some encounters like shield, conduit of ice and fanning the flame are still super bad. and some are decent but still not enough damage just because they have controlling effect. if an enemy like boss cant be controlled, add bonus damage to it.
lightning bolt aimin should be fixed. it has terrible hit box and accuracy and when you are moving and immediately cast it, it is cast behind you. in addition, lightning bolt has so terrible hit radius it should have its damage buffed.
some at wills are still really awful, not enough damage.
some dailies like malestrom, ice storm, ice knife (in contrast to arcane empowerment) have inadequate damage.
these are just easy solutions for wizard but there are more things to consider like feats and class features.
i agree with the post before me.
combustive action doesnt seem great on paper.
storm fury is completely bad.
you might wanna ask how they are bad. theres an easy answer. numbers are low.
Currently Chilling presence only add 3% damage 6% damage on frozen targets when you have 6 stacks, it's not enough.
Bring back chilling presence to have 6% damage and 12% on frozen targets (With 6 stacks). It will be an alternative more equal to the new Evocation 10% damage for AoE powers, and 3% more for single target will not be too much overpowered.
Arcane Presence : Keep the actual effect of Arcane mastery now increase the damage of your cold,fire and lightning base attacks by 0,5%, per stack. But add the possibility that when you use your cold,fire and lightning encounters, you now add an Arcane mastery stack.
Eye of the storm should be back to it's original state.
Usings an encounter or daily power grants you Eye of the storm for 5 seconds. While active, Eye of the storm grants you 100% critical chance. This effect can only occur once every 20 seconds.
With this it will be possible to focus on other stats than critical strike and use your encounter at the right moments like it was at the start of the game.
Arcane Power field, I'm not sure but I think this class feature is still bugged and doesn’t increase the bonus from A Step Above Mastery. If is still broken, This bug need to be fixed.
And for the Thaumaturge it's an other story. Smolder mechanics need a complete rework and it will need a complete balancing pass of several weeks.
Right now Chilling Stacks on Frozen targets would need at least 20% bonus damage, with inability from teammates to break the ice by dealing damage to the enemy. This wouldn't put Wizard anywhere near the top Painger chart, although, because enemies need 6 seconds to actually get frozen in the most optimal scenario, which rarely happens, if at all.
The Frozen status is furthermore downgraded by the control bonus, which is also a very bad way to actually deal damage.
With that being said - you are correct, the bonus needs to happen, but so far the bonus is ridiculously low and doesn't help anyone who'd like to maybe speedrun a bit. This is why I wanted a change to Icy Terrain, for it to be a channeling power - hold and release, instant frozen status. Same like Storm Pillar. That way Wizard becomes at least 30% more fun to play in any content with AoE. And useful, too. At least before the boss encounter.
If no, then Icy Terrain needs to tick way faster, maybe 0,3 sec per tick. That way the benefit of Chill is going to be utilized properly.
But these need to happen.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
random question: isnt wizard supposed to be completely ranged? why do some aoe spells have close range radius?
Interesting question. I think about it too, sometimes. In particular, this applies to Steal Time. Not only does it have a bug, so to use it you have to rush into the crowd of monsters together with the tank, lol. Perhaps for this reason, I hardly saw any wizards who would use this encounter.
@c1k4ml3kc3 20% bonus damage on Chill it's cool, but I think this is too much, no? In the best scenario using Elemental Reinforcement, Chilling Presence plus Controlled Momentum, the Arcanist will have 15% damage. Yes, all this is not instantaneous and you need to fulfill all the conditions in order to get the required percent, but still. Almost every class has its own conditions for taking extra damage.
For what I am more offended, it is for the Thaumaturge. As it was broken, it remained the same. The devs raised the damage, but what's the point of it? The problem with the Smolder has not been resolved, the Fireball animation has not been rework, he hasn't extra damage...
p.s. I have a question too. After the patch, nothing has changed for everyone in the descriptions of encounters and skills? In my description, Evocation still gives 5%, Icy Terrain magnitude - 280, etc.
Strictly about the potential and hypothetical ~20% increase:
Well, no, it is not too much with the current mechanics and the way Icy Terrain works with everything accounted for. If anything - it is still too low! It would be too much if the activation was instant, in which case going down to ~15% same like other classes enjoy would be sufficient amount only if Icy Terrain was instantaneous activation and instantaneous freeze.
