Chem's PvE weapon enchantment guide.

chemboy613

Chem’s assessment of Neverwinter Weapon Enchantments (PvE):


I’m writing on this because there has always been a lot of discussion on what weapon enchants are best for what class in what situations. While this is a highly variable topic based upon playstyle, group composition, individual stats, feats and equipment, i am giving a quick and dirty guide here as a general guideline for all who are interested.

In Module 2, i was guild leader of Crescendo’s Tyranny - a high end PvE guild focused on CN farming. We were a group of intense perfectionists and experimenters, so many of our members would buy and test different enchantments to see how they worked, after which we would conduct multiple runs with multiple compositions, run ACT, and make an assessment. There are some we never tested (but were so obviously not good we didn’t bother), but of all the popular enchantments, we have a good idea how they work on each classes. To any of my former guildmates reading this, i want to thank you for your hard work and effort last winter and spring, and i hope that we can play together soon.

Many of the forum discussions are based largely on theorycrafting. The biggest mistake is the assumption that a player can keep 3 stacks of plaguefire on mobs. This is simply not true, for several reasons:

Many abilites have target caps (most often 5), which limits the amount of mobs you can hit
The mobs you are hitting and the mobs your teammates are hitting can be different, meaning that they might not get the benefit of the stacks
Each stack lasts for 3 seconds individually, so if you attack once you get one stack started, but it doesn’t refresh the three stacks. This means to keep it up you must hit the monster once a second (unlikely).
Even if you do manage to hit one mob or 5 mobs (wicked strike, cleave, etc..) it might not be the same mobs because of how the game chooses which mobs are hit and not hit.
Hence, with few exceptions, keeping 3 stacks of plaguefire up is very difficult, and if you have to dodge, block, res a teammate, get stunned, frozen, etc… basically all those things that happen in any fight that matters, you won’t maintain your stacks.

This is why testing is so important and why theorycrafting is useful, but limited. We must actually test to see what is going on.

The lack of testing is also why i don’t have a Mod 4 MoF guide out yet, but i will have that in the coming weeks (stay tuned).

chemboy613

How buffs and debuffs are calculated in Neverwinter:

Typically, effects that affect other players do _exactly_ what they say they will do. For example, 3 stacks of a GPF on a player in PvP will lower their defense rating by 45%.

However, mobs don’t have defense ratings, rather they have just an armor class rating, so things like plaguefire, terror, high porphet, high vizier, etc.. are counted as damage BUFFS and not defense debuffs. In general 5% defense debuff = 1% damage buff.

Stacks of buffs, where they do stack, are additive, such as 3 stacks of plaguefire is a 9% damage buff (1 = .03*3), and not multiplicative (1.03)^3 = 1.0927 or 9.27%.

Different buffs, unlike stats are multiplicative. So 3 stacks of plaguefire (1.09), and a stack of terror (1.04) are a 1.09 * 1.04 = 1.136 or almost a 14% buff together, not 13%, as if they were additive. While this seems trivial for two buffs, considering some boss fights might have 10 or more buffs and debuffs on them, this makes a huge difference. Therefore, each buff is more effective than the previous ones.

This is why the parties that have the highest team DPS are those who stack buffs and debuffs most effectively, NOT those who have highest team DPS.

In mod 2 there were two videos of people 3 manning draco with 3 CW. The other team had 3 perfect vorpals (and better gear than us), whereas we had 2 MoF CWs, and we ran Vorpal/Plaguefire/Terror. Even though we weren’t as geared, we killed him faster, because we were better at sticking buffs and debuffs.

This is why having different kinds of enchantments, different classes, and a varied group composition is so useful, because you can reach a state of maximum team effectiveness.

So things i know for sure, a team with Vorpal/Plaguefire/Terror is better than a team with 3 vorpals, and for example, a SS and MoF CW together are more effective than doubling up on either. This holds true for other classes (big reason why a debuff cleric makes such a huge difference).

We should also note here that lower level enchants don’t stack with higher level enchants. a LPG and a GPF do not stack the buffs together (the GPF will be in effect), but the DoT will apply from both.

chemboy613

General Assessment of weapon enchants:

My reference is here: http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Enchanting , which is up to date to my knowledge.

