Power or critical hit

galdrone · October 2016

Hi friends. I have a CW that I am struggling to build correctly. I am now saving as much money as I can to buy bonding stones to increase my effectiveness and party contribution.
I also noticed that the azure enchantments are trading higher than the other enchantments in the auction house. I currently use radiant enchantments in all my offensive slots to increase my power but should I be switching to azure enchantments to increase my critical hit chance? What is the current perceived wisdom?

I appreciate any help.

I don't want to let party members down so want focus on the right thing.

Thanks in advance.

demonmonger · October 2016

Based on what I have seen..
Critical is more valuable than total power

aulduron · October 2016

Are you a renegade?

johnjohniii · October 2016

for the dps build (thaum) i go 2 to 1 power over crit. it's important to have a good crit chance but a wet noodle won't crit for much.

borneagain · October 2016

Brutal enchantments would be my recommendation on your character. They are power/crit stones. If you need to raise your crit after that put those new bonding stones to use and put azures on your pet. That said, always put your biggest stones on your pet when proc'ing bonding stones!!!

sandukutupu · October 2016

Power.

I get tired of players saying a CW is "squishy". Get the companion to support you through the early levels, I never used bonding and I still don't. My build is a variation of "Death and Taxes" by metallives on mmominds. As I am not a Spell Storm but Thaumaturge, I made some variations to that build.

I have no trouble soloing in places others are asking for assistance. It is sometimes disheartening when players begging for a run in Dread Spire and I invite, and they say they need some one with DPS. Things like that make me think twice before I offer my services again. After all it is not me pleading for help.

Let me know if you need more information. You can also contact me in game by mail.

btairborne · October 2016

I ran the numbers and assuming I am correct:
I don't want to influence market rates so I will say start with Power and if you can hit the highest crit severity rates switch to Crit.
However the difference in either is going to be less than 2% at any level. So don't sweat it you will never cripple your build if you use one or the other to raise your offensive effectiveness.

galdrone · October 2016

I seem to be a master of flames with mostly thaumaturge feats. I may have not been very efficient on my build so I guess I'm trying to cover for past mistakes

I have mostly radiant 9s in my gear. I have a natural power if 17.4k with 8k crit strike. I have a couple of azure 9s. So I'll will try and mix and match a bit and see if I can acheie any improvements.

Thank you all for your kind advise. I very much appreciate.

galdrone · October 2016

I now have three bonding stones. A long way to go but getting there

kvet · October 2016

Crit on a CW - provided you're an SS rather then MoF - is a little irrelevant. EotS gives you bursts of 100% crit. Between those, maybe 30-35% crit will be fine. If you have vorpal or dread, make sure to AT LEAST have 30% (1 in 3 hits crit) or you're probably wasting your enchant slot.

Crit damage is affected by power. Lower power means lower crit damage.

I have around 35% crit and a base of just under 30k power with a trans dread as a thaum/opp hybrid (thaum capstone with icy veins). My DPS solid and I'm very pleased with my build overall.

aulduron · October 2016

If you're level 70 and don't have a capstone feat, you need to buy a retrain token and look through CW builds.

galdrone said:
I seem to be a master of flames with mostly thaumaturge feats. I may have not been very efficient on my build so I guess I'm trying to cover for past mistakes

I have mostly radiant 9s in my gear. I have a natural power if 17.4k with 8k crit strike. I have a couple of azure 9s. So I'll will try and mix and match a bit and see if I can acheie any improvements.

Thank you all for your kind advise. I very much appreciate.

If you're lvl 70 and don't have a capstone feat, you need to buy a retrain token and read some CW builds. That will make a far bigger difference than any enchants will.

tripsofthrymr · October 2016

galdrone said:
I have a CW that I am struggling to build correctly. I am now saving as much money as I can to buy bonding stones to increase my effectiveness and party contribution.

I also noticed that the azure enchantments are trading higher than the other enchantments in the auction house. I currently use radiant enchantments in all my offensive slots to increase my power but should I be switching to azure enchantments to increase my critical hit chance? What is the current perceived wisdom?

Make sure you have 60% resistance ignored before worrying about power vs. crit. Not more, not less. If you have less, that's the single best stat to increase. If you have more, every bit over 60% is wasted (speaking for PVE. PVP is different).

