Chem's Spellstorm Companion (MOD 5)

chemboy613

First of all, i must say, this is a subordinate guide to my main guide, found here:

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?768881-Chem-s-Comprehensive-MoF-guide-(PvE-Mod4)

There are several reasons.

Mod 4 is the active mod (as of this writing
I play a MoF on live
Much of that information is valid for all CW - I don’t like repeating myself, and you don’t like re-reading things

I consider reading that guide REQUIRED reading for this one, and I will reference it often. You might want to open it in the other tab.

That said, the main difference between Spellstorm and MoF is burst vs. sustained. Their damage is distributed differently, and the playstyle is slightly different. I would reccomend trying both and finding which is best for you

Contents:

1- Eye of the Storm and Storm Spell
2 - Race
3 - Stats
4 - Heroic Feats and Boons
5 - Thaum v. Renegade
6 - Gear
7 - Thaumaturge Feats
8 - Renegade Feats
9 - Enchantments
10 - Spellstorm specific abilities
11 - Setup
12 - Addition 1
13 - Addition 2
14 - Wrapup

chemboy613

1 - Eye of the Storm and Stormspell

The main attribute of a Spellstorm CW is these two class features and how they interact. First of all, let us understand Eye of the Storm:

When you enter combat, any damage can trigger eye of the storm, where you have 100% crit for 6 seconds, after that there is a 20 second cooldown.

This means that for those six seconds, a spellstorm CW can do tremendous damage, however for the next twenty seconds their damage is severely reduced. Spellstorms make a habit of blowing all their dailies and encounters during EotS to maximize DPS - but the downside of this timing is sub-optimal control. This means that you will be unable to control whatever you didn’t kill until your encounters come off cooldown. It is my opinion that this play style , while it does maximize personal DPS, can leave you and your team vulnerable to being overrun by adds.

Many spellstorms who write guides on here don’t mention this - but that is because they are mostly overgeared (like I am) and running with other very strong and powerful players, so almost all the time, everything DOES die for them. However, you might not have the same gear or same team they do, so we cannot assume that this is an effective combat strategy. I always say if you can control and survive well, it is very easy to do great damage.

The second mechanic changes for mod 5- and that’s storm spell. Anytime you crit something, you can proc a stormspell strike that hits that enemy. It’s important to note that all storm spells crit.

The interaction of these two features means that spellstorm CW has very uneven damage. During those six seconds in eye of the storm, spellstorm CW has unmatched burst damage. However, during the next twenty seconds your main features are inactive. For those twenty seconds spellstorm is very “meh.” When eye of the storm is down, i feel as if i am tickling the mobs with a feather.

Now you would think that eye of the storm is only 20% of your strikes - but no, it’s not. It might be up to 50% of your strikes. This is because when you kill a lot of things and unload, you can stop moving and blow everything up. However, when EotS is down, you will have to kite a lot more, as your damage is greatly reduced.

This also affects lifesteal. Hence a spellstorm with the exact same stats will feel slightly squishier than a MOF. This is because when your DPS is lower, your lifesteal is lower, and you are vulnerable to chaning. Hence you must always pay attention to EotS and make the most of that time, but be careful to not gimp yourself by having no control for the next 20 seconds either. It feels very different.

chemboy613

2 - Race

Since you have EotS, your sheet crit chance is inherently inefficient. Hence, your charisma is less important to you than a MoF. I actually think the best roll for a SS CW is Int/Wis, not Int/Cha because of this dynamic. While charisma is crit and it’s important, recharge speed and even more importantly, AP gain, is vital. Since the Thaum spec often excludes critical power, a Spellstorm really desires as much AP gain as possible. I suspect the best roll possible is 16 in, 16 wis, 12 charisma.

Now my understanding that this bonus is only possible with Sun Elf, Moon Elf and Dragonborn. The AP gain racial pushes Sun Elf over Moon Elf, and Dragonborns are just plain excellent at everything.

Humans are obviously great at everything, and should be considered as well.

Tiefling is popular because you can get the Int/Charisma roll and a damage bonus, but IMO this is not as valuable as Int/Wisdom/AP gain.


You must always remember that since you will have Eye of the Storm slotted your sheet crit does not matter very much. Most spellstorms will have a real crit chance somewhere in the 45-50% neighborhood, obviously varying based upon timing and playstyle. Hence we can have a low sheet crit, yet have a high real crit.

For example - I tested a run where my sheet crit was 32% (as low as i could get it), but my real crit was close to 50%. Since enough of your BIS items naturally have crit on them, you should be able to hit 30% sheet crit with little effort.

In a similar test I raise my sheet crit 5.6% and my real crit rate was lower - hence those 1800 some points in crit i gained did me absolutely no good at all.

WIS v. CHA - your secondary stat.