The concept behind it is the amount of enemies affected (a) by the Frozen status (b) on top of the area that Icy Terrain covers (c) on top of the Time needed for them to actually be frozen (d), on top of the Controlling factors (e) (keeping them on Ice) on top of the Time needed for 1 Steal Time to affect them (f), or Entangling Force, or even Shard if you feel funky, on top of potential friendlies messing it all up (g) which happens more often than not because - why do others need to care for your damaging potential, right?
Wizard goes through all these because enemies need to be stationary on Icy Terrain in order to receive the Chill stacks to the point of being Frozen. Once they are Frozen, there is a very small window frame where Steal Time (or OF daily) tick will hit the enemies. The magnitude both of these provide is minuscule. This time frame is sometimes happening so fast that it is almost impossible to actually get the benefit of full damage bonus, but I do exclude this as a thing.
Other classes do not have to deal with all these variables. Not at all.
Let's go by the"Golden middle" which devs consider Rogue to be where the Damage should be for all DPS classes. Wizard is lagging behind a Rogue by a lot.
Rogue, for instance, can turn on Path of the Blade which is a secure DoT in a wide range regardless if the mobs are moving or not, on top of unleashing the Smoke Bomb that applies a DoT as well which also does not take into the account the enemies being stationary or not, all it takes is that enemies have to be in a ~25ft radius to the player's toon for it to actually work, which in nearly 90% scenarios work solidly. After that, Rogue is free to go and slay the hardest, most enduring of enemies with whatever means are available. That is already 4 Encounters used, let us say 2 AoE and 2 ST and mobs are down to some 25-35% HP, which already takes a hefty portion of Enemies health pool meaning - more paingiver for the Rogue compared to others. Meanwhile, for the same time, Wizard can only use Icy Terrain, then wait in order to keep the aggro and potentially get hit ferociously by the enemies since he lures/kites them to remain on Icy Terrain, has to wait 6 sec for it to fully be charged, and then unleash whatever means of attack is plausible at the time. Since the magnitude damage and DoTs are not as prominent, that makes Wizard to pale in comparison and enemies (in big dungeons) possibly still alive and kicking (especially big ones).
Paingiver perspective : If you let go these two (Rogue and Wizard) at the same time at the same group of enemies, the only upper hand that Wizard has at the time is releasing OF followed by ST since these two tend to have a faster tick rate and even a bit more base damage than Path of the Blade. Wizard can't wait for the Rogue to unleash his AoE encounters, because by default Rogue will make a quick work of the mobs and proceed to the next group. There will be no time for Icy Terrain either to fully tick, nor to fully freeze enemies. There won't be enemies to use it on, and at best you might get 2 up to 3 ticks altogether. Since Smoke Bomb gets a very long CD (of 20 sec or so), this does bring some beneficial point to Wizard's powers. OF also has a bit wider range to that of Smoke Bomb, but in any case scenario I reckon that this is a 80/20 win ratio for Rogue, or 70/30 if the Wizard is really good, or 90/10 ratio if Rogue is really good (and rushes forward). As such, it makes no sense to bring One Wizard and One Rogue to the group, and makes all sense to bring Two Rogues to the group who will utilize same tactics on different set of enemies. As one Rogue is on CD, other one takes the initiative, and that is potentially the fastest way. Since Rogues tend to also know their class a bit better than most do, and since there are prevalent, let's call them mini-exploits, with the animation and encounter uses which normally all classes have to some extent, you get two rogues who'd respect each other's bleed stacks. Problem comes at boss fight, however, as one Rogue will obviously be far better than the other one.
Wizard would have to constantly be ahead for about 10 sec in order for each of these to remain on equivalent grounds 50/50. Wizard does not have the capacity to really clear the mobs without releasing everything at his disposal, and it would need two Wizards of same caliber to equally match 1 rogue's effectiveness. That is how bad things are at this point mechanics-wise. Wizard is just TOO SLOW in everything except maybe Disintegrate and Repel, and Repel is extremely hated by basically everyone which doesn't help Wizards yet again and are constantly yelled at to stop using Repel, which is one of the highest damaging powers available.
