Spellstorm V. Master of Flame - Some testing, theorycrafting and thoughts.

chemboy613

Spellstorm V. Master of Flame - Some testing, theorycrafting and thoughts.

As many of you know, i was one of the first good players to go with Master of Flame when Module two dropped. I respecced on day one and I am never going to change back.

Personally I love the playstyle. I find that MOF has more flow to the action, and the dots have the ability to kite better and move around better. I also really HATE how EotS encourages you to blow your rotation in that moment instead of simply picking the best spell for the situation.

That said, when I published my first MoF build in MOD 2, I got trolled and flamed that MOF was a “Low DPS spec” and “Simply inferior.” Even recently, my esteemed college, spacejew, created a thread called “Why MoF is worse at everything.” It’s not that his arguments are bad, but it is not a deep enough examination to find out what is really going on.

I think why MoF gets a bad reputation is that SS constantly tops MoF on the paingiver charts. Of course, this is a flawed interpretation. Paingiver is simply a measure of damage done that is credited to the player. But because of the way the game works that does not include:

Buffs
Debuffs
Defensive abilities
Control
Timing and positioning
and many other things.

In addition a Spellstorm’s paingiver WILL include smolder stacks he refreshes, so it is like that whenever a MoF and SS are together, the MoF will give the SS a damage buff, but the SS does not give a same buff to the MoF. Therefore the SS does more damage and think he performs “better”, but really he was performing the same, it’s just his friend the MoF was helping him out.

This is the same thing when DCs get a hard time. Why bring a DC? Bring MOAR DPS - and that’s because paingiver does not include buffs and debuffs. I actually think that a properly played buff/debuff DC will increase team DPS and increase team survivability more than any other class or spec possibly can. This is why if you are min-maxing, your 5th should always be a debuff DC. Since DCs don’t get enough credit, when you have a good one, thank them.

Same story with a GF. I have seen a good GF boost team DPS to insane levels, but they don’t make the charts, so they don’t get enough credit. THANK YOUR GFs, PEOPLE! In EosT, a good DC or a good GF is the difference between easy 10min runs and a wipe fest. They deserve credit.

The illustration is thus - paingiver is NOT, never has been and never will be an indication of your contribution to team effectiveness. Judging someone by their paingiver is like judging a car by it’s paint job.

However, humans do this, which is they make a reasonable heuristic for how things work, then extend that heuristic further than it actually works. Hence we all know that if i am a good 18k CW and I am playing against an average 14k CW, I will simply demolish him on the paingiver charts. I’m a better CW - for a lot of reasons - so we think better CW does more damage.

Then we start comparing things that are qualitatively different and computationally similar. Say I am a 18.6 MoF and I play with a 17.5k SS, and he beats me on paingiver. There is a lot of reason for this, but everyone is assuming that the SS is a better spec because of this situation. However, we will see in game mechanics that paingiver is simply a measure of direct, personal damage, and the calculations will give the SS the edge on the chart, but not in terms of team effectiveness. It is possible for a spellstorm to play worse than a master of flame, help the team less than a master of flame, and still score higher on paingiver. This is why our natural heuristic fails here.

When a heuristic fails we must either discard it and find the truth behind our observations, or we must suffer the consequences of simply being wrong.

For a great read on similar matters, I highly recommend “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate in Behavioral Economics. This books is relatively easy to read and will illuminate you on the systemic judgement errors humans commonly make. Many of them are found in this discussion here.

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

chemboy613

The Playstyle:

A spellstorm CW relies heavily on both Eye of the Storm and Stormspell - which are amazing class features. Stormspell is a passive damage boost, and in Mod 5 (where this testing was done) it procs on crits. Eye of the Storm gives you 6 seconds of guaranteed crit chance - which is amazing. Combined together, these two features give spellstorms unparalleled burst damage. For those six seconds when Eye of the Storm is active, a spellstorm CW puts out an incredible amount of damage. However, while in cooldown, their damage is very unimpressive.

A Master of Flame CW relies heavily on the smolder mechanic. The optimal setup is with critical conflagration and swath of destruction. Critical conflagration adds smolder to things whenever you crit, and Swath of Destruction is a 15% damage increase on everything with smolder to everything that hits that mob. This means that after a few seconds to apply smolder, not only does Master of Flame do great damage, but they also buff the whole team significantly.

