Curious how it plays out, since the best single target damage (pve) is COI & Icy Terrain due to SS procs (& creeping frost for Thaum) + Steal Time & ROE. Steal Time feels kind of like a mini OF with 5 stacks of arcane & a fat stacks of chill when it's feated.
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aulduronMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,351Arc User
Storm spell procs is why i do not change to single target and why i do not take FW. I probably need to try it to see which is better...but I am lazy lately.
Storm spell procs is why i do not change to single target and why i do not take FW. I probably need to try it to see which is better...but I am lazy lately.
It's amazing for dragons and bosses, but ultimately rely on you constantly using the at-wills.
I think it's a wasted invest unless you want to have a unique experiment. Basically, most of the DPS comes from AOE spells resulting in Focused Wizardry being kind of void.
It helps a lot in eLoL for instance, but falls behind in CN.
~_~_~_~_~
Oh, to answer the question - It doesn't affect in the obvious way. But you want to use more AOE spells and to increase their damage output by not investing in the FW. More in Chills, less in Arcane. and practically none in the AOE mastery thingy next to the HP thingy +9%.
~_~_~_~_~
Calculations-wise I think that the only game which surpasses the amount of thoughts invested in the build is only Sacred 1, for me. The game's math heaven.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Storm spell procs is why i do not change to single target and why i do not take FW. I probably need to try it to see which is better...but I am lazy lately.
my rationale behind choosing FW, even though many excellent CWs claim that the "best" dps rotation is CoI/Tab, IT, ST, RoE, is that my experience tells me that rotation only outperforms a single target setup under ideal conditions.
certain boss encounters make it easy enough to hug the boss and remain in melee range without having to constantly dodge/interrupt casts to avoid red, while others are really annoying and tedious in this regard. The advantage to a more single target oriented loadout is the ability to step out to longer range, and thereby generally have to move/dodge less, which i find leads to more freedom to continue my rotation uninterrupted (CoI/Tab, IR, CS, RoE, Chilling Cloud/MM fillers). '
it really comes down to your personal play style, but i'd be interested to see how the 2 rotations compare side by side. Thus far, I haven't seen anyone using the AoE rotation on a boss that can keep up with me on damage, but i imagine that's more a product of player skill with that rotation than anything else, since on paper, SS procs from IT alone should make that loadout better.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
My thought is this: No one struggles to clear trash. That's why it's trash.
It's the bosses that you need to burn faster, and that's primarily single target. And keep in mind the spirit of this guide is to give players of ALL gear levels a build they can use.
A majority of the posters on the forum are probably +20kGS players who rocked content with equally geared players. They can just burn away everything they want, with little thought. But the people who need help are the fresh 60's, or mid-geared players looking for advice.
There's so much bad advice given here sometimes, because it's all based around the idea that you just need to over-gear content to solve any problem.
Some players don't have that luxury.
That being said, I think for your average CW, FW is a pretty important piece, as is having a solid single target rotation for those fights that call for it, like Fulminorax, Valindra, Garrundax, Lostmauth, and Tiamat.
With all the respect to the effort placed in the build here, it's not newbie-friendly for the optimal use.
- Here are the few rational reasons
New players will have a hard time getting these
- 110% mount
- Lesser Soulforged Enchantment
- Artifact gear
- Dragon's Hoard enchantments (to the point where it's actually beneficial)
This build is extremely specific and takes into the account that fresh lvl 60 players will have what it takes to make it without the money investment. You can't tell that it's newbie-friendly for the boss content when the build was clearly made as the end-game build with all it's intentions.
During my playing in the past year, I've geared over one hundred people, both guildies and PuGs, so I may freely say that I do understand how and what the new players want and desire the most. They want to be like everybody else, but they can't. Fact. They don't even have more than two characters and can't achieve the area of 10k+ Power. I can't achieve that and I'm playing for a year now with few characters.
The new players are misled by Gear Score and I do see that there's a lot of notice of the "GS" agenda, which doesn't mean anything Damage-wise. High GS comes from having higher stats but it is not a de facto result of someone's effectiveness combat-wise.
Analogically so, many things are not counted in the overall GS, including the factors of
- Skill
- Party Composition
- Buff/Debuff value
There're inconsistencies here. The build for a Renegade that's using the Chilling advantage you need the 50% Critical Chance. New players won't have it for the time being which is why for them it's far better to use the Thaumaturge build which will make them learn the importance of timing.
The build should serve as a lighthouse for what you CAN build if you invest time, effort, money, RP and actually have enough skill to use the High Vizier set properly. I still see people who use Steal Time only after they cast several magics, thus forgetting how debuff functions only after you start it's timer.
So, no offense, but this is far from being oriented towards the New players. This is for the experienced people who want to test something a bit more different from what they've seen before, but for the new players - they need stronger builds HP-wise and Defense-wise. Let me not start on the amount of time needed to open all the boons on all campaigns. Jesus.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
My thought is this: No one struggles to clear trash. That's why it's trash.
It's the bosses that you need to burn faster, and that's primarily single target. And keep in mind the spirit of this guide is to give players of ALL gear levels a build they can use.
A majority of the posters on the forum are probably +20kGS players who rocked content with equally geared players. They can just burn away everything they want, with little thought. But the people who need help are the fresh 60's, or mid-geared players looking for advice.
There's so much bad advice given here sometimes, because it's all based around the idea that you just need to over-gear content to solve any problem.
Some players don't have that luxury.
