The new path seems to rely a little too much on setting up a bunch of DoT , I prefer EotS and a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> load of large crits , don't get me wrong the new path has potential but at the moment it just seems to be underpowered when compared to spellstorm , I'll continue testing various set ups though.
The new path seems to rely a little too much on setting up a bunch of DoT , I prefer EotS and a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> load of large crits , don't get me wrong the new path has potential but at the moment it just seems to be underpowered when compared to spellstorm , I'll continue testing various set ups though.
That's the only thing I could think of when trying to use this paragon path, try to stack as many DoTs as I can. Critical Conflagaration doesn't seem to work as the tooltip states, because I had critical hits many times on different powers like steal time, chill strike, etc. and it usually did not add another stack to the target. I could never get an At-will critical hit to add a stack. The most reliable abilities that added a stack was Oppressive Force and SotEA, and believe it or not Icy Terrain did add some stacks very occasionally.
I ran epic Frozen Heart and never managed to get more than 6 or 7 stacks on any of the bosses, so it didn't do much good. I was wearing Shadow Weavers to get more critical strike. Overall my damage was much reduced compared to my normal build wearing HV set.
The at-will has the most underwhelming animation effect I ever saw, it is like lighting a big bomb and the only thing coming off is a little "poof" out of it, with some sad smoke.
IMO it should at least last some time on screen and hit multiple times like it's lighting counterpart.
I am perplex by the wizard mobs in the campaign having better abilities and better fx for their spell. I am no master of flame, it should be called apprentice of flame. You took this paragon path from the dragon magazine and failed to give it justice.
there are just utilities and 1 spell based on fire for encounters, as well as 1 daily!!!
shouldn't this change that there is the equal amount of fire and ice spells till level 30 ant then based on the path select all fire or all ice???
It makes no sense to me!
Besides, in the original path you miss the most iconic wizards spells and in the fire path you don't add a fireball? what is this? MERP? This is D&D! The 4thE may have implement this control wizards fiasco, and so far at least it work as control, but now, this new path, not only has no control but it feels like a salon magician. Where is the flame/ice arrow? Fireball? Wall of Fire? Sleep? Web? Grease?
Shield? Flaming Sphere? Lighting bolt?
Plus why just for being a wizard I can't use a weapon like a dagger, staff, bow or sword? (this goes for the cleric too!)
I don't buy this new path, need to be re think the class from scratch contemplating boths paths.
i went on my wizard for a short while,
and the one thing i would have loved
is if they gave us the choice to sacrifice
all arcane magic for fire so we can have fire and ice
instead of arcane/ice or arcane/fire/some ice powers.
would have loved to be complete fire and ice.
Entangling Force: The Mastery version of this power no longer incorrectly generates AP based on the number of targets hit.
Thank you for balancing yet another great spell of the CW arsenal! People will never forgive you for that...
Furious Immolation: This power can now affect up to 8 targets at once.
Really?!? 8x6 = 48k damage.
Even if Arcane Singularity and Oppressive Force are capped to 5 targets and they hit each btw 15-20 thousand damage... that's still twice less the damage from Furious Immolation!
You just did what you said early before in this forum thread... and the feedback from us don't matter at all to you!
Seeing the other changes as well... you kinda did nothing to make this Paragon Path desirable. Thank you!
This is what I would change for this path if I were a Dev trying to make it more appealing:
Class Feature: Critical Conflagration – Gain increased Critical Severity, and when you hit with Arcane or Cold attacks, add Smolder effect to your target.
Encounter: Fanning the Flames – An area-of-effect power that applies a damage-over-time effect to targets that deals additional damage for every nearby target affected with Smolder. With Spell Mastery, it applies the Fanning the Flames debuff to the primary target, and adds a brief daze to secondary targets.
At-will: Scorching Burst – Charge up power to increase attack radius and initial damage. Applies a Smolder effect to targets. At full charge targets will be pulled towards the center. (limit # of targets affected by pull avoid abuse)
Feat: Drifting Embers – Targets affected by Fanning the Flames have a chance, when critically hit with Arcane or Cold base encounter, to gain Rimefire Aspect. Targets affected by Rimefire Aspect briefly take more damage.
When critically conflagration is slotted the third strike of magic missile and chilling cloud is flame red (smokey grey aoe for CC visual).
Entangling Force: The Mastery version of this power no longer incorrectly generates AP based on the number of targets hit.
Thank you for balancing yet another great spell of the CW arsenal! People will never forgive you for that...
Furious Immolation: This power can now affect up to 8 targets at once.
Really?!? 8x6 = 48k damage.
Even if Arcane Singularity and Oppressive Force are capped to 5 targets and they hit each btw 15-20 thousand damage... that's still twice less the damage from Furious Immolation!
