For the comments on ray of frost being the only good at-will
This comment has been approached in different ways but one of the comments didn't match up with what I expect. And that is the comment that it is the only at-will that does decent damage. On a direct damage over time, the at-wills should be similar. I tried a short test of Magic Missile compared to Ray of Frost and the final damage was near exact.
So is the comment more that in conjunction with other powers, ray of frost is more valuable? Is it that for a given paragon path that paragon at-wills aren't considered good and magic missile doesn't match up with what the player is doing for damage increases?
Want to make sure I'm drilling down into the specific concerns/issues.
With ray of frost you can add chills with magic missiles you cant.
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,261Arc User
This is an example of why we need accurate tooltips / information so people can do tests in a proper way. And people need to invest lots of times figuring out formulas, hidden ICDs, and other things.
About the ray of frost and mm comparison, as other people pointed, you need to see all the other things that are related to damage, not only the powers. Feats, class features, items, enchants, mounts and companions, that can interact with some type of damage, procs, etc.
But I cant believe the designer team is not aware about this, maybe we need better communication.
Arcane tempest (the power which was previously shard of endless avalanche, not sure if I got its new name right) needs to have its prone duration reduced considerably, or perhaps its cool down increased.
Also you can cancel it with a dodge and still get the prone effect without it going on cool down, that shouldn't be possible.
Why is there even a proc chance when there is an ICD? Aren't those two things used to achieve the same goal? Therefore, one of those is enough. There is no reason to put "chance" where ICD is already in use. (just shorten or prolong the duration)
and ...tooltips should be relevant. (just saying - it would prevent a lot of dissatisfaction and obviously even bug reports)
Why is there even a proc chance when there is an ICD? Aren't those two things used to achieve the same goal? Therefore, one of those is enough. There is no reason to put "chance" where ICD is already in use. (just shorten or prolong the duration)
and ...tooltips should be relevant. (just saying - it would prevent a lot of dissatisfaction and obviously even bug reports)
I was thinking the same about cast times. Having a long cast time followed by a long cooldown is a double negative, especially with the amount of interrupt npc powers the devs have introduced recently. Adding proc chances and ICDs on top and you start to get an idea of what's really going wrong with the class.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
For the comments on ray of frost being the only good at-will
This comment has been approached in different ways but one of the comments didn't match up with what I expect. And that is the comment that it is the only at-will that does decent damage. On a direct damage over time, the at-wills should be similar. I tried a short test of Magic Missile compared to Ray of Frost and the final damage was near exact.
So is the comment more that in conjunction with other powers, ray of frost is more valuable? Is it that for a given paragon path that paragon at-wills aren't considered good and magic missile doesn't match up with what the player is doing for damage increases?
Want to make sure I'm drilling down into the specific concerns/issues.
Before you balance the class, I think fixing bugs should be priority first, so balancing will be healthier. And regarding to Ray of Frost being the best atwill, people already gave many reasons above. I am going to mention a bug related about chill stacks.
Snap Freeze feat only procs when you successfully apply a stack of chill, which can be done easily with Ray of Frost. If you keep applying chill, you will keep the stacks of chill at 6 stacks, but Snap Freeze won't proc after 6 stacks. To proc Snap Freeze again, chill stacks need to fall off, so you can re apply chill. But if there are more than 1 wizard applying chill on the same target, Snap Freeze keeps procing even if target has 6 stacks. This might be because each wizard overrides other wizards chill stack and acts like a new stack on each time. I think this should be adressed and even a single wizard should be able to keep procing Snap Freeze when target has 6 stacks.
I want to mention one more bug, its the other feat choice of Snap Freeze, its called Assailing Force. If you use a damage over time encounter with the Assailing Force proc, such as Entangling Force or Ray of Enfeeblement, Assailing Force damage buff only applies for the 1st tick of the encounter, making it worse than it supposed to be. Damage bonus should work for all the ticks of the encounter.
There are many more bugs to report, many already reported before both here or in other discussions, but I don't want to make this post a giant wall of bug reports. I just want to say fixing bugs first and then trying to balance would be a much better approach, because most of the bugs wizard currently limits the wizards damage potential. Fixing these bugs would already boost a lot of damage.