That being said, I think for your average CW, FW is a pretty important piece, as is having a solid single target rotation for those fights that call for it, like Fulminorax, Valindra, Garrundax, Lostmauth, and Tiamat.
absolutely agreed here Ironzerg. I decided to hop on one of my lower geared CW leadership alts and try out a dungeon with and without FW (yay for retraining tokens from the simril event). At a lower end gearscore (11,349), with the same renegade build as my 21k CW, wearing HV, there were a couple of noticeable differences in the 2 MC runs i did. I did both runs with other player alts in the same gear range (all under 12k).
without going into too many boring details, i can sum it up like this:
with or without FW, the trash clear was just that, a trash clear. i couldn't see a substantial difference in overall performance that couldn't be attributed to RNG or mob grouping/lack thereof more so than the FW feat itself.
without FW, my dps on fulminorax sucked. we actually had someone die to a choke from valindra (partially due to bad positioning and 21k HP on that character), but generally we took a bit more time dropping her on her ground phase than i generally like.
with FW, my dps on the dragon was obviously better, as it should be, but the main takeaway for me was that valindra's ground phases were a lot shorter, and no one even came close to dying, because a quick burst from my single target loadout for that fight (IR on tab, RoE, CoI, CS) pretty much melted her even with crappy gear. the encounter in general was noticeable smoother for me, and for the group.
i should note that i generally use CoI on tab instead of IR on my main, but i though it might be prudent to switch it up on that fight due to the low gear levels of the party in order to accelerate valindra's ground phase with some more burst.
so as i said above, i completely agree with FW being an integral part of this build, especially for those who are new to the class, or on the lower end of the gear spectrum. The pros far outweigh the cons.
With all the respect to the effort placed in the build here, it's not newbie-friendly for the optimal use.
- Here are the few rational reasons
New players will have a hard time getting these
- 110% mount
- Lesser Soulforged Enchantment
- Artifact gear
- Dragon's Hoard enchantments (to the point where it's actually beneficial)
This build is extremely specific and takes into the account that fresh lvl 60 players will have what it takes to make it without the money investment. You can't tell that it's newbie-friendly for the boss content when the build was clearly made as the end-game build with all it's intentions.
During my playing in the past year, I've geared over one hundred people, both guildies and PuGs, so I may freely say that I do understand how and what the new players want and desire the most. They want to be like everybody else, but they can't. Fact. They don't even have more than two characters and can't achieve the area of 10k+ Power. I can't achieve that and I'm playing for a year now with few characters.
The new players are misled by Gear Score and I do see that there's a lot of notice of the "GS" agenda, which doesn't mean anything Damage-wise. High GS comes from having higher stats but it is not a de facto result of someone's effectiveness combat-wise.
Analogically so, many things are not counted in the overall GS, including the factors of
- Skill
- Party Composition
- Buff/Debuff value
There're inconsistencies here. The build for a Renegade that's using the Chilling advantage you need the 50% Critical Chance. New players won't have it for the time being which is why for them it's far better to use the Thaumaturge build which will make them learn the importance of timing.
The build should serve as a lighthouse for what you CAN build if you invest time, effort, money, RP and actually have enough skill to use the High Vizier set properly. I still see people who use Steal Time only after they cast several magics, thus forgetting how debuff functions only after you start it's timer.
So, no offense, but this is far from being oriented towards the New players. This is for the experienced people who want to test something a bit more different from what they've seen before, but for the new players - they need stronger builds HP-wise and Defense-wise. Let me not start on the amount of time needed to open all the boons on all campaigns. Jesus.
first off, what exactly does having a 110% speed mount and a set of dragon's hoard enchantments have to do with whether this build is universally viable or not?
second, you do not need 50% crit chance to make use of chilling advantage, and if you DO have that much crit before applying chilling advantage, you need to rethink your gear, because you made some poor choices. my 21k CW has 27 cha and 2759 crit rating, and sits at a flat 43% crit chance before the application of CA, and it works beyond fine.
third, what exactly does a thaumaturge have to do that requires better timing than a renegade? renegades actually take a feat that improves your at will damage at melee range, and thus, if either build is going to have requirement for better timing, its going to be the one that's benefiting from being in melee range more often and having to dodge more. you even went so far as to debate this exact point with me in another thread, only in that thread, you said exactly the opposite of what you're saying here.
bottom line is, this build is a great party support build and a good dps build overall, while thaum is a pure dps build that contributes nothing at all to your party. for newer players running with other newer players, any buffs they can get will be extremely beneficial, so I'd venture to say that the renegade tree is actually a better starting build for an up and coming CW than thaum ever will be.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
With all the respect to the effort placed in the build here, it's not newbie-friendly for the optimal use.
It's solid, even at lower gear levels. There's nothing here that is required before it works. And the point is you can start with this build at level 4, and never need to respec. With the option on the pets, boons and gear, you can just add to it as you gain wealth.
Starting with a green Intellect Devourer and a Green Blink dog is awesome. Even with a 2% bonus on those, you're going to get more bang for your buck than any other pet in the entire game. And it only gets stronger as you earn enough AD to rank those pets up to purple. The major point being that you're never going to waste money on those. It's not like you should start with THIS pet at low gear levels, and the switch to THAT pet at high gear levels. They're the same.
Same thing with the Wild Hunt Rider. I know he's a bit pricing at 800 Zen for a new 60, but when you get the money, you can buy him at ride him all the way to purple as you "grow up".
Same deal with the artifacts. The weapon can be as close to free as you can make it. All the components, minus the small AD cost are dropped in an easy to run skirmish, or HE. The off-hand is more challenging, but it's hardly a cornerstone of the build. It just makes a good build better. You don't NEED it for anything to work.
As well as the neck and belt. In my humble opinion, they're both BiS even at green rank. Sash of Charisma is 12k AD on the AH right now, which is perfect for a new 60...and you'll never need to replace it until they introduce a totally new tier of Artifact gear. Charisma all the way!
