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Chilling Control Feat + Icy Terrain
spacejew
Member Posts: 1,044 Bounty Hunter
I'm really not exactly sure what Cryptic was thinking with this, but being able to apply 5 instant stacks of Chill with one of the highest damaging, non-capped mage encounters results in being able to two-shot instant freeze infinite numbers of add's.
It appears that while they were busy nerfing Shard into the ground they decided to make it very, very easy to skip it entirely with their rework of freeze. Oh, a brief prone? Cute. How about a freeze effect that lasts just as long only it does roughly 2/3's more damage? Sure.
Basically just drop an Icy Terrain for it's brief immobilize and mandatory 'freezing' ability, then teleport out and lay down your sudden storm. Congratulations, every last one of them is now frozen or dead.
Keep in mind this is on a damage Thaum build. You aren't really losing anything to get this effect either except freeing up a slot from Shard.
WTF Cryptic. WTF.
This is pretty clearly PvE commentary. If you want to bring up PvP in regards to this combo, fine, but know that I do not care and will no longer respond to PvP issues regarding this thread.
It appears that while they were busy nerfing Shard into the ground they decided to make it very, very easy to skip it entirely with their rework of freeze. Oh, a brief prone? Cute. How about a freeze effect that lasts just as long only it does roughly 2/3's more damage? Sure.
Basically just drop an Icy Terrain for it's brief immobilize and mandatory 'freezing' ability, then teleport out and lay down your sudden storm. Congratulations, every last one of them is now frozen or dead.
Keep in mind this is on a damage Thaum build. You aren't really losing anything to get this effect either except freeing up a slot from Shard.
WTF Cryptic. WTF.
This is pretty clearly PvE commentary. If you want to bring up PvP in regards to this combo, fine, but know that I do not care and will no longer respond to PvP issues regarding this thread.
MoF/Thaum CW SS/Thaum CW IV/Protector GF SW/Combat HR SM/Destroyer GWF WK/Executioner TR DO/Faithful DC
Post edited by spacejew on
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It's better than 'really great' for PvE. It means you can keep things locked down 90% of the time with nothing but damage encounters and Icy Terrain. It's excellent control with absurd damage. Essentially there is no reason to ever use Shard in PvE again. Icy Terrain, CoI, Sudden Storm, and Steal Time are all you will ever need. CoI doesn't even need to be in Tab anymore. You can use it as a plain jane encounter for Storm Spell proc's and never even need to be in range to be attacked.
Oh well. Just thought I would bring this to people's attention as it's an absurdly good combination. Why wait for things to freeze when you can do it instantly while also hitting for 40k+ per target?
BlackberryCheesecake CW
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
CheeseCake House
You think that's crazy good, add storm spell to the mix and the mob's just melt. No though or skill required. Pretty much what was reported on preview before going live. Also you get the continuous 5% bonus from Bitter Cold.
And so does everyone else!
I basically can't defend MoF anymore. Instafreeze is the straw that broke my MoF's back after the Renegade changes.
Well we have the furious immolation (specced) CCing the boss, taking bosses down like NP.
That is arguably the best thing MoF can offer and also our debuffs too!
BlackberryCheesecake CW
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
CheeseCake House
long answer: it's only the FIRST target. so maybe ok for PVP, but not "two-shot instant freeze infinite numbers of add's. [sic]" not. even. close.
troll thread is fail
Not the first target, the primary hit. It's meant to be a difference between sudden storm normal hit and the DoT from having it on tab.
Have you played Warlock lately...?
Exactly this. As another poster pointed out, yes it's mostly a skill shot but done correctly it will indeed freeze as many targets that you can jam into it's narrow AoE.
The things that make this remarkable are the speeds at which you can stack Chill-to-Freeze as a Thaumaturge spec, the fact that it is essentially uncapped in targets, that it can almost overlap with such a small amount of effort, the amount of damage it does for the amount of control it does, and that it allows different powers to be used in Tab outside of CoI. (Or you can still use CoI on tab for an even easier freeze-fest.)
Basically all I'm really saying is that people should take advantage of this until Cryptic inevitably changes something about it. It is overtuned at the least. I know a lot of people are looking for an alternative to Shard at the moment, and this is a good one.
While in PVE If I'll be in a party with such one, Isn't it a good thing? you can focus more on debuffs/dps rather than control.
BlackberryCheesecake CW
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
CheeseCake House
Troll reply is fail.
