shield, hello Sudden Storm
I must add that my crit chance is 38,9% (24 cha\2932 crit) and we can see that EotS is the BEST class feature we can get. Period. Who doesnt want double crit chance?
When 1 our class feature is set, remains the question what another one will be? Storm spell is only 11% of my DPS in test, and i used 3 the most proccing powers for it(Steal time, chilling cloud and Icy terrain), so maybe Chilling presence will give more(up to 18%).
Also i can assume that Nightmare wizardry is superior to the other choises(like bitter cold\reaper touch) bocause avarage uptime is 40+% that gives us more than 24*0.4+=9.6+% DPS increase
I will be happy to finally kill mobs rather than knock them over ledges... although, I am sure that I will be forced to do so in places similar to SP.
Nightmare Wizardry really shines with the new version of Eye of the Storm, no question. Whether it's a no-brainer choice for people who decide not to go with Eye of the Storm is another issue; I'm not sure. Unfortunately, Renegade-style builds take a rather significant indirect nerf on Storm Pillar if the new patch goes through as it is now.
Did your tests show a 40% uptime for Nightmare Wizardry for all three targets, or just a 40% uptime period (that is, 40% of the time with at least one target affected by the Combat Advantage debuff)? It's not entirely clear to me from looking over your numbers, but that probably has to do with my being dead tired and dull-witted right now
Something seems bugged to me, eye of the storm only "hit" 21 times, yet you have crits out the wazoo. The patch note said they were toning down the damage from EotS, your results don't seem to jive with the intent of their change. I'm not complaining but I get the feeling that's not intended.
I am okay with taking away one of the strengths of shield. Yes, it needed some toning down. But they took away it's AP gain AND DPS output. THAT is bull****.