You just did what you said early before in this forum thread... and the feedback from us don't matter at all to you!
Seeing the other changes as well... you kinda did nothing to make this Paragon Path desirable. Thank you!
Not quite sure where you are getting your math from. Furious Immolation hits about 50% harder than Arcane Singularity, and deals similar damage to Oppressive force but at a much larger range and slightly larger radius. (Per target hit)
While I'm sorry that you feel we've ignored all feedback I promise you it has not been. Part of this feeling may come from people wanting more from a Paragon path than they were meant to offer in Neverwinter or actual D&D. A paragon path does not fully redefine your entire character, it simply provides a choice of additional options. (Technically in a role playing sense I suppose it could be said that paragon paths define a character. But in actual mechanical terms, not as much)
It's possible that Paragon paths stuck a bit too close to the rules in terms of what benefits they provide, but that's what they are for now.
Not quite sure where you are getting your math from. Furious Immolation hits about 50% harder than Arcane Singularity, and deals similar damage to Oppressive force but at a much larger range and slightly larger radius. (Per target hit)
Checking it out on a target dummy. Furious Immolation is doing maybe 2/3 of the damage of Oppressive force on a single target. Without any feats or class features. No boons. Also removed my weapon enchant. I respeced and removed them, didn't want to taint the tests with something that boosted one and not the other.
So the negatives: It does less damage per target. Its limited to 8 targets. It has a huge aoe so you can't pick which 8 are getting pulled.
The positives: Its ranged & targeted. It pulls enemies. *Smolder.
Alternatives-
Singularity: Also targeted, also pulls (but slower), hits almost twice as many targets (15 iirc). Not tested damage.
Oppressive Force: Dazes everything around you, does more damage, hits more enemies. Not targeted, doesn't pull.
Maelstrom of Chaos: ??? Anybody tested?
*Smolder isn't much of an advantage since we have 2 class features that may grant smolder to other dailies. One of them just gives it to dailies, and the other grants smolder on crits.
Not quite sure where you are getting your math from. Furious Immolation hits about 50% harder than Arcane Singularity, and deals similar damage to Oppressive force but at a much larger range and slightly larger radius. (Per target hit)
Here is the info in the plugin from the same exact Oppressive Force hit: Click Me
You can see that the amount of damage done from that hit to the 3x Target Dummys is 55,858 over 3 seconds duration time from the Oppressive Force daze effect. I did not use any potions or fancy buffs to get that... Now when you consider the target cap of that spell plus the Buffs/De-buffs/Mitigation in group conditions then this will go way over 16k damage per target! When it comes to the hit box for OP and FI I think that they are almost the same...
Here is a full list of how much damage some of the other spells do for me including 7,782 hit from Arcane Singularity (this is not a critical hit because AS still cannot do that on the Live servers)
Now lets go over to the new paragon path.
On the picture below you can see that I did 14,618 critical hit with Arcane Singularity... keep in mind that you can do up to 20,000 damage in party condition (per target)
As you can see the max hit was 5,573! Even if you add the medium hit as well to that... This is almost 8,000 damage and if it hits 8x targets that's still 64,000 damage in total! (best scenario)
I don't think that this is even close to what AS or OP can give you in terms of damage output and CC.
Also keep in mind that this daily's are lower tier and Furious Immolation is higher one.
40 hits with Arcane Singularity gave me 299,709 damage. (I bet you can get better results with EotS)
60 hits with Furious Immolation gave me 194,547 damage.
While I'm sorry that you feel we've ignored all feedback I promise you it has not been. Part of this feeling may come from people wanting more from a Paragon path than they were meant to offer in Neverwinter or actual D&D. A paragon path does not fully redefine your entire character, it simply provides a choice of additional options. (Technically in a role playing sense I suppose it could be said that paragon paths define a character. But in actual mechanical terms, not as much)
It's possible that Paragon paths stuck a bit too close to the rules in terms of what benefits they provide, but that's what they are for now.
I do understand what you mean! But you also have to understand that no one will ever chose this path because is not on pair with the other one! Not a single spell, feat or passive is worth taking over the ones in Spellstorm!
Part of the appeal of Oppressive Force is that it's a multi-strike power that synergizes well with feats that proc additional buffs and effects on hit (e.g. Storm Spell damage and Eye of the Storm procs tend to spike when such powers are used).
It's probably frustrating for the dev team that we collectively seem to be a bit quick and harsh in our criticism of new Paragon options, but on the other hand it's difficult not to compare new options right up against the existing ones. I imagine that the Smolder mechanic was conceived to give the fire powers some added benefit and make them more than just old powers with new FX, but the DOT isn't attractive enough on its own to justify some powers having lower potential damage and/or utility compared to their Spellstorm counterparts.
