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A Module 6 Survival Guide for Control Wizards
abaddon523
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
This is a summary of information I've learned about Module 6 that is important for Control Wizards to know for when Module 6 goes live on March 17. Some of the information is good for everyone to know. Some of it is specific to CW's. This information is primarily aimed at PvE content.
The level cap has been raised to 70. This means you can earn 10 new power points, and 10 new feat points.
Every spell and power has a 4th rank. In general, moving a spell from Rank 3 to 4 gives about the same benefit as moving from Rank 2 to Rank 3.
Rank 4 of Icy Terrain is bugged (as of March 10, 2015). It will actually INCREASE the cooldown of the spell by 3 seconds. Do not upgrade this spell to Rank 4 until this is fixed.
Two new spells are added: Disintegrate, which is a great single target damage spell and Imprisonment, which doesn't have much value. It prevents a target from attacking and being attacked for 15 seconds.
Two new passive class features have been added. Both are totally worthless. Do not invest points in them.
Every Feat tree has two new class features in the middle of the tree. Most of them are very, very good.
Lifesteal has been nerfed. It now grants a % chance to steal health. AoE attacks have 1/3 the chance to steal health as single target power. You WILL NOT be able to outheal incoming damage with lifesteal. Not with how hard new enemies hit.
Your character will get worse every time they gain a level past 60. Every time you gain a level you will be placed on a more harsh stat curve. Meaning you will get less and less return on your stats. At level 70, 400 points in a stat will be a 1% increase. Two exceptions are Armor Penetration which is roughly 100 points/1% and Recovery which is 200 points/1%.
If you are level 60 and enter a level 70 zone, you will be "scaled up" to level 70. This involves doubling your weapon damage and most of your stats will go up as well. You'll be far more effective than actual level 70 characters. If you enter a lower level zone (like the graveyard to fight the dragon there) you will be "scaled down" to the level of that zone and your damage output will be a small fraction of what it normally is.
Defense is inferior to HP in every way. If you are trying to make your character more durable, go with HP every single time. The break-even point (the point at which increasing your defense will be just as useful as increasing your HP) is around 158,000 HP.
Regen is useless. It no longer regenerates health in combat and regenerates much less in between fights. Every point spent in it is a point wasted.
A vendor in the Well of Dragons sells a set of Eternal Armor which will give you ~40k extra HP. It will be needed. The High Vizier set still has some use. It can still be used in some zones. But in others, you will just plain need the HP the Eternal set offers.
Difficulty in some zones has been massively increased. The Well of Dragons and Icewind Dale, in particular, are extremely dangerous. Well geared players will manage. Lesser geared players will get slaughtered in these zones. Completing daily quests will be difficult. You will want to team up with other players to complete them unless you are quite good. Even then, it's not a bad idea to team up so you can clear them a bit easier. On live I can kill Jawbone in the Dread Ring in less than 4 seconds. On preview she (it?) actually killed me when I got a little sloppy with my dodging. The Jailer in the Well of Dragons is immune to control, hits for over 50k damage, and has two control immune drakes next to him that hit for 25k damage each. Walking right up to them as if you're going to face-tank them like they're chumps will have you dead within one second.
Get used to having Shield on Tab. If you are a person who likes to scream "Learn 2 play!" at people who run with Shield, get used to biting your tongue. Common enemies in Well of Dragons, Icewind Dale, Tiamat, all Heroic Encounters, and new reworked Epic Dungeons have base damage from 25k to 150k. Yes, in some places common trash mobs are capable of dealing ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DAMAGE in a single hit. If you try to waltz around those places with 25K HP and no shield you will be instantly murdered.
Enemies have more damage resistance. Up to 60% (Tiamat). Common mobs will have up to 40%. Everyone will want to have at least 40% Resistance Ignored from Armor Penetration.
Edit: The following is not longer true. This has been fixed. Terror Enchantments have been massively buffed. They do incredible damage now. But only if you do NOT upgrade them to Transcendent. Transcendent is bugged and will do next to nothing. Keep it at Pure until this is fixed.
