I've been trying Combustive Action and Chilling Presence, wich i had never used before as a MoF. I realised some interesting things.
-On parties with CW shortage (less than 3) its realy nice to have CA. It makes a difference if you are struggling to keep sing up all the time.
-Chilling presence also gives a great edge in what comes to dps.
-SoD is awsome too, and in full parties it is probably the best for long kills such as draco.
More objectively: (and i used to have CC and SoD)
-Chilling Presence gives me more dps than SoD on every situation.
-Combustive Action gives me insane AP gain and can make a HUGE difference when u struggle with Crowd Control
-Swath is a debuff and little damage improvement, wich makes it a good choice for well compensated teams that are neither too overpowered nor too weak (and control lacking).
Overall conclusion: We have some amazing class features, and i think any of those may be the best for the slot, depending on personal playstyle, party composition and encounter characteristics. I hope i helped
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited February 2014
SoD isn't about personal damage guys, it's about team damage. The highlight isn't the damage increase from smolder (which is 24% i believe), but the increased damage from teammates (6%). 6% team DPS is ginormous.
Also remember that smolder stacks refreshed by other players will be in their logs - not mine, so it might be more damage than it appears as well.
I just don't see why I would need more AP if i often am holding dailies so that CWs can go through their rotation. I really don't understand how spamming sing more often would help other than making sure everyone's shard misses :S
I would guess it is because some of the speculation in this thread is wandering from your original premise: CN, geared, playing for team victory, and always working with other CWs with good teamwork.
nano signing in officially for chems flame mages army.
im truely enjoying the play style of ur spec, as i have always felt more comfortable providing cc and support. forced to press "x" and then frustrated about the paingiver ranks has been such an nuisance to me for a while now. im glad u have showed me the way out. i realised this is how i like to play as a CONTROL Wizard - like the good old days. thanks a lot chem
Does anyone use Oppressor? Or is it more or less useless?(As MoF is touted to be...)
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited February 2014
We had two opressors in our guild, they both respeced to thaum because they were doing something like 40% less damage with almost no more control - so as far as I can tell, oppressor is useless in high end engame
As for Renegade, we used you have 50/50 thaum/renegade, but most of the renegades switched voluntaritly to thaum. We are now about 95/5 Thaum/Renegade (and one of the renegades is on vacation). After the switch both personal and team damage increased.
MoF useless? Nano and I just went with our team, we killed draco 7 or 8 times averaging 3 minute kills with no wipes, sure sounds useless to me.
3 minute kills? Not build specific, but these threads sure add incentive to keep pushing. Impressive :cool:
Thaum generally adds more personal DPS while MoF adds utility. With the absurd amount of damage a CW can output (remember ArPen still broken for most skills, once fixed add another 12-24% DPS), I generally would vote for more utility/survivability/AP for CWs because an extra 25% DPS or whatever aren't noticeable outside the paingiver rating. I would still go with HV though, there simply isn't any way around it.
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited February 2014
Often, there is a spellstorm with HV in the group.
SW stats are just 100 times better for MoF, and the buffs seem to work most times. I'm aware of the internal cooldown issue, but they have to be off cooldown for a while it seems. I'll watch next time i run CN.
You _could_ stick with HV set if you went to the trouble of stacking a lot of crit, but that would cost you elsewhere and not be as good for the spec.
However, i carry around my HV set just in case ^^ While i agree the HV bonus is among the best set bonuses out there (high prophet also comes to mind) the SW bonus is really good too.
Hey, I am leveling up a CW to go the MoF route and I am just wondering what to do with my stat points. I know I want to be sinking as much as I can into into but after that should I go WIS? CHA? A mix of both? Thanks for any help.
There is a very simple way to evaluate your claim that MoF "helps the team".
All dungeons have an HP pool of mobs, once that pool reaches 0 the dungeon is over. Could be more complicated at times but not by much.
So the objective is to finish a dungeon in the shortest possible time, this can only be done by having the highest possible team DPS.
The math becomes simple, MoF mage demonstrably loses over 20% dps, even more if he doesn't use HV.
Do you help increase the team's DPS enough to not just compensate for this but make it higher? Show us the numbers.
You claim your crit severity buffs help. Use ACT to find out how much of your team's dmg is due to those severity buffs and what they really are on average throughout the dungeon. Not that hard to do.
There is also team efficacy to consider, you mentioned how you, a MoF can outdps spellstorm mages. That suggests they are even worse than you, which raises the question why bother increasing their damage when you can do more by doing it yourself?
Show us ACT results, spreadsheets, etc to support your claims. Not fantasy.
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uurbsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 449Bounty Hunter
Hey, I am leveling up a CW to go the MoF route and I am just wondering what to do with my stat points. I know I want to be sinking as much as I can into into but after that should I go WIS? CHA? A mix of both? Thanks for any help.
As the Master of the Flame does not get the "Eye of the Storm" class feature of the Spellstorm mage, you should go for Charisma and aim for 40% critical strike chance in the endgame.
As the Master of the Flame does not get the "Eye of the Storm" class feature of the Spellstorm mage, you should go for Charisma and aim for 40% critical strike chance in the endgame.