In other words, there are too many variables leading to the use of the hypothetical ~20% damage increase that you could still argue that there are better and faster methods to do it. If it was ~30% then it becomes a serious contender for a Wizard to use even on Bosses and even in AoE combat. Still slow (6 sec remember), but menacing nonetheless.
It is not about how good the damage there is, but can you even pull it out? In solo play, sure, but in a speedy dungeon run? Yeah, that's the issue - hardly will you see it in a speedy dungeon run unless the party has some practice beforehand, in fact so hardly will that occur that it would be one of the best things to watch in Neverwinter Online imo.
Clerics, Rogues, Hunters & Barbarians are all still a better choice to pick even with the hypothetical ~20% increase to maximum Chill bonus.
As far as tracking log goes, you can either use ACT data by exporting a combatlog from the game onto the game files which you then use for the ACT software (for which you also need a nw plugin, potentially one that also calculates how much AP gain you have) For easiest convenience you can do this on Preview or Live server, but I'd suggest having one of the Loadouts strictly made for testing purposes where you won't be wearing any gear, won't have any bonus applied, and you will use only the wooden orb that will return only the static damage potential after you hit a dummy/training doll. You can check everything for its initial value by slotting/unslotting everything from your toon, and buying one Wooden orb at PvP building in PE. Switch to combat log in chat options and unslot powers that give you a bonus. Use a power 3-4 times, then slot the Feature power such as Evocation and then use it 3-4 times. Compare the numbers and figure out the difference %-wise. You can use one of the calculators online, they are fairly easy to find. Make sure that you have no other bonuses applied. Over time you will get very accustomed to that that you won't even need to check the numbers, you will basically know based on a few numbers you receive, bonuses and so on. You will simply understand that something's off, which is why you will need to start digging up what's wrong with the build/items/combatlog.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Wizards are very slow, and i thought that with mobs getting Tankier we would have a shot with the new combat rework but i was wrong.
The first suggestion that i have is that "most of our AoE dailies should consume only half of AP", this would increase the performance of both paragons on scenarios with a lot of mobs since the majority of then have control effect and synergy very well with some Class features. The magnitudes are already awful, so making then more spammable could open a space to use Steal Time or even Fire ball without the cost of missing the attack (while annoying some melee classes).
Starting with the Arcanist paragon: Steal Time its so bad, the cast time+the high risk of having your attack canceled makes the encounter useless. It has a good ratio and a cool add effect but the magnitude is low. Lightning bolt is laughable, bad magnitude, bad ratio, and its almost times does not hit the targets, even when they're in front of you (the fighter class has a similar encounter with half of this problem). The short cooldown is cool at least. Pls fix this animation. Icy terrain: Looks good especially with Snap Freeze but mobs die and move faster than our damage. The function of aiming on tab should be the default option and the magnitude should be increased to 450. Repel: Needs more magnitude on tab. Shard of Avalanche: Rework this or remove this and put something useful.
The Single Target of the Arcanist is really good, but we can't do damage without relying on Arcane Empowerment, with means that we need to rely on AP gain a lot to make this viable.
For the Thaumaturge: We all know where the problem lies: SMOLDER MECHANIC IS MEDIOCRE AND NEED A REWORK. The magnitude its not the only problem here, all Smolder related Feats and Class Features lack of synergy or enough reason to being used. The aspect of fire its also very poor designed, we have only 2 fire spells. We asked for a new ST fire encounter, not a bad rework on Fire Ball. Fanning the Flame is cool but the magnitude and cooldown are abysmal. The ice aspect of Thaumaturge is great, but we have enough. Ice Veins is strong but useless since Conduct of Ice should be our main choice on AoE (also needs a magnitude increase) and Chill Strike our main ice ST encounter (need a increase on magnitude on Tab).
This thread has been opened for a long time now and i really hope that someone is reading because we just want to enjoy our class.
Well, I'm always following this topic since I have a CW, but every time I participate I point out that this is the Alt with the lowest investment I have and I only play Arcanist.