For the comments on ray of frost being the only good at-will
This comment has been approached in different ways but one of the comments didn't match up with what I expect. And that is the comment that it is the only at-will that does decent damage. On a direct damage over time, the at-wills should be similar. I tried a short test of Magic Missile compared to Ray of Frost and the final damage was near exact.
So is the comment more that in conjunction with other powers, ray of frost is more valuable? Is it that for a given paragon path that paragon at-wills aren't considered good and magic missile doesn't match up with what the player is doing for damage increases?
Want to make sure I'm drilling down into the specific concerns/issues.
I want to mention one more bug, its the other feat choice of Snap Freeze, its called Assailing Force. If you use a damage over time encounter with the Assailing Force proc, such as Entangling Force or Ray of Enfeeblement, Assailing Force damage buff only applies for the 1st tick of the encounter, making it worse than it supposed to be. Damage bonus should work for all the ticks of the encounter.
Assailing Force clearly states it only doubles the Initial Damage; on a DoT this means just the first hit. That's WAI.
When AF procs. you need to take it into account when choosing your next Encounter.
I would love a reduced AP cost for Oppressive force and Fanning the Flame to 50%, this would allow both paragons to be, not more flexible, but at least useful in Aoe. Both paragons relies on Ap gain builds to be effective, so doing this would improve Wizard's capabilities. Also, the daily has nice synergy with both class features and feats (some of them needs to be fixed), and with the support/control aspect of the class.
Thaumaturge paragon needs a radical change of how smolder works, it needs to do burst damage on Aoe and addictive damage on ST. There's a lot of useless and nonsense feats that can just be removed to give place to better ones. Thauma has actually great class features but they synergy badly because of how weaker smolder is. Smoldering Recovery, Glowing Flames, Chilling advantage (pure nonsense), Burning Criticals and Directed Flames need to be improved. A magnitude increase on smolder wouldn't help if we don't get proper class feats to abuse. The lack of a proper ST At will also needs to be improved since our cooldowns are very long and we can't keep constantly damage.
Very difficult game design to build two different DPS Paragons on a single class. One nearly always ends up being superior, wasting effort toward the inferior Paragon.
Consider only 1 DPS Paragon where elements (arcane, fire, cold, lightning) may be tabbed through. Each element may have their own impact on encounters and may be used for specific purposes. For example, ice for cc/mob control, lightning for burst, fire fire DoT, arcane for some combination of the above.
Edit: you could also create synergy between elements by stacking one element before hitting the target with a different element (i.e. ice first then fire).
The 4th encounter in the default Tab (Spell Mastery) slot would be replaced for the element tabbing. This allows for magnitudes, cooldowns, and cast speeds of encounters easier to balance with those of other classes.
The alternate paragon path could be a tank, as previously mentioned. The game needs more tanks and tanks need to be more fun to play.
About the ray of frost and mm comparison, as other people pointed, you need to see all the other things that are related to damage, not only the powers. Feats, class features, items, enchants, mounts and companions, that can interact with some type of damage, procs, etc.
But I cant believe the designer team is not aware about this, maybe we need better communication.
I think the people who are up in arms about me asking for people to be clear/accurate in their call outs are missing the point of the statement for clarification.
The call out some players were making is that "Ray of Frost does more damage than other At-Wills", which isn't correct. If the call out is "Ray of Frost works better with other powers and feats to increase overall damage" then that is a fully different call out.
If someone says Ray of Frost does more damage than the other At-Wills, and then the other At-Wills get a damage increase, it still wouldn't change the situation as those damage increases wouldn't match the cohesive advantage of Ray of Frost.
My statement was to make sure people are discussing the actual issues/stating the correct situation. At any point in time the person who is interacting with the community on any given issue could have a range of experience and expertise. To make sure that works out the best, as accurate information as possible should be used. Having been the one who set the current magnitudes of Wizard At-Wills, I do have the knowledge of the different aspects of damage of them and how they relate in direct comparison which is why I knew to make the call out on that feedback.