No, see, that's the point. Spellstorm doesn't need to concentrate on control at all. It's something that happens as a side effect of massive damage. That's kind of the problem and it's kind of why I can't bring myself to play a MoF at the moment. Even as a control spec MoF you're being out damaged and out controlled by a DPS Thaum.
This doesn't mean MoF is useless, please don't think that's what I mean.
What I mean is that MoF performs significantly worse in almost every regard over Spellstorm mages. MoF is forced to choose either CC or damage whereas Spellstorm can do both at the same time. Why choose when you can have your cake and eat it too? Roleplay value? A modest 15% debuff from Swath? That does not equal having a second Spellstorm or believe me I'd be playing as MoF still.
new module Tyranny of Wizards went out live. dps cw still owns every aspect of this NW universe. as it used to be since closed beta. so is there any new things going somewhere around? i think i'm missing something..
does this fact make other classes sufferiing and being less playable/joyable? don't think so.
you don't need skills to play thaum cw? well, skilled player in every class really makes difference for the whole party.
btw, as for me i had no time and possibility to check renewed cw in preview so i respecced mostly on my own risk (and with little reading some threads here) and took 2nd boon from opressor tree just cause it sounded great for me, switched away shard for icy and on the first cn run i outdpsed all others by 10+mil.
after future nerfing of spell storm feature, SS, chilling presence or whatever - wizards still find the way to outdo whatever they want
I don't really care about being Paingiver, which is why I respecced to MoF when m4 dropped. But if the goal of m4 was to bring the CW in balance with other classes then it failed miserably.
I entirely agree with this. Don't get me wrong, MoF is a lot of fun and does some neat things. Stacking Plaguefire or Terror enchantments along with Swath of Destruction is a good combination for some pretty great AoE debuffing but that debuff is absolutely not required when you can simply kill them while freezing them solid. Nothing at all that MoF gets comes even close to offering the amount of lockdown and damage that Spellstorm can quite easily pump out.
That being said, it's harder to line up Spellstorm attacks but it isn't that much harder for the amount of reward you get for doing so.
Storm Spell now does more damage over time than smolder, which I find to be rather ludicrous since DoT is basically all the MoF brings to the table damagewise. It's even worse when you start to consider Elemental Empowerment.
It mainly comes down to Sudden Storm. MoF doesn't get anything even remotely close. Fanning The Flame was borderline good before the damage/cooldown nerf it received but then they buffed CoI to the point where it actually does more damage than the fire damage primary encounter. Very confusing design decision, and it's really hurt the MoF tree badly enough that there is very little reason to continue with it unless you just like being different.
Myself and another MoF who were almost always tied in damage by the end of Castle Never have tried going through it since with my Spellstorm build and I now out damage him by 15 million damage or more. We are both Thaum builds with the same GS. It's just stupid that one build performs so much better than the other, but that's nothing new or different about CW I suppose. (And for the record he doesn't run Swath and is using a vorpal enchantment, so no he's not significantly buffing my damage. That means the difference could actually be worse otherwise.)
Hate to say it, but the developers could have changed absolutely nothing about the Control Wizard and saved themselves a lot of time. They have absolutely failed in their stated goals for putting us through all this nonsense. I honestly believe they only did this to make more people purchase and play the SW.
And yes, SW is currently doing even more damage than the SS/Thaum if you can believe it. It's actually to the point where we were downing bosses in FH in under 5 seconds. Supposedly this is because they steal 30% of a Thaum's damage but I have no idea what they are doing to generate that much damage. The same thing happened in Castle Never. It's absurd.
There would have been a slight bit of balance if it weren't for the new perma freeze. Besides, why can one feat be superior to a combination of two? Need Swath of Destruction just to deal some more damage and Crit Conflagration for more crit severity and spread smolder, just to be inferior to one single feat? Then those SS's can slap on Orb of Imposition just to laugh at us. Then you got EotS just to laugh at MoF's in pvp. What a mess. Why did this enter Mod 4....
There is really no need or desire to put orb on for PvE IMO. I also don't mean to give the impresson that this is a permafreeze. It's just a really fast freeze that will probably have some 2 or 3 seconds of downtime where they are only slowed depending on your control bonus/recharge.
Still, they are also slowed. It's just so easy to do this while still being spec'ced for damage. Maybe I shouldn't complain that it's too strong, but I don't see a reason to play any other class when you can do everything with one.
I've been trying Icy Terrain on Tab, CoI, SS, and Steal Time to open combat and I have to say I love it. It just feels like zero challenge and it's not even an optimal rotation. EotS/Storm Spell and profit.
It isn't just mash two buttons, it is the whole set up and planning that pull off good control.