And if you read the equipment section, you would have seen I made an alternate recommendation of the Draconic set as a filler until you were able to max out stats a bit more. But even then, in a group setting, the HV is bringing a massive buff to the table regardless of your stats or GS. You can definitely get to the ArmPen cap with HV on, you just won't have as much power. But again, as you get better gear (and maybe work towards the JC rings) you can slowly start replacing Dark enchants with Azures or Radiants.
But if you have a build that's better for a new 60 CW, let's see it. In fact, I challenge you to do so.
I'll put my build up against anything you can, with only level 60 blue equipment on. No boons. No enchants. No companions. No augment. And I feel confident that my build will still out DPS anything you can put together, while providing significantly more buffs to any group.
first off, what exactly does having a 110% speed mount and a set of dragon's hoard enchantments have to do with whether this build is universally viable or not?
Nobody's arguing that the build is not viable, you're draving a conjecture.
Belt, first of all, is required for a build to work properly and hit the margin of 50% critical chance. People may get the Chilling Presence earlier on, but will get a randomized chance which make the EotS play the better role for the time being until the player hits the 50% Critical Chance. The point I'm arguing is that there're better ways for new player to utilize their gameplay other than waiting to build up the Sash of Charisma to the max.
second, you do not need 50% crit chance to make use of chilling advantage, and if you DO have that much crit before applying chilling advantage, you need to rethink your gear, because you made some poor choices. my 21k CW has 27 cha and 2759 crit rating, and sits at a flat 43% crit chance before the application of CA, and it works beyond fine.
Nobody cares for your Control Wizard build or gear nor I asked you for the advice(s) for my build. I don't see how you can be happy with such alarming conjecture spree at hand. Work on that before trying to make a valid point.
third, what exactly does a thaumaturge have to do that requires better timing than a renegade? renegades actually take a feat that improves your at will damage at melee range, and thus, if either build is going to have requirement for better timing, its going to be the one that's benefiting from being in melee range more often and having to dodge more. you even went so far as to debate this exact point with me in another thread, only in that thread, you said exactly the opposite of what you're saying here.
I don't keep track of things which we may are may not "argue" or discuss. If you have a point of any sort I'd like that you actually make a solid case, otherwise it might not get my attention. If you're stating that I made a contradiction of sorts I'd be more than inclined to clarify things for you since, I'm afraid, you perhaps jumped into the conclusion yet again. This is just an assumption, but then again you didn't provide me with the contradiction at hand, no?
Now, Thaumaturge is a better choice for newer players because they'll learn how to keep the track of the EotS and understand the mechanics of the class a bit better than when they simply keep spamming the spells as soon as they come at hand. There's a valid difference and I'm boggled that this needs to be explained to someone who comes as an experienced CW player, no? Perhaps you've been playing with "21gs" build far too long and forgot how it is at lower levels and how hard it is for new players to get some AD, especially now when most of the T2 Equipment is being sold at 500% lower price than the usual one.
bottom line is, this build is a great party support build and a good dps build overall, while thaum is a pure dps build that contributes nothing at all to your party
This build isn't oriented as a party support build, it's oriented as "Kill it all", unless that wasn't clear enough with the "Death is the best CC" slogan?!
The possibility of a random buff is a great thing, yes, but new players should definitely start with a Thaumaturge build because they can get a decent understanding of the class trough that skill tree.
for newer players running with other newer players, any buffs they can get will be extremely beneficial, so I'd venture to say that the renegade tree is actually a better starting build for an up and coming CW than thaum ever will be.
Newer players running with never players will want a bit more CC because they won't have enough DPS to clear out things as easily as "21gs" can. If anything, playing as a renegade they will forget the meaning of Life-Steal, Defense, Control and what not.
~_~_~_~_~_~_~
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
But if you have a build that's better for a new 60 CW, let's see it. In fact, I challenge you to do so.
Thank you for the challenge, but seeing how you wrote the next paragraph I think I'll pass.
I'll put my build up against anything you can, with only level 60 blue equipment on. No boons. No enchants. No companions. No augment. And I feel confident that my build will still out DPS anything you can put together, while providing significantly more buffs to any group.
You're honesty feeling threatened because you can't take a bit of criticism regarding the prices on AH and fresh level 60s being unable to work with what you've presented here without money invest?
In fact, I challenge you to play as a fresh 60 player, without guild, without 110% mount and to make what you made here in shortest time. What do you think, how long it would take to get all the RP/Enchants/pets and other optimal things?
Also, there's no way that you'd outDPS a Thaum CW that uses 100% Crit of EotS at lower GS and with the irregular Critical Chance at 40-ish percent you'd got on a Renegade. It's just not happening until you hit the 50% Critical Chance.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Look at the cat and paws... lol. Forgive me for asking this simple question
How much is the required Critical Chance according to you?
about 25% should be the crit required for the spec to be able to maintain combat advantage. That's the only amount that I consider required, which is very easy to obtain.
I'm talking about optimal build, i.e. investment in the belt for additional CHA bonus +CritChance
I'm talking about this build. Pre MOD3 everything above 50% critical chance was a crit. Something changed in MOD3 to MOD4 according to my observations during the gameplay.
To my knowledge, the build's made to crit on each hit. Correct me if I'm wrong.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Oh no Mr Bill it takes work and time to get to BiS. Seriously, I use something like this to run up leadership alts lately, as stated it works from 4-60.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
c1k4ml3kc3,
You're missing the point here. It's not about being the best as soon as you turn level 60. It's about putting together a build that you can grow into. Every single component here scales as you gain wealth and add more stuff to it.
I'm not saying this is 100% optimal the minute you ding 60. But there's a huge difference between being "optimal" and being "effective".
I'm confident that this build is effective as you level up, as you hit 60 and as your grow in power and gearscore. It's a great build for a new level 60, that has great solo potential, as well as brings a lot of buffs to the group (or did you not read the first page?). So even at low gear levels, it brings a lot to the table as far as party buffing, so should be able to help add to a party of ANY gearscore.
