Grimah's Shadowmantle Spellstorm Thaum Spec. (PvE)

grimah

Hi there, thought i would share my thaum spec I will be using in dread ring campaign. some things will be subject to change (but doubtful). After extensive testing this is the highest DPS spec that can be made! I have tried many variations, class feature combinations and feat selections, parsed damage and all that boring stuff. The build i settled for, for pure balls to the wall damage (I did try flame, which is just underperforming unfortunately):

My guide is in my signature:

Gear/stats quickie:
Go for your weapon enchant of choice, vorpal, plaguefire or lightning. Doesnt make a difference with ANY build. Lightning will work well if you wish to replace sudden storm for icy terrain.

Crit: Get your crit to 35% ish Pump your ability scores into int/charisma. crit rating at a comfortable 2200ish is sufficient.

other stats: I won't post my own stats because everyone will have their own preference, survival vs damage, or balance of both. check my guide for more details.

T2 set: High vizier best for damage, other alternatives are shadow weaver or archmage or 2/2 sets, best to pick one and stick with it due to the choice of enchants will often work around it. As before the choice of gear is up to you.

Power selection/choices:
http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=lzz:27fqo0:1get58,13j3ie3:100000:1z00uv:1uu000&h=0&p=ssm

ray of frost maxed (for pvp usuage)
If you want to cheese malabog take a point out of shield or ray for maelstrom. I don't spec it because
1. I think its a bug that maybe fixed
2. I have no need to use it for that fight



No Bitter cold or transcended master you call? Yup i tried that combo too, comparing this one to that one it does 8-12% more damage single target (depending on distance) and 16-18% more aoe damage (this is due to nightmare wizardry proccing the majority of the time eye of the storm is up so most of your total crit damage will be +15% (or equivalent to +30% crit severity) more information about this is posted further in this thread)

NOTE: I took critical power instead of reaper's touch, because i find the AP gain too important to pass up, this is purely up to you guys which one you wish to take....


Single target (for specific bosses and scenarios):

At-Wills: Chilling Cloud
Class features: Chilling presence (10% increase over stormspell), Eye of the Storm
Mastery: Icy Rays
Encounters: Ray of Enfeeblement, Conduit of Ice, Chill Strike

Typical AoE (you have all encounters at your disposal, mixing it up for skirmishes, solo and certain dungeons will prove more desirable):
At-wills: Chilling Cloud
Class features: Storm spell, Eye of the Storm
Mastery: Conduit of Ice
Encounters: Sudden Storm, Shard of the Endless Avalanche, Steal Time.


Ideal Companions for damage:
augment companion of choice
Fire archon/ wild hunt rider (epiced)
Blink dog (upgraded epic)
dancing blade (upgraded epic)
Lightfoot thief (upgraded epic)

This isnt too important and some are VERY costly! so just go with what you have for the time being. Check for a breakdown of the best wizard pets in my guide.

I am currently using a control/utlity companion loadout: galeb duhr, cantankerous mage, will o wisp, slyph.

I will expand on this as time goes on, Any questions feel free to post below.

uurbs

Hi Grimah,

grimah wrote: »

No Bitter cold or transcended master you call? Yup i tried that combo too, comparing this one to that one it does 8-12% more damage single target (depending on distance) and 16-18% more aoe damage (depending on distance)

What did you exchange for Transcended Master? I'm still uncertain about Reaper's Touch--you teleport for 25 feet, so you could be out of reach for Reaper's Touch to have an effect.

grimah

i exchanged transcended for nightmare wizardry. and yes i took reaper's touch range into consideration (tested outside the 20 ft as well as in) the damage difference is only 3% ish.

Also I tested thaum with magic missile (single target). theres next to no difference in terms of single target dps using storm spell with both. and a noticable increase if you use chilling cloud with chilling presence (instead of storm spell) This is due to combination of 5% damage from frozen power + high damage conduit of ice.