A lot of debate is happening in this thread on this point. Both are good. Remember:

Wis is - AP Gain, Recharge Speed, Control Bonus, and Control resist.

Now because of how things are calculated in this game, recharge and control resist are in reality less than what the sheet says. That said, a control bonus and AP gain are huge. IF you don't have artifacts, boons, or critical power feat that extra AP gain and control can be lifesaving.

Cha is - Crit Chance, Companion Bonus, Combat Advantage bonus.

Obviously we are not getting full benefit from the crit, but we are getting some.
Secondly, the companion bonus might give you a few points on the augment but no big deal.

Thirdly, the combat advantage bonus here might be worth several percentage points, depending on how often combat advantage is up. For me personally in a dungeon, this is pretty low, but this also ahs to do with my playstyle. This can varry a lot. So if you are renegade, Charisma might be best for you because of this bonus.

Of course, it's impossible for me to really measure that uptime. I am not sure if Wis or Cha is really more effective, or a balance of the two. What i really want you guys to do is think carefully about your roll and how you play.

Obviously that's very hard for a new player - understandable. Think that Wis CWs might be a little more control heavy and Cha CWs might be a little more damage heavy - though you will be great at both either way. Maybe just pick one and live with it.

chemboy613

3 - Stats

I would use the same stats i outlined in my previous guide except that don’t worry about crit! Whatever you get naturally is plenty. This means i would recommend:

2k armor pen
2k defense
1k lifesteal (take endless consumption boon).

Then stack HP and power.

You will have plenty of recovery, and deflect and regen aren’t very important for PvE, so we don’t worry about these either.

The biggest mistake I see most spellstorm CWs do is stack all offensive stats and no defensive stats at all. These players do incredible damage, but with 22k HP and under 1k defense, they are very squishy. The problem is that if anything survives their burst, if there is a lag spike, or if anything goes wrong at all, they drop very, very quickly. I can not tell you how many runs I have done with how many CW who have incredible offensive power and then we get to the boss and they die in seconds. You DO NOT want to be that CW.

Also, in a later publication, for most of us the defensive stats are more efficient than the offensive ones. This means that one defense item might make a huge difference to you, while one offense item would only make a minor difference. Hence I am very strong advocate for stat balance.

Remember, the DPS from the floor is 0!

chemboy613

4 - Heroic Feats

The main difference between MoF and Spellstorm is that Focused Wizardry DOES affect smolder but DOES NOT affect stormspell. This is becomes smolder behaves like an independent action, with its own crit rate and effects, whereas stormspell behaves like a proc and inherits attributes of the spell that caused it. This means those 3 points we had in focused wizardry should be moved to Learned Spellcaster. Everything else should remain the same.


For Boons, just follow the main guide.

chemboy613

5 - Thaum v. Renegade

You can think of these two trees as different thought processes of how to play your CW. Thaumaturge is a direct damage tree which will encourage you to use chilling cloud. Thaum depends on procs, for elemental empowerment and asailant, and using that rotation of chilling cloud to up your damage. Hence it is a personal damage tree, but is not crit dependent.

Renegade in the meantime is focused on buffing the team with nightmare wizardry and chaos magic. In the new version, chaos magic is quite powerful and nightmare wizardry was always amazing. The thing is that nightmare wizardry is proced from crit. Now granted we don’t worry much about crit because of EotS, but a renegade might care more about crit than a Thaumaturge, where a Spellstorm Thaumaturge can likely ignore your crit score completely.

Think of it like this:

Thaum - personal damage, AOE focused
Renegade - team buff, crit focused.

Hence a thaum will tend to do a little more (but not a lot more) damage than renegade, but the renegade will give more benefits to their team.

In MOD 4, chaos magic uses magic missile exclusively, but in MOD 5 it’s any damage. This means that if you want to play renegade now, you need to use magic missile. This is an important distinction as it will affect the choice of your artifact weapon. I would think carefully about this choice before investing the 4.6M RP into a weapon that you might decide against using.

chemboy613

6 - Gear:

All Spellstorms should use the high vizier set. Sure, shadow weaver might be slightly better if you have a second CW wearing HV, but truly not by much. This is because:

HV team buff is simply great.
HV has more power and recovery
the crit on SW is basically wasted on a spellstorm

The test i did between HV and SW on a SS/Thaum showed that the real crit chance was basically the same, so take the better set bonus, more power, and drop the crit you don’t need anyway.

Artifact Weapon: Depends on your paragon path. RoF for Oppressor/PvP, Chilling Cloud for Thaum, and in MOD 5, whatever you like for renegade.