Often, as a very simple rule of thumb, if you have way power than crit you benefit by adding crit and vice-versa. If you have a high critical severity (for example from a vorpal enchantment), crit will be more important than if your critical severity is lower.

If you want to get into the numbers, there's a spreadsheet that helps you do the math. The spreadsheet will get you close but there are still many nuances (e.g. the effect of "Sudden" or "Rising" Power/Crit rings, the fact that crits proc some class feats, ...).

If you have Eye of the Storm you should get pretty close by inputting your average crit chance into the sheet - (% of time EotS is up x 100% Crit) + (% of time EotS is not up x your normal crit) / 100. I don't play SpellStorm but I suspect you'll generally discover that power is the way to go with EotS slotted.

sandukutupu said:

I get tired of players saying a CW is "squishy". Get the companion to support you through the early levels, I never used bonding and I still don't.

End-game CW's (especially MoF) are not squishy if played reasonably well. My MoF hardly ever dies, even in FBI, unless lag strikes. I don't even slot healing pots with him. (Note: MoF has an inherent edge in survivability because the constant DoT damage tends to cause Lifesteal to be more predictable).

sandukutupu said:
I have no trouble soloing in places others are asking for assistance. It is sometimes disheartening when players begging for a run in Dread Spire and I invite, and they say they need some one with DPS. Things like that make me think twice before I offer my services again. After all it is not me pleading for help.

I generally /zone Entering DS. PM if you want to join me right before I go in. People can take my help or leave it, and if I invite them after I'm already in, they don't have to switch Dread Ring instances to join me.

asterotg · October 2016

CMs advice is best for you. Most tips work for better geared players. I use brutals and radiant on my CW and I will have to swap some brutals for radiants, when I stop using the HV set, otherwise I would have 105% crit chance infight, but this is with full R12s, boons etc.

Do as he said and respec after reading some guides

kvet · October 2016

You get bonus damage if you have more resistance ignored than the target has resistance. The bonus is linear - so reducing them to -10% grants you a bonus (I don't know the math). It's why you sometimes see damage numbers like 1234 (900) in the log. The first number is actual damage, the second is damage BEFORE resistance. By reducing damage resistance below 0 you actually do MORE damage than the initial base.

However, as I understand, you get more bonus from Power. So, unless you PvP (in which case, the more RI the better), once get get ~ 62% your better off stacking power or crit. Arpen above that is not wasted, however.

niadan · October 2016

There is no such thing as bonus damage from arp in pve. Anything over 60% RI is wasted in pve.

niadan · October 2016

As far as build advice, follow ironzeg's guide until you get to where you are fluent enough to experiment. And to save AD try new builds on preview server. Unfortunately Sharpedge's guide is no longer available, but the old thread has useful info.

tripsofthrymr · October 2016

asterotg said:

respec after reading some guides

Tip - You can get a free respec token from the Order of the Third Eye campaign store.

thefabricant · October 2016

kvet said:
You get bonus damage if you have more resistance ignored than the target has resistance. The bonus is linear - so reducing them to -10% grants you a bonus (I don't know the math). It's why you sometimes see damage numbers like 1234 (900) in the log. The first number is actual damage, the second is damage BEFORE resistance. By reducing damage resistance below 0 you actually do MORE damage than the initial base.

However, as I understand, you get more bonus from Power. So, unless you PvP (in which case, the more RI the better), once get get ~ 62% your better off stacking power or crit. Arpen above that is not wasted, however.

There is no bonus for over stacking arp. (seriously, this is easy to test, remove all debuffs and go hit a dummy, they have no dr.) Also, the arp curve is not linear, so technically, the damage increase is not linear either.

kvet said:
Crit on a CW - provided you're an SS rather then MoF - is a little irrelevant. EotS gives you bursts of 100% crit. Between those, maybe 30-35% crit will be fine. If you have vorpal or dread, make sure to AT LEAST have 30% (1 in 3 hits crit) or you're probably wasting your enchant slot.

Crit damage is affected by power. Lower power means lower crit damage.

I have around 35% crit and a base of just under 30k power with a trans dread as a thaum/opp hybrid (thaum capstone with icy veins). My DPS solid and I'm very pleased with my build overall.

