Spellstorm Renegade Guide: Death is the Best Crowd Control

niadan

I am pretty well geared and decided to move some things around to use MM as Iron(man)zerg suggests. I am convinced that it is not only better on single target, but on groups as well. With COI and Icy, I am not wanting in Chill Stacks, and MM keeps the arcane up for Steal Time, DIS and Oppressive. I am now using MM and the Main hand feature exclusively.

ironzerg79

In a eToS this afternoon, I was able to keep the Enfeebling Ray debuff up almost 100% so I'm convinced on single target fights.

I'll check it out for generally AOEing, too.

niadan

Love the tweek is all I can say.

I also changed up my heroic feats to max out 3/3 Arcane Enhancement and 2/3 Blighting Touch with 1/2 in Fight On.

Also changed to Reapers touch from Energy Recovery due to the fact I am no longer using CC and am usually "in the mix" during clearing.

ironzerg79

That's what she said.

solbergx

ironzerg79 said:

So I was bored and doing some more derping around with powers.

I think it might benefit the build more to use Magic Missile on Single Target fights, as opposed to Chilling Cloud. You get 15% more damage from Distintegrate, MM and Enfeeble, and the debuff on Enfeeble lasts longer, which (in my tests) averaged out to about 5-7% more damage.

Unfortunately, my posts are too long to edit more in, so I can't really edit the old guide without major revisions. When we swapped to Vanilla, something must've changed on the character limit

So you are saying we should use MM in pvp and boss fights?

ironzerg79

Yeah. Initial tests point to MM being better that previously thought for single target.

kieranmtorn

MM, even more so if you are using Focused Wizardry

randomdigits

For the purposes of survivability I'd like to keep my Life Steal ~2500-3000.
But that stat is missing from most of the Epic armor pieces (even the older campaign ones).
What would be the best way to accomplish this?
I'm keeping "Restoring Boots Of Piercing" and stacking darks +8 into rings for now, plus working on getting to the related boons.
My calculations suggest that at or above 8% Life Steal chance my At-Wills would provide enough HP recovery for most PvE fights...

Also I see a trade off made between Critical and Recovery... Wouldn't high Recovery allow keeping ads frozen longer (which is hard to measure) and also increase the DPS? I also wonder at which point perma-freeze is possible.

I'm on Xbox.

anagramofevil

randomdigits#2166 said:

For the purposes of survivability I'd like to keep my Life Steal ~2500-3000.
But that stat is missing from most of the Epic armor pieces (even the older campaign ones).
What would be the best way to accomplish this?

Options: Artifacts, enchants, armor reinforcement kits, boons.

randomdigits#2166 said:

Also I see a trade off made between Critical and Recovery... Wouldn't high Recovery allow keeping ads frozen longer (which is hard to measure) and also increase the DPS? I also wonder at which point perma-freeze is possible.

You can already perma-freeze non-elites if you go three into Oppressor for Icy Veins. You lose some DPS from Spell Twisting, though. Everything in dungeons has control resist, so you also have to stack control bonus (whether going for more CC through low cooldowns or Icy Veins).

But on the DPS side, Spell Twisting gives you a large cooldown reduction, making it a better ROI to stack more crit. With some spells taking effect over time, I'm not sure that there's any benefit to be able to cast those before the last one ends (I think it just replaces the active one).

randomdigits

Thank you for your answers.
Re-reading this guide I've noticed that Acolyte of Kelemvor maybe a good choice for increasing the Life Steal.

blindmonkeyz

I use the Acolyte myself and have Greater Bonding stones currently. Nice boost

anagramofevil

randomdigits#2166 said:

Re-reading this guide I've noticed that Acolyte of Kelemvor maybe a good choice for increasing the Life Steal.

I use the Acolyte for single-player / campaign content, and in dungeons/skirmishes if we don't have a healer. Other companions (augment or something with fast procs) are a better choice if you have a balanced group (tank + healer). I switch to my Ioun stone in a balanced group (until I have three greater bonding stones, then may use a fast-attacking companion).

ironzerg79

High recovery or Icy Veins won't necessarily allow you to freeze stuff LONGER...after a mob gets frozen, there's something like a 2.5 second delay before they can get chill stacks again. So if you want to keep stuff frozen longer and more often, you have to invest in substantially more control strength, and likely the Oppressor capstone to extend the duration of chill long enough to cover that delay.

