Spellstorm Renegade Guide: Death is the Best Crowd Control

ironzerg79

It has yet to be nerfed. And Lathandar's is a terrible set for a CW. You need to at least grab a neck with +AP gain on it.

Alternatives for Lostmauth is Valindra's neck/belt...but the set bonus isn't eye popping.

solbergx

how do you raise power up to 20k?

Unknown

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ironzerg79

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

niadan

I have not tested, but if Dis is not adding mastery stacks, then this would work even better when it does.

umsche

Depending on how many CWs are on the boss, it might not be that easy to maintain chilling stacks on the boss using MM instead of chilling cloud.

pbrand45

For rolling attributes , is 16 int, 16 cha, 12 wis the best? Or is int more important than cha

ironzerg79

umsche said:

Depending on how many CWs are on the boss, it might not be that easy to maintain chilling stacks on the boss using MM instead of chilling cloud.

With Conduit of Ice, Chill Strike and Spell Twisting, it's not hard.

And yes, I'd go 16/16/12

niadan

Have you gone as far as to change your Main hand bonus?

ironzerg79

Nope, because I'm a cheapskate. I've just kept the CC bonus, since it helps spread chill faster while you're AOE dungeon clearing.

acridbird74

I play on Xbox, and prior to Mod 6, I got the Magic Missile bonus on my main hand. I was kinda bummed at first that I didn't get the CC power I wanted. But I rolled with it and soon realized how powerful MM was against single target. I kept CC on right trigger and MM on left trigger. I found that I was rarely using CC in WOD, except against mobs. Since Mod 6 came out on Xbox, I paid to unlock the CC bonus and the control powers are super cool. But, man...that MM puts up ridiculous numbers. It probably is better for single target. I miss it a little bit now, but the ray is on left trigger now and is great for controlling and melting single targets.

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.