(PC) Varric's Mod 13 MoF DPS/Buff Guide

baronstragen · February 2018

Here is a link to my guide. I totally expect people to argue and disagree with me, and that's totally your right. But it works for me and if it gives you ideas, then at least I helped in some way.

Varric's Mod 13 CW MoF Guide

shockerizer · February 2018

Thanks for the detail. My SS Renegade sucks now so...there ya go...

baronstragen · February 2018

shockerizer said:
Thanks for the detail. My SS Renegade sucks now so...there ya go...

I am glad I could help? I know, trust me *feelsbadman*

metalicum1 · February 2018

baronstragen said:
Here is a link to my guide. I totally expect people to argue and disagree with me, and that's totally your right. But it works for me and if it gives you ideas, then at least I helped in some way.

Varric's Mod 13 CW MoF Guide

Big piece of work. Thanks for that. Just a couple of things from me.

A lot of things in this guide are odd to say the least. Some indicates lack of experience (like suggesting DC sigil, Dark enchants in Defense slots where there clearly should be Radiants or other that give HP due to AoC dmg - as it is easier and cheaper to make enchants than ever, costs should not be decisive in what you call a guide - , and much more).

I will mention few things that I feel need to be said.

1) As much as I understand your race preference (that is play what you like), it should be mentioned what the best races are - that is Tiefling as a great choice, followed by human, followed by Drow in some specific cases (for debuff multiproc)

2) In your assessment of Weapon Enchants you don't mention that Vorpal does not increase AoC dmg, since it cannot crit. Any well-built control wizard should have around 130-140% crit severity (counting in all including CA bonus). In that case unpara Vorpal is around 20-21% DPS increase. Fey is 20% + small weapon proc, and it does boost Aura of Courage, therefore it is clearly a better choice. That is in theory if you have 100% crit chance all the time. Less crit you have (and less companion uptime since some crit will come from there - the worse Vorpal is in comparison to Fey)

3) I' never seen any ACT that would suggest smolder is more than 8-10% of you overall DPS outcome, and certainly not "top". It would be nice if you supported you claims with evidence.

4) while I like your choice to go Rene without Spell Twisting, as it is also my choice, your feat distribution simply aint make no sense. Not having Masterful Arcane Theft for AoE, not having not even a single feat in Abyss of Chaos, if only for additional proc etc.. also your assessment of Phantasmal Destruction does not involve DPS increase (which is on correctly build wizard about 5-6%, if you DONT have Vorpal. If you have Vorpal, it's under 5%. When it procs. And only for crits, which again exclude Aura of Courage. And this is only scratching the surface.

5) DC sigil is a bad choice in the day and age of Soul Sight Crystal. I don't really know what do you achieve beside maybe 1-2 additional dailies. You don't even use CA on bosses, which makes DC sigil almost entirely useless in comparison.

6) I haven't seen any indication RoE change is anything else but mechanical in terms of Mastery/off mastery. It still should give you 35% on rank 4. But link any evidence if it is the case.

7) I personally think Shepard's Devotion is a must have insignia bonus for a CW, but here I'm probably just bias towards a party helping each other with defensive stats - which creates offensive opportunities in all slots for everyone, including tanks. Not a crucial point.

8)In companions, your assessment of a summoned choice is odd. I certainly don't wanna eagerly argue for Tiger as summoned, but what's wrong with recommending Air Archon as a default choice, with othr companions as possibilities? (con artist for easy gear up, Sellsword, Dancing shield, etc...)

9) you last suggstion ("but but I wanna dps build") and then going to thaum indicates that Thaum is better DPS than Ren which is not the case. at least in AoE it almost undisputed that Ren capstone and Masterful Arcane Theft + either Nightmare or Phantasmal is better in terms of DPS than Spell Twisting, Assailing Force, and Elemental Empowerment or frozen power. (of course since both Nightmare and Chaos are party wide and not personal, you might end up with less paingiver results, since you are buffing everyones DPS, not just yours.)

baronstragen · February 2018

metalicum1 said:

baronstragen said:
Here is a link to my guide. I totally expect people to argue and disagree with me, and that's totally your right. But it works for me and if it gives you ideas, then at least I helped in some way.

Varric's Mod 13 CW MoF Guide
Big piece of work. Thanks for that. Just a couple of things from me.

A lot of things in this guide are odd to say the least. Some indicates lack of experience (like suggesting DC sigil, Dark enchants in Defense slots where there clearly should be Radiants or other that give HP due to AoC dmg - as it is easier and cheaper to make enchants than ever, costs should not be decisive in what you call a guide - , and much more).
****I build my CW for survivability, and if you want to put radiants in for the AoC damage, go ahead. I can see further down the line and AoC will have its nerfing time soon.****
I will mention few things that I feel need to be said.