As I (like many oldtimers) value your opinion, could you give me some of your insight on what your experience, build, and advise would be on the MOF path?
As the Master of the Flame does not get the "Eye of the Storm" class feature of the Spellstorm mage, you should go for Charisma and aim for 40% critical strike chance in the endgame.
There is a problem with that advice, crit has a really bad curve. That actually makes it one of the least desired offensive stats to stack.
After about 1500 crit, point for point Power will add more dps than crit by a factor over 2 and that factor increases exponentially the more crit you have.
Crit stacking afaik makes sense only for GWFs because crit procs deep gash for them which is a huge portion of their overall damage. And even then to my knowledge none of the good ones use Azures.
I'm running as a spellstorm with only 1500 crit and 30% crit. EotS gives me 20% additional crit according to ACT. Furthermore, EotS gives you an opportunity to control your crits which is a huge advatage if you know how to exploit it. It basically lets me crit ALL my OF's and many of my shards.
There is a problem with that advice, crit has a really bad curve. That actually makes it one of the least desired offensive stats to stack.
After about 1500 crit, point for point Power will add more dps than crit by a factor over 2 and that factor increases exponentially the more crit you have.
Crit stacking afaik makes sense only for GWFs because crit procs deep gash for them which is a huge portion of their overall damage. And even then to my knowledge none of the good ones use Azures.
I'm running as a spellstorm with only 1500 crit and 30% crit. EotS gives me 20% additional crit according to ACT. Furthermore, EotS gives you an opportunity to control your crits which is a huge advatage if you know how to exploit it. It basically lets me crit ALL my OF's and many of my shards.
Yes yes, I think everyone is fully aware that you do not value any class or paragon tree in the entire game outside of Spellstorm Thaumaturge. It seems that Cryptic trolled everyone else by having classes and paragons that are not, in fact, Spellstorm Thaumaturge. You are on a crusade to let everyone else know that you are the best Spellstorm Thaumaturge, and while everyone else is a distant second you want to spread the word about how anything else that anyone else plays will never equal your personal skill at the best possible class.
Should I wash your feet with my hair now?
I do like your post about how dungeons are just HP pools to be depleted, and completely discount everything else.
Oh, and about those parses and ACT's you were asking about? They're all over this thread. Try using your eyeballs to read. It's like using an over geared Thaumaturge to clear content 10k below you, only learning is the goal instead of being a prole.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
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uurbsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 449Bounty Hunter
There is a problem with that advice, crit has a really bad curve. That actually makes it one of the least desired offensive stats to stack.[...]
Yes, the curve for crit is not linear as the curve for power is, but still you can go to 3.000 critical strike before you don't gain that much anymore.
I'm running as a spellstorm with only 1500 crit and 30% crit. EotS gives me 20% additional crit according to ACT. Furthermore, EotS gives you an opportunity to control your crits which is a huge advatage if you know how to exploit it. It basically lets me crit ALL my OF's and many of my shards.
That is true, for a Spellstorm CW, but Oxnard180 explicitly asked for advice for a Master of the Flame CW.
As I (like many oldtimers) value your opinion, could you give me some of your insight on what your experience, build, and advise would be on the MOF path?
I'm still in getting-a-grip for the Master of the Flame paragon path and haven't done that much comparison runs with other Spellstorm mages so far. Additionally, I do play my GWF a lot more recently, cutting the time to further and thoroughly test the Master of the Flame.
But, if you're interested I can tell you my current experience:
Preface: neither me, nor the CWs I regularly run with are BiS equipped (I'm at r8 enchantments and my mates are around r7 enchantments, only have the Lantern and the Eye around r60-70). My Master of the Flame uses a Greater Plague Fire enchantment, the High Vizier set and has 40-41% crit chance with the campsite and the potion of heroism buff. The standard setup I run with are 1-2x GWF, 2-3x CW and 1x DC.
As feats I use the Thaumaturge tree and have the same heoric feats I used as Spellstorm mage. As I wrote above, I'm not that sure yet about all of them--need more time for further tests.
I do use "Fanning the Flame" on tab, "Icy Terrain", "Conduit of Ice" and "Shard of the Endless Avalanche"--I've the feeling, that the chill stacks from "Conduit of Ice" on tab tend to bug the "Rimfire". Additionally, I do like the no-target-limit of "Icy Terrain" as well. As class features, I use "Swath of Destruction" and "Critical Conflagration"--didn't had time to test others so far. I didn't put any points in the new flame daily and still use "Oppressive Force" and "Arcane Singularity" depending on the situation. As free powers, I use "Chilling Cloud" and "Scorching Burst"--the later only if there is still trash standing and "Fanning the Flame" is on cooldown.
My experience so far, is that because of "Fanning of Flame", any bigger--and especially bosses--targets with adds around them burn down faster than before. My damage compared to my regular CW mates didn't really change--I still do more damage than them. Only the damage comparison to the GWF(s) changed: as Spellstorm I did less and as Master of the Flame I do more--expect single target fights like Valindra or Fulminorax, where I still do less damage.
I just did my first run to VT with a guild mate of mine with his 17k GS Spellstorm CW with full Dread Legion set, Perfect Vorpal as well as Lantern, Valindra's Crown and Seladine at r99/r100. Before we hit Valindra, I outdamaged him by around 2mils (I was running ahead so that was expected), but even after VT he only passed me by a couple of ten thousands. Would need to do more runs with him in order to get a better feeling.