That being said, some posters here could afford to be a little more considerate when dispensing feedback. Sharing criticism is important to a testing process, but there are real people who put hours into creating this content, and it's not necessary to be rude or insulting to get a point across.
Not quite sure where you are getting your math from. Furious Immolation hits about 50% harder than Arcane Singularity, and deals similar damage to Oppressive force but at a much larger range and slightly larger radius. (Per target hit)
While I'm sorry that you feel we've ignored all feedback I promise you it has not been. Part of this feeling may come from people wanting more from a Paragon path than they were meant to offer in Neverwinter or actual D&D. A paragon path does not fully redefine your entire character, it simply provides a choice of additional options. (Technically in a role playing sense I suppose it could be said that paragon paths define a character. But in actual mechanical terms, not as much)
It's possible that Paragon paths stuck a bit too close to the rules in terms of what benefits they provide, but that's what they are for now.
i think you hit the nail on the head. for me, i had similar expectations from the new paragon path but was a bit disappointed that i wasn't going to get to shoot fireballs. but as you said, this is what it is for now.
the fact of the matter is, whether it's stormspell or master of flame, there are many different ways to play a control wizard with both of these paths. and people need to also remember that these are still on the preview shard and everything is still subject to change before it goes live. not to mention, i've seen more direct communication between developers/designers and the community in the last few weeks and i know that's been something a lot of people have been asking for. your dedication is definitely much appreciated.
thanks!
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gutbusterfiendMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited November 2013
What I don't understand is there is a long standing history and background of games coming before this yet all the spells and abilities are different and redefined.
Baldur's Gate and Tales from the Sword Coast
Icewind Dale and Heart of winter
Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal
Icewind Dale 2
Neverwinter Nights and all the expansions
NeverWinter Nights 2 and all the expansions
Look at the break down of spells and abilities from those games. Why are none from the traditional games being used. Ok I can understand that yes they are different games, but if you have even read the entire series and the other books revolving around the characters even in those the majority of spells and abilities are the same from those games.
I can relate here to how a lot of people are saying as you go higher up into the tiers of abilities the more epic or amazing they should be. Why are lower level spells and abilities far superior to Higher Level spells and abilities.
This paragon path is called "Master of Flame."
Where are these spells and abilities:
Burning Hands (melee)
Agannazar's Scorcher (single target front cone)
Fireball (thrown aoe explosion on impact)
Flame Arrow (single target high dps with dot)
Melf's Minute Meteors (conjured item and for throwing)
Fire Shield (Blue) (protective barrier with dmg on being attacked)
Fire Shield (Red) (protective barrier with dmg on being attacked)
Conjure Lesser Fire Elemental
Sunfire (AoE fire explosion that starts at caster and moves out from)
Conjure Fire Elemental
Delayed Blast Fireball (thrown fireball which sits in place and explodes after short time)
Incendiary Cloud (fire cloud of death that kills vs save or DOT to all standing in including party)
Meteor Swarm ( rain of fiery meteors dealing massive aoe dmg)
Comet (Massive dmg spell)
Dragon's Breath (cone based spell massive dmg to those caught in it save vs death)
Again yes I can understand this is a different game but that is the epic spell progression of all previous games leading up to this. Yes I can Understand this is a F2P. But I even listed those spells and abilities in sequence of level progression from Level 1 spell to a Level 10 spell. Anyone here who previously played any of those games should understand exactly what I am talking about. The further you progressed in level the more amazing and more powerful the spells became. This class is called control wizard but the same thing should apply you should go from minor control abilities to mass control abilities or lock down abilities. Now you're trying to make a mainly DPS based paragon path the same should apply. Abilities should work their way up in terms of damage and single target to I insanely powerful single targets to clearing a room in 2-3 casts. That is how all the others worked.
That is a complete list of the entire Wizard spells available from the prior history of games leading up to this one. Now I can see ok thats from a different era of D&D rules fine or you might argue that this game is based on a time after the spellplague which knocked out the majority of magic use / changed the way of magic use. Though even then all those previous games and books used different schools of magic for their spell casters and they could use a combination of spells and abilities outside of their selected schools (though selective few) but again it feels as though its one or 2 abilities given based on a paragon path and yet its named on a specialization that has almost nothing to do with it. It also still comes down to the fact that the majority of the primary abilities you're using are ice and arcane based. Would those not be schools of magic in their own or a paragon path on their own? Magic based users should be built and treated differently from other classes and not just thrown here is an extra spell and ability here and there.
If it would be too much to make changes based on something like that you should at least consider adding in some sort of scroll drop or purchase system which allows attempts at learning those abilities so people can choose to use only that school or spells and abilities. Make it like the rune or enchantment system where this is only a percentage of a possibility that you can learn those spells and abilities. Give a bonus for being in that paragon tree while using those.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
i think you hit the nail on the head. for me, i had similar expectations from the new paragon path but was a bit disappointed that i wasn't going to get to shoot fireballs. but as you said, this is what it is for now.