The new Renegade feat Abyss of Chaos is triggered by ally damage. However, it can also be triggered by damage from a Lightning enchantment. Abyss of Chaos + Lightning is a viable alternative to Vorpal, Terror, and Plague Fire enchantments.
There are new Artifact weapons called "Elemtal Fire." Even at low levels they are superior to Legendary equipment from Module 5. If you are impatient and want them right away you can get the new main-hand weapon the same way you got the Module 5 main-hand--from the Tyranny of Dragons Campaign task that crafts it. The off-hand is sold at the Vendor in the Well of Dragons for 15 Linu's Favors. However, if you are patient, you get both for free. When you reach level 70 talk to Sgt. Knox. He will send you to Lord Neverember who will give you the Elemental Fire off-hand. If you complete the new zone "Spinward Rise" to retrieve the Seed of Wind you will be given the Elemental Fire main-hand.
In Module 6, Tiamat will destroy everyone. If you need Linu's Favors for anything, get them before Module 6 launches.
Lastly, a bit of advice.
I believe the entire CW community is going to need to undergo a paradigm shift. Right now nine out of ten CW's (including myself) are specced for damage, more damage, and MOAR DAMAGE. The game encouraged this. With Lifesteal, more damage meant more health coming back your way. That meant more survivability. The best way to stay alive in even the worst situations was to crush, maim and destroy everything as fast as possible so you out-healed incoming damage. Also, as players got better gear the content difficulty never increased enough to provide a sufficient challenge, so the goal became to clear the content faster and faster to get more rewards. Plus it's an ego boost to just squash enemies like they are ants under your shoe.
This mentality will have to change. If you've read everything up to this point you hopefully realize the biggest benefit a CW will be able to provide will be to keep a party from getting the HAMSTER kicked out of it. No tank will be close to durable enough to take a beating from a mob of even 4 or 5 enemies in an Epic dungeon for very long. And DPS classes will go down even faster. These enemies cut through you like a hot knife through butter. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the mobs in Tiamat will 1-hit kill just about everyone no matter how tanky. The ability to keep enemies stunned/frozen/dazed/choked/proned for as long as possible, perhaps permanently, will be the difference between successful runs and failed runs.
I've spent most of my time on Preview retraining myself to focus on keeping mobs controlled - learning to freeze enemies right as the stun from Steal Time wears off, then timing Oppressive Force for when the freeze wears off, etc. rather than just trying to spam as many spells as fast as possible to maximize DPS.
The first few weeks after the launch of Mod 6 are going to be painful. Dungeon runs will fail. Tiamat runs will fail. Even people trying to run daily lairs will fail. There will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the message board about needing buffs and nerfing the enemies. Eventually (assuming the developers don't relent) the player base will have to adapt; Control Wizards will need to do the most adapting. If you want to be ahead of the curve start changing the way you think now. Damage is sweet. But damage will not save your party in Mod 6. You won't be able to dish it out fast enough to kill the mobs before they kill you.
As the great Yoda said: "Control, you must learn control."
The level cap has been raised to 70. This means you can earn 10 new power points, and 10 new feat points.
Every spell and power has a 4th rank. In general, moving a spell from Rank 3 to 4 gives about the same benefit as moving from Rank 2 to Rank 3.
Rank 4 of Icy Terrain is bugged (as of March 10, 2015). It will actually INCREASE the cooldown of the spell by 3 seconds. Do not upgrade this spell to Rank 4 until this is fixed.
Two new spells are added: Disintegrate, which is a great single target damage spell and Imprisonment, which doesn't have much value. It prevents a target from attacking and being attacked for 15 seconds.
Two new passive class features have been added. Both are totally worthless. Do not invest points in them.
Every Feat tree has two new class features in the middle of the tree. Most of them are very, very good.
Lifesteal has been nerfed. It now grants a % chance to steal health. AoE attacks have 1/3 the chance to steal health as single target power. You WILL NOT be able to outheal incoming damage with lifesteal. Not with how hard new enemies hit.