Bilethorn - I know this is popular for PvP TRs (someone make a PvP enchanting thread plz), but i tested it in PvE and it was underwhelming. The DoT is small compared to rest of your damage, and it does not provide and buffs or debuffs to the team.

Bronzewood - I haven’t tested personally, but from what i can tell, it’s pretty good. It’s not best for anyone, but it has the benefit of being much cheaper (about 2.5m for a perfect). It increases your DPS significantly, maybe useful for an extreme dps GF who doesn’t have the crit chance for vorpal

Feytouched - this is better than you think. The buff has an uptime of ten seconds and engages every 20 seconds, so 50% uptime. That said, it’s not best for anyone either (and it does not affect DC healing ability - sorry DCs)

Flaming - it is essentially a plaguefire with slightly more weapon damage and no debuff. Considering the debuff is the best part (team DPS boost) and the weapon damage isn’t great (maybe 6-7% personal dps increase), i don’t see why anyone would use this (but it looks super cool!)

Frost - Never tested personally. The weapon damage % is low, and the recovery reduction isn’t noticeable either. Has benefit of looking cool.

UPDATE: a good discussion of frost enchants is here:
I have never seen a perfect frost and therefore have not tested it.

Holy Avenger - the weapon damage % is really high (19%) and might account for a good amount of DPS (maybe 7%+ on a GWF with a perfect). However the long ICD kills this buff, which has an uptime under 20%. Has benefit of looking cool.

Lifedrinker - this is good for someone who wants to tank but is still struggling with survivability. The weapon damage is low, and the team receives no buff, but the healing ability could make the wielder close to unkillable. However, after people rank up a bit, and take endless consumption, and have maybe 1000 lifesteal, it becomes obsolete in PvE.

Lightning - Perfect Lightning enchants do huge DPS boosts (maybe 11-12% for a GWF here), look awesome, and are great for drawing aggro. For example if your GF or GWF is losing aggro to CWs and you want to tank and maintain aggro, this is a great option. I have seen it tested on CW (good DPS), but most choose other options so they don’t draw everything in sight to kill them.

Plaguefire - with greater plaguefires affordable (around 3.5m), good damage boost (3-4% on CW), and a good team debuff, these enchants are excellent. However, they sound better than they actually are (it’s difficult to maintain 3 stacks). Personally, i like them on fighters and CWs, but they are good on every class, just maybe not best.

Terror - my personal choice for my CW, the weapon damage is 4% of DPS, and the long up time makes it a really great option for CWs and DC, who are casting, dodging, and have slower attack times than fighters. This enchant is highly underrated due to theorycrafting around GPF.

Vorpal - this is the best enchant for personal DPS, but it appears better than it is due to perception bias. That said, any class with a high crit chance (say, 40%+) will make good use of vorpal. I also think they are nice for SWs, as many of their abilities are based upon personal damage.

chemboy613

PvE TR assessment:

I know there aren’t many of these out there (i have one), because they aren’t that effective and IMO the most difficult class to play, but they do exist. PvE TRs have a few jobs:

Don’t die (harder than it seems)
Smoke bomb if necessary
Stack Wicked Reminder
Dump DPS into most dangerous mob with Duelist Flurry

TR AoE is ineffective in dungeons. Path of the blade (decent but limited damage), Dazing Strike (small AoE, long animation, often cancelled), Blitz (a spell i really don’t like, personally), and Wicked Reminder (great debuff for team). You are lucky to hit more than 3 mobs with your spells, and PotB doesn’t let you choose who you hit, making it near impossible to stack debuffs on a room the way a CW would.

On top of that TRs can have very high crit. My TR has 48% crit chance, making vorpal an obvious choice:

BIS: Vorpal

Runner up: GPF - the main target should always have 3 stacks with DF, but limited because it’s single target.

chemboy613

Control Wizard:

Control Wizards are in the unique situation whereby they can whole rooms with high target limit abilities. For example:

Conduit on tab - 7
Shard - 15
Icy Terrain - unlimited
Steal Time - 5
Oppressive Force - unlimited
Singu - 8
Furious Immolation - 8
Maelstrom (if anyone uses this terrible spell) - unlimited.