But even then (for reasons stated in my guide), I think Icy Veins is a trap feat for various reasons. It sounds great on paper, but in practice I think Spell Twisting is phenomenally better.

darthpotater

Icy veins is only a trap because renegade is too good to pass up, and you cant have Spell Twisting and Icy Veins with renegade.

Icy Veins allows you to burst groups of ads much faster because of Chilling Pressence. Icy terrain + Oppressive Force or Steal Time is massive with Icy Veins. And that means faster runs.

The problem is that Icy Veins doesnt help on bosses (most of them). Is the same discussion as Focused Wizardry. If we get bosses like draco with lots of ads in the future, we can talk. For now ST is better.

That being said, we are getting too much stats every module and we will get to a point that we will have too much recovery to get advantage of Spell Twisting because the CDs will be too low. I am already at 26k power and 72% crit and capped armorpen, will get 34k power with the power boon when guild gets that.

At that point I will invest in recovery because will be the best bang for each buck. And then I will change Spell Twisting for Icy Veins. Keep in mind that recovery is 1%/200 not 1%/400 and it gives also ap gain, even if we already have 1 daily each 7-8 seconds with snail, ap gain and dc artifact.

My 2cents

solbergx

Ironzerg, whats you opinion of Phantasmal Destruction?

thefabricant

@ironzerg79 Have you considered using different ranks of bonding runestones in order to get companions gift to proc over 3 times?

ironzerg79

@thefabricant

How would that work? From my tests, each rank of a bonding runestone has a 30 second cool down, with a 20 second duration. My Perfect Stones give me three stacks.

I know that it seems that if a companion dies, then revives, the cooldowns reset...and there might be some interactions with multi-hit powers that can double proc stones, but I don't know of anyway to reliably control that.

thefabricant

ironzerg79 said:

@thefabricant

How would that work? From my tests, each rank of a bonding runestone has a 30 second cool down, with a 20 second duration. My Perfect Stones give me three stacks.

I know that it seems that if a companion dies, then revives, the cooldowns reset...and there might be some interactions with multi-hit powers that can double proc stones, but I don't know of anyway to reliably control that.

A friend of mine with full perfect gear uses a legendary dancing blade and bonding runestones and reliably keeps up 5/6/7 stacks of the companions gift. As I cannot afford to test it properly myself, I am unable to tell you if it works with any other companions (I can still only afford augments on live) however I can ask him. Alternatively, you can ask @kolatmaster as he tested it after I mentioned this to him in his SW guide.

ironzerg79

Unfortunately that has to be some sort of bug. But if you want to have your buddy contact me in game to chat about it, I'd love to see if there's something I'm missing.

toyseur

Hi, i'm actually running a 66 human CW with this build, i'm a new f2p player so i don't have AD, big enchantment etc (just one 25 air archon and Mulhorand set).
I have R5 azure for xp, R5 dark for offensiv and R5 radiant for defense, but i'm too squishy, i use lot of potion and my leveling is slow...
Any advice ?

(sorry for my english)

ironzerg79

Are you wearing level 61+ armor?

toyseur

Yep
40k hp, 1,3k defense, only 453 deflect and 473 lifesteal

kenhartleyreed

ironzerg79 senpai,

i am about to hit 70 in a few hours, largely thanks to your build which is fun to play and so powerful. Thanks a lot for your effort. I was wondering which power i should upgrade to level 4 once I hit 70. I think according to the guide it would be Dissintegrate?

Currently i am only used to AoE powers. Once I am Lvl 70 I think single target nukes get more important in dungeons like eLoL. My initial thought would be RoE, to buff whole party damage, and have big impact in long boss fights.


Thanks for your answer in advance.

umsche

I'd suggest you to upgrade your passives first as a great part of your dps comes from them.

ironzerg79

I would upgrade Chilling Presence then Storm Spell.

sharpfangjr

I just returned to the game and could use some help with feats. Would someone link me which feats I should take?

ironzerg79

Look on page one.

sharpfangjr

ironzerg79 said:

Look on page one.

OK. I'll look again. My fault for just skimming.

solbergx

So after you raise armor penetration and critical with gear and enchants, how do you raise power?

ironzerg79

Better gear, artifacts or higher level enchantments. Augment pets or active pets with bonding runestones work as well.