Why are you using EotS?

silverkelt · October 2016

agreed, specially since you are using a dread.. jeepers, 35% crit is like pre mod 6 builds my man!

My base is like 57% and goes to 100% when my procy things procy . My power goes to like 48-49 or something like that.

I am chump cheese when you take the big boys into account.. just saying' So my #s are like 20k power below those who are near BIS.

Eots shouldnt be used ever anymore, its really really bad return.

Chilling presence/SS if SS thuam.

kvet · October 2016

thefabricant said:

There is no bonus for over stacking arp. (seriously, this is easy to test, remove all debuffs and go hit a dummy, they have no dr.) Also, the arp curve is not linear, so technically, the damage increase is not linear either.

On Preview, I respec'd - no boons, gear, feats, companions, or mounts.

With a basic orb without arpen stats, but still a base -3% RI from base attributes, can't do anything about that on this toon.
[Combat (Self)] Your Magic Missile deals 88 Arcane Damage to Target Dummy.
Expected - no resistance, so no difference between actual and base damage, so no notation like zzz (yyy) in the log. This is questionable given I do still show a -3% RI.
i
But, with my normal orb, and -10.8% RI
[Combat (Self)] Your Magic Missile deals 660 (634) Arcane Damage to Target Dummy.

So...... I don't know. Explain how with -3% and all else baseline, I was doing base damage without any showing up as dealt (base), but then once I tacked on more RI, it was suddenly showing that I did more actual damage than base damage if over-stacked RI does nothing?

To test further, I hit something that should have DR. I picked a Drow Warrior in Whispering Caverns.
At -3% RI:
Your Magic Missile deals 95 (109) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

At 17.8% RI:
Your Magic Missile deals 929 (940) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

Notice, on both of those logs the first number is lower than the second? That's expected behavior
I repeated this test with lots and lots of hits - these are merely representation, I saw no exceptions.

Now, at 46.1% (which is my gear, but no boons, feats, companions, or mounts), I do:
Your Magic Missile deals 1114 (1031) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

Notice the actual damage is MORE than the base damage. This is because I am doing extra damage because I've reduced his DR below 0%. I know this is the case because a long time ago (and no, I can't find the link, I've looked for it), Asterdahl (I think it was.... a dev anyway) confirmed that this is, in fact, the case. "bonus" damage may be the wrong word to use - but "more damage that you would do if the mob was at or above 0%" is, in fact, the truth.

thefabricant said:

Why are you using EotS?

silverkelt said:
agreed, specially since you are using a dread.. jeepers, 35% crit is like pre mod 6 builds my man!
My base is like 57% and goes to 100% when my procy things procy . My power goes to like 48-49 or something like that.
I am chump cheese when you take the big boys into account.. just saying' So my #s are like 20k power below those who are near BIS.
Eots shouldnt be used ever anymore, its really really bad return.
Chilling presence/SS if SS thuam.

I can't afford to change out my Radiants for Azures without selling the Radiants. Simple as that. If one of you "millions a day" richie riches would care to send me some R12 Azures, I'd be more than grateful.

Until then, based on ACT data, for me EotS + CP is around 15-20% more effective from a DPS perspective than SS+CP, so I'll stick with what I have.

thefabricant · October 2016

kvet said:

thefabricant said:

There is no bonus for over stacking arp. (seriously, this is easy to test, remove all debuffs and go hit a dummy, they have no dr.) Also, the arp curve is not linear, so technically, the damage increase is not linear either.
On Preview, I respec'd - no boons, gear, feats, companions, or mounts.

With a basic orb without arpen stats, but still a base -3% RI from base attributes, can't do anything about that on this toon.
[Combat (Self)] Your Magic Missile deals 88 Arcane Damage to Target Dummy.
Expected - no resistance, so no difference between actual and base damage, so no notation like zzz (yyy) in the log. This is questionable given I do still show a -3% RI.
i
But, with my normal orb, and -10.8% RI
[Combat (Self)] Your Magic Missile deals 660 (634) Arcane Damage to Target Dummy.

So...... I don't know. Explain how with -3% and all else baseline, I was doing base damage without any showing up as dealt (base), but then once I tacked on more RI, it was suddenly showing that I did more actual damage than base damage if over-stacked RI does nothing?