Your character will get worse every time they gain a level past 60. Every time you gain a level you will be placed on a more harsh stat curve. Meaning you will get less and less return on your stats. At level 70, 400 points in a stat will be a 1% increase. Two exceptions are Armor Penetration which is roughly 100 points/1% and Recovery which is 200 points/1%.
If you are level 60 and enter a level 70 zone, you will be "scaled up" to level 70. This involves doubling your weapon damage and most of your stats will go up as well. You'll be far more effective than actual level 70 characters. If you enter a lower level zone (like the graveyard to fight the dragon there) you will be "scaled down" to the level of that zone and your damage output will be a small fraction of what it normally is.
Defense is inferior to HP in every way. If you are trying to make your character more durable, go with HP every single time. The break-even point (the point at which increasing your defense will be just as useful as increasing your HP) is around 158,000 HP.
Regen is useless. It no longer regenerates health in combat and regenerates much less in between fights. Every point spent in it is a point wasted.
A vendor in the Well of Dragons sells a set of Eternal Armor which will give you ~40k extra HP. It will be needed. The High Vizier set still has some use. It can still be used in some zones. But in others, you will just plain need the HP the Eternal set offers.
Difficulty in some zones has been massively increased. The Well of Dragons and Icewind Dale, in particular, are extremely dangerous. Well geared players will manage. Lesser geared players will get slaughtered in these zones. Completing daily quests will be difficult. You will want to team up with other players to complete them unless you are quite good. Even then, it's not a bad idea to team up so you can clear them a bit easier. On live I can kill Jawbone in the Dread Ring in less than 4 seconds. On preview she (it?) actually killed me when I got a little sloppy with my dodging. The Jailer in the Well of Dragons is immune to control, hits for over 50k damage, and has two control immune drakes next to him that hit for 25k damage each. Walking right up to them as if you're going to face-tank them like they're chumps will have you dead within one second.
Get used to having Shield on Tab. If you are a person who likes to scream "Learn 2 play!" at people who run with Shield, get used to biting your tongue. Common enemies in Well of Dragons, Icewind Dale, Tiamat, all Heroic Encounters, and new reworked Epic Dungeons have base damage from 25k to 150k. Yes, in some places common trash mobs are capable of dealing ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DAMAGE in a single hit. If you try to waltz around those places with 25K HP and no shield you will be instantly murdered.
Enemies have more damage resistance. Up to 60% (Tiamat). Common mobs will have up to 40%. Everyone will want to have at least 40% Resistance Ignored from Armor Penetration.
Edit: The following is not longer true. This has been fixed. Terror Enchantments have been massively buffed. They do incredible damage now. But only if you do NOT upgrade them to Transcendent. Transcendent is bugged and will do next to nothing. Keep it at Pure until this is fixed.
The new Renegade feat Abyss of Chaos is triggered by ally damage. However, it can also be triggered by damage from a Lightning enchantment. Abyss of Chaos + Lightning is a viable alternative to Vorpal, Terror, and Plague Fire enchantments.
There are new Artifact weapons called "Elemtal Fire." Even at low levels they are superior to Legendary equipment from Module 5. If you are impatient and want them right away you can get the new main-hand weapon the same way you got the Module 5 main-hand--from the Tyranny of Dragons Campaign task that crafts it. The off-hand is sold at the Vendor in the Well of Dragons for 15 Linu's Favors. However, if you are patient, you get both for free. When you reach level 70 talk to Sgt. Knox. He will send you to Lord Neverember who will give you the Elemental Fire off-hand. If you complete the new zone "Spinward Rise" to retrieve the Seed of Wind you will be given the Elemental Fire main-hand.
In Module 6, Tiamat will destroy everyone. If you need Linu's Favors for anything, get them before Module 6 launches.
Lastly, a bit of advice.
I believe the entire CW community is going to need to undergo a paradigm shift. Right now nine out of ten CW's (including myself) are specced for damage, more damage, and MOAR DAMAGE. The game encouraged this. With Lifesteal, more damage meant more health coming back your way. That meant more survivability. The best way to stay alive in even the worst situations was to crush, maim and destroy everything as fast as possible so you out-healed incoming damage. Also, as players got better gear the content difficulty never increased enough to provide a sufficient challenge, so the goal became to clear the content faster and faster to get more rewards. Plus it's an ego boost to just squash enemies like they are ants under your shoe.