You are looking at a 50-60% uptime on nightmare where you are getting so much extra damage (not using blink dog either so if i had that on which is 5% epicced out) your looking at 2-3% more damage from that (havent tested but i think it stacks additively)

focusman

Nice looking forward to try this. Allthough since our AP gain is reduced in module2, isn't critical power a better option instead of Reaper's Touch? (some more as / of?)

which boons did you take?

But thanks for doing all this effort and sharing with the community!

darthpotater

This is a very interesting build, thank you for your invaluable contribution Grimah.

I have 2 questions:
1) Focused Wizardry only works for area powers hitting single target, and you change the area powers when facing single target. How can be this better than 5/5 in learned spellcaster? The bonus is not conditional and seems better overall
2) What enchant are you using? With perfect vorpal Trascended Master's bonus is very noticeable (shard and Icy Rays), so I asume that Nightmare Wizardry is giving more damage than this (very interesting). I have a blinking dog saved for release too.

Thank you again with your work and share.

grimah

wizardry affects conduit of ice too, as well as the 3rd strike of chilling cloud.

Conduit of ice in single target contributes the most damage over anything else, calculating the difference (9% more conduit damage + chill cloud) + 2% from spell caster, vs 5% all damage. the difference is a whooping..... 1%

Your choice of enchants doesnt make any feat/spec anymore or less effective, everything scales the same.

Your shard will hit harder when you proc wizardry than from transcended, and it applies to all not just that encounter. (ofc it has to proc but it has 60% uptime).

As for critical power, it is an option. though you will only be gaining a maximum of 5% ap per 10 seconds, unlike the way we have it now. You may want to have higher chilling cloud blasts during trash clearing, some bosses you can hug also. I wouldnt suggest one over the other if someone asked me, but this is the choice I will be going for.

matiagronx

grimah wrote: »

Your shard will hit harder when you proc wizardry than from transcended, and it applies to all not just that encounter. (ofc it has to proc but it has 60% uptime).

What exactly do you mean by harder? Transcended is +15% all the time. CA seems to be 15% plus charisma bonus percentage which could be 10% for 20 CHA so its 16.5% CA Damage Bonus for a 50-60% uptime so total bonus damage for shard is actually less than half of it (8% or less) since uptime is really much lower cause many procs will go wasted during fights.
Despite the shard's hit though, CA benefits all spells and the whole party damage so it is clearly a much more potent feat than Transcended.

darthpotater

grimah wrote: »

wizardry affects conduit of ice too, as well as the 3rd strike of chilling cloud.

Conduit of ice in single target contributes the most damage over anything else, calculating the difference (9% more conduit damage + chill cloud) + 2% from spell caster, vs 5% all damage. the difference is a whooping..... 1%

Your choice of enchants doesnt make any feat/spec anymore or less effective, everything scales the same.

Your shard will hit harder when you proc wizardry than from transcended, and it applies to all not just that encounter. (ofc it has to proc but it has 60% uptime).

Oh I didnt know that wizardry affects CoI and Chilling Cloud. Fair enough. My problem is that I dont like conditional bonuses (even Eye of the Storm) but I must try with your idea. My actual build is still very similar (same powers and only 2 different feats)

Thank you again

uurbs

@grimah, after some consideration: you won (over Stux ) I'm going to give your new build a try on the Live server come Thursday.

And, as I totally forgot in my first reply: very big thanks for all the thorough tests you've done and are still doing!

focusman

Same for me, I know where my repsec token is going to . I would only change 1 thing in powers. I go for 3/3 Orb of Imposition + Cantankerous Mage (=40% total control bonus). For the Draco fight where I think some more control is welcome in module 2.

darthpotater

What about Wild Hunt Rider? if it is 5% in epic, seems a big damage burst, we have 4 encounters and 2 with low cd (SS and CoI)

Need to test pseudodragon too, 20% chance to give stamina seems good, I dont know how much stamina it gives, or if it works for each enemy in Area spells

angrymanagement

darthpotater wrote: »

What about Wild Hunt Rider? if it is 5% in epic, seems a big damage burst, we have 4 encounters and 2 with low cd (SS and CoI)