This allows them, UNLIKE ANY OTHER CLASS, to bathe the room in debuffs.

Hence I think Plaguefire and terror are great options for CWs, either Stormspells or Masters of Flame.

Everyone assumes Vorpal is BIS for SS CW, but this is largely due to perception bias. Vorpal with EotS makes your damage go really crazy on trash mobs, but is less effective in longer fights. It also doesn’t help the team the way a debuff enchantment can.

At 50% crit (approx where SS CW is), Vorpal increases _personal_ dps 19%, whereas a plaguefire increases personal DPS 4% + team DPS somewhere in the 4-5% range. You have to weigh whether 15% personal damage or 4-5% team damage is greater. This is highly variable on composition.

Based upon my testing for CWs, a Perfect Terror and a Greater Plaguefire have essentially the same effectiveness. They are, for effective, real life, purposes, more or less the same thing. The best option is to have a CW with one of each.

A MoF CW, with a lower real crit and a higher base severity, can’t get enough out of vorpal and should carry a debuff enchantment

BIS: Terror, Plaguefire, Vorpal (spellstorm)

Tier 2: Vorpal (MoF), Lightning (great damage)

Better than you thought: Feytouched, Bronzewood.

chemboy613

GF - I don’t consider myself a GF expert. I’ve tested P. Feytouched (it was OK) and greater plaguefire (really good!) on mine. So i am keeping this assessment short:

BIS - GPF (I feel strongly about this).

Tier 2: Terror (but more expensive and less good than GPF), Lightning (for aggro), Bronzewood (better than you thought as well).

Most overrated: Vorpal

There are many guides where GFs are using vorpal enchants. GF has the lowest crit chance of any class! To me this is like buying a lamborghini body with a beat up, model T engine in it. It looks good (big orange numbers disease), but GF doesn’t have the crit to make it worth your while.

chemboy613

GWF:

GWFs are the most reworked class since my testing in Mod 2, where vorpal was probably best in slot due to deep gash being all crit. I did a run with valliant, who had 11k power and a perfect vorpal and his damage was outstanding. Those days are gone now.

Personally i like GPF on my GWF, but that said, there are many other options here that work.

It should be noted also that weapon enchantments over perform on GWFs due the high base weapon damage.

I would really appreciate it if a GWF expert could come in and make an assessment for me, but with the huge variability of builds out there, i am rather uncertain what to recommend here.

Ideas:

Vorpal (for high crit builds)
Lightning (for defensive, tanking builds)
GPF (for balanced builds)
Bronzewood (if you are using daring shout, for example)

chemboy613

DC:

DC attacks slowly and I spend a lot of time dodging and casting on DC. This means i can’t keep up a GPF stack (I have one on my DC, will switch to terror soon).

In addition DCs weapon damage is a bit low, the attack rate is low, the DPS is pitiful, so an offensive enchantment doesn’t make much sense.

Many DCs like vorpal for Crit Heals and for Crit Damage, but this means you are running a high-crit, high-power build, maybe you are a bit squishy, and you are actually healing you team.

High end groups don’t need healing because they all have lifesteal, good HP, and defense. Hence, the DC’s job is mainly buff and debuff in that situation. Personally i run Daunting Light (nimbus of light feat), astral shield (great buff even if yellow), and divine glow, then dot with seal and use a feated blessing of battle (another great buff) while wearing high prophet (great debuff).

BIS: Terror

Runner up: GPF

chemboy613

HR

I think Archer HR are built to crit, if you read the feats you can see this is obvious.

I don’t personally play a combat HR, but i have seen them around.

I’d like to have some HR input here, as it’s a class i’m not great at, so please help me out. My current thoughts:

BIS: Vorpal (archer for sure).
Honorable mention: Plaguefire, Terror

From Bunny the HR:

Archery :
1 pvorpal with over 60%(grand wardens) crit chance so very nice and a severity of ~80% base
2 pflaming not sure why but lots of PvPers love this chant
3 pterror debuff + weapon damage
4 gpf debuff + weapon damage dot
5 plight no thanks no control over arcs at all and is agro magnet

Combat :
1 plightning 50% chance to arc with 3 possible arcs increases melee range to about 90' and you tic ALL the time CtG ~6 hits a second so you have good chance to arc every second
2 gpf debuff + weapon damage dot
3 pterror debuff + weapon damage
4 pfire not sure why but lots of PvPers love this chant
5 pvorp no thanks you probably have a crit chance in the teens so no good all around

chemboy613

SW

The warlock class is new, and i’m in the process of leveling mine up . I put a lot of thought into this the last few days, but sadly i have not had the opportunity to do extensive testing on the class. So please take these with a heavy grain of salt.