Artifacts: I think Sigil of the Devoted is BIS active, far and away. Artifacts with combat advantage bonus such as the lantern, the trickster sigil, the black ice beholder and kessel’s spheres have added value for renegades, but I think the GWF sigil and the book of the dead are BIS for thaums. See my main guide for a detailed discussion

Pets: See the main guide for a detailed discussion, but if you are renegade you can consider the blink dog and intellect devourer, but i wouldn’t use them on a Thaum. Otherwise i suspect for most players you want 1) augment 2) wild hunt 3) mage 4) wisp 5) pet of your choice. I’m currently using a pseudodragon in slot 5 because I really enjoy the movement. If you want a DPS pet, it my guess that an epic erinyes is BIS there, but that is very expensive.

Artifact Belts: I suspect that the INT belt is still BIS, but the INT/WIS belt in MOD 5 is also excellent

Artifact Cloak: I am going to choose the Black Ice Cloak here.

Note: If you are renegade, you could get the black ice set (complete) and get the set bonus.

As always, for a detailed discussion of CW gear, please see the main guide.

chemboy613

7 - Thaumaturge Feats:

The required ones are Tempest Magic, Malevolent Surge, Frozen Power Transfer, Elemental Empowerment, and Assailant. These feats are far too good to pass up.

You remaining two feats have options. They are:

Critical Power for AP gain - increases your AP gain 10-15%. I’m a huge fan of this, personally

Bitter Cold - 5% more damage most of the time. The downside is that this doesn’t stack with other CWs, so if you are in a multi-CW party, it’s wasted.

Chilling Control - if you took Bitter Cold, Chilling Control is an incredible feat that adds chill stacks to sudden storm. This is objectively one of the best feats for CW, and you should consider it.

Transcendent Master - if you like shard and use Icy Rays for PvP - this might be a good option. However, many spellstorms dislike shard now, so this is dependent on your playstyle

Reaper’s Touch - While i personally find this feat underwhelming, i know some players make good use of it.

Destructive Wizardry - If you like storm pillar and routinely get it into your rotation, this is an excellent feat and will dramatically boost your DPS. That said, you must be honest with yourself about how often you can get that storm pillar hit in and if it suits your playstyle. It didn't for me, but it really could for someone else.

chemboy613

8 - Renegade Feats

The required feats are Critical Power, Reaper’s Touch, Phantasmal Destruction, Nightmare Wizardry and Chaos Magic.

For your remaining feats you could take Bitter Cold and Chilling Control (discussed above).

Masterful Arcane Theft is actually a really nice feat that will boost your steal time and RoE damage. Since steal time is in your rotation, it’s worth considering.

You could also take Tempest Magic (more damage when mobs have low HP), which is a 1.5% dps increase at the end of the fight

You could take Malevolent Surge - which might be more of a DPS increase but you have to keep stacks up.

If you took one of the Thaum Feats you could also take Destructive Wizardry (discussed above).

I suspect any combination is good as long as you take the key feats. Your spec must match your playstyle to be used optimally.

The feats i didn't mention have their uses, but they are simply less good in my opinion. You are welcome to test them out, but do not be surprised if you are disappointed.

chemboy613

9 - Enchantments:

There are basically 3 options here. They are Terror, Plaguefire and Vorpal. All three are excellent and you won’t be disappointed with any of them. Unlike a MoF, we have the crit chance for Vorpal which will boost your personal DPS significantly - however it will make you even more burst-focused and not help your team as much.

A terror or Plaguefire will help your team out significantly with their debuff and increase your damage for when EotS is down.

I think all three are great options. I know many spellstorms will go vorpal to get more out of stormspell when EotS is up, but this is like blowing all your power in one rotation, and you are a bit gimped until it comes up again. I have seen great players use all three enchantments and i think all four will be great options.

As for armor enchantments, soulforged is the obvious one. Some players honestly prefer barkshield, but this is much more expensive (as a perfect bark shield is far better than a lesser, so you would want one). I would just buy a lesser soulforged and forget it.

While tankier classes can explore other enchantments in their armor, CW should be trying to be hit as little as possible and shouldn’t use the other options.

chemboy613

10 -Spellstorm Specific Powers:

Storm Pillar (at will): You hold and charge, then release a pillar of lightning, which damages multiple enemies

Storm pillar has good damage, but the charge mechanic makes it awkward to use if you have to move around a lot. It is a style choice, i would test it.

Sudden Storm (encounter): You unleash lightning in a line, hitting all the monsters in the area. On mastery, the effect chains.

Sudden Storm is good damage and has no target limit, and hence is a required ability. It should always be on your bar if you are not in a single target fight, especially if you feated it with chilling control. The downside is the cast animation is slow, making it hard to use at times, and it is not the easiest spell to target.

Maelstrom of Chaos (daily): You charge up, gaining control immunity and incredible damage resistance to unleash a pillar of storm on your enemies (no target cap).

Honestly, the damage isn't’ great, the charge period is long, and this is all together underwhelming. My friend Dio is testing it at Lostmauth, but I can’t envision a situation where that is the best option.