This mentality will have to change. If you've read everything up to this point you hopefully realize the biggest benefit a CW will be able to provide will be to keep a party from getting the HAMSTER kicked out of it. No tank will be close to durable enough to take a beating from a mob of even 4 or 5 enemies in an Epic dungeon for very long. And DPS classes will go down even faster. These enemies cut through you like a hot knife through butter. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the mobs in Tiamat will 1-hit kill just about everyone no matter how tanky. The ability to keep enemies stunned/frozen/dazed/choked/proned for as long as possible, perhaps permanently, will be the difference between successful runs and failed runs.
I've spent most of my time on Preview retraining myself to focus on keeping mobs controlled - learning to freeze enemies right as the stun from Steal Time wears off, then timing Oppressive Force for when the freeze wears off, etc. rather than just trying to spam as many spells as fast as possible to maximize DPS.
The first few weeks after the launch of Mod 6 are going to be painful. Dungeon runs will fail. Tiamat runs will fail. Even people trying to run daily lairs will fail. There will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the message board about needing buffs and nerfing the enemies. Eventually (assuming the developers don't relent) the player base will have to adapt; Control Wizards will need to do the most adapting. If you want to be ahead of the curve start changing the way you think now. Damage is sweet. But damage will not save your party in Mod 6. You won't be able to dish it out fast enough to kill the mobs before they kill you.
As the great Yoda said: "Control, you must learn control."
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by abaddon523 on
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Comments
Time to be "control" wizard.
Thank you for posting this. I have recently begun thinking of how to remake my CW for Mod 6 myself.
Do you think Oppressor becomes viable for the reasons that you stated, that CW will have to become more of a positional control class rather than a damage dealer?
Is there a quest for artifact OH? We spare 15 linu? Cool
Main hand - the quest is the introduction quest that involve running 2 mini-dungeons (Ebon Downs and Skyhold). You will have it in the first few minutes after launch.
Off hand - going to level 70 quickly (or not) will be our priority, what the point in crafting artifact with token when it come for free after a few hour. More importantly, the money for the task is more useful for those who still need Linu for the boons (like me).
Armor - it's important to not there will be 2 kind of Epic Armor : Fire Elemental PvP set (previously "drow") and the Elven Elemental set (sharandar). We still don't know how to obtain the PvE set and the bonus aren't know for the moment. The Fire Elemental PvP set is a good *cheap* alternative.
Disintegrate - it's a very good power for PvP as a "finish him" tool.
Imprisonate - it's a PvP tool by design. It's a lock the DC and get everyone to finish the TR. It's also a quick way to build Arcane stack for more control (EF/repel).
Shield - if everyone has to use Shield, especially on Tab, it can be changed as the new class mastery mechanic *Mastery : give hude damage reduction passively. On use, trade the damage reduction for pushing back everyone around*.
Oppressor - In my test, I find it way easier to survive as Oppressor than in any of the other 2. But damage is very crappy. What help the most is the new feat : Icy Veins.
Icy Veins - this feat promote the suicide/tanking CW : jump to melee range and perma-freeze every mob.
Thaumaturge & Renegade - going for Icy Veins in Oppressor tree will help a lot as every mob around will be frozen. It's not as effective as a in Oppressor but it's the only way to do Damage and survive.
stuff we don't know yet : artifact set and pve set.
For artifact set, the one from Balindra look better for CW with both control bonus & resist.
For pve set, bonus aren't know for the elven armor, acquisition detail too. BI set look like an intermediate set to help before epic.
How do you know its transcendent that's bugged as opposed to pure?
Because I've parsed both. Pure was so good it has to be broken. The damage ticks are 10-20k. Then I upgraded it to Transcendent and it became trash. They didn't program the last Rank properly. At Transcendent it does the damage of a Lesser Terror enchantment and the debuff of a Perfect Terror (4%).
