Would it be possible to pass some buffs for the CW's Oppressor Path for Mod 3?

todesfaelle

The Oppressor Path is one of the least used paths for CW's due to how much the Thaumaturge Path can bring to the table to high-end steamrolling parties. Brings too much that none of the other paths can compare, similar to the current state of TR's and the Executioner Path. But I'm sure some CW's (other than myself) would like to build their CW's with access to improved CC capabilities and ways to debilitate opponents, and not just as an end-game glass cannon. The Oppressor Path and the Chill Mechanic of the CW would be a good tool to achieve this. It's the most lackluster path amongst the 3 existing paths and could use some significant buffing. It is able to bring TOO little to the party for both PVP and PVE. Some suggestions I have in mind for the Oppressor Path are as follows.



Severe Reaction
5
When struck you have a 15% chance to repel your attacker 1/2/3/4/5 feet and restore 2/4/6/8/10% of your Stamina. (This only work within 20 feet)


Bitter Cold
5
You gain 1/2/3/4/5% increased damage after afflicting an enemy with Chill. (This bonus lasts 6 seconds and does not stack)


Tier 2


Brisk Transport
5
When you Teleport your Run Speed is increased by 2/4/6/8/10% for 3 seconds


Chilling Cold
5
Your Sudden Storm has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply stacks of Chill to targets hit by the primary strike


Tier 3


Cold Infusion
5
Foes afflicted with Chill deal 3/6/9/12/15% less damage.


Glacial Movement
5
Ray of Frost and Icy Terrain has a 5/10/14/20/25% chance to apply an additional stack of Chill


Tier 4


Alacrity
5
When you kill an enemy afflicted by Chill the cooldowns of your Encounter powers are reduced by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds


Controlled Momentum
5
After using a Control power your At Will powers deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage


Tier 5


Shattered Strike
1
Your Ice Storm daily power now applies 6 stacks of Chill instead of 1. Your Chill Strike power now applies 3 instead of 1


The suggested buffs have been highlighted in blue.

Chilling Cold: I've always felt that this feat was needlessly underpowered. Though I'm not not sure of the reason why it has been released with only a 50% chance to stack Chill at max rank, making it unreliable, I believe there are very little reasons to retain it in its current state. A sure chance for Sudden Storm to apply some stacks of Chill wouldn't break the meta in any way. More reliable chances means more ways to build one's class.

Cold Infusion: It's the same with this feat. Needlessly underpowered and brings very little to the table.

Glacial Movement: This would increase the efficiency of Icy Terrain in controlling enemies. As it is, it's rather clunky in terms of stacking Chill on opponents.

Alacrity: Kill bonuses are the most unreliable feats in the game, since you are not guaranteed to always get the kill. But CW's, with their massive AoE capabilities, can sport some rather nice kill rates in dungeons. This would make it so that CW's will be able to get their CC's out faster in dungeons where they can have the luxury of killing a lot of mobs, while not making it overpowered for PVP.

Shattered Strike: Ice Storm, for a Daily of its range, has a measly target cap of 5. A lot of CW's actually frown upon using this skill as it tends to scatter mobs all around which players do not like. So I thought why not just give Ice Storm the capability to freeze things instantly with 6 stacks of Chill? This would be good for PVP as well, since CW's have a lot of trouble targeting unseen opponents.

I hope this gets read by a dev one of these days.

arcmoon99

/+10000000000000000000000000000

Yes to this so much. People complain about how OP CWs are but that's mainly because most CWs are DPS based because the CC builds are just plain awful.

Buff the Oppressor path = Less DPS CWs and more Control CWs

slaaneshihorror

I completely support this thread.
While I don't mind DPSing as a CW, it kind of feels like the whole factor of control has been thrown out the window because the tree that seems geared toward control is so underwhelming.
I'd respect in a heartbeat if it actually meant being useful on a larger scale.

todesfaelle

Yeah. I personally do not mind being a DPS glass cannon as well, but right now there's no other viable way to play a CW other than playing as the glass cannon which feels very limiting. I played the CW class to be a controller, a conductor where the battlefield is my orchestra. I personally do not mind losing the DPS capabilities of a Thaum in exchange for an Oppressor's revamped and improved control capabilities.

mittias

Looks good to me, but I'm still learning how to play my CW effectively, and build it well

manplow

Yes please!

+1

nathyiel

Good suggestion.