Yes, the curve for crit is not linear as the curve for power is, but still you can go to 3.000 critical strike before you don't gain that much anymore.
That is true, for a Spellstorm CW, but Oxnard180 explicitly asked for advice for a Master of the Flame CW.
How does being a MoF magically change the crit curve? It doesn't.
And it has never been about getting crit up to the point where you don't get much from it, you don't appear to understand what I mean.
Let me rephrase it, at 1500 crit and probably before that even, getting 100 more crit is inferior to getting 100 more power in terms of affecting your dps. Which makes stacking crit deliberately when there is the choice to stack power not wise. (This assumes arp is already @ 2-2.5k and recovery @ ~3k)
As for the lingual diarrhea spacejew spewed out I will only point out that at no point did I say I was the best, that's just you poor imagination. There are CWs better than me, or at least they appear better because despite better gear (and intial roll, I rolled pvp for a future respec) the dps difference is such that it suggests somewhat better skill as well.
Also you don't appear to play online games much, do you actually think game devs master the games they develop? They are very casual gamers at best and wouldn't know which path was optimal for dps. There are VERY few games out there where there is much choice in which way to go to min max your character. As such, spellstorm is the best build for CW at this time. Think whatever you like.
Also I did look for ACT evidence in this thread, what little there is of it is highly unsatisfactory. How about you show us the critical severity ACT shows a spellstorm to have so that we can see how much dps YOU give him?
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited February 2014
IF you know how to parse Debuffs + crit severity + smolder given to other CWs + all the other team benefits in ACT, please let me know, because it's the only way to answer your question. afaik, ACT doesn't have this function - but i'd love too look at it and see it to evaluate myself as well.
It's not just the SEVERITY, it's the smolder damage, which is credited both to me and to everything that adds a chill stack, now if you run more than 1 MoF CW, it becomes impossible to parse that as well.
What i do see is me standing over draco's corpse is under 3 minutes, over and over and over again. I see people run with us and want to play like me. I see people try my build and fall in love with it, and we win, repeatedly and reliably.
If all you are going to do is ask questions that neither of us can answer because they are not possible to answer, then please stop trolling my thread. Thank you,
IF you know how to parse Debuffs + crit severity + smolder given to other CWs + all the other team benefits in ACT, please let me know, because it's the only way to answer your question. afaik, ACT doesn't have this function - but i'd love too look at it and see it to evaluate myself as well.
It's not just the SEVERITY, it's the smolder damage, which is credited both to me and to everything that adds a chill stack, now if you run more than 1 MoF CW, it becomes impossible to parse that as well.
What i do see is me standing over draco's corpse is under 3 minutes, over and over and over again. I see people run with us and want to play like me. I see people try my build and fall in love with it, and we win, repeatedly and reliably.
If all you are going to do is ask questions that neither of us can answer because they are not possible to answer, then please stop trolling my thread. Thank you,
Upload your combatlog in a CN/VT/MC run where you are the only MoF.
Also draco fight is frankly trivial, it usually is always ~3 minutes depending on how good the team is. Probably much longer with pugs.
The draco fight is probably one of the few fights where MoF might be able to claim some superiority. But what about getting to it?
What is your average whole CN run length?
Upload your combatlog in a CN/VT/MC run where you are the only MoF.
Also draco fight is frankly trivial, it usually is always ~3 minutes depending on how good the team is. Probably much longer with pugs.
The draco fight is probably one of the few fights where MoF might be able to claim some superiority. But what about getting to it?
What is your average whole CN run length?
Ah, so now that he bothered to actually look at some of the parses Iron and Chem have quite kindly provided he is going to waffle and start using the ludicrous measure of overall run time.
As if a team that clears Draco in ~3 minutes is going to have a slow overall clear.
Keep the comedy coming V, you're a riot.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
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uurbsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 449Bounty Hunter
How does being a MoF magically change the crit curve? It doesn't.
And it has never been about getting crit up to the point where you don't get much from it, you don't appear to understand what I mean.
Let me rephrase it, at 1500 crit and probably before that even, getting 100 more crit is inferior to getting 100 more power in terms of affecting your dps. Which makes stacking crit deliberately when there is the choice to stack power not wise. (This assumes arp is already @ 2-2.5k and recovery @ ~3k)
[...]
No Master of the Flame does not change the curve for the Critical Strike stat--and that was not the point I was making--, but as I was saying, because the Master of the Flame doesn't get the "Eye of the Storm" class feature, you should and can increase your Critical Strike stat to 3.000.
Take a look at the graph/calculation of the different stats: with 1.500 points in Critical Strike you gain around 23.85% additional chance (added to the percent from Charisma) for Critical Strike; at 3.000 points in Critical Strike you gain around 32.3%--which is an increase of 8.45% of Critical Strike chance. Any further increase doesn't gain you that much anymore.
And as you need more Critical Strike chance as a Master of the Flame, those 8.45% does make a difference.
On the Critical chance subject, it's pretty easy.