Starting with the AoE build:
1.Entangling Force (DoT) on the strongest or closest target, activates Controlled Momentum and Elemental Reinforcement;
2. Ice Terrain (DoT);
3.Steal Time (DoT);
4.Lightning Bolt (Refreshes Arcane Mastery and Chill stacks) followed by these buff's you need to give 4 blows from At-Will to win an extra AP. All DoTs are affected by Bonus Control. That's my AoE rotation, and I assure you that the targets don't even move and I don't have any difficulty to farm.
In the ST build I change the powers by removing Steal Time and Lightining Bolt and placing Ray of Enfeeblement and Repel or Desintagrate from one for elemental reinforce to always double the bonus. I also change the Orb of Imposition to Arcane Presence or Arcane Power Field.
Well, now if you want to compare your class with the TR that Dev has already said is the strongest class in the game, I honestly believe you should create one of these to play, because I don't believe that's going to happen, just note that the adjustments that the class receives are not as significant.
All in all, these changes are done solely for the sake of Wizards who are leveling up, so that they have a smaller/better chance at winning. In comparison to other classes receiving hefty upgrades to their magnitude damage, Wizard is yet again left in the dust for no apparent reason. There was this big talk about Wizard changes not that long ago, which is at least a year old news now. mx player for pc
Comments
lightning bolt aimin should be fixed. it has terrible hit box and accuracy and when you are moving and immediately cast it, it is cast behind you. in addition, lightning bolt has so terrible hit radius it should have its damage buffed.
some at wills are still really awful, not enough damage.
some dailies like malestrom, ice storm, ice knife (in contrast to arcane empowerment) have inadequate damage.
these are just easy solutions for wizard but there are more things to consider like feats and class features.
i agree with the post before me.
combustive action doesnt seem great on paper.
storm fury is completely bad.
you might wanna ask how they are bad. theres an easy answer. numbers are low.
This wouldn't put Wizard anywhere near the top Painger chart, although, because enemies need 6 seconds to actually get frozen in the most optimal scenario, which rarely happens, if at all.
The Frozen status is furthermore downgraded by the control bonus, which is also a very bad way to actually deal damage.
With that being said - you are correct, the bonus needs to happen, but so far the bonus is ridiculously low and doesn't help anyone who'd like to maybe speedrun a bit. This is why I wanted a change to Icy Terrain, for it to be a channeling power - hold and release, instant frozen status. Same like Storm Pillar. That way Wizard becomes at least 30% more fun to play in any content with AoE. And useful, too. At least before the boss encounter.
If no, then Icy Terrain needs to tick way faster, maybe 0,3 sec per tick. That way the benefit of Chill is going to be utilized properly.
But these need to happen.
@c1k4ml3kc3 20% bonus damage on Chill it's cool, but I think this is too much, no? In the best scenario using Elemental Reinforcement, Chilling Presence plus Controlled Momentum, the Arcanist will have 15% damage. Yes, all this is not instantaneous and you need to fulfill all the conditions in order to get the required percent, but still. Almost every class has its own conditions for taking extra damage.
For what I am more offended, it is for the Thaumaturge. As it was broken, it remained the same. The devs raised the damage, but what's the point of it? The problem with the Smolder has not been resolved, the Fireball animation has not been rework, he hasn't extra damage...
p.s. I have a question too. After the patch, nothing has changed for everyone in the descriptions of encounters and skills? In my description, Evocation still gives 5%, Icy Terrain magnitude - 280, etc.
Strictly about the potential and hypothetical ~20% increase:
Well, no, it is not too much with the current mechanics and the way Icy Terrain works with everything accounted for. If anything - it is still too low! It would be too much if the activation was instant, in which case going down to ~15% same like other classes enjoy would be sufficient amount only if Icy Terrain was instantaneous activation and instantaneous freeze.
The concept behind it is the amount of enemies affected (a) by the Frozen status (b) on top of the area that Icy Terrain covers (c) on top of the Time needed for them to actually be frozen (d), on top of the Controlling factors (e) (keeping them on Ice) on top of the Time needed for 1 Steal Time to affect them (f), or Entangling Force, or even Shard if you feel funky, on top of potential friendlies messing it all up (g) which happens more often than not because - why do others need to care for your damaging potential, right?