Need to test pseudodragon too, 20% chance to give stamina seems good, I dont know how much stamina it gives, or if it works for each enemy in Area spells

I tested Psuedodragon, then logged back on live and dropped it back on the AH. The stamina boost was far less than spectacular.

grimah

yup, i tried pseudo on my GF also, the stamina it gives is 1-2 points atleast from what i saw. nothing noticable.

as for wild hunt, i believe someone tested it out, proc rate is too low to take note with. but with all active pet bonuses you are only looking at 1-2% damage increases each. My loadout will just be whatever i can find (getting honey badger for GF) so im not going to go crazy with them. as well as funding gear for my hunter ranger (vorpals and such).

to start i will use stone, book imp, archon, blink dog + hunting hawk (if i get the booster) or skeleton warrior (ill upgrade to blue atleast will be aiming to stack life steal).

Shame i have a fully upgraded blink dog on my GF >.< that thing gives 5% combat advantage.

j0shi82

Thanks grimah, your work is always highly appreciated. I also ditched EF because of the AP fix and put Sudden Storm back into the rotation. I went Skeletal Dog (Life Steal), Blink Dog, Fire Archon, Blade and the results were extremely good.

Because of the overall AP nerfs/fixes all over the CW class I think I'd be going WIS over INT and Critical Power over Reaper's Touch to compensate a little bit. I'm doing lots and lots of damage anyway. Also still supporting Destructive Wizardry over Tempest Magic although I know most don't feel comfortable with the way Storm Pillar has to be utilized. But within my playstyle the +10% generate more DPS than the Tempest +10% especially since my Cyro is a Tiefling.

angrymanagement

Yea, regarding Wild Hunt Rider, I tested it at blue quality & it was up less than 10% of the time for a 10 minute stretch of spamming the fastest recharging encounters (which would never be used in a dungeon). Not worth it imo.

Might be worth it at purple level, but wouldn't want to pour all that AD into it to get it there.

stoxforum1

grimah wrote: »

No Bitter cold or transcended master you call? Yup i tried that combo too, comparing this one to that one it does 8-12% more damage single target (depending on distance) and 16-18% more aoe damage (depending on distance)

Would love an explanation there. I would argue that the 2 skills you replaced them with don't give you 16-18% damage TOTAL so how would this be 16-18% more?

i.e. I can't think of the last time my at wills were more than 10% of my overall damage, but we'll call it 15% for this. So Reaper's touch would give you a max of 2.25% and that's assuming you're in range, which 80% of the time you wouldn't be and if you were, you'd probably be dodging instead of casting at wills. lol

matiagronx wrote: »

What exactly do you mean by harder? Transcended is +15% all the time. CA seems to be 15% plus charisma bonus percentage which could be 10% for 20 CHA so its 16.5% CA Damage Bonus for a 50-60% uptime so total bonus damage for shard is actually less than half of it (8% or less) since uptime is really much lower cause many procs will go wasted during fights.

I would say he's being generous on the up time in his caculation here since you would have normal combat advantage a portion of that as well. Either way you're looking at 10-11% more damage between the 2 under ideal circumstances, so how are you getting 16-18% more damage than a skill that with your build seems like it would always be giving you 5% damage increase from Bitter Cold and Transcended Master that adds to one encounter in your aoe rotation and another in your single target rotation?

Also curious, are you casting chilling cloud at the start of a fight to get the damage bonus? If not then why have this?

grimah

actually being modest about combat advantage, the 3 2 minute tests i did i flanked 58%, 60%, 61%. But id just say 50-60% to be safe.
because i have parsed dungeon data (malabog + CN) which gave me 53-56% average CA uptime. which is


Must be the damage from CA that gives you so much extra damage, on the 3 tests i ran (both specs, and renegade spec, some other variations) it did 16-18% more damage. I'll be modest and just say 15%. Must be all that CA damage, maybe its a bug?

as for taking frozen power transfer, its always up on single target for one, As for rotation im using encounters first then chilling cloud. As its more important to frontload your controls at the start of the fight, then use your chilling cloud in between your cooldowns. tested damage only hitting 1 target (with chilling cloud) since i didnt want unrealistic results of always have 15-25% bonus from it.