The relative value of Critical chance compared to power increase for MoF compared to SS because of a few power/feature :
1- SS use EotS that reduce the value of Crit to zero for the duration
2- MoF use Critical Conflagration meaning that every Crit give Smolder/Rimefire, or refresh it
3- MoF use CC that increase Critical Severity
From the 3 points, it's clear that Critical Chance importance don't come from a direct damage increase comparison but more about the utility of each Crit.
Out side of all the arguments, I just want to say thanks. I NEVER play a mage in any game, and decided to give it a shot here. I am having a great time and this thread/guide has been instrumental to that.
No mater what is best there will always be players who just enjoy a certain theme, and will follow that theme. It is important to the game and the community that guides like this exist so that those players can still have fun and be viable on a team. Personally I went MoF because one of my friends had already gone storm, and I wanted us to be unique from each other.
So thanks again for the information offered here.
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited March 2014
I took a while here to come back to this thread, as I wanted to think and do some testing. I have concluded that playing MoF or playing SS comes from people with fundamentally different philosophies.
Hence arguing why one is better than the other is fundamentally silly. They might as well be different classes. Let's think play style too.
SS mages are much more likely to be people with a burst dps mindset. It is not unusual to run oppressive force (which I rarely do), and sudden storm. Sudden storm does great bust dps, and so does of. Also on top if that many spell storms will wait for eots and run a perfect vorpal to maximize that dps. These are not really control wizards, they are carnage wizards, focused on max burst dps. When mobs live say, two or three seconds, these guys kill trash fast as anything.
The downside of this is that we lo control with sudden storm and we spread mobs with oppressive force, so while these skills are better for ourselves, they can be worse for our team, especially gwfs who love singing through sing. So I thi this style is a bit selfish, but if you see stop build, it's like that, max personal dps. The fastest cn clears I've been on were either with three Cws like that or with valiant, who has insane dps.
MoF is not about burst damage, they are about dot damage. Because we are free from eots we use our control powers at the best time, not when eots profs, making MoF play style more effective at controlling. With a 35% or so crit chance, vorpal makes no sense so most MoF use p terror or gpf! combined with swath of destruction! can really debuff mobs and do good damage! but it takes a few seconds to ramp up. Therefore it is not weird to see MoF over perform at Draco with bg adds and underperform on the clear, when the other Cws or the gwf kills before the dot happens.
These are fundamentally different play styles, and it highly doubt people who play one play style would enjoy the other. I have a spell storm cw I made for pvp and every time I play in her I wait for eots, use sudden storm and of, and while I know this play style is correct, I feel like a selfish ******* and hate myself for it. :S
So how does this impact clear time? 3 MoF is absolutely a slower clear time by maybe 15% or so, but MoF seem to make Draco go smoother. It's a trade off people make. Ultimately spell storm is more raw dos but MoF is more group utility.
This isn't often a problem for my groups, personally, as we normally have a gwf and/or a cw running a perfect vorpal, they do bulk of dps and I debuff, control, and gather mobs to make their nukes more effective. When the burst specs play with me they notice their dps skyrocket so i am giving them much damage.
Our cn clear times are probably 30 to 35 minutes, depending in group, but it is not unusual for people to take breaks at the start or during the run, since we often do many runs back to back. If the team goes all out, I bet we could get it under 25 minutes, but do three or four of those in a row and you are exhausted and the game is unfun. For me I don't care as much about time, I care that the runs are smooth and there are no wipes.
That said, this whole thought of what is better and what is worse is moot. They are fundamentally different philosophies in the game, and depending in what camp you are in, you won't switch to the other. More in post two.
chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited March 2014
After so much talk in here, I did a respec today to combustivr action and only put one point in schmo hung burst, which I don't use much anyway.
For the situation I was in, combustive action was awesome! I was in a cw/2gwf/dc/tr party, so with only one cw I needed to drop swath and get my dailies up faster, hence I used ca and it was good! The dailies came faster and with only one cw I really needed them. Also since there are places in cn where there are more than 15 mobs, I was forced to slot of, which really hurt gwf dps, but was better than thirty zombies overrunning the party. In this situation, CA was a lifesaver.
That said, if there is a second good cw in the party, it is a bit overkill as we can normally 2 cw Draco no problem. In that situation, it is better to slot swath for in erased dps.
Since I made the guide, I got a book of the dead instead of the skull, and I upgraded the book, lantern, and waters to legendary. I also improved my 7s to 5 9s and the rest 8s.
In the process I reaccesorized, and I dropped some crit, arp, recovery (5% ap gain is amazing), deflect, and regen. I increase my power, lifesteal, defense and hp. The net result is good, which reminds me that you must custom gem and accessorize your character. For MoF I think we should have
24k hp
2500+ crit
2500ish arp (a little less is ok)
Whatever recovery you need (depends in play style)
2k defense
1k lifesteal (with consumption)
My stats are now better than this, but I am 16.4k with a well decked cat, so it's not a fair comparison to most players.
We also tested fanning the flames, which does great damage, and really good damage in sing. If you are committed to conduit in tab, you can take drifting embers and with the mobs piled up, it seems it is good. Damage almost on par with sudden storm. If fanning is in tab, the aoe and dot do really good damage as well, but since most people use thaum, most people also run conduit in tab.