But if I get busy and ask someone else to collect feedback from the thread to work from, they may not have that knowledge and be able to read between the lines to what is really being said.
Instead of making this a thread of combativeness, lets make it one of working together for positive changes to show how well that can work and why we should do more of it.
I know this Discussion is about focusing on 1 Power or Feature per post but I figured I'd include this General Rework for other people to add to their own ideas or support individual aspects of as they wish. Wizard won't be improved by fixing One, a few or even heck; MOST of its Powers. It needs a redesign on what it has to be more cohesive and to make each Paragon play the role it was designed for. This includes there being more than just a single blatantly better option in each area.
It's gonna be a little bit long but I won't be over-focusing on individual Powers unless mentioning how they would interact with the new Mechanics.
Wizard - No Paragon
Arcane Affinity: (Replaces Arcane Mastery) Arcane Stacks up to 5 times. 0.5% Damage increase on Arcane Powers. 8 Second Duration.
Chill: Stacks up to 4 times. Slows enemy. Cannot cause Freeze.
Class Mechanic: Spell Mastery (New) Instead of granting a 4th Encounter slot, this now switches between the Normal and Master Spell versions of your slotted Encounters in a similar way to switching weapons with a Ranger.
The way this works however is upon using the Normal version of an Encounter, you have a 50% chance to allow use of the Master Spell version. Master Spells have no CDs since they can only be Proc'd from their Normal version and thus share a CD with them. Uses of Master Spells cannot stack but can be saved for later.
Class Features:
Evocation: When not in a party, you deal 5% more Damage.
Arcane Presence: No changes.
Chilling Presence: No changes.
Echo of Mastery: (Replaces Orb of Imposition) Upon using a Master Spell, there is a 10% chance to immediately be able to use it again. 30s CD
Master Spells:
Repel: Deals 250 Magnitude Damage and Knockback to all targets within 20'. Control Immune targets receive 300 Magnitude Damage instead.
Entangling Force: Target takes 500 Magnitude Damage and all enemies within 20' are pulled toward it for 5 seconds, taking 50 Magnitude Damage per second. Control Immune targets take 300 Magnitude Damage instead.
Icy Terrain: Requires Icy Terrain (Normal) to be Active. Deals 300 Magnitude Damage to all targets standing on Icy Terrain.
Ray of Enfeeblement: Maintains current effect however if the target is killed before the effect ends, it passes to a nearby target and the duration is refreshed.
Shield: Can be applied to Self or Party members for a Shield equal to 50% of Your Max HP. When the Shield breaks you gain 5% Increased Damage for 10s. Cannot be manually broken.
Wizard - Thaumaturge
Chill becomes Chill Mastery: Works the same as Chill currently does. Stacks up to 6 times, Freezes target at max stacks with certain Powers.
Ignite: (Replaces Smoulder) Certain Powers inflict the target with Burn stacks. For each stack on a target, they take 25 Magnitude additional Damage from Fire based Powers, stacking up to 4 times. Upon reaching max stacks Burn changes to Meltdown, which causes certain Powers to consume all stacks, dealing 300 Magnitude Damage to the target and 150 Magnitude to all targets within 15'. Stacks expire after 10s, Meltdown counts as 4 Burn stacks and stacks have a 1s ICD.
Powers that Inflict Burn/Trigger Meltdown:Scorching Burst (Trigger only), Fanning the Flame (w/Feat), Fireball, Furious Immolation.
Class Feats:
Critical Conflagration: Unchanged except it now applies Burn on Critical Strike.
Swath of Destruction: Targets affected by Burn take 1% more Damage per stack, capping at 4% with Meltdown. Grants Fanning the Flame (Normal) the following effects: Applies up to 2 Stacks of Burn to all enemies within 20' of the initial target based on how many the target currently has (1 for 1/2, 2 for 3/4). If the initial target is under the effect of Meltdown, it is triggered and in addition to the Damage, a stack of Burn is applied to all targets hit. If this stack causes a target to receive Meltdown, it is also triggered but does not apply further stacks of Burn.