So think about it in 26 second cycles:

First 6 seconds: Spellstorm’s DPS is amazing, team DPS is ok.
Next 20 seconds: MoF’s DPS is excellent, team DPS is excellent.

So unlike a spellstorm, MoF requires some ramp up time to apply smolder. This means they are quite literally the opposite, making a MoF very impressive in long fights and spellstorms very impressive in short ones.

We must not discount the value of Swath of Destruction. Many players ignore this feature, but it is a 15% increase (multiplicative) in terms of party effectiveness, with near 100% uptime. Other excellent buffs are HV (in reality) about 20%, high prophet about 15%, Divine glow 15%, etc. You can think of swath of destruction as blanketing the entire room in divine glow, all the time. Those of us who have experinced the power of DC’s divine glow will now understand how incredibly powerful this feature is.

Also, smolder can be refreshed by ANY chill stack and transformed into rimfire smolder, whereby its duration is increased for 6 seconds. However, the person who last refreshed the smolder gets credit for it in paingiver. From a practical standpoint, this ends up being a 5-10% damage buff to all spellstorms that happen to have a MoF within the party.

These two mechanics mean that if I play a MoF and you play a spellstorm, and say we calculated our solo DPS to be about equal. Just by standing next to me, I will give you a 20% damage increase on the paingiver charts. So if we are both at 25k DPS and party together, this means you will be at 30k DPS and I will be at 25k DPS, even though I am responsible for your 5k DPS increase.

In this situation I would say that Spellstorm is responsible for 25k team DPS and the MoF is responsible for 30k team DPS, even though the credit is reversed.

The fundamental assumption i made when i designed my build was that the sustained fights were the ones that matter. I.e. your party will be more likely to struggle and wipe at difficult boss encounters, large pulls, and the like rather than a simple trash clear. Hence the fights that REALLY MATTER are longer than 26 seconds. If you can clear the fight in six seconds or less, it doesn’t even matter if you have no feats at all. Your team is so powerful right then that the spec REALLY DOESN’T MATTER.

Yes, a lot of the time is spent clearing trash, but what slows you down? Big pulls and wipes. Both of those happen in situations where the fight is not over quickly. Sure we could kill one group at a time, but that would make the run very very slow.

chemboy613

Measurements and Theorycrafting.

Now, I am going to explain this in my forum post because I am very tired of managing picture files and about turning my tumblr into graphland. If people want the actual data I am glad to show it but export, convert, upload, blah blah blah, enough is enough.

I soloed PK on preview AT LEAST eight times to get data. I am very tired of pirate king, btw. Don’t ask me to run that anytime soon -_-.

I tested out MoF and SS and Hv and SW and Thaum and Renegade, and while my MoF + SW + Renegade was a dismal failure, that was because I had a bad spec. In general the DPS for all builds was 23k-25k DPS, with MoF Thaum in HV being the highest and SS Renegade in SW being the lowest.

People wonder how i clear - because that’s important. Basically I yolo it - that is pull as much as i can possibly handle to the next checkpoint and blow it all up. This is my playstyle and creates a long, sustained fight throughout the whole dungeon, giving me good data on sustained DPS.

However, when the spellstorm was in Eye of the Storm, many many things died very quickly, which didn’t happen with MOF. However, when SS was out of EotS, it was like fighting with a wet noodle - which never happened with MOF. On the MOF builds, things died consistently throughout the whole run. This is also consistent with the burst/sustained observation.

But it also a reason why SS win paingiver, is that they blow up all the trash right away and there is no T for the MoF DoT to work on. Your MoF might have much better DPS, but they died during EoTs. However, if the next group comes the SS will do less damage and the MoF will show her power then, but it is probably against less targets.