The tests from spell storm is that the crit stat has very little impact in real crit chance, so spell storms should absolutely wear hv and not control rings or pyro bands. Some of the highest SS dps (using gpf) run stone of might, hominid set, and very low crit. I could see some crit with a vorpal, but control rings and pyro bands are probably ineffecient.
As for the paragon trees, it is almost undesirable for PvE thaum is more dps and more dps, rendering the renegade tree sub optimal, maybe 10 or 20% worse than thaum. Oppressor is pointless in high end groups 50% less dps or so.
The optimal group for clearing seems to be
1 sm, destroy, p.vorp, gwf
1 MoF, thaum, p.terror cw
1-2 SS thaum, gpf, cw
1-2 SS thaum p vorpal cw
It's hard to say, as a fully stacked gpf is more damage than p.vorpal and it's hard for one cw to stack it three times, but p.vorpal is make burst so I think they are probably about the same.
As for other classes, a good dc will cover errors and is best if your party is too squishy or sloppy. I like a good dc in a group, but it is optional
A second gwf isn't bad, but sometimes there is aggro trading or suboptimal positioning, so were it's not bad, it's not great
The best hr controls word than a cw, heals and buffs less than a cleric, and might, at max, do slightly more than an equivalent cw or gwf, hence they are suboptimal class
A gf can hold aggro and make the bosses easier, but a conq costs team dps, a protector can barely aggro the mobs before they are stunned, but might be nice if your party is squishy, and I haven't played with a buff bot gf, but I cant imagine that's fun to play:s
Tr can really help team with wicked reminder in sing, which is great for team dps, or with smoke bomb in a low control party, school is also great, but a perfectly played tr can't do much dps because they are single target and cn is an aoe festival, hence they are suboptimal
That said I think cn is clearable in almost all combinations, though something like multiple hr sounds suicidal and multiple tr sounds too slow, etc... But probably possible.
That said I can say one cw is harder than two, two is harder than three, and three or more good cw is easy mode.
And please please please don't make misleading claims like "CN is clearable by any group". That's not true. It is only clearable by "any group" that is insanely overgeared and has tons of experience.
For people who have just gotten to the T2/T2.5 weapon stage, and maybe only 2 blue/purple artifacts, which is about 14k GS or so, CN is only realistically clearable by a 3 CW team, and then maybe only barely.
I've also been working with your numbers a bit. If you take the Dread Ring Regen boon, I don't see how you get Life Steal to above 1k using the MC jewelry you pointed out while also keeping Defense in the 2k region.
It seems like an odd choice because it could take a little while to proc off at wills but people absolutely will make the most obnoxious use of oppressive force, its a great finisher and a great panic button but people use it to increase their own damage which slows everyone else's down by spreading out the mobs. And then they complain that it doesnt hit mobs in singularity, sorry for making life easier for everyone.
Comments
-On parties with CW shortage (less than 3) its realy nice to have CA. It makes a difference if you are struggling to keep sing up all the time.
-Chilling presence also gives a great edge in what comes to dps.
-SoD is awsome too, and in full parties it is probably the best for long kills such as draco.
More objectively: (and i used to have CC and SoD)
-Chilling Presence gives me more dps than SoD on every situation.
-Combustive Action gives me insane AP gain and can make a HUGE difference when u struggle with Crowd Control
-Swath is a debuff and little damage improvement, wich makes it a good choice for well compensated teams that are neither too overpowered nor too weak (and control lacking).
Overall conclusion: We have some amazing class features, and i think any of those may be the best for the slot, depending on personal playstyle, party composition and encounter characteristics. I hope i helped
Also remember that smolder stacks refreshed by other players will be in their logs - not mine, so it might be more damage than it appears as well.
I just don't see why I would need more AP if i often am holding dailies so that CWs can go through their rotation. I really don't understand how spamming sing more often would help other than making sure everyone's shard misses :S
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
im truely enjoying the play style of ur spec, as i have always felt more comfortable providing cc and support. forced to press "x" and then frustrated about the paingiver ranks has been such an nuisance to me for a while now. im glad u have showed me the way out. i realised this is how i like to play as a CONTROL Wizard - like the good old days. thanks a lot chem
As for Renegade, we used you have 50/50 thaum/renegade, but most of the renegades switched voluntaritly to thaum. We are now about 95/5 Thaum/Renegade (and one of the renegades is on vacation). After the switch both personal and team damage increased.
MoF useless? Nano and I just went with our team, we killed draco 7 or 8 times averaging 3 minute kills with no wipes, sure sounds useless to me.
Log files attached from last few days
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/Cn%20Draco%202014-2-20-7.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-1.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-2.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-3.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-5.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-6.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-8.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-20-9.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-1.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-2.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-3.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-4.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-5.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-6.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-7.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-8.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-9.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-11.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/CN%20Draco%202014-2-22-12.Log
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/Speed%20Draco%20KILL.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/Speed%20Draco%20KILL%202.Log
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47976441/Speed%20Draco%20Kill%203.Log
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Thaum generally adds more personal DPS while MoF adds utility. With the absurd amount of damage a CW can output (remember ArPen still broken for most skills, once fixed add another 12-24% DPS), I generally would vote for more utility/survivability/AP for CWs because an extra 25% DPS or whatever aren't noticeable outside the paingiver rating. I would still go with HV though, there simply isn't any way around it.