It's even easier than that. After you reach level 70 just talk to Sgt. Knox. He'll send you to Lord Neverember who will just hand you one. It's not much of a quest. Just collect it.
I'm switching to Oppressor. But not a 100% Oppressor. I still want to build so that I can do a healthy amount of damage if the situation calls for it. I want to be versatile. In higher level content, like the reworked epic dungeons, I think Oppressors will perform much better than DPS wizards. Not on the Paingiver chart, but on the "we're not getting destroyed" chart. But on other content, like the new zones I still want to be able to do enough damage so that I can clear it efficiently. So I'm working on a build that can do both well. An Oppressor build where I can slot Orb of Imposition and control the battlefield, but one where I can also slide Chilling Presence/Eye of the Storm/Storm Spell in and tear stuff to pieces. I think I've found a sweet spot where I can do both.
The other day I was doing HE's in Dwarven Valley. A GWF, DC, TR and myself as an Oppressor could take down the Chilltooth Invasion HE. I was focused on controlling them, which worked very well (since they have crummy CC resistance...unlike those bleeping Corrupted Polar Bears), but still was able to do ~30k DPS. On the test dummies in Trade of Blades, when I'm not having to time my attacks and can just let it loose, I can do substantially more than that. There's more than one way to skin a cat. As an example, Icy Veins (which puts every enemy near you at 5 chill stacks instantly) plus Chilling Presence is a potent tool to up your damage. When trying to do Heroic Encounters solo I had a lot more success approaching them as an Oppressor trying to control them until they died than I did as a damage dealer trying to kill them as fast as possible.
Choosing Oppressor doesn't mean you're incapable of dealing damage. It just means you're making a trade-off of some damage for more control. How far you want to take that trade-off is up to each CW. I'm just trying to make CW's aware that they will want to consider making some sort of tradeoff for more control, since for the last year plus no such trade-off needed to be considered. I'm betting most CW's will still be stuck in the "nuke em' all" mind-set.
Since aoe freezing isn't really a problem, I test a MoF with both Swath of Destruction and Critical Conflagration. It work fine.
The most important part is to keep an AoE control like Shield explosion or Steal Time to use when freeze are about to break.
I will wait for next patch (Friday) for deciding what feat to choose exactly.
Thanks!!!
If it lasts it sounds like it may be useful in finishing off, or allowing a party to focus damage on a target.
Is there an obvious visual while target is imprisoned?
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
When you imprison a target they get wrapped up in chains just like the DC spell and "Immune" text appears over their heads. The spell will last 15 seconds no matter if the target is hit or not. However, a CW can hit the key Imprisonment is assigned to at any point within that 15 seconds to release the target. Then the spell has a very, very long cooldown (I think it's like 30 seconds). On other players the imprisonment duration is 4 seconds.
The reason I don't think this is very useful in PvE situations is because most of the enemies you would want to use this on will be control immune. Holding a boss still while you nuke the adds around them has some appeal. But it won't work on bosses. Most situations where you need control involve a large number of dangerous adds. Eliminating one of them from the battle for 15 seconds is inferior to other methods of control. Entangling Force or freezing them keeps them from attacking you but still allows you to attack them.
The bigest problem is mob immune to control. And they are likely the one that hit the harder.
Slotting negation enchant could be interesting. Need testing.
I played around with it some. It didn't help much. When the danger is 10 enemies each hitting you for 5k damage Negation could be excellent. But if the danger is three enemies that each hit for 50k? It doesn't make a lick of difference. Then again, no enchantment makes a lick of difference there. Soulforge just gives them a second kill within 1/2 a second of being resurrected.
If you ever did a ELOL run with a good SW, you know the absurd dmg they can create with TT. Even after the nerf of TT, this could be a valid reason for the spell. It would need coordination and some testing, but could result in massive dps. A stational boss with a imprisioned add 'placed' next to him for the SW to curse could be a major dmg source.
Sorry, ofc it's a typo, but this one gave me the ROFLcopter...
"...so the Clockmakers seemingly teamed up with Gond to make wristwatches" was the thought that struck me...