To test further, I hit something that should have DR. I picked a Drow Warrior in Whispering Caverns.
At -3% RI:
Your Magic Missile deals 95 (109) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

At 17.8% RI:
Your Magic Missile deals 929 (940) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

Notice, on both of those logs the first number is lower than the second? That's expected behavior
I repeated this test with lots and lots of hits - these are merely representation, I saw no exceptions.

Now, at 46.1% (which is my gear, but no boons, feats, companions, or mounts), I do:
Your Magic Missile deals 1114 (1031) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

Notice the actual damage is MORE than the base damage. This is because I am doing extra damage because I've reduced his DR below 0%. I know this is the case because a long time ago (and no, I can't find the link, I've looked for it), Asterdahl (I think it was.... a dev anyway) confirmed that this is, in fact, the case. "bonus" damage may be the wrong word to use - but "more damage that you would do if the mob was at or above 0%" is, in fact, the truth.
thefabricant said:

Why are you using EotS?

silverkelt said:
agreed, specially since you are using a dread.. jeepers, 35% crit is like pre mod 6 builds my man!
My base is like 57% and goes to 100% when my procy things procy . My power goes to like 48-49 or something like that.
I am chump cheese when you take the big boys into account.. just saying' So my #s are like 20k power below those who are near BIS.
Eots shouldnt be used ever anymore, its really really bad return.
Chilling presence/SS if SS thuam.
I can't afford to change out my Radiants for Azures without selling the Radiants. Simple as that. If one of you "millions a day" richie riches would care to send me some R12 Azures, I'd be more than grateful.

No RI:

3% RI:

8.4% RI:

I used the same weapons, only allocated boons that increase RI, or defensive boons. There must have been something else influencing the results of your test. Idk, maybe try unslotting your weapon enchantment which is likely influencing your results?

Now, obviously this is just a brief look and not the test I initially did ages ago, but I wanted to just quickly create some images for you. Remember, debuffs also show in effectiveness, not just RI and DR.

arcanjo86 · October 2016

one thing for sure make sure u have bonding r9 or higher to start using bonding companion, otherwise stick with augment pet first, i tried lower rank bonding and stats given were lower than i expected and wasnt useful, i also recomend the stacy thauma ss build(kamikaze cw), goood build.

60% resistance ignored is something to do before starting to focuses on power and crit(brutal enchantments), and azure enchantments on companion offence slot gear slots

kvet · October 2016

thefabricant said:

I used the same weapons, only allocated boons that increase RI, or defensive boons. There must have been something else influencing the results of your test. Idk, maybe try unslotting your weapon enchantment which is likely influencing your results?

Now, obviously this is just a brief look and not the test I initially did ages ago, but I wanted to just quickly create some images for you. Remember, debuffs also show in effectiveness, not just RI and DR.

I wasn't looking at ACT data, just the combat log. I can try with additional combinations of gear and see what happens.

thefabricant · October 2016

kvet said:

thefabricant said:

I used the same weapons, only allocated boons that increase RI, or defensive boons. There must have been something else influencing the results of your test. Idk, maybe try unslotting your weapon enchantment which is likely influencing your results?

Now, obviously this is just a brief look and not the test I initially did ages ago, but I wanted to just quickly create some images for you. Remember, debuffs also show in effectiveness, not just RI and DR.
I wasn't looking at ACT data, just the combat log. I can try with additional combinations of gear and see what happens.

I am assuming you had a dread slotted in your main weapon, which would account for a 4% debuff. That or a terror.

michela123 · October 2016

kvet said:

On Preview, I respec'd - no boons, gear, feats, companions, or mounts.

With a basic orb without arpen stats, but still a base -3% RI from base attributes, can't do anything about that on this toon.
[Combat (Self)] Your Magic Missile deals 88 Arcane Damage to Target Dummy.
Expected - no resistance, so no difference between actual and base damage, so no notation like zzz (yyy) in the log. This is questionable given I do still show a -3% RI.
i
But, with my normal orb, and -10.8% RI
[Combat (Self)] Your Magic Missile deals 660 (634) Arcane Damage to Target Dummy.