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
ITo my knowledge, the build's made to crit on each hit. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're wrong.
No build is going to "crit on each hit". That's impossible.
But thanks to combat advantage, this build hits really hard even with it doesn't crit. And it hits super hard when it does. Oh, and thanks to Chilling Presence, it hits crazy hard when it does either on chilled or frozen targets.
If you have more questions about the build, please ask them. I'm getting the feeling you either didn't read the guide carefully or don't quite understand the interactions here.
No build is going to "crit on each hit". That's impossible.
But thanks to combat advantage, this build hits really hard even with it doesn't crit. And it hits super hard when it does. Oh, and thanks to Chilling Presence, it hits crazy hard when it does either on chilled or frozen targets.
If you have more questions about the build, please ask them. I'm getting the feeling you either didn't read the guide carefully or don't quite understand the interactions here.
i'm guessing the answer here is "both"
smulch does make an interesting point though, that you really only need a minimal amount of crit to keep up combat advantage with the current nightmare wizardry mechanics. I'm curious though what folks think the optimal crit chance threshold is for switching from EoTS to Chilling Presence might be from a dps standpoint. I've done some rather limited testing that leads me to believe that EoTS is actually a pretty good choice for lower geared folks looking to maximize this build, especially those that goofed early on and rolled low starting CHA scores. I'm thinking that below 35% crit chance or so, EoTS is worth considering, any thoughts?
No build is going to "crit on each hit". That's impossible.
But thanks to combat advantage, this build hits really hard even with it doesn't crit. And it hits super hard when it does. Oh, and thanks to Chilling Presence, it hits crazy hard when it does either on chilled or frozen targets.
If you have more questions about the build, please ask them. I'm getting the feeling you either didn't read the guide carefully or don't quite understand the interactions here.
I've noticed a substantial Critical hit increase once I crossed over 50%. Anything beyond that point was the same.
Most of GWFs were using the 51% Crtiical Chance build (thanks to the armor and few modifications), allowing them to pretty much crit constantly, or to the point where normal hits are barely noticeable. I'm pretty sure that this was viable before, but something's changed, however - not by much.
You're not making sense to me mr ironzerg. Here are inconsistencies
- Combat Advantage
On the lower levels, how would you get to the point of having the 7-8% CA? The easiest is to grab the Lantern, but only on epic it gives 450 CAB. I've never met a new player with the legendary lantern when they hit 60th level, nor Blue dragon's hear artifact, nor Black Ice Beholder, nor Kessel's spheres of annihilation. Prove how the 1-60 players will get CA bonus where it's noticeable?
- More crit = more dps = harder hits with Spell Storm which is, by your calculations even 50% of the overall DPS. Stating how the build is focused more on the CA and for the 1-60 doesn't sound logical to me. Critting more often, if not all the time - does.
I've read the guide, obviously, and I'm not afraid to further discuss it Crit-wise. You didn't mention, anywhere, the Crit Chance value which you'd find desirable.
Math-wise a person with 25% Crit can't compete with a 50%+ Critical Chance Renegade. Once you cast the CoI on 15 mobs, let's say in VT, and it doesn't Crit that means - no spell storm (unless you're using the bugged off-hand feature, but let's say you're not). Even if the CoI catches up and the Icy Terrain + CoI manage to freeze the mobs (assuming that a Thaum didn't already do a 4sec Rotation of Death which you'd pretty much use), you cast the Oppressive Force which would hit like 300-400 for normal hit up to 6000-7000 on the last tick?
This happens even if you're 48% Crit Chance, while going above 50%, not by much, let's say 51% Crit chance, will increase your Critical Strikes substantially.
I fathomed that this was your initial goal with the Charisma belt, seeing how you didn't keep the 3500 Crit + (which you'll need if you're going to use P.Vorp as a Renegade), but seeing now that you didn't take time to calculate and test it properly I understand that you didn't quite grasp what Kaelac wrote on L4G6yforum.
With EotS people will crit on each hit aside from the base crit possibility and a single at-will which will start the EotS. It's a full cale 100% critical strike, so, yes, there're builds for thaums where EotS's playing a very important role. It's not literally on each hit, but let's not draw a straw argument here. 100% Crit builds are viable and are MOD4 meta for thaum SS.
So, I'm waiting to see the desirable Crit Chance value, otherwise I'm going to assume that 50% is mandatory.
Edit : For those who want to test the 50%+ compared to the 48-49% Crit, I suggest Squash Soup.
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Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Charisma gives a bonus to Combat Advantage. If you followed the build, at 60 you'll have at least a 24 CHA, or a +29% CA damage bonus (15% base + 14% from CA) The bonus from the CA advantage stats and the pets is a way to continue to improve beyond that.
- More crit = more dps = harder hits with Spell Storm which is, by your calculations even 50% of the overall DPS. Stating how the build is focused more on the CA and for the 1-60 doesn't sound logical to me. Critting more often, if not all the time - does.
Right. So the better your gear gets, the better your DPS. It's not rocket science. But the point is you don't have to change the build once you get better gear. This build grows with you.
I've read the guide, obviously, and I'm not afraid to further discuss it Crit-wise. You didn't mention, anywhere, the Crit Chance value which you'd find desirable.
I didn't list a hard value because it varies. That's why I listed Kaelac's guide as reference. You'll need to balance your crit vs power vs crit severity. That was the entire point of Kaelac's analysis on Crit vs Power. There's no magic number. Get more of everything, but balance it out. Don't stack crit. Don't stack power. Balance.
If people have a question about their individual stats, I'm happy to answer it for them, but in general, the answer is different for everyone.