Storm Fury (feature): You shock things that attack you. - Quite honestly, very underwhelming.

Storm Spell (feature): 30% chance to shock on critical strike - excellent feature, have a hard time convincing myself something is better.

Eye of the Storm (feature): 100% crit chance for 6 seconds, then 20 second cooldown. - Also excellent. You could take it off if your natural crit is very high - but you’d have to build differently for that.

chemboy613

11 - Setup:

While testing i found two great setups that do similar DPS:

Conduit of Ice (mastery), sudden storm, icy terrain, steal time

Sudden Storm (mastery), shard, icy terrain, steal time.

You could also test conduit instead of shard in rotation two, but conduit is much better on mastery than on a normal encounter slot.

Since spellstorm CWs are down on shard right now, rotation one is most common, but rotation two is also viable. Some people also just simply hate icy terrain and steal time, so you could switch in shard instead, but steal time and icy terrain can proc many, many stormspells and they are great for control. I would test and find a rotation that is optimal for you.

Obviously, at a boss, I would probably go icy rays, RoE, Chill Strike, and Conduit of Ice.

chemboy613

12 - Reserved for additions

chemboy613

13 - Reserved for additions

chemboy613

14 - Wrapup.

That said, this is my take on a spellstorm CW. While i prefer MOF and i know MOF is better for me, many players use spellstorm CWs to great success. There is no denying that it is a very powerful paragon path. However, the playstyle is very different between the two. I recommend trying both out and pick out the one which is best for you.

Remember, Spellstorm is more burst DPS, but Master of Flame is more sustained DPS. This is the main feature distinguishing the playstyles. Either way you can control great, do great damage, and be an excellent assent to your team.

Thanks for reading (again)

Chem

darthpotater

Thank you Chem, all your contributions to the CW community are unvaluable.

I agree with all your posts here, except few things, that in my experience and tests (being Spellstorm since the first day) are wrong:

1)

"The interaction of these two features means that spellstorm CW has very uneven damage. During those six seconds in eye of the storm, spellstorm CW has unmatched burst damage. However, during the next twenty seconds your main features are inactive. For those twenty seconds spellstorm is very “meh.” When eye of the storm is down, i feel as if i am tickling the mobs with a feather."

When EoTS is down, Spell Strom isnt inactive (talking about current playtest of MOD 5). It still works, we can crit even if we dont have EoTS active. We should have 30-35% crit chance even as Spellstorm. This leaves me to second point.

2)

"Since you have EotS, your sheet crit chance is inherently inefficient. Hence, your charisma is less important to you than a MoF. I actually think the best roll for a SS CW is Int/Wis, not Int/Cha because of this dynamic. While charisma is crit and it’s important, recharge speed and even more importantly, AP gain, is vital. Since the Thaum spec often excludes critical power, a Spellstorm really desires as much AP gain as possible. I suspect the best roll possible is 16 in, 16 wis, 12 charisma"

I cant disagree more here. Maxing wisdom means 6% more AP gain, 6% recharge time and 6% control resist. 6% recharge time is near nothing in geared players (assuming 3000-3500 recovery), and Control resist is not needed in PvE. That leaves 6% ap gain wich is nice, but with all the mechanics we have to gain AP (DC artifact, IWD boon, Artifacts with ap gain, and I am a fan too of critical power), we already have a Daily in every group of mobs, and in Mod 5 artifact cloacks will give even more AP/s.
Maxing CHA gives you +6% CA damage (+3-4% dmg when CA), +6% crit chance (a huge difference when EoTS is down) and +6% companion stats (useless). CA damage is underrated, and even if you are thaum is much better that 6% recharge time.

I am talking from a perspective of a geared character, If you are a fresh 60 with 9k gs this can be true because of the low stats, but when you have the basic covered (3000 recovery) CHA is far superior. And seems that in MOD5 we can get a cloack with +3 INT +2 CHA (from the last comment from system designer they changed WIS for CHA), stacking CHA will give even more.

ironzerg79

I personally think SS Renegade is going to be the new hotness in Module 5.

First, Chaos Magic was changed in Module 4 to be any time you deal damage. It's not specific to Magic Missile, or ANY at will for that matter. So that change is live, and has been since Module 4 went up.

Second, Critical Strike is still crazy important for Spellstorm Renegades. Go Charisma or get out . On test, I have almost 42% sheet crit. One of the Chaos Magic buffs gives you +30% to crit, which is a straight up additive boost. That means over 70% crit rate for 10 seconds while it's up. Not super reliable, but it procs a lot. Combine with Eye of the Storm, I was averaging about a 70% overall crit rate on my parses. With the update to Storm Spell only hitting on crits, I think it might actually be more powerful in Mod 5 for Renegades.