Combustive Action: When a target is killed by Meltdown Damage, gain 3% of your Max AP.
Frost Wave: No changes.
Master Spells:
Fanning the Flame: Deals 75 Magnitude Damage per stack of Burn applied to targets up to a maximum of 10 for a Max of 750 Magnitude in a 15' radius around you. Consumes a Stack of Burn from each target hit and does not trigger Meltdown.
Icy Rays: Creates a Magic Array that follows you and strikes a target randomly for 100 Magnitude Damage every second for 5s. Each hit adds a stack of Chill and can Freeze the target. Range 40'.
Chill Strike: Hits all targets including those near the initial target for 250 Magnitude Damage. Deals an extra 50 Magnitude to any target standing on Icy Terrain (Normal).
Conduit of Ice: Freezes and refreshes the duration of Freeze on all targets hit. Applies 2 Stacks of Chill but deals no damage. 30' Radius.
Fireball: Becomes a Targeted AoE that deals 750 Magnitude Damage in a 20' area. Adds Burn to all targets. Can trigger Meltdown.
Paragon Feats: (Only where changes apply)
Burning Recovery: (Replaces Smoldering Recovery) When a target inflicted with Burn or Meltdown dies, restore 0.5% of your Max HP per stack. 5s CD
Glowing Flames: (New) When Meltdown is applied to a target, nearby targets take 100 Magnitude Damage.
Destructive Field: (Replaces Chilling Advantage) When a target effected by Meltdown dies, gain a stack of Destructive Field, stacking up to 3 times. Your next AoE Power consumes all stacks to deal an additional 50 Magnitude Damage per stack.
Critical Burn: (New) Gain 10% Critical Severity. Meltdown now has a 50% chance to Crit on activation.
Cascade Meltdown: (Replaces Directed Flames) When a stack of Burn is applied to a target there is a 20% chance Meltdown will be applied instead.
Rimefire: (Replaces Rimefire Weaving) Targets take 1% increased Damage for each Chill or Burn stack on them to a maximum of 10%.
Wizard - Arcanist
Arcane Affinity becomes Arcane Mastery: Gain 1% Damage increase on Arcane Powers per stack. Stacks 5 times. Stacks now last 15 seconds.
Storm Mark: (New) When hit by certain Lightning based Powers, targets receive the Storm Mark effect for 10s. While Storm Mark is applied, the target takes 20% more damage from Lightning based Powers. Certain Powers can consume Storm Mark for additional Damage or effects.
At-Will: Storm Pillar (New) When fully charged, places a Storm Pillar near the target that lasts 6s and deals 100 Magnitude Damage to a single nearby target every 2s. When it would expire, Storm Pillar will attempt to consume Storm Mark from a nearby target to refresh its duration.
No longer refreshes Arcane/Chill stacks.
Class Feats:
Eye of the Storm: Using a Daily or Encounter Power deals 100 Magnitude damage to all targets with Storm Mark within 20' of you and refreshes its duration. Can only occur once every 20s.
Storm Spell: Effect unchanged. Additionally applies Storm Mark to the target.
Storm Fury: When struck by a target effected by Storm Mark, deal 50 Magnitude Damage to them. Additionally, Storm Mark deals 50 Magnitude Damage to a target when applied.
Arcane Power Field: Duration increased to 10s. Magnitude 100. Has a visual effect now.
Master Spells:
Lightning Bolt: Deals 400 Magnitude Damage to the target and creates an electrified area at that location for 5s that applies Storm Mark to all targets that enter and deals 100 Magnitude damage to any target already effected by Storm Mark as well as refreshing its duration.
Disintegrate: Deals 500 Magnitude Damage to the target. Consumes Storm Mark to deal an additional 250 Magnitude Damage.
Steal Time: Deals 400 Magnitude Damage to the target and Heals you for 50% of the Damage dealt over 5s. While this healing effect is active, most lethal damage will not kill you.
Arcane Tempest: Deals 350 Magnitude Damage around you and consumes Storm Mark from a single target hit to change the damage type to Lightning.