Any chance we could get the animation adjusted for Scorching Burst so that it looks like the Wizard is throwing a fireball? Would that make people more happy with the animations?
Also, in regards to what paragon paths are, reference the 4E rules. It's not a complete redefinition of a character, but more a choice to specialize a bit more with a few extra powers. They're not designed to make your class into something totally different.
Part of the appeal of Oppressive Force is that it's a multi-strike power that synergizes well with feats that proc additional buffs and effects on hit (e.g. Storm Spell damage and Eye of the Storm procs tend to spike when such powers are used).
That's just it, even without any benefits Oppressive Force is straight up better. Remove everything and the base spell does more damage than Furious Immolation. Buff them both up and I'm sure OF is much better. What worries me is that they think Furious Immolation was on par with OF.
It's probably frustrating for the dev team that we collectively seem to be a bit quick and harsh in our criticism of new Paragon options, but on the other hand it's difficult not to compare new options right up against the existing ones. I imagine that the Smolder mechanic was conceived to give the fire powers some added benefit and make them more than just old powers with new FX, but the DOT isn't attractive enough on its own to justify some powers having lower potential damage and/or utility compared to their Spellstorm counterparts.
Agreed. I think they thought the dot mechanic would be great. But as you said it isn't 'attractive enough'. The lower max damage kills the powers in my opinion.
That being said, some posters here could afford to be a little more considerate when dispensing feedback. Sharing criticism is important to a testing process, but there are real people who put hours into creating this content, and it's not necessary to be rude or insulting to get a point across.
Also True. I'm appologize if I crossed a line and added to this myself. I tend to get carried away.
Now, all that aside. Has anyone tested the spell against its true storm spell equivalent?
Bug: Critical Conflagration It's still possible to stack Rimefire on targets with IT. It's also possible to proc Rimefire on targets with non critical hits of cold powers. Both is possibly related.
Bug: Fanning the Flame Power (not in Spell Mastery) procs weapon enchantments on nearby targets.
Personally, I'm just really disappointed that there is no Fireball with this path. As a longtime D&D player, one of my biggest issues when I started playing NW was the absence of this iconic spell from the CW's arsenal. When I saw that the new paragon was based around a fire theme, I thought for sure that this would be remedied.
I really don't get it. Other than maybe Magic Missile, there is probably no spell more heavily associated with D&D wizards than Fireball. No matter what other abilities it has, IMHO, a CW just doesn't feel like a D&D wizard without access to Fireball.
Personally, I'm just really disappointed that there is no Fireball with this path. As a longtime D&D player, one of my biggest issues when I started playing NW was the absence of this iconic spell from the CW's arsenal. When I saw that the new paragon was based around a fire theme, I thought for sure that this would be remedied.
I really don't get it. Other than maybe Magic Missile, there is probably no spell more heavily associated with D&D wizards than Fireball. No matter what other abilities it has, IMHO, a CW just doesn't feel like a D&D wizard without access to Fireball.
Just my 2 coppers.
My guess is that they're reserving some of the other iconic evocations like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Meteor Swarm for a War Wizard class or something.
My guess is that they're reserving some of the other iconic evocations like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Meteor Swarm for a War Wizard class or something.
I'm inclined to agree. All they really did with this was replace the Storm/Lightning powers with various flame powers that cause direct damage/DoT or enhance the CW existing ice/chill effects. The level of control still remains about the same with the various mob movement, slow/freeze, daze, etc. powers. The big evocations like Fireball are all non-controlling, direct instant damage type spells.
Maybe they should have saved the fire spells for War Wizard and allow swapping the fire/ice between at that point, e.g. swap Ice Storm for Fireball, Burning Hands at-will for the ice ray at-will, etc. Control Wizard and War Wizard are builds for the Wizard class, so it would be cool to choose Wizard, choose your initial 'build path' to set your initial options, and then choose your paragon path when you get to that point.
For a new paragon path for CW, perhaps some 'poison/noxious gas' master - Stinking Cloud (slowed/immobilized due to nausea + dmg) and Cloudkill (instant death to low creatures + slow/immobilize/damage to higher) for instance - more control and more damage/DoT, although there's no interaction with the ice/chill mechanic.
You're probably right, vorphied. I just don't like having to wait until some unknown time way off in the distance for something so central (in my mind at least) to the concept of a D&D wizard. Ah well, I guess my TR will remain my main.
I think that this is what they have in mind to balance things around... by nerfing the ability's from Spellstorm path to make them in pair with the new Master Of Flame path
Even if that's not the case at the moment... I can already see it coming!