The MoF counterpart of Chilling Cold, Twisting Immolation, is even more awkward. It could be good but don't help adding Chill stack when all the path is about more chill = more damage. And even at 5/5, the dazed duration is too short. It also force into using a qpcific Daily and Class Feature combo.

For Shatered Strike, I would have simply remove Ice Storm from the feat and give Chill Strike a debuff that increase crit severity on target.

There's a lot of possibility but with the answer telling that feat is part of why CW dealt to much damage, I don't expect to much.

skalt112

You want to buff cw's?

masterjewstar

not for damage skalt for control thats what this is about. and i agree more control would make the control wizard an actual control not smite this and that and that all at the same time

as for the mof twisting immolation i only put 1 point in it for a .2 second stun its just as good as a 1 sec stun really. and i wouldnt remove ice storm from it its a good skill to have when not rolling with huge gs parties as it can save those who cant save them selves while adding 5 stacks to it that leaves ray of frost feated to have 1 damage effect 2 chill stacks then freeze.

Also coi on tab with icy terrain is nasty for adding lots of stacks all at once while burning and stacking 3 dots on an area while still freezing and refreshing fire.

i use the chill stacks add damage and the critical smolder passives with it sometimes with orb of imposition if i want my freeze or chillstrike to last longer.

since damages from players have gotten higher maybe the freeze to break threshold of freeze status could be made larger so that it last longer than a fraction of a second.

pers3phone

Problem is CC works bad on Tenacity geared people, and Frozen lasts a fraction of a second, and for PvE Oppressor doesn't even matter, even with the buffs in the 1st post. I play Oppressor now and it's a mixed bag, but I'm quite disappointed in it. Thaum tempts me to return to it every day.

A few points:

- Severe Reaction is awesome but you can have it as Thaum as well
- So is Bitter Cold
- CC is not needed in PvE if you have the DPS (enough CC in Steal Time, Shard, Dailies)

For PvE, CW obviously doesn't need any buffing.

For PvP, Oppressor is severly gimped by lack of damage and debuffs such as Elemental Empowerment, but most important:

- halfling/dwarf, geared with Tenacity (basically 90% of top PvPers) means CC is almost dead.

To make Oppressor more viable in PvP, their CC needs a way to fully penetrate Tenacity. There are already many immune effects. Yet another anti-CC layer is just bad.

masterjewstar

yep fully penetrate tenacity why bother even having it in the first place if thats what gonna happen thats part of the reason tenacity was made in the first place well that and the prones.

and honestly pvp is dead to me.

pers3phone

masterjewstar wrote: »

yep fully penetrate tenacity why bother even having it in the first place if thats what gonna happen thats part of the reason tenacity was made in the first place well that and the prones.

and honestly pvp is dead to me.

Because a certain class DEPENDS on CC for remaining alive. Fully penetration of Tenacity (ONLY and ONLY the CC part!!!) is nothing amazing.

Tenacity still good because:

- forces you to wear specific gear, allowing devs to tweak damage output/class as desired
- tames high damage spikes significantly. You shouldn't be dead if similarly geared person gets a rotation on you.

masterjewstar

im aware still dead to me though.

I also never said you were wrong about it but thats the nature of things when they change players end up changing what they want to do with what they feel they NEED to do instead which is why all the dwarf and halflings and nearly no-one uses the oppressor

I chose opressor because i dont need to be 100% 1st on lists because i dont care about lists; i care about victory and more often then not i get victory. pvp and team imbalances/hatred excluded.

the oppressor is decent enough to have victory but it does need buffs for control or maybe to have cw powers themselves provide more lengthy control than have thier current high no. of targets to damage.

it is that very aspect that makes them able to 4 cw a dungeon it isnt that they control it isnt high damage its that they control more targets while damaging all those targets 90% the time with nothing more than duration of all those powers doing damage to more targets than any other class at one time.

diogene0

Just FYI alacrity works even if you don't get the kill. And it's the best oppressor feat by far as it is. The rest is pretty meh, especially the spellstorm feat. I played oppressor for 6 months, now, i'm fire thaum and even in pvp i don't look back. Now CWs control spells are pathetic, and we're catered to debuffs and dots, shard and oppressive force being major exceptions. The mechanic of these spells make them very suitable for pvp: a prone and an instant aoe daze.

IMO the first fix to CWs should be chill completely ignoring tenacity. That would make oppressors good in pvp again.