Imprisonment: Reduces the target's Outgoing Damage by 25% for 5s. If the target has Storm Mark it is consumed and they take 500 Magnitude Damage as well.
Paragon Feats: (Only where changes apply)
Arcane Static: (Replaces Alacrity) Arcane powers deal an additional 50 Magnitude Damage to targets effected by Storm Mark.
Precise Casting: (Replaces Snap Freeze) If an Encounter Power hits a Single Target, it deals an additional 100 Magnitude Damage. If it hits more than 2 targets, the Magnitude decreases by 50 per target.
Iced Lightning: (New) Cold based powers now deal Lightning damage, however still apply Chill.
A Step Above Mastery: (New) While Arcane Empowerment is active, Max Arcane stacks are increased to 10. Increases the Damage bonus granted by Arcane stacks by an additional 0.5%.
Elemental Reinforcement: (New) Casting the Same Type of elemental Power in succession grants stacks of Elemental Reinforcement up to a max of 3. When casting a Power of a different element, all stacks are consumed to increase the Damage dealt by 5% per stack.
greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
Fireball: revert the Mastery setting so that it isn't single target.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
Lina Inverse votes for fireball. It needs to look epic. It needs to perform epic. Fireball is the wizard spell that everyone recognizes as a wizard coming of age. It needs to be awesome. It needs to inspire the TR and HR to reroll into a CW. Don't let the little boys fool you, the size matters. And...the magic that is in it. Make fireball ginormous!
I know this is not about wizard powers, but there is something that has needed attention for quite a while. Wizard main-hand artifact weapon's modification list shows 6 powers - like all other classes. HOWEVER, 5 are at-wills and the 6th reads "Lightning Bolt" which is an encounter. I believe it should be "Storm Pillar" and NOT "Lightning Bolt".
Imprisonment - it is supposed to be the best/final encounter power but is never used (even with arcane empowerment on bosses, its not worth slotting, and even if it was made useful then, its too specific a use for a 'best' power.) Also arcanist has 4 other spells for using with arcane empowerment, but is more lacking more in fast aoe damage. And, although its a great high level power in a role playing game, where scenes are being acted out between characters, its not any good for an action rpg.
Suggestion - new spell called 'whirlwind', the same name as a lvl 7 d&d wizard spell, and in keeping with the 'storm'ish theme of arcanist. For the effect make it a fast acting, high damage AoE - it would be something like a cross between arcane tempest, icy terrain and steal time, so it would complement them for playstyle > it would center round the caster, as we need to play that way already for steal time/icy terrain to work > it would have a cast time like tempest, so no interruptions and fast acting > damage would happen quickly - if not instantly then like entangling force with a few fast ticks all done in 2 secs > range would be 20 foot (an average of the 3 other AoEs) > magnitude 350-400 (since wizards are behind a lot in aoe damage) > optionally there could be a daze/stun/slow, but really wizard needs more damage than 'control'
For the comments on ray of frost being the only good at-will
This comment has been approached in different ways but one of the comments didn't match up with what I expect. And that is the comment that it is the only at-will that does decent damage. On a direct damage over time, the at-wills should be similar. I tried a short test of Magic Missile compared to Ray of Frost and the final damage was near exact.
So is the comment more that in conjunction with other powers, ray of frost is more valuable? Is it that for a given paragon path that paragon at-wills aren't considered good and magic missile doesn't match up with what the player is doing for damage increases?
Want to make sure I'm drilling down into the specific concerns/issues.
I want to mention one more bug, its the other feat choice of Snap Freeze, its called Assailing Force. If you use a damage over time encounter with the Assailing Force proc, such as Entangling Force or Ray of Enfeeblement, Assailing Force damage buff only applies for the 1st tick of the encounter, making it worse than it supposed to be. Damage bonus should work for all the ticks of the encounter.
Assailing Force clearly states it only doubles the Initial Damage; on a DoT this means just the first hit. That's WAI.
When AF procs. you need to take it into account when choosing your next Encounter.