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fistiganMember, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 15Arc User
edited November 2013
I have to agree with most of the negative comments posted about the damage for the new path is seriously underwhelming and tome give me NO cause to Spec to it. I may as well remain as is. Honestly I as apparently many of the other players are here to play D&D. Why are we not using the TRADITIONAL powers that made the Mage all it is in the P&P version? Fireball? Lightning bolt? Meteorswarm? Otilukes freezing sphere? etc Heck Burning hands would be fabulous. Figure out a way to use darkness? we stun so why not take it up a notch and make them suffer in the dark for 3 to 5 seconds? whats the diff other than the coolness/WOW factor? C'mon Man this is Dungeons and Dragons for Moradins Sake WTF lets play!!!
Where are these spells and abilities:
Burning Hands (melee)
Agannazar's Scorcher (single target front cone)
Fireball (thrown aoe explosion on impact)
Flame Arrow (single target high dps with dot)
Melf's Minute Meteors (conjured item and for throwing)
Fire Shield (Blue) (protective barrier with dmg on being attacked)
Fire Shield (Red) (protective barrier with dmg on being attacked)
Conjure Lesser Fire Elemental
Sunfire (AoE fire explosion that starts at caster and moves out from)
Conjure Fire Elemental
Delayed Blast Fireball (thrown fireball which sits in place and explodes after short time)
Incendiary Cloud (fire cloud of death that kills vs save or DOT to all standing in including party)
Meteor Swarm ( rain of fiery meteors dealing massive aoe dmg)
Comet (Massive dmg spell)
Dragon's Breath (cone based spell massive dmg to those caught in it save vs death)
[...]
This game is based on 4th edition. Most of the spells you mentioned aren't in 4e.
And every paragon path has its unique powers.
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gutbusterfiendMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited November 2013
Well if you read my post just bellow that you would see I said I understand its a new era of D&D or 4e. But they should totally bring those back. It feels like they designed cw in a way compared to a melee class. Limited in abilities where as most spell caster classes are glass cannons for a reason. They typically are much more complex in terms of abilities. The reason being is just that they are glass cannons so that in orser to function fully they require generally more abilities than a typical class. Here though it feels beyond limited to where it matches a melee class. Its a hand full of spells/abilities where it should be a vast list in order to make up for the loss of AC and tye lack of survival.
Don't get me wrong I do just fine playing my Cw after 10+ years of competitive mmorpg gaming but it feels very lacking compared to any other caster type class I have ever played. It also seems very thrown together. Frost abilities should be paragon itself same with arcane. I can understand having a few abilities from outside of a school of magic but not this few abilities for a paragon spec that basically specialized you into it. For a fire dmg based spec it doesn't make sense that the majority of your abilities you are required to use are in fact not fire at all.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Well if you read my post just bellow tgat you would see I said I understand its a new era of D&D or 4e. But they should totally bring those back. It feels like they designed cw in a way comoared to a melee class. Limited in abilities where as most spell caster classes are glass cannons for a reason. They typically are much more complex in terms of abilities. Here though it feels beyond limited to where it matches a melee class. Its a hand full of spells/abilities where it should be a vast list.
This was an intentional design choice behind the 4E rules sets. It put non-caster classes much more on par with casters, whereas in the old editions, after a few levels, a caster could do everything a non-caster could do, but much better, making those classes obsolete.
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
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gutbusterfiendMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited November 2013
No that's not true every class has a specific roll you would still need a tank in order to allow a caster open range to perform their roll. Single target dps to quickly burst down high priority targets. But this is just my opinion. Theyre glass canons for a reason. High output dps/control low survival. Casters also require time in order to open dmg where as melee is instant and burst.
Well if you read my post just bellow that you would see I said I understand its a new era of D&D or 4e. But they should totally bring those back. It feels like they designed cw in a way compared to a melee class. Limited in abilities where as most spell caster classes are glass cannons for a reason. They typically are much more complex in terms of abilities. The reason being is just that they are glass cannons so that in orser to function fully they require generally more abilities than a typical class. Here though it feels beyond limited to where it matches a melee class. Its a hand full of spells/abilities where it should be a vast list in order to make up for the loss of AC and tye lack of survival.
Since every paragon path has its unique powers, it would be pointless introducing the paragon path if it doesn't use its own unique powers and use other powers instead.
Comments
That's the only thing I could think of when trying to use this paragon path, try to stack as many DoTs as I can. Critical Conflagaration doesn't seem to work as the tooltip states, because I had critical hits many times on different powers like steal time, chill strike, etc. and it usually did not add another stack to the target. I could never get an At-will critical hit to add a stack. The most reliable abilities that added a stack was Oppressive Force and SotEA, and believe it or not Icy Terrain did add some stacks very occasionally.