SW stats are just 100 times better for MoF, and the buffs seem to work most times. I'm aware of the internal cooldown issue, but they have to be off cooldown for a while it seems. I'll watch next time i run CN.
You _could_ stick with HV set if you went to the trouble of stacking a lot of crit, but that would cost you elsewhere and not be as good for the spec.
However, i carry around my HV set just in case ^^ While i agree the HV bonus is among the best set bonuses out there (high prophet also comes to mind) the SW bonus is really good too.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
All dungeons have an HP pool of mobs, once that pool reaches 0 the dungeon is over. Could be more complicated at times but not by much.
So the objective is to finish a dungeon in the shortest possible time, this can only be done by having the highest possible team DPS.
The math becomes simple, MoF mage demonstrably loses over 20% dps, even more if he doesn't use HV.
Do you help increase the team's DPS enough to not just compensate for this but make it higher? Show us the numbers.
You claim your crit severity buffs help. Use ACT to find out how much of your team's dmg is due to those severity buffs and what they really are on average throughout the dungeon. Not that hard to do.
There is also team efficacy to consider, you mentioned how you, a MoF can outdps spellstorm mages. That suggests they are even worse than you, which raises the question why bother increasing their damage when you can do more by doing it yourself?
Show us ACT results, spreadsheets, etc to support your claims. Not fantasy.
As I (like many oldtimers) value your opinion, could you give me some of your insight on what your experience, build, and advise would be on the MOF path?
Thanks
Niadain
There is a problem with that advice, crit has a really bad curve. That actually makes it one of the least desired offensive stats to stack.
After about 1500 crit, point for point Power will add more dps than crit by a factor over 2 and that factor increases exponentially the more crit you have.
Crit stacking afaik makes sense only for GWFs because crit procs deep gash for them which is a huge portion of their overall damage. And even then to my knowledge none of the good ones use Azures.
I'm running as a spellstorm with only 1500 crit and 30% crit. EotS gives me 20% additional crit according to ACT. Furthermore, EotS gives you an opportunity to control your crits which is a huge advatage if you know how to exploit it. It basically lets me crit ALL my OF's and many of my shards.
Yes yes, I think everyone is fully aware that you do not value any class or paragon tree in the entire game outside of Spellstorm Thaumaturge. It seems that Cryptic trolled everyone else by having classes and paragons that are not, in fact, Spellstorm Thaumaturge. You are on a crusade to let everyone else know that you are the best Spellstorm Thaumaturge, and while everyone else is a distant second you want to spread the word about how anything else that anyone else plays will never equal your personal skill at the best possible class.
Should I wash your feet with my hair now?
I do like your post about how dungeons are just HP pools to be depleted, and completely discount everything else.
Oh, and about those parses and ACT's you were asking about? They're all over this thread. Try using your eyeballs to read. It's like using an over geared Thaumaturge to clear content 10k below you, only learning is the goal instead of being a prole.
That is true, for a Spellstorm CW, but Oxnard180 explicitly asked for advice for a Master of the Flame CW.
tl;dr: Didn't have much time to thoroughly test; Master of the Flame shines in add-heavy fights so far.
I'm still in getting-a-grip for the Master of the Flame paragon path and haven't done that much comparison runs with other Spellstorm mages so far. Additionally, I do play my GWF a lot more recently, cutting the time to further and thoroughly test the Master of the Flame.
But, if you're interested I can tell you my current experience:
Preface: neither me, nor the CWs I regularly run with are BiS equipped (I'm at r8 enchantments and my mates are around r7 enchantments, only have the Lantern and the Eye around r60-70). My Master of the Flame uses a Greater Plague Fire enchantment, the High Vizier set and has 40-41% crit chance with the campsite and the potion of heroism buff. The standard setup I run with are 1-2x GWF, 2-3x CW and 1x DC.
As feats I use the Thaumaturge tree and have the same heoric feats I used as Spellstorm mage. As I wrote above, I'm not that sure yet about all of them--need more time for further tests.
I do use "Fanning the Flame" on tab, "Icy Terrain", "Conduit of Ice" and "Shard of the Endless Avalanche"--I've the feeling, that the chill stacks from "Conduit of Ice" on tab tend to bug the "Rimfire". Additionally, I do like the no-target-limit of "Icy Terrain" as well. As class features, I use "Swath of Destruction" and "Critical Conflagration"--didn't had time to test others so far. I didn't put any points in the new flame daily and still use "Oppressive Force" and "Arcane Singularity" depending on the situation. As free powers, I use "Chilling Cloud" and "Scorching Burst"--the later only if there is still trash standing and "Fanning the Flame" is on cooldown.
My experience so far, is that because of "Fanning of Flame", any bigger--and especially bosses--targets with adds around them burn down faster than before. My damage compared to my regular CW mates didn't really change--I still do more damage than them. Only the damage comparison to the GWF(s) changed: as Spellstorm I did less and as Master of the Flame I do more--expect single target fights like Valindra or Fulminorax, where I still do less damage.