So let’s think of reasons why MoF lose paingiver to Spellstorm:

Burst damage over registers killing things like zombies and archers
MoF Buffs spellstorm with smolder
MoF Buffs spellstorm with Swath of Destruction

The last thing is weapon enchants, spellstorms often use a perfect vorpal, which increases their PERSONAL DPS. For ease of calculation i am going to say 20% (in reality it’s a bit less), meanwhile a MoF will use either a GPF or P.Terror, which increases their PERSONAL DPS 4% and everyone else’s DPS 4% as well, so this means that the MoF will get less personal use out of his enchantment, even though the team gets more.

chemboy613

Hypothetical

Let’s take a situation where we have four players. I am going to say this is after all their debuffs and buffs. The have a group:

SS CW 1 - 27k DPS
GWF - 17k DPS
HR - 13k DPS
TR - 10k DPS.

Total: 67k DPS

Now they can add one of two players, both with the same solo, no enchant DPS of 25k. They would be SS CW 2, who will add a perfect vorpal, and MoF CW 1, who will add a perfect terror.

(My elimination of GF, DC, and SW from this is not because i dislike them, but because their buff mechanics would severely complicate the calculus. I would suspect things to behave similarly with them in the party).

So in party 1, the SS CW 2 joins, adding his 25k DPS and a 20% increase from his perfect vorpal. Therefore it will look like this

SS CW 2 - 30k DPS
SS CW 1 - 27k DPS
GWF - 17k DPS
HR - 13k DPS
TR - 10k DPS

Total: 97k DPS

Difference: 30k

In Party 2, the MoF CW joins, adding 25k DPS (which includes swath of destruction). Now his perfect terror will increase his personal DPS 8% ,bringing the total DPS to 27k

However swath of destruction will increase team DPS by 15%, and perfect terror by 4%, and they multiply. So therefore everyone else gets a 1.15*1.04 =1.196 or a 19.6% DPS increase. I am going to call it 20% for the sake of math.

Remember that smolder will give SS CW 1 an extra 5% damage (at least), so his DPS will be up 25% minimum.

So:

SS CW 1 - (27k*1.25) = 34k
MoF CW 27k
GWF (17k * 1.2) = 20k
HR (13k * 1.2) = 15.5k
TR (10k * 1.2) = 12k

DPS = 108.5k

Difference 41.5k

This means that in these two parties, the MOF increased team DPS 41.5k and the SS increased team DPS 30k, meaning that despite less PERSONAL DPS, the MoF contributes more TEAM DPS. to the party.

Now let’s say this team runs CN, where there is about 120 M damage to go around. We have to deal that out proportionately (save you the math), so our paingivers look like this

Team One:

SS CW 2 - 37.1M
SS CW 1 - 33.4 M
GWF - 21M
HR - 16.1 M
TR - 12.4 M

Team Two:

SS CW 1 - 37.6 M
MoF CW - 29.9 M
GWF - 22.1 M
HR - 17.1 M
TR - 13.3M


So at the end of it, people look at paingiver. SS CW 2 has 37.1 M in team one, and SS CW 1 has 33.4 M in run one and 37.6M in run two. These both dwarf the paingiver score of the MoF CW - with 29.9 M. So these SS will think, oh gosh, I am sure better than that dumb MoF CW. Why isn’t he spellstorm? Why is his DPS so low? Why would he use an “inferior” path?

However, the MoF is RESPONSIBLE for 45.9 million damage, due to his buffs. It’s just 16 million of that was credited to his teammates.

chemboy613

Advantages to Spellstorm -

That said, despite the fact that MoF is more team DPS - I must say there is a true advantage to the incredible spellstorm burst. A Spellstorm CW with a perfect vorpal in Eye of the Storm and potentially clear the room of all but elites in one oppressive force. This burst is something that it is truly impossible for any MoF to match. And that ability to deal huge amounts of damage in such a short time has its value as well - it could be lifesaving for the party and get them out of a tight spot, for example.

In addition, sudden storm with chilling control is an excellent control spell. In my test i was soloing so i sometimes found it hard to cast sudden storm because of them cast time, however I have seen spellstorms do huge damage with this spell. We should not underestimate its power either

In addition, i have many friends who play spellstorms and play wonderfully. This post is by no means a knock on them at all. It’s a great paragon path and CW in general is a great class.

chemboy613

Conclusions:

First of all - both paragon paths can do their job very well. Both can control and damage excellent. The main difference is the way in which they control and damage.