Also, it seems that SW are slightly OP right now, so expect an incoming nerf soon.

That said, SW is built around doing damage. A fury SW is the straight DPS class some bad CWs are suffering the illusion they are playing, while a temptation SW is someone who heals by damaging.

So it seems to me to get the most out of your feats, you need a vorpal for your SW, but requires a high crit rating.

That said, GPF and Terror are probably good (but should really be carried by your CW), and i have heard good things about Lightning

BIS: Vorpal
Tier 2: GPF, Terror, Lightning

yoadoad

Thanks for your guide, it adds a lot of insight.

Bilethorn was common with PvP TR's but it was nerfed or fixed. The low weapon damage and the fact that the DoT takes long to work (4 seconds) makes Bilethorn a bad choice not only for PvE, but also for PvP.

Flaming is a better version of Bilethorn, but suffers from the same shortcomings (Low DoT damage).

Sadly, your detailed guide shows how things work in this game: There are 3-4 useful weapon enchantments, and the rest are much weaker (And in PvP, lightning doesn't see heavy use either - So you see people using PF/Terror/Vorpal).

It's a bit absurd that you have a few "chosen" enchantments that are the best for both PvP and PvE, then you have enchantments like Bilethorn, Flaming, Frost and the rest of the group which are bad on both PvP and PvE. Bilethorn and Flaming have potential to be great PvP enchantments, but require much higher DoT damage.

That's why I started the whole Bilethorn/Terror topic thing. Some enchantments must be boosted.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

doriangreigh

chemboy613 wrote: »

General Assessment of weapon enchants:

Frost - Never tested personally. The weapon damage % is low, and the recovery reduction isn’t noticeable either. Has benefit of looking cool.

I hate playing the way everyone else plays and as stated earlier in this thread having party members with different enchants is a huge benefit. Having said that let me say that I find the Frost rather useful ... I'll note that I have hit 5 targets with Scorching burst and while each one still moves, none of them attack for a good couple of seconds, i've stood base to base with a group of mobs that did nothing to me but look at me and then freeze over as they were standing in my IT. I think Frost is highly underestimated too, sure its weak on damage but the effect can be seen if you are willing to give it a shot ... and the best thing is that you can pretty much use a lesser only as upgrading it only really ups the damage the recovery I think is barely noticeable beyond lesser.

zebular

Added to the Guides sticky! Thanks!

adinosii

chemboy613 wrote: »

DC:

BIS: Terror

Agreed. One additional reason why Terror is great for DCs - in any given group, the DPSers are currently not very likely to be using it, so it will stack nicely with whatever they are using.

crixus8000

chemboy613 wrote: »

GF - I don’t consider myself a GF expert. I’ve tested P. Feytouched (it was OK) and greater plaguefire (really good!) on mine. So i am keeping this assessment short:

BIS - GPF (I feel strongly about this).

Tier 2: Terror (but more expensive and less good than GPF), Lightning (for aggro), Bronzewood (better than you thought as well).

Most overrated: Vorpal

There are many guides where GFs are using vorpal enchants. GF has the lowest crit chance of any class! To me this is like buying a lamborghini body with a beat up, model T engine in it. It looks good (big orange numbers disease), but GF doesn’t have the crit to make it worth your while.