Combined with Nightmare Wizardry, which you're going to proc during your opening EotS burst, you're giving yourself pretty much 100% uptime on Combat Advantage, and if you can unload your encounters in the first burst, starting with Steal Time, Sudden Storm, then CoI and Icy Terrain (which keep critting after EotS if cast during EotS), you have a ton of crits rolling nearly all the time. And again, with the boosts for Chaos Magic (and them applying to your teammates, too) the damage is extremely impressive.

I'd use a Perfect Vorpal, no questions asked. Use pets and boons to stack additional crit severity and you'll start to blow up things so fast, they won't have time to freeze. And even then, with CoI on tab, Icy Terrain and Steal Time (plus bonus points if you used Chilling Control to make Sudden Storm a monster control spell), you're putting out a decent amount of control. I think your comment about Spellstorms having being gimped and having to kite while EotS is on cooldown isn't accurate. Even without the focus on Control, Spellstorms still bring more control to the table in a default DPS spec than a MoF ever could.

wixxgs1cht

Great work, chem, however I'm with Lescar on the INT/CHA debate.

laughingbirdddd

chemboy613 wrote: »

4 - Heroic Feats

The main difference between MoF and Spellstorm is that Focused Wizardry DOES affect smolder but DOES NOT affect stormspell. This is becomes smolder behaves like an independent action, with its own crit rate and effects, whereas stormspell behaves like a proc and inherits attributes of the spell that caused it. This means those 3 points we had in focused wizardry should be moved to Learned Spellcaster. Everything else should remain the same.


For Boons, just follow the main guide.

First of all, thank you for your guide:)
I have read the guide from Kaelac as well, and he mentioned that:

"3/3 Focused Wizardry 50% of your damage (assailant, storm spell) counts as single target which gets boosted by this and is worth the AoE nerf."

which one is correct:(
sorry my eng is bad:(

abaddon523

laughingbirdddd wrote: »

First of all, thank you for your guide:)
I have read the guide from Kaelac as well, and he mentioned that:

"3/3 Focused Wizardry 50% of your damage (assailant, storm spell) counts as single target which gets boosted by this and is worth the AoE nerf."

which one is correct:(
sorry my eng is bad:(

Kaelac is incorrect here. Storm Spell is not buffed by Focused Wizardry. However, Assailant, Creeping Frost, and Warped Magic are buffed by it. I use Focused Wizardry as a Spellstorm because I think the 30% increase in damage to those three offsets the loss of 10% AoE damage. Then on bosses, when I'm using Icy Rays and Ice Knife which also get a 30% buff, I can hit like a truck.

The required ones are Tempest Magic, Malevolent Surge, Frozen Power Transfer, Elemental Empowerment, and Assailant. These feats are far too good to pass up.

Disagree on Tempest Magic. I think it is massively overrated. In theory it will only give a damage boost of 0.3 x 5% = 1.5%. In reality it is significantly less than that because most enemies go from alive to dead without ever taking damage below 30% hp. It is only bosses that will be below 30% hp for any length of time.

chemboy613

darthpotater wrote: »

Thank you Chem, all your contributions to the CW community are unvaluable.

I agree with all your posts here, except few things, that in my experience and tests (being Spellstorm since the first day) are wrong:

1)
When EoTS is down, Spell Strom isnt inactive (talking about current playtest of MOD 5). It still works, we can crit even if we dont have EoTS active. We should have 30-35% crit chance even as Spellstorm. This leaves me to second point.

2)
I cant disagree more here. Maxing wisdom means 6% more AP gain, 6% recharge time and 6% control resist. 6% recharge time is near nothing in geared players (assuming 3000-3500 recovery), and Control resist is not needed in PvE. That leaves 6% ap gain wich is nice, but with all the mechanics we have to gain AP (DC artifact, IWD boon, Artifacts with ap gain, and I am a fan too of critical power), we already have a Daily in every group of mobs, and in Mod 5 artifact cloacks will give even more AP/s.
Maxing CHA gives you +6% CA damage (+3-4% dmg when CA), +6% crit chance (a huge difference when EoTS is down) and +6% companion stats (useless). CA damage is underrated, and even if you are thaum is much better that 6% recharge time.

I am talking from a perspective of a geared character, If you are a fresh 60 with 9k gs this can be true because of the low stats, but when you have the basic covered (3000 recovery) CHA is far superior. And seems that in MOD5 we can get a cloack with +3 INT +2 CHA (from the last comment from system designer they changed WIS for CHA), stacking CHA will give even more.

Hey, I know that this sentiment is not how many people feel, and sure I do understand where you are coming from.