I ran epic Frozen Heart and never managed to get more than 6 or 7 stacks on any of the bosses, so it didn't do much good. I was wearing Shadow Weavers to get more critical strike. Overall my damage was much reduced compared to my normal build wearing HV set.
IMO it should at least last some time on screen and hit multiple times like it's lighting counterpart.
there are just utilities and 1 spell based on fire for encounters, as well as 1 daily!!!
shouldn't this change that there is the equal amount of fire and ice spells till level 30 ant then based on the path select all fire or all ice???
It makes no sense to me!
Besides, in the original path you miss the most iconic wizards spells and in the fire path you don't add a fireball? what is this? MERP? This is D&D! The 4thE may have implement this control wizards fiasco, and so far at least it work as control, but now, this new path, not only has no control but it feels like a salon magician. Where is the flame/ice arrow? Fireball? Wall of Fire? Sleep? Web? Grease?
Shield? Flaming Sphere? Lighting bolt?
Plus why just for being a wizard I can't use a weapon like a dagger, staff, bow or sword? (this goes for the cleric too!)
I don't buy this new path, need to be re think the class from scratch contemplating boths paths.
and the one thing i would have loved
is if they gave us the choice to sacrifice
all arcane magic for fire so we can have fire and ice
instead of arcane/ice or arcane/fire/some ice powers.
would have loved to be complete fire and ice.
Entangling Force: The Mastery version of this power no longer incorrectly generates AP based on the number of targets hit.
Thank you for balancing yet another great spell of the CW arsenal! People will never forgive you for that...
Furious Immolation: This power can now affect up to 8 targets at once.
Really?!? 8x6 = 48k damage.
Even if Arcane Singularity and Oppressive Force are capped to 5 targets and they hit each btw 15-20 thousand damage... that's still twice less the damage from Furious Immolation!
You just did what you said early before in this forum thread... and the feedback from us don't matter at all to you!
Seeing the other changes as well... you kinda did nothing to make this Paragon Path desirable. Thank you!
Class Feature: Critical Conflagration – Gain increased Critical Severity, and when you hit with Arcane or Cold attacks, add Smolder effect to your target.
Encounter: Fanning the Flames – An area-of-effect power that applies a damage-over-time effect to targets that deals additional damage for every nearby target affected with Smolder. With Spell Mastery, it applies the Fanning the Flames debuff to the primary target, and adds a brief daze to secondary targets.
At-will: Scorching Burst – Charge up power to increase attack radius and initial damage. Applies a Smolder effect to targets. At full charge targets will be pulled towards the center. (limit # of targets affected by pull avoid abuse)
Feat: Drifting Embers – Targets affected by Fanning the Flames have a chance, when critically hit with Arcane or Cold base encounter, to gain Rimefire Aspect. Targets affected by Rimefire Aspect briefly take more damage.
When critically conflagration is slotted the third strike of magic missile and chilling cloud is flame red (smokey grey aoe for CC visual).
Not quite sure where you are getting your math from. Furious Immolation hits about 50% harder than Arcane Singularity, and deals similar damage to Oppressive force but at a much larger range and slightly larger radius. (Per target hit)
While I'm sorry that you feel we've ignored all feedback I promise you it has not been. Part of this feeling may come from people wanting more from a Paragon path than they were meant to offer in Neverwinter or actual D&D. A paragon path does not fully redefine your entire character, it simply provides a choice of additional options. (Technically in a role playing sense I suppose it could be said that paragon paths define a character. But in actual mechanical terms, not as much)
It's possible that Paragon paths stuck a bit too close to the rules in terms of what benefits they provide, but that's what they are for now.
Checking it out on a target dummy. Furious Immolation is doing maybe 2/3 of the damage of Oppressive force on a single target. Without any feats or class features. No boons. Also removed my weapon enchant. I respeced and removed them, didn't want to taint the tests with something that boosted one and not the other.
So the negatives: It does less damage per target. Its limited to 8 targets. It has a huge aoe so you can't pick which 8 are getting pulled.
The positives: Its ranged & targeted. It pulls enemies. *Smolder.
Alternatives-
Singularity: Also targeted, also pulls (but slower), hits almost twice as many targets (15 iirc). Not tested damage.
Oppressive Force: Dazes everything around you, does more damage, hits more enemies. Not targeted, doesn't pull.
Maelstrom of Chaos: ??? Anybody tested?
*Smolder isn't much of an advantage since we have 2 class features that may grant smolder to other dailies. One of them just gives it to dailies, and the other grants smolder on crits.
I'm getting my math from the combat log.
You can see the damage from the pictures below.