And there are a bunch of ways to make it work.
What people hate is that a cw isn't always a free kill anymore, and you might die facing one, not will, might.
Now of course a huge difference in gear will effect the outcome, but the skill, that comes from knowing when to do what.
No one sees the times the control set up fails, only the times it works on them. Then they generalize and say it is op because they only felt the effects.
Good CW get it set up more often, but it still is a set up thing, not an I win, you lose button
And that is all I have to say about it.
This combo is soo good, out dpsing sooo many people without even slotting my P vorpal in my cw alt.... thx.
Luckily I had kept the feat respec till something this good showed up
Whats most optimal on Tab btw?... I tend to like COI for the increased radious (so more procs) but SS is also nice..... hadnt even though about ST or IT.
I guess ur running snap freeze instead of a frozen power transfer with chilling cloud build
CoI on tab seems like it's the most optimal so that you can get as many targets chilling and storm spell proc'cing as possible. I am not running Snap Freeze personally since I don't see the value in using Chill Strike as an opener anymore and that's basically the only time that particular feat would be useful.
I'm simply running the bottom Thaum feats up to the cap and Bitter Cold/Chilling Control from Oppressor. I am indeed using Frozen Power Transfer and Destructive Wizardry as both combined are an added 20% flat damage boost just by themselves. (And I find it's a more consistent bonus than Snap Freeze.)
Basically I wouldn't take Snap Freeze because evocation was nerfed. This brings Storm Spell to the forefront of damage builds which requires you to make as many smaller attacks against the target as possible. This is where CoI on tab and Icy Terrain come into play. It's a -lot- of attacks in a very short time frame. The fact they upped the tick speed on Icy Terrain is also a nice little bonus even though you may or may not notice it.
Now, this combo with Sudden Storm and Icy Terrain instantly freezing makes CoI on tab unnecessary but it's still probably 'optimal' as far as that goes. There are some fights where I put Icy Terrain on Tab just because I'm lazy and can stand in one place while winning.
Oh, and Sudden Storm on tab is...entertaining...but I've noticed that the chain lighting that proc's off the primary hit doesn't seem to have any chance at all of proc'cing Storm Spell or Assailant so while it's fun and pretty I hesitate to say it's optimal. Amusingly, the chain lighting effect can proc my passive Wererat poison which then does have a chance to proc Assailant which doesn't make sense at all. (And keep in mind those chain lighting effects might proc Assailant but I haven't seen that happen yet. That doesn't mean it can't, merely that it could use more testing.)
Well im not a big fan of chilling strike or storm pillar (specially now that it doesntc charge ap with out hitting), oldschool mm i guess. I could see the benefit of getting a CC chaain on a sing group though.
The way i use snap freeze is SS (get snap freeze here for more burst) -> IT or COI
I get the benefit of IT + COI for procs
As far as I know Sudden Storm doesn't give you the bonus from Snap Freeze even with Chilling Control feated but in all fairness I did not test this. I also don't believe Steal Time gives that bonus either. Both are listed as 'Arcane' type spells. Sudden Storm isn't a cold-based encounter by default so I simply assumed it wouldn't count.
As for Storm Pillar, it's still pretty amazing for single target given that it has a chance to proc Assailant with both the primary strike and the chain lighting portion. When my encounters are down I toss one full rotation of Chilling Cloud followed by a full-charge Storm Pillar then back into my now 20% better encounters. (Assuming anything lived through the opening salvo of course.) I've seen Storm Pillar w/ an Assailant proc hit for 30k damage single-target when both crit so it seems good even with it's windup.
I suppose it just depends if you're like me and herd up half a dungeon before firing. In a target rich environment it's insanely good IMO.
If they're immune to CC what exactly was different before vs. now for you I wonder. Were you two shotting them with Shard/Sudden Storm before and now you can't? Seems unlikely to me but also seems unrelated to this topic in general.
Wtf yeah ur right, I dont know why I brain farted thinking that coz it was applying cold stacks it was cold... havent done any tests or anything...pff guess i might have to respec then
not sure id take destructive wizardry over tempest magic though..... dmg bonus is the same but i think id get more benefit out of tempest magic as alot of stuff just doesnt make it past the first round of encounters....
I am concerned about storm spell being the big nozzle they can use to adjust cw damage, assailing and elemental empowerment both being based off weapon damage don't help. The conern is that cryptic rarely go scalpel, its always hammer and often without a clear prediction of what the effect will be. Its not like they even knew they were giving the gweefs super powers in 3.