And you make a good point - I am writing this guide for people at _all_ skill levels, not just those of us who are geared to the teeth, as I assume you are as well

What i can say is that 6% AP gain is very very noticeable, and I think that AP gain is incredibly important for CWs. Also, I know that while I really love the critical power feat, the book of the dead, and the sigil ofthe devoted (all of which I have), many spellstorms will take chilling control over critical power, missing out on the AP gain.

Also remember, that a legendary sigil of the devoted and a legendary book of the dead is both very time consuming and very expensive for the majority of the player base. I suspect that 95% + of CWs will not have both, the way I do (and you might as well).

This is why in general i think it's better to take a wisdom roll. There are a few things here also:

1 - During EotS your sheet crit doesn't matter - meaning that for those six seconds it 20% or 40% is the same
2 - Especially during mod 5 (since storm spell happens on crit), a huge percentage of your damage is done during EotS
3 - This means that you will get time to stand still and cast, so actually a large amount of your swings are done during EotS
4 - so the practical implication is that your sheet crit is active about half of your swings.

So i'm MoF, now remember that sheet crit and real crit aren't' the same, see:

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?776041-Real-Crit-vs-Sheet-Crit-a-study&highlight=sheet+crit

But for this discussion, let's assume they are.

So 4 points in charisma to MoF is 4% real crit - straight up.

But for a SS, 4 points in charisma might be closer to 2% crit, meaning that each point is about half as effective.

This is why, in general, charisma is less efficient than wisdom for spellstroms

Now you know, I do encourage experimentation and customization, so if on your CW you find the charisma is more effective - go for it! But what i'm suggesting is that you test it out first. You might find the wisdom more useful.

chemboy613

ironzerg79 wrote: »

I personally think SS Renegade is going to be the new hotness in Module 5.

First, Chaos Magic was changed in Module 4 to be any time you deal damage. It's not specific to Magic Missile, or ANY at will for that matter. So that change is live, and has been since Module 4 went up.

Second, Critical Strike is still crazy important for Spellstorm Renegades. Go Charisma or get out . On test, I have almost 42% sheet crit. One of the Chaos Magic buffs gives you +30% to crit, which is a straight up additive boost. That means over 70% crit rate for 10 seconds while it's up. Not super reliable, but it procs a lot. Combine with Eye of the Storm, I was averaging about a 70% overall crit rate on my parses. With the update to Storm Spell only hitting on crits, I think it might actually be more powerful in Mod 5 for Renegades.

Combined with Nightmare Wizardry, which you're going to proc during your opening EotS burst, you're giving yourself pretty much 100% uptime on Combat Advantage, and if you can unload your encounters in the first burst, starting with Steal Time, Sudden Storm, then CoI and Icy Terrain (which keep critting after EotS if cast during EotS), you have a ton of crits rolling nearly all the time. And again, with the boosts for Chaos Magic (and them applying to your teammates, too) the damage is extremely impressive.

I'd use a Perfect Vorpal, no questions asked. Use pets and boons to stack additional crit severity and you'll start to blow up things so fast, they won't have time to freeze. And even then, with CoI on tab, Icy Terrain and Steal Time (plus bonus points if you used Chilling Control to make Sudden Storm a monster control spell), you're putting out a decent amount of control. I think your comment about Spellstorms having being gimped and having to kite while EotS is on cooldown isn't accurate. Even without the focus on Control, Spellstorms still bring more control to the table in a default DPS spec than a MoF ever could.

Hey ironzerg! Good to see this post here.

Honestly, if played and speced right, Renegade is only a little less personal DPS than Thaum, but more team DPS than Thaum. I think in Mod 5 having one renegade in your party is going to be the way to min-max a clear party. I played with a well speced renegade, Yrda, and it was impressive what he did for the team.

I see the charisma thought here too - which is why i encourage everyone to test - but my testing didn't back it up.

As for control, i actually control better as MoF, and that's because of the casting animation of sudden storm. Of course, I was soloing and i had 20 + things chasing me (as Agathe would say, I just YOLOed the dungeon), but i found it a little more difficult to control. This could also be what i am used to or my playstyle, but i don't think the control between MoF and SS is significant.

We will certainly see more renegades in Mod 5 - and I'm grateful for that - I would like to see more build diversity in all classes.

chemboy613

wixxgs1cht wrote: »

Great work, chem, however I'm with Lescar on the INT/CHA debate.

Chem: Good luck solo SP, maybe about 50 min or so
Agathe: nah, I'll YOLO it, 30-40 min
Chem: ok, well if you have issues, i'm here. I can double your DPS (on DC)
Agathe: Ok, but i'll be fine

40-50 min later

Agathe /w Chem : Girdle of the Aboleth

Chem:

chemboy613

abaddon523 wrote: »

Kaelac is incorrect here. Storm Spell is not buffed by Focused Wizardry. However, Assailant, Creeping Frost, and Warped Magic are buffed by it. I use Focused Wizardry as a Spellstorm because I think the 30% increase in damage to those three offsets the loss of 10% AoE damage. Then on bosses, when I'm using Icy Rays and Ice Knife which also get a 30% buff, I can hit like a truck.