Math-wise a person with 25% Crit can't compete with a 50%+ Critical Chance Renegade.
Exactly. I don't get why you keep arguing this point. A better geared player will out DPS a lower geared player. But you're not comparing apples to apples here. A 20k GS Thaumaturge is going to severely out damage a 9k GS Renegade. That's obvious. But once that gear gap closes, you'll see a substantial performance gain, in my option, between the Renegade versus the Thaumaturge, and when you compare the group buffs the Renegade brings to the table, there's no question that in a group, the CW Renegade is more valuable. Again, I refer you to the first part of the guide.
This happens even if you're 48% Crit Chance, while going above 50%, not by much, let's say 51% Crit chance, will increase your Critical Strikes substantially.
So let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. It's your observation that the difference between a sheet crit chance of 51% vs 48%, increases your critical strike chance more than 3%, because of...what? Is there some flaw in the critical hit calculation in Neverwinter that is cause people will 51%+ crit chance to crit MORE than 51%? Is that what you're getting at?
Change of topic. Does anyone know if while a critting COI or IT is active, can I add hv bonus and/or ca bonus to ss procs from the still active COI/IT, or do I have to activate HV / CA before COI / IT?
CoI doesn't hit 15 mobs, and there is no thaum meta for a 100% crit chance build, and never has been
edit: i've wondered that myself niadan, and i've been meaning to test it for a while, but i keep putting it off because i'm not sure i'd actually change my playstyle in the event that i did have to stack HV first. if anyone has the answer to that one with some data to back it up i'd be interested to hear it, otherwise i'll try to do some testing this week and get something definitive back to the community on it.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Change of topic. Does anyone know if while a critting COI or IT is active, can I add hv bonus and/or ca bonus to ss procs from the still active COI/IT, or do I have to activate HV / CA before COI / IT?
Just tested it with a few quick hits.
Yes. It looks like the crit vs no crit is decided on cast, but the per hit damage is decided as it hits.
I checked both Icy Terrain and CoI.
Casted them first, then used Steal Time to proc 3 stacks of HV, and the per tick bonus increased. I didn't have CP slotted for the test, so it should be clean.
So let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. It's your observation that the difference between a sheet crit chance of 51% vs 48%, increases your critical strike chance more than 3%, because of...what? Is there some flaw in the critical hit calculation in Neverwinter that is cause people will 51%+ crit chance to crit MORE than 51%? Is that what you're getting at?
Here's the 47.7% crit vs 50.7% crit
I've done this test now, using 100 pure CoI on tab on the dolls in two runs, i.e one for each.
47.7%
50.7%
There's a big difference, though, regarding the non-critical attacks of the 50.7%, and they were all but three based on Combat Advantage bonus. so in the 50.7% crit, nearly all non-critical hits were flanked, but were yet fewer when compared to the 47.7% crit. Perhaps there's a bug with Nightmare Wizardry which somehow reduces the chance of the Critical Strike and I'm willing to test the same principle without using the Nightmare wizardry feat.
That being said, only three CoI were returning the non-crit damage, while in the 47.7% Crit there were over twenty non-critical and non-flanked hits (not including the ticks, just attacks).
This is jut based on One spell which ticks several times (I think 7), but the initial hit must be counted as a Crit.
I see tremendous DPS increase spell-wise over the course of using full rotations and spells which would crit more often than a 47.7% crit which is why I'm going for over 50% Critical Chance.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Yes. It looks like the crit vs no crit is decided on cast, but the per hit damage is decided as it hits.
I checked both Icy Terrain and CoI.
Casted them first, then used Steal Time to proc 3 stacks of HV, and the per tick bonus increased. I didn't have CP slotted for the test, so it should be clean.
Thank you Zerg. So if I keep MAT then I am not losing much if anything starting with COI then ST, but I gain the ST bonus damage and get HV on subsequent SS procs for the remaining COI tics.
Comments
It's amazing for dragons and bosses, but ultimately rely on you constantly using the at-wills.
I think it's a wasted invest unless you want to have a unique experiment. Basically, most of the DPS comes from AOE spells resulting in Focused Wizardry being kind of void.
It helps a lot in eLoL for instance, but falls behind in CN.
~_~_~_~_~
Oh, to answer the question - It doesn't affect in the obvious way. But you want to use more AOE spells and to increase their damage output by not investing in the FW. More in Chills, less in Arcane. and practically none in the AOE mastery thingy next to the HP thingy +9%.
~_~_~_~_~
Calculations-wise I think that the only game which surpasses the amount of thoughts invested in the build is only Sacred 1, for me. The game's math heaven.
my rationale behind choosing FW, even though many excellent CWs claim that the "best" dps rotation is CoI/Tab, IT, ST, RoE, is that my experience tells me that rotation only outperforms a single target setup under ideal conditions.
certain boss encounters make it easy enough to hug the boss and remain in melee range without having to constantly dodge/interrupt casts to avoid red, while others are really annoying and tedious in this regard. The advantage to a more single target oriented loadout is the ability to step out to longer range, and thereby generally have to move/dodge less, which i find leads to more freedom to continue my rotation uninterrupted (CoI/Tab, IR, CS, RoE, Chilling Cloud/MM fillers). '
it really comes down to your personal play style, but i'd be interested to see how the 2 rotations compare side by side. Thus far, I haven't seen anyone using the AoE rotation on a boss that can keep up with me on damage, but i imagine that's more a product of player skill with that rotation than anything else, since on paper, SS procs from IT alone should make that loadout better.
It's the bosses that you need to burn faster, and that's primarily single target. And keep in mind the spirit of this guide is to give players of ALL gear levels a build they can use.
A majority of the posters on the forum are probably +20kGS players who rocked content with equally geared players. They can just burn away everything they want, with little thought. But the people who need help are the fresh 60's, or mid-geared players looking for advice.