Wizard goes through all these because enemies need to be stationary on Icy Terrain in order to receive the Chill stacks to the point of being Frozen. Once they are Frozen, there is a very small window frame where Steal Time (or OF daily) tick will hit the enemies. The magnitude both of these provide is minuscule. This time frame is sometimes happening so fast that it is almost impossible to actually get the benefit of full damage bonus, but I do exclude this as a thing.
Other classes do not have to deal with all these variables. Not at all.
Let's go by the"Golden middle" which devs consider Rogue to be where the Damage should be for all DPS classes. Wizard is lagging behind a Rogue by a lot.
Rogue, for instance, can turn on Path of the Blade which is a secure DoT in a wide range regardless if the mobs are moving or not, on top of unleashing the Smoke Bomb that applies a DoT as well which also does not take into the account the enemies being stationary or not, all it takes is that enemies have to be in a ~25ft radius to the player's toon for it to actually work, which in nearly 90% scenarios work solidly.
After that, Rogue is free to go and slay the hardest, most enduring of enemies with whatever means are available. That is already 4 Encounters used, let us say 2 AoE and 2 ST and mobs are down to some 25-35% HP, which already takes a hefty portion of Enemies health pool meaning - more paingiver for the Rogue compared to others.
Meanwhile, for the same time, Wizard can only use Icy Terrain, then wait in order to keep the aggro and potentially get hit ferociously by the enemies since he lures/kites them to remain on Icy Terrain, has to wait 6 sec for it to fully be charged, and then unleash whatever means of attack is plausible at the time. Since the magnitude damage and DoTs are not as prominent, that makes Wizard to pale in comparison and enemies (in big dungeons) possibly still alive and kicking (especially big ones).
Paingiver perspective : If you let go these two (Rogue and Wizard) at the same time at the same group of enemies, the only upper hand that Wizard has at the time is releasing OF followed by ST since these two tend to have a faster tick rate and even a bit more base damage than Path of the Blade. Wizard can't wait for the Rogue to unleash his AoE encounters, because by default Rogue will make a quick work of the mobs and proceed to the next group. There will be no time for Icy Terrain either to fully tick, nor to fully freeze enemies. There won't be enemies to use it on, and at best you might get 2 up to 3 ticks altogether. Since Smoke Bomb gets a very long CD (of 20 sec or so), this does bring some beneficial point to Wizard's powers. OF also has a bit wider range to that of Smoke Bomb, but in any case scenario I reckon that this is a 80/20 win ratio for Rogue, or 70/30 if the Wizard is really good, or 90/10 ratio if Rogue is really good (and rushes forward). As such, it makes no sense to bring One Wizard and One Rogue to the group, and makes all sense to bring Two Rogues to the group who will utilize same tactics on different set of enemies. As one Rogue is on CD, other one takes the initiative, and that is potentially the fastest way. Since Rogues tend to also know their class a bit better than most do, and since there are prevalent, let's call them mini-exploits, with the animation and encounter uses which normally all classes have to some extent, you get two rogues who'd respect each other's bleed stacks. Problem comes at boss fight, however, as one Rogue will obviously be far better than the other one.
Wizard would have to constantly be ahead for about 10 sec in order for each of these to remain on equivalent grounds 50/50. Wizard does not have the capacity to really clear the mobs without releasing everything at his disposal, and it would need two Wizards of same caliber to equally match 1 rogue's effectiveness. That is how bad things are at this point mechanics-wise. Wizard is just TOO SLOW in everything except maybe Disintegrate and Repel, and Repel is extremely hated by basically everyone which doesn't help Wizards yet again and are constantly yelled at to stop using Repel, which is one of the highest damaging powers available.
In other words, there are too many variables leading to the use of the hypothetical ~20% damage increase that you could still argue that there are better and faster methods to do it. If it was ~30% then it becomes a serious contender for a Wizard to use even on Bosses and even in AoE combat. Still slow (6 sec remember), but menacing nonetheless.
It is not about how good the damage there is, but can you even pull it out? In solo play, sure, but in a speedy dungeon run? Yeah, that's the issue - hardly will you see it in a speedy dungeon run unless the party has some practice beforehand, in fact so hardly will that occur that it would be one of the best things to watch in Neverwinter Online imo.