Also unless you really want to use storm pillar (has small radius, wont proc on single target) i dont see why i would take it over frozen power transfer. Secondly, Snap freeze does not work on Conduit of Ice mastery, perhaps its due to it chilling itself so does not apply damage, either that or its bugged (was bugging when i was last thaum). Won't work at all if im on single target due to chilling cloud, chill strike, ice knife, icy rays etc.

Also another note, your CA is going to benefit the whole group also (as well as increase you damage a whole bunch) your group wont be getting much CA when they aoe. On single target they probably wont need it much but you will.

Feel free to test and give me your results on nightmare wizardry. I've just spent too much time testing today! (been doing dungeon runs on preview to test the gwf changes too) so im all out of testingness.

borken69

I'm curious about your single target rotation having Icy Rays instead of RoE on tab. Last time I did that, it was a significant dps loss from the other way around.

stoxforum1

grimah wrote: »

actually being modest about combat advantage, the 3 2 minute tests i did i flanked 58%, 60%, 61%. But id just say 50-60% to be safe.
because i have parsed dungeon data (malabog + CN) which gave me 53-56% average CA uptime. which is

I completely agree with your numbers here grimah, don't get me wrong. What I mean is those numbers are diminished by the fact that your group at times has combat advantage without the buff, making the buff ineffective for probably 50% of the perceived bonus. i.e. if your group has combat advantage 30% of the time naturally, then you only gain 30% uptime on CA from Nightmare Wizardry.

pointsman

borken69 wrote: »

I'm curious about your single target rotation having Icy Rays instead of RoE on tab. Last time I did that, it was a significant dps loss from the other way around.

Well I think that Icy Rays procs HV, but RoE does not.

grimah

having RoE doesnt exactly increase RoE's damage. the debuff is the same 15% on mastery and normal, cooldown is also the same, but you can just save an extra one for the start/pauses in fights if there are any. Not sure why you got a dps loss. was you parsing your damage? or just looking at damage meters (because they are deceiving)

grimah

stoxforum1 wrote: »

I completely agree with your numbers here grimah, don't get me wrong. What I mean is those numbers are diminished by the fact that your group at times has combat advantage without the buff, making the buff ineffective for probably 50% of the perceived bonus. i.e. if your group has combat advantage 30% of the time naturally, then you only gain 30% uptime on CA from Nightmare Wizardry.

Ofcourse you are right, in single target (boss fights) you wont be giving melee much to work with, (i have a GWF and GF that i spend as much time playing as my wizard).

However in Trash clearing, its pretty impossible for melee to get combat advantage, our aoes hit in a cone, things are usually spread out. and you do need 1 person on the opposite side, as a GWF/GF im usually in the center of the group spamming my AoEs, so no way to get combat advantage there. I'm "assuming" its the same for rogues too. So in aoe nightmare is great for all.

But comparing to say bitter cold (i do love this feat, as ive always had it, and it scary not having this nice reliable buff) and transcended which do not give any buff to party anyways.

if you put together 2 wizards one with this build, one with the transcended/bitter cold. the other wizard will show up with more damage done on meters. Depends on what you(not you specifically) want ofcourse, more damage vs higher place in the meter.

But you do bring up a good point. If you have 2 wizards with this build (or 2 wizards who have nightmare) it cuts the effectiveness of your nightmare wizardry by 33% (estimate) since you maybe overlapping your nightmares, so if both have 50% it would be roughly 75% uptime. rather than a 100% uptime. stacking somewhat but not completely.

banaanc

i find Icy Terrain better than SS in infinite add encounters for more cc and better aoe

also how much of the time you have CA without the feat. the difference in dmg seems to be huge for me especially with sotea being my go to encounter

borken69

grimah wrote: »

having RoE doesnt exactly increase RoE's damage. the debuff is the same 15% on mastery and normal, cooldown is also the same, but you can just save an extra one for the start/pauses in fights if there are any. Not sure why you got a dps loss. was you parsing your damage? or just looking at damage meters (because they are deceiving)