Spellstorm CWs have tremendous burst damage and often control with the aid of chilling control feat for sudden storm. In the absence of this feat, they have slightly less control, but sudden storm is incredible burst and can clear trash with incredible efficiency. The downside that once eye of the storm is finished, their damage is lacking and they provide no major team buffs.

Master of Flame CWs have almost no burst damage, but have excellent sustained damage. They often control using shard, which means they tend to clump enemies rather than put them in a line. In suing fanning the flame instead, they have less control, but can apply smolder more effectively. The tradeoff for their low burst is a fluid playstyle with great team buffs that can raise the team’s DPS throughout the fight.

Because of the synergistic relationship between the two paragons, SS and MoF CW will be more effective than two SSs or two MoFs together. If you ever run these different combinations the difference is painfully obvious.

If you have to take just one CW - you will be very happy with either paragon. The main thing, obviously, is the skill and the ability of that player. In the right hands, any CW can be a tremendous force of destruction.

If you can’t decide what to play - respec tokens are only 300 zen. Read my guides, try both! The playstyle is different enough that I think people will tend to prefer one or the other. Pick one and love your choice.


P.S. - if we counted buffs and debuffs in paingiver, your DC would win paingiver. How would that feel? :P Give some love to DC, please.

angrysprite

I am a fan of the MoF Paragon myself (I admit SS is a lot of fun, too). Thank you for this explanation. Though I've always understood it (based on your original MoF guide, thank you that) - I think, as you mentioned, the problem is with people putting so much value and effort into a the end-chart (Paingivewr score).

I look at it this way: a strip of road in town, three stop-light intersections, set for "35 Miles Per Hour". The MoF Car does 35 miles per hour and never has to stop, hitting every green light. The SS Car does 50 MPH, is going faster but has to stop at red lights. Just as the MoF catches up (and just keeps going) the SS then accelerates to 50 MPH again.

So even though the SS has to stop at each red light, it's after the last light that the SS wins the race by a second or two, but the MoF has a smoother, more consistent ride - but in the end they both travel the same distance and arrive almost at the same time, save a couple seconds between them.

In short: excellent commentary and accurate based on my own experience between the two. It is fortunate for me that I really don;t care at all where I end-up ranking on the charts.

-shrug-

chemboy613

angrysprite wrote: »

I am a fan of the MoF Paragon myself (I admit SS is a lot of fun, too). Thank you for this explanation. Though I've always understood it (based on your original MoF guide, thank you that) - I think, as you mentioned, the problem is with people putting so much value and effort into a the end-chart (Paingivewr score).

I look at it this way: a strip of road in town, three stop-light intersections, set for "35 Miles Per Hour". The MoF Car does 35 miles per hour and never has to stop, hitting every green light. The SS Car does 50 MPH, is going faster but has to stop at red lights. Just as the MoF catches up (and just keeps going) the SS then accelerates to 50 MPH again.

So even though the SS has to stop at each red light, it's after the last light that the SS wins the race by a second or two, but the MoF has a smoother, more consistent ride - but in the end they both travel the same distance and arrive almost at the same time, save a couple seconds between them.

In short: excellent commentary and accurate based on my own experience between the two. It is fortunate for me that I really don;t care at all where I end-up ranking on the charts.

-shrug-

Hey, that's a pretty good analogy angry sprite! You can certainly think of it this way.

I don't really care that much either. I figured out that when i switched my team killed things faster and smoother, and since this is a team game, that's what really mattered to me.

Personally, i think just looking at the charts is pretty silly, but i know many players do that as well. I don't think you can evaluate a run based on this one measure, but so many do. Hopefully this helps people to think about game mechanics and what they contribute instead of what they get credit for.

blazious11

It's like VT back in mod 2/3 with pug. People said, 'why bring a DC? We can survive without it, bring another DPS!"
What they did not see, that with a good debuff DC Valindra died 2 times faster, than with another DPS. (Or, with a heal DC we did not wipe)