Clerics, Rogues, Hunters & Barbarians are all still a better choice to pick even with the hypothetical ~20% increase to maximum Chill bonus.
As far as tracking log goes, you can either use ACT data by exporting a combatlog from the game onto the game files which you then use for the ACT software (for which you also need a nw plugin, potentially one that also calculates how much AP gain you have)
For easiest convenience you can do this on Preview or Live server, but I'd suggest having one of the Loadouts strictly made for testing purposes where you won't be wearing any gear, won't have any bonus applied, and you will use only the wooden orb that will return only the static damage potential after you hit a dummy/training doll.
You can check everything for its initial value by slotting/unslotting everything from your toon, and buying one Wooden orb at PvP building in PE. Switch to combat log in chat options and unslot powers that give you a bonus. Use a power 3-4 times, then slot the Feature power such as Evocation and then use it 3-4 times. Compare the numbers and figure out the difference %-wise.
You can use one of the calculators online, they are fairly easy to find.
Make sure that you have no other bonuses applied.
Over time you will get very accustomed to that that you won't even need to check the numbers, you will basically know based on a few numbers you receive, bonuses and so on. You will simply understand that something's off, which is why you will need to start digging up what's wrong with the build/items/combatlog.
The first suggestion that i have is that "most of our AoE dailies should consume only half of AP", this would increase the performance of both paragons on scenarios with a lot of mobs since the majority of then have control effect and synergy very well with some Class features. The magnitudes are already awful, so making then more spammable could open a space to use Steal Time or even Fire ball without the cost of missing the attack (while annoying some melee classes).
Starting with the Arcanist paragon:
Steal Time its so bad, the cast time+the high risk of having your attack canceled makes the encounter useless. It has a good ratio and a cool add effect but the magnitude is low.
Lightning bolt is laughable, bad magnitude, bad ratio, and its almost times does not hit the targets, even when they're in front of you (the fighter class has a similar encounter with half of this problem). The short cooldown is cool at least. Pls fix this animation.
Icy terrain: Looks good especially with Snap Freeze but mobs die and move faster than our damage. The function of aiming on tab should be the default option and the magnitude should be increased to 450.
Repel: Needs more magnitude on tab.
Shard of Avalanche: Rework this or remove this and put something useful.
The Single Target of the Arcanist is really good, but we can't do damage without relying on Arcane Empowerment, with means that we need to rely on AP gain a lot to make this viable.
For the Thaumaturge:
We all know where the problem lies: SMOLDER MECHANIC IS MEDIOCRE AND NEED A REWORK. The magnitude its not the only problem here, all Smolder related Feats and Class Features lack of synergy or enough reason to being used.
The aspect of fire its also very poor designed, we have only 2 fire spells. We asked for a new ST fire encounter, not a bad rework on Fire Ball. Fanning the Flame is cool but the magnitude and cooldown are abysmal.
The ice aspect of Thaumaturge is great, but we have enough. Ice Veins is strong but useless since Conduct of Ice should be our main choice on AoE (also needs a magnitude increase) and Chill Strike our main ice ST encounter (need a increase on magnitude on Tab).
This thread has been opened for a long time now and i really hope that someone is reading because we just want to enjoy our class.
Starting with the AoE build:
1.Entangling Force (DoT) on the strongest or closest target, activates Controlled Momentum and Elemental Reinforcement;
2. Ice Terrain (DoT);
3.Steal Time (DoT);
4.Lightning Bolt (Refreshes Arcane Mastery and Chill stacks) followed by these buff's you need to give 4 blows from At-Will to win an extra AP. All DoTs are affected by Bonus Control. That's my AoE rotation, and I assure you that the targets don't even move and I don't have any difficulty to farm.
In the ST build I change the powers by removing Steal Time and Lightining Bolt and placing Ray of Enfeeblement and Repel or Desintagrate from one for elemental reinforce to always double the bonus. I also change the Orb of Imposition to Arcane Presence or Arcane Power Field.
Well, now if you want to compare your class with the TR that Dev has already said is the strongest class in the game, I honestly believe you should create one of these to play, because I don't believe that's going to happen, just note that the adjustments that the class receives are not as significant.
I am really tired of this barrier in communication between the players and the Devs.
Thanks