I just did my first run to VT with a guild mate of mine with his 17k GS Spellstorm CW with full Dread Legion set, Perfect Vorpal as well as Lantern, Valindra's Crown and Seladine at r99/r100. Before we hit Valindra, I outdamaged him by around 2mils (I was running ahead so that was expected), but even after VT he only passed me by a couple of ten thousands. Would need to do more runs with him in order to get a better feeling.
Hope that helps,
Urbs
How does being a MoF magically change the crit curve? It doesn't.
And it has never been about getting crit up to the point where you don't get much from it, you don't appear to understand what I mean.
Let me rephrase it, at 1500 crit and probably before that even, getting 100 more crit is inferior to getting 100 more power in terms of affecting your dps. Which makes stacking crit deliberately when there is the choice to stack power not wise. (This assumes arp is already @ 2-2.5k and recovery @ ~3k)
As for the lingual diarrhea spacejew spewed out I will only point out that at no point did I say I was the best, that's just you poor imagination. There are CWs better than me, or at least they appear better because despite better gear (and intial roll, I rolled pvp for a future respec) the dps difference is such that it suggests somewhat better skill as well.
Also you don't appear to play online games much, do you actually think game devs master the games they develop? They are very casual gamers at best and wouldn't know which path was optimal for dps. There are VERY few games out there where there is much choice in which way to go to min max your character. As such, spellstorm is the best build for CW at this time. Think whatever you like.
Also I did look for ACT evidence in this thread, what little there is of it is highly unsatisfactory. How about you show us the critical severity ACT shows a spellstorm to have so that we can see how much dps YOU give him?
It's not just the SEVERITY, it's the smolder damage, which is credited both to me and to everything that adds a chill stack, now if you run more than 1 MoF CW, it becomes impossible to parse that as well.
What i do see is me standing over draco's corpse is under 3 minutes, over and over and over again. I see people run with us and want to play like me. I see people try my build and fall in love with it, and we win, repeatedly and reliably.
If all you are going to do is ask questions that neither of us can answer because they are not possible to answer, then please stop trolling my thread. Thank you,
Example video, speedkill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G314hp0-L2c
14.5-16k team, 2MoF CW w/ SW, 2SS CW w/ HV, 1DC with MH: P.Terror/GPF/PF/P.Vorpal/G.HA
it's faster without DC too.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Upload your combatlog in a CN/VT/MC run where you are the only MoF.
Also draco fight is frankly trivial, it usually is always ~3 minutes depending on how good the team is. Probably much longer with pugs.
The draco fight is probably one of the few fights where MoF might be able to claim some superiority. But what about getting to it?
What is your average whole CN run length?
Ah, so now that he bothered to actually look at some of the parses Iron and Chem have quite kindly provided he is going to waffle and start using the ludicrous measure of overall run time.
As if a team that clears Draco in ~3 minutes is going to have a slow overall clear.
Keep the comedy coming V, you're a riot.
Take a look at the graph/calculation of the different stats: with 1.500 points in Critical Strike you gain around 23.85% additional chance (added to the percent from Charisma) for Critical Strike; at 3.000 points in Critical Strike you gain around 32.3%--which is an increase of 8.45% of Critical Strike chance. Any further increase doesn't gain you that much anymore.
And as you need more Critical Strike chance as a Master of the Flame, those 8.45% does make a difference.
Take care,
Urbs
The relative value of Critical chance compared to power increase for MoF compared to SS because of a few power/feature :
1- SS use EotS that reduce the value of Crit to zero for the duration
2- MoF use Critical Conflagration meaning that every Crit give Smolder/Rimefire, or refresh it
3- MoF use CC that increase Critical Severity
From the 3 points, it's clear that Critical Chance importance don't come from a direct damage increase comparison but more about the utility of each Crit.
No mater what is best there will always be players who just enjoy a certain theme, and will follow that theme. It is important to the game and the community that guides like this exist so that those players can still have fun and be viable on a team. Personally I went MoF because one of my friends had already gone storm, and I wanted us to be unique from each other.
So thanks again for the information offered here.
Hence arguing why one is better than the other is fundamentally silly. They might as well be different classes. Let's think play style too.
SS mages are much more likely to be people with a burst dps mindset. It is not unusual to run oppressive force (which I rarely do), and sudden storm. Sudden storm does great bust dps, and so does of. Also on top if that many spell storms will wait for eots and run a perfect vorpal to maximize that dps. These are not really control wizards, they are carnage wizards, focused on max burst dps. When mobs live say, two or three seconds, these guys kill trash fast as anything.
The downside of this is that we lo control with sudden storm and we spread mobs with oppressive force, so while these skills are better for ourselves, they can be worse for our team, especially gwfs who love singing through sing. So I thi this style is a bit selfish, but if you see stop build, it's like that, max personal dps. The fastest cn clears I've been on were either with three Cws like that or with valiant, who has insane dps.
MoF is not about burst damage, they are about dot damage. Because we are free from eots we use our control powers at the best time, not when eots profs, making MoF play style more effective at controlling. With a 35% or so crit chance, vorpal makes no sense so most MoF use p terror or gpf! combined with swath of destruction! can really debuff mobs and do good damage! but it takes a few seconds to ramp up. Therefore it is not weird to see MoF over perform at Draco with bg adds and underperform on the clear, when the other Cws or the gwf kills before the dot happens.