In T2 dungeons with high gs party, debuff no longer an issue, because mobs dies too fast for that. But in new dungeons, like LOL or sot, and probably in mod5 too, debuff will be more important.
Now with Stormspell 'nerf' SS cw will have an even higher burst dps, and worse overall dps, but (I hope) mobs will have more hp, and will die slower without debuffs, so maybe the 2 cw will be closer each other (In theory). Or SS cw-s will go for a higher crit chance, and their dps will be even more op.
Only problem with this, that damage comes from the 2 passive skills, not from feats or different rotation, or people skills. (With thaumaturge, you have only 2 important feats, elemental empowerement, and capstone. All others does not really matter, or make a very big difference) I still like being a CW, and probably always will, even if they nerf it badly. But it would be better, if we had more choice for different builds. (Even rotation is always conduit, ST, IT, SS, or single target. Only different at dread vault final boss.) I hope MOD 5 renegade will be a step in this direction.

asterotg

Nice post. I have similar arguments with other CWs about HV or focused wizadry. I use the first one to boost the group dps and the second one, bc. I think, that dps is needed in bossfights, not for trash clears.

BTW, when I run ELOL with friends, they prefer the 17k+ debuff DC over the 18.6k CW. While the CW would be paingiver in most of the runs, the runs go much easier with the DC. While they have to admit, that debuff is better than pure personal damage for the group, most of the times it comes down to 'yea, but I do more dmg with 2/2 power boost'.

chemboy613

blazious11 wrote: »

It's like VT back in mod 2/3 with pug. People said, 'why bring a DC? We can survive without it, bring another DPS!"
What they did not see, that with a good debuff DC Valindra died 2 times faster, than with another DPS. (Or, with a heal DC we did not wipe)

In T2 dungeons with high gs party, debuff no longer an issue, because mobs dies too fast for that. But in new dungeons, like LOL or sot, and probably in mod5 too, debuff will be more important.
Now with Stormspell 'nerf' SS cw will have an even higher burst dps, and worse overall dps, but (I hope) mobs will have more hp, and will die slower without debuffs, so maybe the 2 cw will be closer each other (In theory). Or SS cw-s will go for a higher crit chance, and their dps will be even more op.
Only problem with this, that damage comes from the 2 passive skills, not from feats or different rotation, or people skills. (With thaumaturge, you have only 2 important feats, elemental empowerement, and capstone. All others does not really matter, or make a very big difference) I still like being a CW, and probably always will, even if they nerf it badly. But it would be better, if we had more choice for different builds. (Even rotation is always conduit, ST, IT, SS, or single target. Only different at dread vault final boss.) I hope MOD 5 renegade will be a step in this direction.

If you read my other threads, you can see that in Mod 5 the renegade tree is making a comeback. I actually suspect that renegades will have even higher team effectiveness in Mod 5. I'm not going to switch because MoF/Thaum is my playstyle, but i am hoping for more build diversity among the CW population.

Now when you run ACT, you'll see that 35% of DPS is either stormspell or smolder. This new stormspell mechanic might actually lower overall DPS a little, but since i don't play a stormspell on live I can't tell for sure. What i can tell is it makes the burst even more extreme. Mod 5 spellstorm has AMAZING burst but really lacks when EotS is down.

Now I don't this is a problem for MoF - because the key mechanic of MoF is the DoT, so we don't mind a high smolder damage, but I have talked to our class advocate and some other high end spellstorm CWs and they would definitely prefer more direct damage and less passive damage. We can only hope the devs listen and implement this for the spellstorm paragon.

lewstelamon01

Had to prune this thread. Keep it civil or don't post it. Also, do not respond to posts intended to provoke another user into an angry response--instead, use the post reporting function to bring it to our attention. Thanks!

onegaki101

It would be interesting to see the DPS difference on bosses or final bosses only rather than the DPS for the entire dungeon to see how much more DPS a MoF would do.

chemboy613

onegaki101 wrote: »

It would be interesting to see the DPS difference on bosses or final bosses only rather than the DPS for the entire dungeon to see how much more DPS a MoF would do.

That's why my Mod 2 was the "dracoslaying" build XD

It does well, but remember we are giving SSs a 25% buff if we party together.

pmabraham

Good day, chemboy613:

Thank you for sharing. I tried MOF when I first started playing (around August of this year), and only switched to SS because I also do pvp in addition to pve. Since PVP is all about burst dmg (at least domination, my personal experience), I found it easier to play (I tend to solo grab distance nodes, and end up in more 1v1's or 2v1's compared to node hugging).