Disagree on Tempest Magic. I think it is massively overrated. In theory it will only give a damage boost of 0.3 x 5% = 1.5%. In reality it is significantly less than that because most enemies go from alive to dead without ever taking damage below 30% hp. It is only bosses that will be below 30% hp for any length of time.

This is an important point Abbadon - I just tested FW without paragon feats. but say elemental empowerment is 20% DPS, which menas say 75% of your DPS is AOE. (maybe 5% at will)

So 20% increases to 26%, but 75% decreases to 67.5%, so I still think no FW is slightly better.

However, this is close enough that it could varry dramatically based upon playstyle and team, so you'd have to test yourself before you could reach conclusion.


So, if I am going thaum and I don't take Tempest Magic, what am I going to take? Destructive Wizardry is good, but only if you are good at adding pillar to your rotation, which i think is harder than most of us think. Snap freeze seems very underwhelming for people not named Stox.


And yes, Kaelic is sometimes wrong. He does great work however and I appreciate that.

darthpotater

ironzerg79 wrote: »

I personally think SS Renegade is going to be the new hotness in Module 5.

First, Chaos Magic was changed in Module 4 to be any time you deal damage. It's not specific to Magic Missile, or ANY at will for that matter. So that change is live, and has been since Module 4 went up.

Second, Critical Strike is still crazy important for Spellstorm Renegades. Go Charisma or get out . On test, I have almost 42% sheet crit. One of the Chaos Magic buffs gives you +30% to crit, which is a straight up additive boost. That means over 70% crit rate for 10 seconds while it's up. Not super reliable, but it procs a lot. Combine with Eye of the Storm, I was averaging about a 70% overall crit rate on my parses. With the update to Storm Spell only hitting on crits, I think it might actually be more powerful in Mod 5 for Renegades.

Combined with Nightmare Wizardry, which you're going to proc during your opening EotS burst, you're giving yourself pretty much 100% uptime on Combat Advantage, and if you can unload your encounters in the first burst, starting with Steal Time, Sudden Storm, then CoI and Icy Terrain (which keep critting after EotS if cast during EotS), you have a ton of crits rolling nearly all the time. And again, with the boosts for Chaos Magic (and them applying to your teammates, too) the damage is extremely impressive.

I'd use a Perfect Vorpal, no questions asked. Use pets and boons to stack additional crit severity and you'll start to blow up things so fast, they won't have time to freeze. And even then, with CoI on tab, Icy Terrain and Steal Time (plus bonus points if you used Chilling Control to make Sudden Storm a monster control spell), you're putting out a decent amount of control. I think your comment about Spellstorms having being gimped and having to kite while EotS is on cooldown isn't accurate. Even without the focus on Control, Spellstorms still bring more control to the table in a default DPS spec than a MoF ever could.

I played Renegade for 1 month in mod4, trying to resist the Easy Mode of Thaum, and with all my efforts I reached to have 10-15% less DPS than Thaum. Then switched to thaum.

I agree that renegade (with the changes we have now in preview) is stronger for the party and can reach thaum dmg or be very close. I can see it as the default build for those who care the team and the speed of the run, instead paingiver.

chemboy613

darthpotater wrote: »

I played Renegade for 1 month in mod4, trying to resist the Easy Mode of Thaum, and with all my efforts I reached to have 10-15% less DPS than Thaum. Then switched to thaum.

I agree that renegade (with the changes we have now in preview) is stronger for the party and can reach thaum dmg or be very close. I can see it as the default build for those who care the team and the speed of the run, instead paingiver.

True, and you know i have always been for team DPS. Because of Swath of destruction class feature, MoF tends to do much more team DPS than spellstorm, but doesn't get credit for it because of how paingiver is calculated. (I am going to publish a thread on this eventually, but it does take some time to write these things well xD).

The funny thing is I bet that if you calculated how much buff damage was in there, a DC would win paingiver every time!

As for renegade specifically, if you stack combat advantage bonuses you might actually have a significant DPS boost. Not saying it's cheap or easy, but it should work. It would be a way to keep pace with your personal DPS.

I also think it's important to consider playstyle. MOF and SS have different playstyles for sure, and Thaum v. Renegade also differ. I think the spec and the player need to match playstyle as well, which is why I'm staying MoF Thaum.