These are fundamentally different play styles, and it highly doubt people who play one play style would enjoy the other. I have a spell storm cw I made for pvp and every time I play in her I wait for eots, use sudden storm and of, and while I know this play style is correct, I feel like a selfish ******* and hate myself for it. :S
So how does this impact clear time? 3 MoF is absolutely a slower clear time by maybe 15% or so, but MoF seem to make Draco go smoother. It's a trade off people make. Ultimately spell storm is more raw dos but MoF is more group utility.
This isn't often a problem for my groups, personally, as we normally have a gwf and/or a cw running a perfect vorpal, they do bulk of dps and I debuff, control, and gather mobs to make their nukes more effective. When the burst specs play with me they notice their dps skyrocket so i am giving them much damage.
Our cn clear times are probably 30 to 35 minutes, depending in group, but it is not unusual for people to take breaks at the start or during the run, since we often do many runs back to back. If the team goes all out, I bet we could get it under 25 minutes, but do three or four of those in a row and you are exhausted and the game is unfun. For me I don't care as much about time, I care that the runs are smooth and there are no wipes.
That said, this whole thought of what is better and what is worse is moot. They are fundamentally different philosophies in the game, and depending in what camp you are in, you won't switch to the other. More in post two.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
For the situation I was in, combustive action was awesome! I was in a cw/2gwf/dc/tr party, so with only one cw I needed to drop swath and get my dailies up faster, hence I used ca and it was good! The dailies came faster and with only one cw I really needed them. Also since there are places in cn where there are more than 15 mobs, I was forced to slot of, which really hurt gwf dps, but was better than thirty zombies overrunning the party. In this situation, CA was a lifesaver.
That said, if there is a second good cw in the party, it is a bit overkill as we can normally 2 cw Draco no problem. In that situation, it is better to slot swath for in erased dps.
Since I made the guide, I got a book of the dead instead of the skull, and I upgraded the book, lantern, and waters to legendary. I also improved my 7s to 5 9s and the rest 8s.
In the process I reaccesorized, and I dropped some crit, arp, recovery (5% ap gain is amazing), deflect, and regen. I increase my power, lifesteal, defense and hp. The net result is good, which reminds me that you must custom gem and accessorize your character. For MoF I think we should have
24k hp
2500+ crit
2500ish arp (a little less is ok)
Whatever recovery you need (depends in play style)
2k defense
1k lifesteal (with consumption)
My stats are now better than this, but I am 16.4k with a well decked cat, so it's not a fair comparison to most players.
We also tested fanning the flames, which does great damage, and really good damage in sing. If you are committed to conduit in tab, you can take drifting embers and with the mobs piled up, it seems it is good. Damage almost on par with sudden storm. If fanning is in tab, the aoe and dot do really good damage as well, but since most people use thaum, most people also run conduit in tab.
The tests from spell storm is that the crit stat has very little impact in real crit chance, so spell storms should absolutely wear hv and not control rings or pyro bands. Some of the highest SS dps (using gpf) run stone of might, hominid set, and very low crit. I could see some crit with a vorpal, but control rings and pyro bands are probably ineffecient.
As for the paragon trees, it is almost undesirable for PvE thaum is more dps and more dps, rendering the renegade tree sub optimal, maybe 10 or 20% worse than thaum. Oppressor is pointless in high end groups 50% less dps or so.
The optimal group for clearing seems to be
1 sm, destroy, p.vorp, gwf
1 MoF, thaum, p.terror cw
1-2 SS thaum, gpf, cw
1-2 SS thaum p vorpal cw
It's hard to say, as a fully stacked gpf is more damage than p.vorpal and it's hard for one cw to stack it three times, but p.vorpal is make burst so I think they are probably about the same.
As for other classes, a good dc will cover errors and is best if your party is too squishy or sloppy. I like a good dc in a group, but it is optional
A second gwf isn't bad, but sometimes there is aggro trading or suboptimal positioning, so were it's not bad, it's not great
The best hr controls word than a cw, heals and buffs less than a cleric, and might, at max, do slightly more than an equivalent cw or gwf, hence they are suboptimal class
A gf can hold aggro and make the bosses easier, but a conq costs team dps, a protector can barely aggro the mobs before they are stunned, but might be nice if your party is squishy, and I haven't played with a buff bot gf, but I cant imagine that's fun to play:s
Tr can really help team with wicked reminder in sing, which is great for team dps, or with smoke bomb in a low control party, school is also great, but a perfectly played tr can't do much dps because they are single target and cn is an aoe festival, hence they are suboptimal
That said I think cn is clearable in almost all combinations, though something like multiple hr sounds suicidal and multiple tr sounds too slow, etc... But probably possible.
That said I can say one cw is harder than two, two is harder than three, and three or more good cw is easy mode.
Thanks all, chem out
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
Do people really sit around and wait for EOTS when they have adds charging at them?
For people who have just gotten to the T2/T2.5 weapon stage, and maybe only 2 blue/purple artifacts, which is about 14k GS or so, CN is only realistically clearable by a 3 CW team, and then maybe only barely.