Good guide

I agree that plague is probably BIS for most gf in pve but I disagree with your vorpal view. A conq gf can easily reach 35% crit now and that is higher than some other classes can or with less crit at least. This is because of the conq capstone but its active 99% of the time.

herundrion

As a DC I want to give a plug for Frost enchantment. That 4 second stun on mobs is beautiful, and while it might not be a direct (de)buff, it's 100% damage mitigation from controllable mobs. Especially in new Lair and Skirmish it helps a ton when you can stun Spinners and Archers from doing anything.
Otherwise, yeah, I'd run Terror.

clericalist

herundrion wrote: »

As a DC I want to give a plug for Frost enchantment. That 4 second stun on mobs is beautiful, and while it might not be a direct (de)buff, it's 100% damage mitigation from controllable mobs. Especially in new Lair and Skirmish it helps a ton when you can stun Spinners and Archers from doing anything.
Otherwise, yeah, I'd run Terror.

Same here, the frost enchantment works wonders on mobs, its especially useful for parties with no cw.

thedemien

duplicate - delete this pls

thedemien

On combat HR note.
PVE - Lightning works pretty good in pve.
as combat you are not afraid to gather agro on you. So slpit shot plus lighting >= greater works really nice.

Second choice would be Fire or any other enchantent that can trigger tick damage.

PVP wise - there is nothing better at the moment then Plague fire. It has tick and lower defence. Not as good in pve since we don't need lowering defence for mobs usually due to AP > 2.5k.

Ticks are important now for HR to trigger Royal Guard armor bonus,add extra AP for dailies, each tick does work well with Pathfinder's Aimed strike, and each tick does 40% extra piercing damage.

Side note about crit builds and vorpal - this article has wonderful explanation on over too much crit and what you is sweet spot for vorpals.

chemboy613

Appreciate the feedback!

As for wicked reminder, it is _very_ noticeable and not obsolete at all. it also does good damage, so normally you cycle flurry and WR to keep stacks up.

25% (multiplicative) can be huge.

I feel sad about TRs tho, i want them to be in a better spot and have more utility. In areas with bigger mobs and less trash, for instance, MC, TR perform well.

Appreciate the feedback on HR. Not surprised lightning does well, but i'd worry about too much aggro?

I got a good link for frost enchant from scaths, updated the guide. It is the rarest enchant, as far as i can tell.

angrysprite

It's no secret DC can be a painful class to play (I suspect we all are secured masochists or something).

I've never used Terror. but I DO have both: a (Normal) Frost Enchantment (and also Normal Frostburn Armor Enhancement) and I love these things. I don;t know if there's any synergy with both likewise type of enchantment but it's very helpful when any controllable mob or brute or boss just stands there lethargically drooling while I begin pummeling them.

In the end I'm a casual player for solo, skirmishes and ToD HEs - and I suspect when some mobs just stand there for a few seconds, everyone benefits.

Excellents guide for the named enchantments and benefits. Though the individual class commentary seems rather abstract (which is understandable). But all in all, very helpful guide, thank you for your hard work in it!

chemboy613

Hey, thanks sprite!

Class commentary is abstract because there are many ways to play your class! I personally think that DC and GWF (and maybe HR) have many valid builds that are effective and would require different enchantments.

SW seems to be either fury or temptation - but it seems vorpal is best for both, no? (would love to be proven wrong here too).

CW, 90% of the PvE population is Spellstorm/Thaum. MoF/Thaum is great too (guide coming in the future), but they are different significantly.

GF also too has some different builds, but i don't think that changes enchants and well..

TR has to go MI/ExE to be optimal, right? at least in PvE....

So yeah Especially for diverse classes your gear, enchantments, playstyle, and team composition have to be in alignment, making it necessarily abstract.

I actually wish that paragons/trees were more balanced so we'd get more build diversity, but i think this also has to do with the design of many many mobs over and over again as well...

Thanks for the comments I'd love to learn more if people have things to add.

schweifer1982

Nice guide .
I wish more ppl think like y.

pointsman

Thank you very much for the guide. It is quite helpful.

I was a little bit worried that when I leveled up my plague fire to GPF over the weekend, for my MoF CW, that maybe I was making the wrong choice. Good thing my worries were unfounded!

bajornorbert

SW's atm are so bugged, that it is hard to recommend an enchantment for. For the Fury SW if you want something future-proof you're best bet is probably P.Vorpal, but atm P.Lightning does about the same damage if not more. P.Lightning is about 7-8% damage boost, and since 75-80% of a Fury SW's damage, atm, comes from powers/feats that can't crit (TT, AD set, feats) a P.Vorpal is less effective than one would think.