1) As much as I understand your race preference (that is play what you like), it should be mentioned what the best races are - that is Tiefling as a great choice, followed by human, followed by Drow in some specific cases (for debuff multiproc)
****totally your right****
2) In your assessment of Weapon Enchants you don't mention that Vorpal does not increase AoC dmg, since it cannot crit. Any well-built control wizard should have around 130-140% crit severity (counting in all including CA bonus). In that case unpara Vorpal is around 20-21% DPS increase. Fey is 20% + small weapon proc, and it does boost Aura of Courage, therefore it is clearly a better choice. That is in theory if you have 100% crit chance all the time. Less crit you have (and less companion uptime since some crit will come from there - the worse Vorpal is in comparison to Fey)
****Fey has been re tuned and isn't as effective as it was before. Fey and Vorpal are very close in dps but you're counting on AoC and I'm not. Not every party has a paladin in it and not every paladin runs AoC, unfortunately. I don't know about you but I can't always get a paladin to follow me around for solo content.***

3) I' never seen any ACT that would suggest smolder is more than 8-10% of you overall DPS outcome, and certainly not "top". It would be nice if you supported you claims with evidence.
***Sure**** Here you go.

As you can see it isn't top in this situation, but it has been in many, and it is definately more than 10%

4) while I like your choice to go Rene without Spell Twisting, as it is also my choice, your feat distribution simply aint make no sense. Not having Masterful Arcane Theft for AoE, not having not even a single feat in Abyss of Chaos, if only for additional proc etc.. also your assessment of Phantasmal Destruction does not involve DPS increase (which is on correctly build wizard about 5-6%, if you DONT have Vorpal. If you have Vorpal, it's under 5%. When it procs. And only for crits, which again exclude Aura of Courage. And this is only scratching the surface.
****Procs have been retuned as I have explained, I see you're a PS4 player and maybe haven't worked with mod 13 yet? Also I took feats for support, masterful arcane theft isn't the end all be all for party support. But hey, whatever you want. It's your toon.***

5) DC sigil is a bad choice in the day and age of Soul Sight Crystal. I don't really know what do you achieve beside maybe 1-2 additional dailies. You don't even use CA on bosses, which makes DC sigil almost entirely useless in comparison.
***I do use the soul sight crystal for bosses if I am not running support. I omitted this and that's my fault, thx. As for CA on bosses, you can use that perfectly fine. But CA+SoD do not stack properly and I'll let you test this, so you either run one or the other with CP***

6) I haven't seen any indication RoE change is anything else but mechanical in terms of Mastery/off mastery. It still should give you 35% on rank 4. But link any evidence if it is the case.
****It's in the patch notes and the new tool tip explains it. Please read them yourself I'm not google here****

7) I personally think Shepard's Devotion is a must have insignia bonus for a CW, but here I'm probably just bias towards a party helping each other with defensive stats - which creates offensive opportunities in all slots for everyone, including tanks. Not a crucial point.
****Shepard's devotion is OK, the defensive boost is small and the run speed boost causes a lot of problems for people that have to time attacks. If you want to run it, go right ahead***

8)In companions, your assessment of a summoned choice is odd. I certainly don't wanna eagerly argue for Tiger as summoned, but what's wrong with recommending Air Archon as a default choice, with othr companions as possibilities? (con artist for easy gear up, Sellsword, Dancing shield, etc...)
****That's fine, that's your opinion****

9) you last suggstion ("but but I wanna dps build") and then going to thaum indicates that Thaum is better DPS than Ren which is not the case. at least in AoE it almost undisputed that Ren capstone and Masterful Arcane Theft + either Nightmare or Phantasmal is better in terms of DPS than Spell Twisting, Assailing Force, and Elemental Empowerment or frozen power. (of course since both Nightmare and Chaos are party wide and not personal, you might end up with less paingiver results, since you are buffing everyones DPS, not just yours.)

****No, with the new changes to chilling presence Thaum will beat rene hands down in personal dps. Some people want to be like that, so that's why I provided it.****

metalicum1 · February 2018

A lot of opinion based things, that's fine. One thing though, I haven't seen any changes to Chilling presence. The only change is it's interaction with smolder. How's that affecting the choice between Thaum and Ren?

Is there something I am missing?

baronstragen · February 2018

metalicum1 said:
A lot of opinion based things, that's fine. One thing though, I haven't seen any changes to Chilling presence. The only change is it's interaction with smolder. How's that affecting the choice between Thaum and Ren?

Is there something I am missing?

I'm not sure if you understood me, With smoulder being buffed by chilling presence, the thaumaturge path with opp feats will offer more burst damage than before. And that's something the Rene/thaum path does not have. I also wanted to thank you for reading my guide, and I realize that a lot of things are opinion based. What works for me may not work for others and I don't expect people to use my guide for making a cookie cutter build.

dairyzeus · February 2018

Why show your unbuffed stats? Stats with bondings proc'd are the stats that matter.

Seeing 10k recovery out of combat doesn't really show someone what levels of recovery they need in combat for a smooth rotation.

baronstragen · February 2018

dairyzeus said:
Why show your unbuffed stats? Stats with bondings proc'd are the stats that matter.

Seeing 10k recovery out of combat doesn't really show someone what levels of recovery they need in combat for a smooth rotation.