To truly evaluate renegade some people will have to run it on live, in mod 5, with a bunch of parties. However, with the buff to chaos magic and the proper gear, i think it can be quite good.

wixxgs1cht

chemboy613 wrote: »

Chem: Good luck solo SP, maybe about 50 min or so
Agathe: nah, I'll YOLO it, 30-40 min
Chem: ok, well if you have issues, i'm here. I can double your DPS (on DC)
Agathe: Ok, but i'll be fine

40-50 min later

Agathe /w Chem : Girdle of the Aboleth

Chem:

Err, not sure I follow...? :E

helpimblindinrl

His friend soloed sp and got a bad drop. When I soloed cn I got a gweef knot. Effort to outcome always comedy in neverwinter

chemboy613

the funny thing is the guy posting is my friend

kieranmtorn

A couple of observations on Renegade Spell Storm/CW:

a) CA is something you generate or get from others (Marking - GF, GWF; Lone Wolf - HR; party positioning). In a normal dungeon run, you will tend to have CA more than you would expect, if you are not soloing the dungeon. So Nightmare Wizardry becomes less important when you're playing in a party.

b) The current version of EotS is a substantial handicap, since it doesn't reliably trigger on the first spell you cast (surprising number of times, it only triggers on the second). Also you can't pull with spells, because it will trigger EotS (drives me nuts, since my preferred rotation is to pull using CoI or CS, then pop feated Steal Time or OF when the mob get in position).

c) I'm from the Charisma side of the argument, because of EotS's erratic behavior.

d) Feated Steal Time is your single most damaging encounter (assuming you maintain arcane stacks). It's the reason I spam MM when I'm waiting on encounters to recycle. ST will out-damage everything but OF when you've got a full set of stacks. I think nothing of seeing 15-25k Steal Times damages when I'm soloing.

e) if you're the leading as a Renegade, you're optimum play style is basically psychotic (ie you want behind the monsters to insure CA). So Vorpal is your friend. With Psychic Destruction & CA, Perfect Vorpal is well worth it.

f) the biggest problem Renegade has is structural, both Tier 2 feats are garbage. So you end up wasting 5 feat points that could be better spent elsewhere (oppressor or Thaum tree).

g) and Chaos Magic while nice for the party is something you just ignore, because when you cast & what you cast is driven by the mobs, not Chaos Magic. Fury & Nexus are nice, but you can't worry about them occuring.

I've been playing Renegade since open beta, (I have 2 CW's: one Renegade & one Thaum). So I'm not changing. My traditional build is in the old crit's happen/Max out the Crits philosophy.

chemboy613

kieranmtorn wrote: »

A couple of observations on Renegade Spell Storm/CW:

a) CA is something you generate or get from others (Marking - GF, GWF; Lone Wolf - HR; party positioning). In a normal dungeon run, you will tend to have CA more than you would expect, if you are not soloing the dungeon. So Nightmare Wizardry becomes less important when you're playing in a party.

b) The current version of EotS is a substantial handicap, since it doesn't reliably trigger on the first spell you cast (surprising number of times, it only triggers on the second). Also you can't pull with spells, because it will trigger EotS (drives me nuts, since my preferred rotation is to pull using CoI or CS, then pop feated Steal Time or OF when the mob get in position).

c) I'm from the Charisma side of the argument, because of EotS's erratic behavior.

d) Feated Steal Time is your single most damaging encounter (assuming you maintain arcane stacks). It's the reason I spam MM when I'm waiting on encounters to recycle. ST will out-damage everything but OF when you've got a full set of stacks. I think nothing of seeing 15-25k Steal Times damages when I'm soloing.

e) if you're the leading as a Renegade, you're optimum play style is basically psychotic (ie you want behind the monsters to insure CA). So Vorpal is your friend. With Psychic Destruction & CA, Perfect Vorpal is well worth it.

f) the biggest problem Renegade has is structural, both Tier 2 feats are garbage. So you end up wasting 5 feat points that could be better spent elsewhere (oppressor or Thaum tree).

g) and Chaos Magic while nice for the party is something you just ignore, because when you cast & what you cast is driven by the mobs, not Chaos Magic. Fury & Nexus are nice, but you can't worry about them occuring.

I've been playing Renegade since open beta, (I have 2 CW's: one Renegade & one Thaum). So I'm not changing. My traditional build is in the old crit's happen/Max out the Crits philosophy.

Kieranmtorn makes some great points here. I haven't played renegade on live since before the entangle nerf, a long long time ago. I think his opinion and experience carries some weight here.

Now about this Wis/Cha debate, i have heard enough good argument on the Charisma side to edit it and make a good note.

That said, I think many spellstorms get into this "MOAR POWER MOAR GOOD" philosophy, and I want to caution against that carefully - Control, AP gain, and recharge really do matter. Survivability really does matter. I know most of you in this thread agree with me, but i get the impression the community as a whole does not.

We must also always remember that a 8k player could read our guides. A super offensive build on an undergeared player will result in that player dying, rapidly and repeatedly. This is why I would rather err cautiously and let people explore and improve on their own.