I don't know if its intended to work like that. What I would expect from "initial damage" is, damage without feat/class feature procs, basically its base damage. I think its one of those missleading tooltips. I guess we can only be sure if @noworries#8859 can confirm how it supposed to work. If its really intended to boost a first tick of a damage over time encounter, then it should be changed into buffing the whole encounter damage, not just the first tick. Because a feat buffing only on a first tick of a dot encounter is not really effective and does not even make sense in my opinion.
Mana bar that fullfills in battle, decrease cast speed, cooldown and increase AP gaining speed.
BTW i have a strong feel, that damage modificier already capped at 50% so increasing dmg % wouldn`t help for damage level. Can we get off some modificiers and increase magnitude damage ^_^
BTW 2 Low magnitude damage on skills killing all modificiers. Thaurm can get up to +40-50% dmg on feats and skills(10% from smolder, passive skill 10% to all aoe and Tab slot and 1.25%+0.5% for every frost on a target that stacks up to x2) but in the end get zero bonus damage. Heh. Normal skill that gives good magnitude is fireball but it has long cast time - 1.1 seconds X_X. And 2nd notice that while im on scaling in dungeon damage output is good, but without scale, im losing it at all. Arcane. While using pillar of storm still can be stucked. If you use it on a target and if it dies from another shot, skill sometimes can be frozen, you can`t move on wasd, only shift. Steal of time - long cast time, cooldown bug, can easily intercept. new aoe gravity skill, sometimes give zero damage on a long distance target.
In my opinion, Wizard lack of good aoe At-Will, and Storm Pillar is not good enough . But i think, with a bit of changes encounter Lightning bolt could be a good at-will. It could hit enemies in cone in front of character with linghning strikes or something like this. And Storm pillar would be a good encounter for a single target + in a spell mastery it could be an AoE skill, you know just swap those 2 existing powers and it can be good. (sorry for my english but its not my first language, so if u dont understand something you can ask)
Here's my idea: change the storm spell, increase the chance of shocking rate, or increase the damage, or increase both.
Reason: Since a lots people keep saying changing one power is not enough, but by changing the storm spell feat will effecting most of the skill's damage.
The cast time for wizards is terrible. Rogues down ALL the mobs before our second encounter. If you're not going to fix cast time, then raise our magnitude by 10 percent across the board AND allow our abilities/weapon enchants to proc more often (like spellstorm) during dots like smolder. During the river district expansion CWs were strong and it looks so awesome with spell storm procing everywhere.....if you're not going to do that, then make fireball 1000 magnitude
Or make control ACTUALLY matter: let it affect bosses by giving our whole group combat advantage or an additional 5 percent damage for our party.
To my mind, the only justification for a long cast time is that the encounter is super-powerful but as someone who plays all classes, I know that the Wizard encounters are absolutely not.
Most of the powerful AoE encounters of all other DPS classes are instant or almost instant in their cast times and are often more powerful than those available to the Wizard.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
In my opinion, Wizard lack of good aoe At-Will, and Storm Pillar is not good enough . But i think, with a bit of changes encounter Lightning bolt could be a good at-will. It could hit enemies in cone in front of character with linghning strikes or something like this. And Storm pillar would be a good encounter for a single target + in a spell mastery it could be an AoE skill, you know just swap those 2 existing powers and it can be good. (sorry for my english but its not my first language, so if u dont understand something you can ask)
You're talking about Arcanist which has no business doing anything AoE based.
For the comments on ray of frost being the only good at-will
This comment has been approached in different ways but one of the comments didn't match up with what I expect. And that is the comment that it is the only at-will that does decent damage. On a direct damage over time, the at-wills should be similar. I tried a short test of Magic Missile compared to Ray of Frost and the final damage was near exact.
So is the comment more that in conjunction with other powers, ray of frost is more valuable? Is it that for a given paragon path that paragon at-wills aren't considered good and magic missile doesn't match up with what the player is doing for damage increases?
Want to make sure I'm drilling down into the specific concerns/issues.
The fact that Ray of Frost procs things quicker AND has a higher AP gain than Magic Missile makes it a far more valuable At-Will than Magic Missile. Magic Missile really procs Bilethorn a smidge faster than Ray of Frost and that's it. This is why folks choose Ray of Frost over Magic Missile in today's Wizard Builds.