There's so much bad advice given here sometimes, because it's all based around the idea that you just need to over-gear content to solve any problem.
Some players don't have that luxury.
That being said, I think for your average CW, FW is a pretty important piece, as is having a solid single target rotation for those fights that call for it, like Fulminorax, Valindra, Garrundax, Lostmauth, and Tiamat.
- Here are the few rational reasons
New players will have a hard time getting these
- 110% mount
- Lesser Soulforged Enchantment
- Artifact gear
- Dragon's Hoard enchantments (to the point where it's actually beneficial)
This build is extremely specific and takes into the account that fresh lvl 60 players will have what it takes to make it without the money investment. You can't tell that it's newbie-friendly for the boss content when the build was clearly made as the end-game build with all it's intentions.
During my playing in the past year, I've geared over one hundred people, both guildies and PuGs, so I may freely say that I do understand how and what the new players want and desire the most. They want to be like everybody else, but they can't. Fact. They don't even have more than two characters and can't achieve the area of 10k+ Power. I can't achieve that and I'm playing for a year now with few characters.
The new players are misled by Gear Score and I do see that there's a lot of notice of the "GS" agenda, which doesn't mean anything Damage-wise. High GS comes from having higher stats but it is not a de facto result of someone's effectiveness combat-wise.
Analogically so, many things are not counted in the overall GS, including the factors of
- Skill
- Party Composition
- Buff/Debuff value
There're inconsistencies here. The build for a Renegade that's using the Chilling advantage you need the 50% Critical Chance. New players won't have it for the time being which is why for them it's far better to use the Thaumaturge build which will make them learn the importance of timing.
The build should serve as a lighthouse for what you CAN build if you invest time, effort, money, RP and actually have enough skill to use the High Vizier set properly. I still see people who use Steal Time only after they cast several magics, thus forgetting how debuff functions only after you start it's timer.
So, no offense, but this is far from being oriented towards the New players. This is for the experienced people who want to test something a bit more different from what they've seen before, but for the new players - they need stronger builds HP-wise and Defense-wise. Let me not start on the amount of time needed to open all the boons on all campaigns. Jesus.
absolutely agreed here Ironzerg. I decided to hop on one of my lower geared CW leadership alts and try out a dungeon with and without FW (yay for retraining tokens from the simril event). At a lower end gearscore (11,349), with the same renegade build as my 21k CW, wearing HV, there were a couple of noticeable differences in the 2 MC runs i did. I did both runs with other player alts in the same gear range (all under 12k).
without going into too many boring details, i can sum it up like this:
with or without FW, the trash clear was just that, a trash clear. i couldn't see a substantial difference in overall performance that couldn't be attributed to RNG or mob grouping/lack thereof more so than the FW feat itself.
without FW, my dps on fulminorax sucked. we actually had someone die to a choke from valindra (partially due to bad positioning and 21k HP on that character), but generally we took a bit more time dropping her on her ground phase than i generally like.
with FW, my dps on the dragon was obviously better, as it should be, but the main takeaway for me was that valindra's ground phases were a lot shorter, and no one even came close to dying, because a quick burst from my single target loadout for that fight (IR on tab, RoE, CoI, CS) pretty much melted her even with crappy gear. the encounter in general was noticeable smoother for me, and for the group.
i should note that i generally use CoI on tab instead of IR on my main, but i though it might be prudent to switch it up on that fight due to the low gear levels of the party in order to accelerate valindra's ground phase with some more burst.
so as i said above, i completely agree with FW being an integral part of this build, especially for those who are new to the class, or on the lower end of the gear spectrum. The pros far outweigh the cons.
first off, what exactly does having a 110% speed mount and a set of dragon's hoard enchantments have to do with whether this build is universally viable or not?
second, you do not need 50% crit chance to make use of chilling advantage, and if you DO have that much crit before applying chilling advantage, you need to rethink your gear, because you made some poor choices. my 21k CW has 27 cha and 2759 crit rating, and sits at a flat 43% crit chance before the application of CA, and it works beyond fine.
third, what exactly does a thaumaturge have to do that requires better timing than a renegade? renegades actually take a feat that improves your at will damage at melee range, and thus, if either build is going to have requirement for better timing, its going to be the one that's benefiting from being in melee range more often and having to dodge more. you even went so far as to debate this exact point with me in another thread, only in that thread, you said exactly the opposite of what you're saying here.
bottom line is, this build is a great party support build and a good dps build overall, while thaum is a pure dps build that contributes nothing at all to your party. for newer players running with other newer players, any buffs they can get will be extremely beneficial, so I'd venture to say that the renegade tree is actually a better starting build for an up and coming CW than thaum ever will be.
It's solid, even at lower gear levels. There's nothing here that is required before it works. And the point is you can start with this build at level 4, and never need to respec. With the option on the pets, boons and gear, you can just add to it as you gain wealth.
Starting with a green Intellect Devourer and a Green Blink dog is awesome. Even with a 2% bonus on those, you're going to get more bang for your buck than any other pet in the entire game. And it only gets stronger as you earn enough AD to rank those pets up to purple. The major point being that you're never going to waste money on those. It's not like you should start with THIS pet at low gear levels, and the switch to THAT pet at high gear levels. They're the same.
Same thing with the Wild Hunt Rider. I know he's a bit pricing at 800 Zen for a new 60, but when you get the money, you can buy him at ride him all the way to purple as you "grow up".
Same deal with the artifacts. The weapon can be as close to free as you can make it. All the components, minus the small AD cost are dropped in an easy to run skirmish, or HE. The off-hand is more challenging, but it's hardly a cornerstone of the build. It just makes a good build better. You don't NEED it for anything to work.