I personally use a GPF on my SW, but i'm Temptation specced, and i'm usually the only one in the party with it, if there's no DC around, and i also PvP with my SW. Also, WB is a "bit" bugged atm, as it applies 6 stacks of GPF in one hit, which is +18% dmg to the team in PvE, while in PvP it reduces the one's defense by 90%

Once all the SW bugs gets sorted out the BiS enchant, for PvE, will probably be P.Vorpal, until then it's hard to tell.

thedemien

chemboy613 wrote: »

Appreciate the feedback!

Appreciate the feedback on HR. Not surprised lightning does well, but i'd worry about too much aggro?

Not really a big problem. due to +5% LS as T1 feet. Add to it endless consumption and incoming healing bonus. Also WM on deflect build and regen do help a bit too. But not are not main source of health as LS is now. Mine is 12% with no investments in it.
plus HR does a lot of damage - not as much as CW but to get paingiver we have to get a lot of agro on us to do areal damage. Also it is a skill to dodge well .

Lightning with split strike on pack of mods makes it a Christmas lights in dark dungeons)

mcmetal1

chemboy613 wrote: »

SW seems to be either fury or temptation - but it seems vorpal is best for both, no? (would love to be proven wrong here too).

You are correct. I tested out P Vorp, P Light, GPF and the P Vorp gave the best damage. My crit rate is 45%. Fury and Temptation are essentially the same. The only difference is creeping death which requires necrotic. Other than that mechanically the play style and dps work the same way.

sygfried94

chemboy613 wrote: »

Control Wizard:

Control Wizards are in the unique situation whereby they can whole rooms with high target limit abilities. For example:

Conduit on tab - 7
Shard - 15
Icy Terrain - unlimited
Steal Time - 5
Oppressive Force - unlimited
Singu - 8
Furious Immolation - 8
Maelstrom (if anyone uses this terrible spell) - unlimited.

This allows them, UNLIKE ANY OTHER CLASS, to bathe the room in debuffs.

Hence I think Plaguefire and terror are great options for CWs, either Stormspells or Masters of Flame.

Everyone assumes Vorpal is BIS for SS CW, but this is largely due to perception bias. Vorpal with EotS makes your damage go really crazy on trash mobs, but is less effective in longer fights. It also doesn’t help the team the way a debuff enchantment can.

At 50% crit (approx where SS CW is), Vorpal increases _personal_ dps 19%, whereas a plaguefire increases personal DPS 4% + team DPS somewhere in the 4-5% range. You have to weigh whether 15% personal damage or 4-5% team damage is greater. This is highly variable on composition.

Based upon my testing for CWs, a Perfect Terror and a Greater Plaguefire have essentially the same effectiveness. They are, for effective, real life, purposes, more or less the same thing. The best option is to have a CW with one of each.

A MoF CW, with a lower real crit and a higher base severity, can’t get enough out of vorpal and should carry a debuff enchantment

BIS: Terror, Plaguefire, Vorpal (spellstorm)

Tier 2: Vorpal (MoF), Lightning (great damage)

Better than you thought: Feytouched, Bronzewood.

1 you probably mistake for max target between shard and steal time

2 for CW MOF i agree about terror vs plaguefire. how ever for stormspell path plaguefire is no way higher than terror simply because of the number of hit (a plague fire had 3 additionnal hit when a terror enchant only got one hit) since many power of CW have a chance to proc when hit, a spellplague give those power *4 more chance to proc than with terror (think of storm spell that have 20% chance to proc when hit)

rlrobr

When it comes to DCs, since all debuffing DCs are (or should be) using High Prophet whose mechanics is equal to Plague Fire (3 stacks), I think GPF synergizes way better than Terror.

Also, as a DC, you don't need to keep 3 stacks of GPF, since 2 are already better than a P. Terror, and you should be focused on bosses, not trash mobs, which means you can very easily keep the 3 stacks up all the time (I can do it with my DC with not trouble at all).

thedemien

Chem, By any change can you add up drop locations for enchants?
Like I know you can get Barkshield shards in Master of the Hunt skirmish. But where does lightning shard fall from?