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Here is the info in the plugin from the same exact Oppressive Force hit:
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You can see that the amount of damage done from that hit to the 3x Target Dummys is 55,858 over 3 seconds duration time from the Oppressive Force daze effect. I did not use any potions or fancy buffs to get that... Now when you consider the target cap of that spell plus the Buffs/De-buffs/Mitigation in group conditions then this will go way over 16k damage per target! When it comes to the hit box for OP and FI I think that they are almost the same...
Here is a full list of how much damage some of the other spells do for me including 7,782 hit from Arcane Singularity (this is not a critical hit because AS still cannot do that on the Live servers)
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On the picture below you can see that I did 14,618 critical hit with Arcane Singularity... keep in mind that you can do up to 20,000 damage in party condition (per target)
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Let's see how much Furious Immolation do!
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As you can see the max hit was 5,573! Even if you add the medium hit as well to that... This is almost 8,000 damage and if it hits 8x targets that's still 64,000 damage in total! (best scenario)
I don't think that this is even close to what AS or OP can give you in terms of damage output and CC.
Also keep in mind that this daily's are lower tier and Furious Immolation is higher one.
40 hits with Arcane Singularity gave me 299,709 damage. (I bet you can get better results with EotS)
60 hits with Furious Immolation gave me 194,547 damage.
All this was done on 3x Target Dummys!
All the numbers were taken from the combat log.
I do understand what you mean! But you also have to understand that no one will ever chose this path because is not on pair with the other one! Not a single spell, feat or passive is worth taking over the ones in Spellstorm!
It's probably frustrating for the dev team that we collectively seem to be a bit quick and harsh in our criticism of new Paragon options, but on the other hand it's difficult not to compare new options right up against the existing ones. I imagine that the Smolder mechanic was conceived to give the fire powers some added benefit and make them more than just old powers with new FX, but the DOT isn't attractive enough on its own to justify some powers having lower potential damage and/or utility compared to their Spellstorm counterparts.
That being said, some posters here could afford to be a little more considerate when dispensing feedback. Sharing criticism is important to a testing process, but there are real people who put hours into creating this content, and it's not necessary to be rude or insulting to get a point across.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
i think you hit the nail on the head. for me, i had similar expectations from the new paragon path but was a bit disappointed that i wasn't going to get to shoot fireballs. but as you said, this is what it is for now.
the fact of the matter is, whether it's stormspell or master of flame, there are many different ways to play a control wizard with both of these paths. and people need to also remember that these are still on the preview shard and everything is still subject to change before it goes live. not to mention, i've seen more direct communication between developers/designers and the community in the last few weeks and i know that's been something a lot of people have been asking for. your dedication is definitely much appreciated.
thanks!
Baldur's Gate and Tales from the Sword Coast
Icewind Dale and Heart of winter
Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal
Icewind Dale 2
Neverwinter Nights and all the expansions
NeverWinter Nights 2 and all the expansions
Look at the break down of spells and abilities from those games. Why are none from the traditional games being used. Ok I can understand that yes they are different games, but if you have even read the entire series and the other books revolving around the characters even in those the majority of spells and abilities are the same from those games.
I can relate here to how a lot of people are saying as you go higher up into the tiers of abilities the more epic or amazing they should be. Why are lower level spells and abilities far superior to Higher Level spells and abilities.
This paragon path is called "Master of Flame."
Where are these spells and abilities:
Burning Hands (melee)
Agannazar's Scorcher (single target front cone)
Fireball (thrown aoe explosion on impact)
Flame Arrow (single target high dps with dot)
Melf's Minute Meteors (conjured item and for throwing)
Fire Shield (Blue) (protective barrier with dmg on being attacked)
Fire Shield (Red) (protective barrier with dmg on being attacked)
Conjure Lesser Fire Elemental
Sunfire (AoE fire explosion that starts at caster and moves out from)
Conjure Fire Elemental
Delayed Blast Fireball (thrown fireball which sits in place and explodes after short time)
Incendiary Cloud (fire cloud of death that kills vs save or DOT to all standing in including party)
Meteor Swarm ( rain of fiery meteors dealing massive aoe dmg)
Comet (Massive dmg spell)
Dragon's Breath (cone based spell massive dmg to those caught in it save vs death)
Again yes I can understand this is a different game but that is the epic spell progression of all previous games leading up to this. Yes I can Understand this is a F2P. But I even listed those spells and abilities in sequence of level progression from Level 1 spell to a Level 10 spell. Anyone here who previously played any of those games should understand exactly what I am talking about. The further you progressed in level the more amazing and more powerful the spells became. This class is called control wizard but the same thing should apply you should go from minor control abilities to mass control abilities or lock down abilities. Now you're trying to make a mainly DPS based paragon path the same should apply. Abilities should work their way up in terms of damage and single target to I insanely powerful single targets to clearing a room in 2-3 casts. That is how all the others worked.