As well as the neck and belt. In my humble opinion, they're both BiS even at green rank. Sash of Charisma is 12k AD on the AH right now, which is perfect for a new 60...and you'll never need to replace it until they introduce a totally new tier of Artifact gear. Charisma all the way!
And if you read the equipment section, you would have seen I made an alternate recommendation of the Draconic set as a filler until you were able to max out stats a bit more. But even then, in a group setting, the HV is bringing a massive buff to the table regardless of your stats or GS. You can definitely get to the ArmPen cap with HV on, you just won't have as much power. But again, as you get better gear (and maybe work towards the JC rings) you can slowly start replacing Dark enchants with Azures or Radiants.
But if you have a build that's better for a new 60 CW, let's see it. In fact, I challenge you to do so.
I'll put my build up against anything you can, with only level 60 blue equipment on. No boons. No enchants. No companions. No augment. And I feel confident that my build will still out DPS anything you can put together, while providing significantly more buffs to any group.
Nobody's arguing that the build is not viable, you're draving a conjecture.
Belt, first of all, is required for a build to work properly and hit the margin of 50% critical chance. People may get the Chilling Presence earlier on, but will get a randomized chance which make the EotS play the better role for the time being until the player hits the 50% Critical Chance. The point I'm arguing is that there're better ways for new player to utilize their gameplay other than waiting to build up the Sash of Charisma to the max.
Nobody cares for your Control Wizard build or gear nor I asked you for the advice(s) for my build. I don't see how you can be happy with such alarming conjecture spree at hand. Work on that before trying to make a valid point.
I don't keep track of things which we may are may not "argue" or discuss. If you have a point of any sort I'd like that you actually make a solid case, otherwise it might not get my attention. If you're stating that I made a contradiction of sorts I'd be more than inclined to clarify things for you since, I'm afraid, you perhaps jumped into the conclusion yet again. This is just an assumption, but then again you didn't provide me with the contradiction at hand, no?
Now, Thaumaturge is a better choice for newer players because they'll learn how to keep the track of the EotS and understand the mechanics of the class a bit better than when they simply keep spamming the spells as soon as they come at hand. There's a valid difference and I'm boggled that this needs to be explained to someone who comes as an experienced CW player, no? Perhaps you've been playing with "21gs" build far too long and forgot how it is at lower levels and how hard it is for new players to get some AD, especially now when most of the T2 Equipment is being sold at 500% lower price than the usual one.
This build isn't oriented as a party support build, it's oriented as "Kill it all", unless that wasn't clear enough with the "Death is the best CC" slogan?!
The possibility of a random buff is a great thing, yes, but new players should definitely start with a Thaumaturge build because they can get a decent understanding of the class trough that skill tree.
Newer players running with never players will want a bit more CC because they won't have enough DPS to clear out things as easily as "21gs" can. If anything, playing as a renegade they will forget the meaning of Life-Steal, Defense, Control and what not.
~_~_~_~_~_~_~
Thank you for the challenge, but seeing how you wrote the next paragraph I think I'll pass.
You're honesty feeling threatened because you can't take a bit of criticism regarding the prices on AH and fresh level 60s being unable to work with what you've presented here without money invest?
In fact, I challenge you to play as a fresh 60 player, without guild, without 110% mount and to make what you made here in shortest time. What do you think, how long it would take to get all the RP/Enchants/pets and other optimal things?
Also, there's no way that you'd outDPS a Thaum CW that uses 100% Crit of EotS at lower GS and with the irregular Critical Chance at 40-ish percent you'd got on a Renegade. It's just not happening until you hit the 50% Critical Chance.
Look at the cat and paws... lol. Forgive me for asking this simple question
How much is the required Critical Chance according to you?
about 25% should be the crit required for the spec to be able to maintain combat advantage. That's the only amount that I consider required, which is very easy to obtain.
I'm talking about this build. Pre MOD3 everything above 50% critical chance was a crit. Something changed in MOD3 to MOD4 according to my observations during the gameplay.
To my knowledge, the build's made to crit on each hit. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're missing the point here. It's not about being the best as soon as you turn level 60. It's about putting together a build that you can grow into. Every single component here scales as you gain wealth and add more stuff to it.
I'm not saying this is 100% optimal the minute you ding 60. But there's a huge difference between being "optimal" and being "effective".
I'm confident that this build is effective as you level up, as you hit 60 and as your grow in power and gearscore. It's a great build for a new level 60, that has great solo potential, as well as brings a lot of buffs to the group (or did you not read the first page?). So even at low gear levels, it brings a lot to the table as far as party buffing, so should be able to help add to a party of ANY gearscore.
You're wrong.
No build is going to "crit on each hit". That's impossible.
But thanks to combat advantage, this build hits really hard even with it doesn't crit. And it hits super hard when it does. Oh, and thanks to Chilling Presence, it hits crazy hard when it does either on chilled or frozen targets.
If you have more questions about the build, please ask them. I'm getting the feeling you either didn't read the guide carefully or don't quite understand the interactions here.
i'm guessing the answer here is "both"
smulch does make an interesting point though, that you really only need a minimal amount of crit to keep up combat advantage with the current nightmare wizardry mechanics. I'm curious though what folks think the optimal crit chance threshold is for switching from EoTS to Chilling Presence might be from a dps standpoint. I've done some rather limited testing that leads me to believe that EoTS is actually a pretty good choice for lower geared folks looking to maximize this build, especially those that goofed early on and rolled low starting CHA scores. I'm thinking that below 35% crit chance or so, EoTS is worth considering, any thoughts?
I've noticed a substantial Critical hit increase once I crossed over 50%. Anything beyond that point was the same.
Most of GWFs were using the 51% Crtiical Chance build (thanks to the armor and few modifications), allowing them to pretty much crit constantly, or to the point where normal hits are barely noticeable. I'm pretty sure that this was viable before, but something's changed, however - not by much.