They call them "time bracelets."
For my part I'm currently working on preview with a thaumaturge/Oppressor SpellStorm build in the well of dragon zone.
I use Will-0-wisp and Cantankerous Mage companion to help with control duration.
And the boons 4 of Sharandar and Dread Rings who heal 20 000 HP at random are not so bad.
I have tested the full oppressor path with Spellstorm and MoF too.
But I'm not sure what I will choose.
I will probably test Renegade/Oppressor before my final decision.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
I'm fairly disappointed in the new spells & class skills. The 2 new class skills are a waste of points/slots, and the 2 new spells are both single target (nice for PVP, but pretty pointless for PVE). Imprisonment would be nice if wasn't so totally pointless (all the fun targets are immune or very control resistant), but it ought to be fun in PVP.
It's fantastic.
Hopefully Icy Veins is fixed and it gives the full 5 stacks of Chill, because that feat alone could be a game changer. Does that finally give CW's the freedom to take CoI off of tab? Does Icy Terrain fall to the wayside? Given how brutal in your face combat can be, instead of risking the fight point blank, how do you adjust?
Does the Magic Meatball make it back on the bar? Maybe in the tab slot?
Shard on tab, CoI, Sudden Storm and Steal Time for a default loadout, relying on Icy Veins for chill stacks to power Chilling Presence?
I also disagree with Kieranmtorn on Disintegrate. Single Target has always been the weakness, and it's awesome to see a hard-hitting, low cooldown single target ability added to the bar.
Anyway, nice post Abaddon. Module 6 is going to be a sweet ride for CWs.
Just a quick note here,Abyss of Chaos can be also triggered by the Aoe effect produced by Pure Bilethorn,but with a 4 secs delay. I tested it on preview and it was like a time delay bomb going off. The first 4 seconds,nothing happened and then,suddenly,all hell broke loose. Abyss was constantly consumed by Bilethorn,while at the same time the Aoe effect was multiplied by all the enemies that had received it. A transcended bile,will also slow them down,which means lots of dps,with the least risk possible. I don't know if it's a bug or it's working as intended. The system considers all damage coming from external sources as "allied" and activates Abyss. Now since the Aoe damage of both Pure/Trans Bilethorn and Lightning Enchants chains,it falls in this category. This doesn't hold true for enchants ,like Plague,which eventhough are Dot,don't chain.
Last time I check, Icy Veins look to give the good amount of stack. I will test it again this weekend after Friday patch. (edit> look like the bug is back to only 1 stack)
For my Encounter's choice : CoI on tab, ST, IT & CS or FtF. But I will try without CoI at all with CS or FtF on tab. As MoF, I'm still on Swath and Conflagration.
Some questions :
Ok. So I'm not going crazy here. I thought it didn't work. Then worked. Then didn't.
I'm also waiting to see what the "final" notes on Friday have to say before I do some more testing, but I feel pretty good about my feat selection for now. It'll take some live fire testing one Module 6 hits to perfect it, of course.
Quick question: Terror or Vorpal for Spellstorm?
I was just went on preview to test this. Every encounter power I used put 5 stacks of chill on nearby enemies. I'm not seeing this bug.
There's no easy way to answer that.
1) Right now, Pure Terror is the best enchantment there is. However, it is so ludicrously overpowered that I doubt the Terror weapon is working as intended. I think it is bugged. So if you go with Terror you do so with the knowledge that it could be fixed at any time and leave you with a much less valuable enchantment.
and
2) It depends on your build. I'm holding off on posting my build because this module is opening up a lot of room for creative builds. There are new ways to think about what you want to accomplish. And I don't pretend that I've found the optimal build. It will be good for people to explore other options and see what works well. For example, with Lifesteal nerfed hard and it providing large but infrequent spike healing, do you want an enchantment that does damage over time to smooth out the healing which may limit your damage output but may help you survive better? or...Are you going to build your character with boss damage in mind and maximize your ability to nuke single targets or do you want to specialize in trash clearing which will no longer be a trivial task? Different enchants will work better for different builds and different goals.