So...... I don't know. Explain how with -3% and all else baseline, I was doing base damage without any showing up as dealt (base), but then once I tacked on more RI, it was suddenly showing that I did more actual damage than base damage if over-stacked RI does nothing?

You had Dread slotted in your normal orb.

kvet said:

At 17.8% RI:
Your Magic Missile deals 929 (940) Arcane Damage to Warrior.

That's a typo, here your RI was 10,8%.

btairborne · October 2016

You need multiple tests at rising AP levels to determine if it's actual bonus damage and what the return is (if so I am sure it's diminishing). Fairly simple to do if I wasn't at work.

thefabricant · October 2016

btairborne said:
You need multiple tests at rising AP levels to determine if it's actual bonus damage and what the return is (if so I am sure it's diminishing). Fairly simple to do if I wasn't at work.

Its very easy to determine there isn't 1, assuming you testing without any debuffs present.

micky1p00 · October 2016

ACT doesn't show the correct stuff here, especially without the effectiveness part. But ArP doesn't give anything after the DR of the enemy.

Also IMO to the original topic it's 1:1 power:crit or even a more towards the crit:
to 1:2 power:crit (for SS ) up to 100% crit chance ofc. This is with SS slotted and without EoTS.

deterrant · October 2016

Rummage and ask around to find some builds, dont worry if theyre from mod 9. Read the descriptions and the makers notes. Pick 1 that you find to your liking and start with that, ask around if the build has had any changes and adjust the build accordingly if needed.

Visit the class forums and ask around ingame, there are veteran players who can help if you want to tweak the build to be more personal, without totally destroying its potential.

YT has videos of some CW builds, theyre mostly about the meta min/max stuff so theyre quite safe to go by, but it never hurts to ask if a build is viable or has it changed.

Get arpen to max out at ~60% in PVE. Ill wait for the effectiveness verdict as soon as somebody does it, again.

Never seen the memo that arpen is still effective after enemy DR is reached, till then the safest way is to stop at 60%, imo.

Dont worry if your arpen is 55% or even 65% at some point, as you get more geared up then you can start tweaking the numbers more, enchants help with this and of course your pets or augments gear.

Remember that your knowledge of your build and mastering a playstyle for it is more effective than just slamming BIS and random powers to it. Without knowledge, BIS gear is just gear and not effective.

Good Luck.

rafaelda · October 2016

Im' a bit late but since you already recived some nice tips, i have a final one, try your builds in preview server, there you get free respect and can SEE the result, then take a print and bring it ti live server.

1-Rune-> my experience, as Spelstorm i build up power to max the dmg wille 100% crit is active
2-Companion-> I have a Stone elemental, he tank pretty well and give you a small bonus dmg buff if your 100% hp
3-Respect-> you can get a respec token from 3rd eye store (you can also get one in winter festival but that is way too far atm...)
4-Arm Pern.-> Arm Pen at 55 or 60% is all that you need for PVP (guild boons can help a lot here) the nubers you see ar Dmg delt (dmg after arm pen) level it to 60 and the (dmg) will disapear...
5-Rings-> Rings like rising power will fill really fast due dot efect, and brutality or sudden strengh are really good for Spellstorm since they activate during the 100% crit time as the fight beggins...

and on last thing ! sorry for my bad english XD

Good luck !!!!

treesclimber · October 2016

My play time on CW is not big, but from my experience in nwo crit over power always, all the classes, why? Temporary buffs to crit are superior to power ones, for example squash soup, wild storm elixir, cambion magus, erines of belial, there is only 1 case where i would take a step back, renegade, you can assume that chaotic nexus is 1/3rd time up, assuming that you build for abyss you could focus on getting crit chance to 70% but you would loose an average of 20% crit, and gain it in power, but still not worth (1 note i have no idea about lightning build, there are renegades built for abyss with a lightning, lightning will proc abyss and proc darfire, drow race feature, increasing incoming damage on targets up to 40%, in single target fights the damage provided by this build is weak and also is the debuff that never or almost never stacks darkfire past 1 stack if you intend to be pure team support mof rene + drow + lightning is perfect, with 3 or 4k recovery you can trash spell twisting and go for icy veins). Make sure you get the 59.5% RI, after that use either brutals or black ice if you decide to try not grab spell twisting.

Power or critical hit

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