I'm tempted to switch back to MOF come mod 5, but I don't want to be gimped in PVP. Whether in this thread or a separate one, can you please address what would be the best MOF feat set up and boon set up to do well in PVP and PVE (i.e. hybrid)?

Thank you.

chemboy613

pmabraham wrote: »

Good day, chemboy613:

Thank you for sharing. I tried MOF when I first started playing (around August of this year), and only switched to SS because I also do pvp in addition to pve. Since PVP is all about burst dmg (at least domination, my personal experience), I found it easier to play (I tend to solo grab distance nodes, and end up in more 1v1's or 2v1's compared to node hugging).

I'm tempted to switch back to MOF come mod 5, but I don't want to be gimped in PVP. Whether in this thread or a separate one, can you please address what would be the best MOF feat set up and boon set up to do well in PVP and PVE (i.e. hybrid)?

Thank you.

Hey, i'm not a PvPer by any means, but i know some excellent PvPers are testing MoF in PvP.

The DOT advantage is really good for handling TRs and preventing people from running away. So it's a bit of a tradeoff there.

I don't PvP enough to know how it holds up there, but I suggest testing. I keep encouraging PvPers to write guides, but none yet

You do really drive TRs nuts with smolder, might be a good counter if they give you trouble. Also remember that the debuffs can stack and let your team beat on them.

pandora1x

chemboy613 wrote: »

Hey, i'm not a PvPer by any means, but i know some excellent PvPers are testing MoF in PvP.

The DOT advantage is really good for handling TRs and preventing people from running away. So it's a bit of a tradeoff there.

I don't PvP enough to know how it holds up there, but I suggest testing. I keep encouraging PvPers to write guides, but none yet

You do really drive TRs nuts with smolder, might be a good counter if they give you trouble. Also remember that the debuffs can stack and let your team beat on them.

Trust me, the smoulder really isn't threatening at all since we have Tenacious Concealement.

A Spellstorm Mage gives way more presence than a MoF in PVP when I'm backcapping the enemy's base.

The only way that existed to be viable as a MoF against TR's was to use the Bilethorn-StealTime combo, but now since Bile was nerfed...

pandora1x

pmabraham wrote: »

Good day, chemboy613:

Thank you for sharing. I tried MOF when I first started playing (around August of this year), and only switched to SS because I also do pvp in addition to pve. Since PVP is all about burst dmg (at least domination, my personal experience), I found it easier to play (I tend to solo grab distance nodes, and end up in more 1v1's or 2v1's compared to node hugging).

I'm tempted to switch back to MOF come mod 5, but I don't want to be gimped in PVP. Whether in this thread or a separate one, can you please address what would be the best MOF feat set up and boon set up to do well in PVP and PVE (i.e. hybrid)?

Thank you.

Apparently, according to many of my friends, CW will be the worst class in PVP in mod5 sadly. So either SpellStorm or MoF, you'll probably be equally gimped.

Do whatever is best for you, I'd perhaps recommend a rotation like this.

Tab = Shield

Q = Fanning the Flame

E = Entangling

R = Icy Rays


OR a DoT rotation

Tab = Ray of Enfeeblement

Q = Fanning the Flame

E = Entangling Force

R = Conduit of Ice

chemboy613

pandora1x wrote: »

Apparently, according to many of my friends, CW will be the worst class in PVP in mod5 sadly. So either SpellStorm or MoF, you'll probably be equally gimped.

Do whatever is best for you, I'd perhaps recommend a rotation like this.

Tab = Shield

Q = Fanning the Flame

E = Entangling

R = Icy Rays


OR a DoT rotation

Tab = Ray of Enfeeblement

Q = Fanning the Flame

E = Entangling Force

R = Conduit of Ice

Good suggestions from Pandora here - I don't PvP so i trust her opinion more than mine.

I was just going on what some of my TR friends said, but yeah tenacious concealment with 3pts is very effective. I know some people were investigating MoF to eliminate TRs like you (I would take that as flattery!)

