When I started off my CW I made him a DPS. I am now at a point where being a DPS is boring. I have tinkered a bit with being a Renegade MoF but many of the benefits that a Renegade offers, other than Chaotic Fury, can be had other ways and most end game groups don't need most of those benefits.
Having three loadouts I created myself an Oppressor build and have been running as an Oppressor/Renegade MoF CW. The personals I am using are Swath of Destruction and Critical Conflagration. With 100% crit chance I can keep smolder up for the 20% damage buff and the feats Icy Vein, Frigid Winds and Control Momentum I am able to provide the group additional buffs.
Overall when I compare the two builds: Oppressor/Renegade to the Renegade/Oppressor I see both as viable end game CW buffers but I like how easy it is to maintain the damage bonus from Control Momentum vs. relying on Chaos Magic to proc Chaotic Fury.
If I ever decide to go full on buffer I will eventually swap out Critical Conflag to Combustive Action for the additional debuff it offers, but that will require some serious investment on my end to achieve a high enough recovery to spam dailies, at this point the build I run now it is a decent DPS but moreso of a buffer.
Another thought I had is modifying my Thaum/Renegade build and use Critical Conflag with Swath of Destruction over Chilling Presence. I know I will take a DPS lose but it would boost the group DPS.
I like how MoF gives me options here. What are other CW Buffers running and what made you create your CW buffer?
0
Comments
The reason I like to go high crit is because I can just switch from Swath to CP and carry any group through all content except the absolute endgame (MSPC, To9G). Crit has much better returns than power in this case. But that's more of a flavor thing.
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1fm0i23:150xc00:1000000:1z05nc1&h=0&p=mof&o=0
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
3 on abbys and 2 on nightmare... why?
As if for Nightmare wiz the reason is simple - you don't need more because you crit a lot. 2/5 is enough to have all the uptime you will ever need on it. 3/5 is totally safe, 5/5 is a giant overkill.
Abyss of chaos is mainly for the proc, not because of the dmg.
Phantasmal destruction is great - 15% crit severity is better than the other options. because I have very low crit severity, the bonus is actually quite substantial.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,19i3ie3:1000000:1z00u00:1z00zk1&h=0&p=mof&o=0
(Human so 3 points to max Learned Spellcaster)
I tried running in T9G Thaumaturge/Oppressor on trash with CP+CA and Rubellite instead of INT set, and Thaumaturge/Renegade on bosses with CP+SoD and INT set. Worked nice when running with 1 tank, 2 DC and 1 other DPS.
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,19i3ie3:150xc00:1z05u0v:1000000&h=0&p=mof&o=0
I changed some things in my Renegade/Oppressor loadout with high recovery I used to run CA+SoD but I haven't got a chance to properly test it.
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1f23icf:150zu0v:1000000:1z00u00&h=0&p=mof&o=0
Here are my feat points for my Renegade build. My renegade build is designed more for using dailies as I use combustive action and swath as my personal when I do run this build. I also find this build works the best when running with groups that are near minimum IL to get into content. The extra debuffing from combustive action along with Swath 20% damage buff both really boost the group DPS.
On Mastery I use Fanning the Flame. Other encounters I use are Steal Time, Icy Terrain, and Ray of Enfeeblement.
Dailies are Immolation and Icy Knife.
I may have to adjust my Renegade a bit more as I am thinking of getting get Spell Twisting vs. what I have now from the Oppressor Paragon feat tree.
nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1fm300f:150wi00:1000000:1z05uu1&h=0&p=mof&o=0
These are my buff builds today. I may adjust them in the future as I start to change out my gear. I may even forgo my DPS CW builds and go full on buffing with all my characters.
Here are my feats for my CW DPS build. I may start using this build as a semi buffer and simply swap out CP for SoD for the added 20% damage buff to my group. The other thing with this build is I would be pulling out more damage vs. my other builds due to being a Thuam/Renegade.
nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,19i3ie3:1000000:1z05u0v:1z00u00&h=0&p=mof&o=0
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/cw?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1on0i23:150xc00:1000000:1y09ha1&h=0&p=mof&o=0
(Human so maxed Learned Spellcaster).
Buffed stats - capped Arpen, around 48k Power, 23-24k Recovery (enough for 2x RoE), 60-65% Crit. Rubellite set and Black Dragon as main.
RoE on mastery, IT, CoI, ST/Dis. Oppressive Force and Icy Knife for dailies. CA+SoD passives.
Went to test in T1 and T2 from pug with a friend on GWF and we ended getting into MSPC from pug, got good 16k DC (what he was doing there is a mystery), some lower level CW (with bondings in augment lol) and some troll OP tank (with just R7-8 bondings). Trash for some reason went smoother than sometimes with 2 DCs. Second boss without DC and the other CW from 50% HP, no issues. Spent about 15 minutes before last boss because tank went to aggro everything and kept dying and releasing constantly at campfire rather than wait for mobs to reset, and when we finally killed mobs he went back and spent literally 10 minutes looking for and fighting with any mobs that spawn there instead of getting into the circle. And after getting in he intentionally killed himself and we had to do the whole 3rd boss without tank, and last phase after one shot also without DC. All of this with clock ticking, finished with less than 1 minute left to maintenance. I've never had more ridiculous run before.
While GWF did 820 mil damage in the run, I had about 390 mil, so not that bad I think. Really fun to play in pug.
Taking a realistic view of what MoF CW support offers for an end-game party, I would argue that the best CW offerings relate to applying debuffs quickly and having uncapped OF keep mobs/adds on lock. If you take my view, you look towards a high recovery / high crit daily spammer build similar to what has been described above.
For full support Rene, I like Rene / Thaum smolder stacking configuration (swath, CA) rotation: OF -> RoE or FtF -> TAB(CoI) -> disintegrate. For bosses or if smolder stacking is impaired by 2nd CW, swap RoE to TAB and have CoI off tab. I don't run Icy Veins because it interferes with smolder stacking. This also frees you up to grab spell twisting, resulting in fast rotation for AP building.
For dps support hybrid, I like Thaum / Opp with Icy Veins for sweeping trash (CP, CA) rotation: OF -> RoE or IT -> TAB(CoI) -> disintegrate. This is also what I use for soloing. For bosses, I might change to Thaum / Rene loadout for Abyss damage, and again swap RoE to TAB.
You can also get a black dragon heart and learn to miss with it in order to have flexibility for added debuff / reliably proc'ing Artificer's Persuasion.
Also, in my view you need Combustive Action duration buff in oppressor tree, cuz 6 seconds daily is really not easy to get.
(Oppressive Force prolonging duration of CA debuff is not a thing as far as our tests showed. That has been fixed as well or maybe was never a thing I dunno.)
[PS4] Alliance - House Stargaryen
On preview I don't think smolder stacking was completely removed, but who knows if they'll take another pass at it. I like it because it actually requires some timing / marginal skill, and with the right combo you can apply the debuff to large groups of mobs really quickly.
I haven't retested CA duration in a while, it's possible they've changed it to no longer be extended by OF ticks. For mobs 6sec is more than enough. For bosses, it's a limitation certainly. I guess that gives another reason for going Rene / Opp.
To be honest, ever since they introduced diminishing returns, our debuff magnitude is just lackluster compared to the benefits that buffs can provide. Game is currently in an imbalanced state, but we'll see how long that persists. I guess we shouldn't complain too much we had some golden years behind us (HV FTW).
I know in Meta groups a MoF may not be needed but when you PUG a MoF build can make the difference in completing content.