http://www.planetbaldursgate.com/bg2/character/spells/wizard/
That is a complete list of the entire Wizard spells available from the prior history of games leading up to this one. Now I can see ok thats from a different era of D&D rules fine or you might argue that this game is based on a time after the spellplague which knocked out the majority of magic use / changed the way of magic use. Though even then all those previous games and books used different schools of magic for their spell casters and they could use a combination of spells and abilities outside of their selected schools (though selective few) but again it feels as though its one or 2 abilities given based on a paragon path and yet its named on a specialization that has almost nothing to do with it. It also still comes down to the fact that the majority of the primary abilities you're using are ice and arcane based. Would those not be schools of magic in their own or a paragon path on their own? Magic based users should be built and treated differently from other classes and not just thrown here is an extra spell and ability here and there.
If it would be too much to make changes based on something like that you should at least consider adding in some sort of scroll drop or purchase system which allows attempts at learning those abilities so people can choose to use only that school or spells and abilities. Make it like the rune or enchantment system where this is only a percentage of a possibility that you can learn those spells and abilities. Give a bonus for being in that paragon tree while using those.
Any chance we could get the animation adjusted for Scorching Burst so that it looks like the Wizard is throwing a fireball? Would that make people more happy with the animations?
Also, in regards to what paragon paths are, reference the 4E rules. It's not a complete redefinition of a character, but more a choice to specialize a bit more with a few extra powers. They're not designed to make your class into something totally different.
That's just it, even without any benefits Oppressive Force is straight up better. Remove everything and the base spell does more damage than Furious Immolation. Buff them both up and I'm sure OF is much better. What worries me is that they think Furious Immolation was on par with OF.
Agreed. I think they thought the dot mechanic would be great. But as you said it isn't 'attractive enough'. The lower max damage kills the powers in my opinion.
Also True. I'm appologize if I crossed a line and added to this myself. I tend to get carried away.
Now, all that aside. Has anyone tested the spell against its true storm spell equivalent?
Powers don't crit anymore! Please fix this!
Bug: Critical Conflagration
It's still possible to stack Rimefire on targets with IT. It's also possible to proc Rimefire on targets with non critical hits of cold powers. Both is possibly related.
Bug: Fanning the Flame
Power (not in Spell Mastery) procs weapon enchantments on nearby targets.
I really don't get it. Other than maybe Magic Missile, there is probably no spell more heavily associated with D&D wizards than Fireball. No matter what other abilities it has, IMHO, a CW just doesn't feel like a D&D wizard without access to Fireball.
Just my 2 coppers.
My guess is that they're reserving some of the other iconic evocations like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Meteor Swarm for a War Wizard class or something.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I'm inclined to agree. All they really did with this was replace the Storm/Lightning powers with various flame powers that cause direct damage/DoT or enhance the CW existing ice/chill effects. The level of control still remains about the same with the various mob movement, slow/freeze, daze, etc. powers. The big evocations like Fireball are all non-controlling, direct instant damage type spells.
Maybe they should have saved the fire spells for War Wizard and allow swapping the fire/ice between at that point, e.g. swap Ice Storm for Fireball, Burning Hands at-will for the ice ray at-will, etc. Control Wizard and War Wizard are builds for the Wizard class, so it would be cool to choose Wizard, choose your initial 'build path' to set your initial options, and then choose your paragon path when you get to that point.
For a new paragon path for CW, perhaps some 'poison/noxious gas' master - Stinking Cloud (slowed/immobilized due to nausea + dmg) and Cloudkill (instant death to low creatures + slow/immobilize/damage to higher) for instance - more control and more damage/DoT, although there's no interaction with the ice/chill mechanic.
Rar'rizton Kenana, Level 60 Drow Elf Trickster Rogue
Syrus Greycloak, Level 30 Moon Elf Control Wizard
Lucan Huntinghawk, Level 17 Moon Elf Hunter Ranger
Sacred Silver Blades (www.sacredkeep.com)
I think that this is what they have in mind to balance things around... by nerfing the ability's from Spellstorm path to make them in pair with the new Master Of Flame path
Even if that's not the case at the moment... I can already see it coming!
And every paragon path has its unique powers.
Don't get me wrong I do just fine playing my Cw after 10+ years of competitive mmorpg gaming but it feels very lacking compared to any other caster type class I have ever played. It also seems very thrown together. Frost abilities should be paragon itself same with arcane. I can understand having a few abilities from outside of a school of magic but not this few abilities for a paragon spec that basically specialized you into it. For a fire dmg based spec it doesn't make sense that the majority of your abilities you are required to use are in fact not fire at all.
This was an intentional design choice behind the 4E rules sets. It put non-caster classes much more on par with casters, whereas in the old editions, after a few levels, a caster could do everything a non-caster could do, but much better, making those classes obsolete.