BTW - so glad you put out a WK build. Like SS, everyone thought MI was best, but you found a good WK build. Really appreciate your work.

pandora1x

chemboy613 wrote: »

Good suggestions from Pandora here - I don't PvP so i trust her opinion more than mine.

I was just going on what some of my TR friends said, but yeah tenacious concealment with 3pts is very effective. I know some people were investigating MoF to eliminate TRs like you (I would take that as flattery!)

BTW - so glad you put out a WK build. Like SS, everyone thought MI was best, but you found a good WK build. Really appreciate your work.

Of course, I will never let WK down, and thanks~

Even in module 5 I have two new builds coming for WK's : ] This paragon will get more and more ideas from me.

I don't like being a sheep and following the popular builds so I create mine tehehe.

onegaki101

For PvP, I think your best bet is to go SS as it is all about burst damage. For CWs it is kill or be killed, we have no escape mechanisms so we have to stand our ground.

A lot of classes have CC immunities that practically destroys the CW. So you have to burst them down before they activate their immunity which renders your EF, chill stack, and chill strike ineffective, although you still get the chill strike damage. My set up has been ice rays (tab), chill strike, entangle force, and (shield/repel/CoI/RoE).

I do not Dom PvP anymore as I find it boring. All they do is funnel you into one path, not much strategy to it. I wish they would implement WoW's Arathi Basin in this game. Where gear was not as important as team work. I do enjoy GG PvP although can usually just strategize with your 5man party, but at least there are multiple path of attacks which makes it fun.

Anyways, regarding the SS vs MoF. I enjoy the MoF/SS combo in a group. I think if MoF is not using HV, the team buff is roughly the same between the two. Also, when a CW is out of EotS, its dmg is still great, just not uber when EotS is up though. Although it may be a bit gimped once mod5 comes out because of crit only activation.

I have two CWs of each paragon so I can bring either one depending on what we have in the group

chemboy613

hehe onegaki - let's do more runs today too! I still need four more belts!


Pandora - yeah, I have that tendency too. As you can tell, I believe that playstyle, gear, and spec must be in harmony for maximum effectiveness and to enjoy yourself This is why i don't think there is necessarily a "best" build - but there might be a best build for you.

onegaki101

I've given up on finding the belt, going to wait until they get cheaper on mod5 . Well 19 more days and my GF can help tank it.

I did GG pvp last night on my MoF and I was surprised at how many kills I got. I wasn't expecting to get #1 in kills, but I guess the DoTs helps with kill steals :rolleyes:

chemboy613

onegaki101 wrote: »

I've given up on finding the belt, going to wait until they get cheaper on mod5 . Well 19 more days and my GF can help tank it.

I did GG pvp last night on my MoF and I was surprised at how many kills I got. I wasn't expecting to get #1 in kills, but I guess the DoTs helps with kill steals :rolleyes:

Yeah, I think DoTs are very underrated in this game. I once PvPed and ran into some friends who were hardcore PvPers (TRs) and they were like OMG... that DoT!

jerrocko

chemboy613 wrote: »

Spellstorm V. Master of Flame - Some testing, theorycrafting and thoughts.

As many of you know, i was one of the first good players to go with Master of Flame when Module two dropped. I respecced on day one and I am never going to change back.

Personally I love the playstyle. I find that MOF has more flow to the action, and the dots have the ability to kite better and move around better. I also really HATE how EotS encourages you to blow your rotation in that moment instead of simply picking the best spell for the situation.

That said, when I published my first MoF build in MOD 2, I got trolled and flamed that MOF was a “Low DPS spec” and “Simply inferior.” Even recently, my esteemed college, spacejew, created a thread called “Why MoF is worse at everything.” It’s not that his arguments are bad, but it is not a deep enough examination to find out what is really going on.

I think why MoF gets a bad reputation is that SS constantly tops MoF on the paingiver charts. Of course, this is a flawed interpretation. Paingiver is simply a measure of damage done that is credited to the player. But because of the way the game works that does not include:

Buffs
Debuffs
Defensive abilities
Control
Timing and positioning
and many other things.

In addition a Spellstorm’s paingiver WILL include smolder stacks he refreshes, so it is like that whenever a MoF and SS are together, the MoF will give the SS a damage buff, but the SS does not give a same buff to the MoF. Therefore the SS does more damage and think he performs “better”, but really he was performing the same, it’s just his friend the MoF was helping him out.