You're not making sense to me mr ironzerg. Here are inconsistencies
- Combat Advantage
On the lower levels, how would you get to the point of having the 7-8% CA? The easiest is to grab the Lantern, but only on epic it gives 450 CAB. I've never met a new player with the legendary lantern when they hit 60th level, nor Blue dragon's hear artifact, nor Black Ice Beholder, nor Kessel's spheres of annihilation. Prove how the 1-60 players will get CA bonus where it's noticeable?
- More crit = more dps = harder hits with Spell Storm which is, by your calculations even 50% of the overall DPS. Stating how the build is focused more on the CA and for the 1-60 doesn't sound logical to me. Critting more often, if not all the time - does.
I've read the guide, obviously, and I'm not afraid to further discuss it Crit-wise. You didn't mention, anywhere, the Crit Chance value which you'd find desirable.
Math-wise a person with 25% Crit can't compete with a 50%+ Critical Chance Renegade. Once you cast the CoI on 15 mobs, let's say in VT, and it doesn't Crit that means - no spell storm (unless you're using the bugged off-hand feature, but let's say you're not). Even if the CoI catches up and the Icy Terrain + CoI manage to freeze the mobs (assuming that a Thaum didn't already do a 4sec Rotation of Death which you'd pretty much use), you cast the Oppressive Force which would hit like 300-400 for normal hit up to 6000-7000 on the last tick?
This happens even if you're 48% Crit Chance, while going above 50%, not by much, let's say 51% Crit chance, will increase your Critical Strikes substantially.
I fathomed that this was your initial goal with the Charisma belt, seeing how you didn't keep the 3500 Crit + (which you'll need if you're going to use P.Vorp as a Renegade), but seeing now that you didn't take time to calculate and test it properly I understand that you didn't quite grasp what Kaelac wrote on L4G6yforum.
With EotS people will crit on each hit aside from the base crit possibility and a single at-will which will start the EotS. It's a full cale 100% critical strike, so, yes, there're builds for thaums where EotS's playing a very important role. It's not literally on each hit, but let's not draw a straw argument here. 100% Crit builds are viable and are MOD4 meta for thaum SS.
So, I'm waiting to see the desirable Crit Chance value, otherwise I'm going to assume that 50% is mandatory.
Edit : For those who want to test the 50%+ compared to the 48-49% Crit, I suggest Squash Soup.
Charisma gives a bonus to Combat Advantage. If you followed the build, at 60 you'll have at least a 24 CHA, or a +29% CA damage bonus (15% base + 14% from CA) The bonus from the CA advantage stats and the pets is a way to continue to improve beyond that.
Right. So the better your gear gets, the better your DPS. It's not rocket science. But the point is you don't have to change the build once you get better gear. This build grows with you.
I didn't list a hard value because it varies. That's why I listed Kaelac's guide as reference. You'll need to balance your crit vs power vs crit severity. That was the entire point of Kaelac's analysis on Crit vs Power. There's no magic number. Get more of everything, but balance it out. Don't stack crit. Don't stack power. Balance.
If people have a question about their individual stats, I'm happy to answer it for them, but in general, the answer is different for everyone.
Exactly. I don't get why you keep arguing this point. A better geared player will out DPS a lower geared player. But you're not comparing apples to apples here. A 20k GS Thaumaturge is going to severely out damage a 9k GS Renegade. That's obvious. But once that gear gap closes, you'll see a substantial performance gain, in my option, between the Renegade versus the Thaumaturge, and when you compare the group buffs the Renegade brings to the table, there's no question that in a group, the CW Renegade is more valuable. Again, I refer you to the first part of the guide.
So let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. It's your observation that the difference between a sheet crit chance of 51% vs 48%, increases your critical strike chance more than 3%, because of...what? Is there some flaw in the critical hit calculation in Neverwinter that is cause people will 51%+ crit chance to crit MORE than 51%? Is that what you're getting at?
edit: i've wondered that myself niadan, and i've been meaning to test it for a while, but i keep putting it off because i'm not sure i'd actually change my playstyle in the event that i did have to stack HV first. if anyone has the answer to that one with some data to back it up i'd be interested to hear it, otherwise i'll try to do some testing this week and get something definitive back to the community on it.
Just tested it with a few quick hits.
Yes. It looks like the crit vs no crit is decided on cast, but the per hit damage is decided as it hits.
I checked both Icy Terrain and CoI.
Casted them first, then used Steal Time to proc 3 stacks of HV, and the per tick bonus increased. I didn't have CP slotted for the test, so it should be clean.
Here's the 47.7% crit vs 50.7% crit
I've done this test now, using 100 pure CoI on tab on the dolls in two runs, i.e one for each.
47.7%
50.7%
There's a big difference, though, regarding the non-critical attacks of the 50.7%, and they were all but three based on Combat Advantage bonus. so in the 50.7% crit, nearly all non-critical hits were flanked, but were yet fewer when compared to the 47.7% crit. Perhaps there's a bug with Nightmare Wizardry which somehow reduces the chance of the Critical Strike and I'm willing to test the same principle without using the Nightmare wizardry feat.
That being said, only three CoI were returning the non-crit damage, while in the 47.7% Crit there were over twenty non-critical and non-flanked hits (not including the ticks, just attacks).
This is jut based on One spell which ticks several times (I think 7), but the initial hit must be counted as a Crit.
I see tremendous DPS increase spell-wise over the course of using full rotations and spells which would crit more often than a 47.7% crit which is why I'm going for over 50% Critical Chance.
Thank you Zerg. So if I keep MAT then I am not losing much if anything starting with COI then ST, but I gain the ST bonus damage and get HV on subsequent SS procs for the remaining COI tics.