No I wasn't parsing, just watching damage gaps on the meter. You're right that it's deceiving but RoE on tab gives you a 2nd 15% mitigation debuff that stacks as opposed to a few more k when Icy is on tab. Conceptually it seems like RoE should be a no brainer, as it's increasing everyone's damage as well.

angrymanagement

When did ROE go back to 15%? I thought they nerfed it a good while back to 7.5% per application & there was another nerf to its affect if it was on Tab?

matiagronx

banaanc wrote: »

i find Icy Terrain better than SS in infinite add encounters for more cc and better aoe

Well the crit Sudden Strike's beautiful sparkling runway "cuts through" infinite adds with 15-20k dmg on each bugger, so i may lose cc indeed but i cant really change this monster damage for Icy Terrain. When these 20k hits spread over adds, its an overkill, our second hard hitting overkill after monster 40-50k mass shardplosions

banaanc

Icy doesnt have cap( at least on cw box foundry it seems to affect as many targets as OF), has larger aoe and i feel like dmg isnt far from SS in full duration + it slows and freezes opponents giving you more time to attack + you get steady heal from hitting monsters instead of one burst

ss is better on clear since mobs dont live long enough to get the full dmg of it

grimah

borken69 wrote: »

No I wasn't parsing, just watching damage gaps on the meter. You're right that it's deceiving but RoE on tab gives you a 2nd 15% mitigation debuff that stacks as opposed to a few more k when Icy is on tab. Conceptually it seems like RoE should be a no brainer, as it's increasing everyone's damage as well.

Im not getting a bonus debuff, only 1 set of debuff from mastery. And the ability to story an extra charge.

That second charge is expended as soon as you use it, turning into a regular ray of enfeeblement. basically mastery gives you 1 extra ray at the start of the fight.

banaanc wrote: »

Icy doesnt have cap( at least on cw box foundry it seems to affect as many targets as OF), has larger aoe and i feel like dmg isnt far from SS in full duration + it slows and freezes opponents giving you more time to attack + you get steady heal from hitting monsters instead of one burst

ss is better on clear since mobs dont live long enough to get the full dmg of it

sure in foundry farming, i use sudden storm on mastery, terrain normal. But in reality it doesnt work as well, because 1. takes time to apply its damage 2. mobs can move out from ice terrain for x amount of reasons.

It does have its place, i switch icy terrain on when i need it, works great for 3rd boss in CN for example. However the loadout i posted is my standard trash clearing/aoe setup that i feel works best, switching things out for the specific situation for when it works better. This is why i think its important to spec your power points into every encounter we have.

j0shi82

In the discussion between Icy Terrain and Sudden Storm one should factor in that SS refreshes Arcane stacks. I find that very useful without EF.

borken69

grimah wrote: »

Im not getting a bonus debuff, only 1 set of debuff from mastery. And the ability to story an extra charge.

That second charge is expended as soon as you use it, turning into a regular ray of enfeeblement. basically mastery gives you 1 extra ray at the start of the fight.

Oh, derp. Good point. I'm still not sold on Nightmare Wizardry, since it's a buff that you can get with positioning or other class' skills (TR stealth, HR class feature, etc.) but admittedly I haven't parsed <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> so all I have is perception. It would be great for soloing/PvP but that's not what this build is about.

Assuming 25% bonus damage from CA and gaining 33% uptime from the feat, that's an increase in total damage of 8.33%. The other option is a flat 5% damage increase from Bitter Cold (100% uptime) and then Transcended Master only has to increase your total damage by more than 3.33% to be better than NW. Does 15% extra damage on Shard do that? I'm pretty sure it would. Granted, total group damage will increase from the CA buff. I'm assuming no extra damage from Reaper's Touch because I've found that most of the time when I'm using at-wills it's at range >20' so I'd stick with Critical Power despite the nerf.

gankdalf

Good luck killing draco after they fix so u can repel the adds with this build.