This is the same thing when DCs get a hard time. Why bring a DC? Bring MOAR DPS - and that’s because paingiver does not include buffs and debuffs. I actually think that a properly played buff/debuff DC will increase team DPS and increase team survivability more than any other class or spec possibly can. This is why if you are min-maxing, your 5th should always be a debuff DC. Since DCs don’t get enough credit, when you have a good one, thank them.

Same story with a GF. I have seen a good GF boost team DPS to insane levels, but they don’t make the charts, so they don’t get enough credit. THANK YOUR GFs, PEOPLE! In EosT, a good DC or a good GF is the difference between easy 10min runs and a wipe fest. They deserve credit.

The illustration is thus - paingiver is NOT, never has been and never will be an indication of your contribution to team effectiveness. Judging someone by their paingiver is like judging a car by it’s paint job.

However, humans do this, which is they make a reasonable heuristic for how things work, then extend that heuristic further than it actually works. Hence we all know that if i am a good 18k CW and I am playing against an average 14k CW, I will simply demolish him on the paingiver charts. I’m a better CW - for a lot of reasons - so we think better CW does more damage.

Then we start comparing things that are qualitatively different and computationally similar. Say I am a 18.6 MoF and I play with a 17.5k SS, and he beats me on paingiver. There is a lot of reason for this, but everyone is assuming that the SS is a better spec because of this situation. However, we will see in game mechanics that paingiver is simply a measure of direct, personal damage, and the calculations will give the SS the edge on the chart, but not in terms of team effectiveness. It is possible for a spellstorm to play worse than a master of flame, help the team less than a master of flame, and still score higher on paingiver. This is why our natural heuristic fails here.

When a heuristic fails we must either discard it and find the truth behind our observations, or we must suffer the consequences of simply being wrong.

For a great read on similar matters, I highly recommend “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate in Behavioral Economics. This books is relatively easy to read and will illuminate you on the systemic judgement errors humans commonly make. Many of them are found in this discussion here.

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

I started with SS, but like all games, lightning just doesn't seem to be as 'handy,' despite it's power, though I like the effects more than flame ones. So I switched to MoF, and I don't see switching back either, even though only one at-will is worth it to me, RofF. What's great is that both have my first-choice elemental cold/chill powers, which are SO great for control, slowing and freezing enemies, and giving good debuffs on some of them. Once again, we just need more encounter power slots to use, then it'd be awesome.
Creeping Frost is cool, too, as is Rimefire, but CF shows up in battle text so you know it's special. Rimefire is just color-based.

chemboy613

jerrocko wrote: »

I started with SS, but like all games, lightning just doesn't seem to be as 'handy,' despite it's power, though I like the effects more than flame ones. So I switched to MoF, and I don't see switching back either, even though only one at-will is worth it to me, RofF. What's great is that both have my first-choice elemental cold/chill powers, which are SO great for control, slowing and freezing enemies, and giving good debuffs on some of them. Once again, we just need more encounter power slots to use, then it'd be awesome.
Creeping Frost is cool, too, as is Rimefire, but CF shows up in battle text so you know it's special. Rimefire is just color-based.

hehe, anything that hurts them that bad and gives everyone 15% more dps is good for me, blue, red, or green.

jerrocko

chemboy613 wrote: »

hehe, anything that hurts them that bad and gives everyone 15% more dps is good for me, blue, red, or green.

Oh, agreed, I wasn't too clear. I meant that it's nice to get a text wording when CF kicks in, I'm not always sure when Rimefire does, so it'd be cool to have it be spelled out like CF is, not that I've got the spell to do it going. Or just make RF a bigger brighter green flame or something maybe.

chemboy613

jerrocko wrote: »

Oh, agreed, I wasn't too clear. I meant that it's nice to get a text wording when CF kicks in, I'm not always sure when Rimefire does, so it'd be cool to have it be spelled out like CF is, not that I've got the spell to do it going. Or just make RF a bigger brighter green flame or something maybe.

the thing is, it's on EVERYTHING. you can watch for the little blue flame icon under the health bar. It's normally the last one on the right.