There is no recovery on my companion. However I suppose I should clarify. I have 10K recovery plus 20% recharge speed from intelligence and 7% recharge speed from wisdom. Thanks for reminding me

dairyzeus · February 2018

baronstragen said:

dairyzeus said:
Why show your unbuffed stats? Stats with bondings proc'd are the stats that matter.

Seeing 10k recovery out of combat doesn't really show someone what levels of recovery they need in combat for a smooth rotation.
There is no recovery on my companion. However I suppose I should clarify. I have 10K recovery plus 20% recharge speed from intelligence and 7% recharge speed from wisdom. Thanks for reminding me

Recovery was just an example. In general the only stats people do/should care about are your stats in combat (bondings proc'd, insignia bonuses, ect). As stats out of combat have little meaning.

I'd recommend taking a couple pics after hitting dummies to give readers an idea of what to aim for in combat so that their experience with the build matches yours.

baronstragen · February 2018

dairyzeus said:
Why show your unbuffed stats? Stats with bondings proc'd are the stats that matter.

*Snippity*
I'd recommend taking a couple pics after hitting dummies to give readers an idea of what to aim for in combat so that their experience with the build matches yours.

You mean like this?

+7991 Lifesteal

thefabricant · February 2018

I was trying to resist commenting on this guide, because of what I think of it, however, considering some of the statements that are being made here, I I will just give me feedback and also put the addendum that I do not recommend following this.

baronstragen said:

****Fey has been re tuned and isn't as effective as it was before. Fey and Vorpal are very close in dps but you're counting on AoC and I'm not. Not every party has a paladin in it and not every paladin runs AoC, unfortunately. I don't know about you but I can't always get a paladin to follow me around for solo content.***

2) Critical Severity and Combat Advantage add together on critical hits. If you have 100% critical Severity and 50% Combat Advantage bonus (a reasonable amount) and there is no OP in the group, U.Vorpal is a 22% damage increase. Feytouched is a 20% damage increase+weapon enchant proc (which will account for like 3% of your dps). It is basically as good as vorpal without an OP and better in every single group where there is an OP. Of coarse, if you have 65% critical strike chance, you should just use Feytouched, because vorpal will lose in every single circumstance.

baronstragen said:

***Sure**** Here you go.

As you can see it isn't top in this situation, but it has been in many, and it is definately more than 10%

3) Any decent CW will have Smoulder doing less than 10%. Sure, if all you do is spam scorching burst (and do very little damage in the process) smoulder will form a bigger percentage of your damage, but if you actually play efficiently it will do much, much less and look more like this:

baronstragen said:

5) ***I do use the soul sight crystal for bosses if I am not running support. I omitted this and that's my fault, thx. As for CA on bosses, you can use that perfectly fine. But CA+SoD do not stack properly and I'll let you test this, so you either run one or the other with CP***

5) Combustive Action:

Combustive Action +1x Swath:

Combustive Action+2x Swath:

Looks like it stacks to me and that somebody is just spreading misinformation.

baronstragen said:

6) ****It's in the patch notes and the new tool tip explains it. Please read them yourself I'm not google here****

6) I guess casting Ray of Enfeeblement to see how much it debuffs for is too hard so you had to give an incorrect value instead:

baronstragen said:

7) ****Shepard's devotion is OK, the defensive boost is small and the run speed boost causes a lot of problems for people that have to time attacks. If you want to run it, go right ahead***

7) Shepherds is a must have insignia bonus, even if you are solo, a reasonably built CW will have 60k power, which would give you 3000 defense, deflect and movement. In a group with a good dc+OP, you would be at 200k power and be gaining 10000 of each stat just for having this insignia bonus. That is a huge boost to defensive statistics as well as movement speed. Furthermore, it buffs everyone in the group and not just yourself.

baronstragen said:

8)****That's fine, that's your opinion****

8) The chultan tiger is objectively the best pet for a dps. There is no room for discussion there. It has a 5% damage active bonus and it has a 10% debuff. This means that it has the advantage of a debuff pet and the advantage of a %dmg pet.

There are a lot of other things I could comment on, feat choices, gear choices etc, but I thought I would just respond to the most obvious stuff, which also incidentally, includes recommending stacking only 65% critical strike chance. While you are at it you should recommend to only stack 55% resistance ignored since you clearly have 100% uptime on Chaotic Nexus. For an end game dps build in the current meta, 100% critical strike chance is mandatory and I wouldn't recommend taking the advice of anyone who recommends a crit value so low.

baronstragen · February 2018

Whatever the case, if you haven't tried the build then you really can't comment on how bad it is. Sharp, if I've offended you I apologize. I'm human, and we can all do silly things sometimes.

@kreatyve please close this thread, thank you.

micky1p00 · February 2018

Didn't go into the CW part, because who cares about inferior classes....
Wanted to say, that it's very well formatted. About the companion, how slow is the attack? Is it just anti-meta sentiment or there is an actual recommendation there? I didn't see one, and the tiger has very easy gear, 2 rings and a neck.
So it's slower than sellsowrd? same?

kreatyve · February 2018

Closed at OP's request.

(PC) Varric's Mod 13 MoF DPS/Buff Guide

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