In my opinion, Wizard lack of good aoe At-Will, and Storm Pillar is not good enough . But i think, with a bit of changes encounter Lightning bolt could be a good at-will. It could hit enemies in cone in front of character with linghning strikes or something like this. And Storm pillar would be a good encounter for a single target + in a spell mastery it could be an AoE skill, you know just swap those 2 existing powers and it can be good. (sorry for my english but its not my first language, so if u dont understand something you can ask)
You're talking about Arcanist which has no business doing anything AoE based.
Thaumaturge is for AoE. Arcanist is for ST only.
You're wrong, arcanist is much better for aoe damage since he's able to randomly get free combat advantage (nightmare wizardry). And thaumaturge has better st dps than arcanist not using empowerment daily. Only empowerment used at right timing, when all buffs (artifacts, mounts) are up, makes the difference. Both paragons can be played aoe or st, if the right feats and powers are used.
I know this is not about wizard powers, but there is something that has needed attention for quite a while. Wizard main-hand artifact weapon's modification list shows 6 powers - like all other classes. HOWEVER, 5 are at-wills and the 6th reads "Lightning Bolt" which is an encounter. I believe it should be "Storm Pillar" and NOT "Lightning Bolt".
I believe this has been reported as a bug a few times. It's just a display bug and it properly applies the damage increase to Storm Pillar. Also... The wrong Icon is used in the list.
Comments
About the ray of frost and mm comparison, as other people pointed, you need to see all the other things that are related to damage, not only the powers. Feats, class features, items, enchants, mounts and companions, that can interact with some type of damage, procs, etc.
But I cant believe the designer team is not aware about this, maybe we need better communication.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
Also you can cancel it with a dodge and still get the prone effect without it going on cool down, that shouldn't be possible.
Therefore, one of those is enough. There is no reason to put "chance" where ICD is already in use. (just shorten or prolong the duration)
and ...tooltips should be relevant. (just saying - it would prevent a lot of dissatisfaction and obviously even bug reports)
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
Snap Freeze feat only procs when you successfully apply a stack of chill, which can be done easily with Ray of Frost. If you keep applying chill, you will keep the stacks of chill at 6 stacks, but Snap Freeze won't proc after 6 stacks. To proc Snap Freeze again, chill stacks need to fall off, so you can re apply chill. But if there are more than 1 wizard applying chill on the same target, Snap Freeze keeps procing even if target has 6 stacks. This might be because each wizard overrides other wizards chill stack and acts like a new stack on each time. I think this should be adressed and even a single wizard should be able to keep procing Snap Freeze when target has 6 stacks.
I want to mention one more bug, its the other feat choice of Snap Freeze, its called Assailing Force. If you use a damage over time encounter with the Assailing Force proc, such as Entangling Force or Ray of Enfeeblement, Assailing Force damage buff only applies for the 1st tick of the encounter, making it worse than it supposed to be. Damage bonus should work for all the ticks of the encounter.
There are many more bugs to report, many already reported before both here or in other discussions, but I don't want to make this post a giant wall of bug reports. I just want to say fixing bugs first and then trying to balance would be a much better approach, because most of the bugs wizard currently limits the wizards damage potential. Fixing these bugs would already boost a lot of damage.
Assailing Force clearly states it only doubles the Initial Damage; on a DoT this means just the first hit. That's WAI.
When AF procs. you need to take it into account when choosing your next Encounter.
Smoldering Recovery, Glowing Flames, Chilling advantage (pure nonsense), Burning Criticals and Directed Flames need to be improved. A magnitude increase on smolder wouldn't help if we don't get proper class feats to abuse.
The lack of a proper ST At will also needs to be improved since our cooldowns are very long and we can't keep constantly damage.
Consider only 1 DPS Paragon where elements (arcane, fire, cold, lightning) may be tabbed through. Each element may have their own impact on encounters and may be used for specific purposes. For example, ice for cc/mob control, lightning for burst, fire fire DoT, arcane for some combination of the above.
Edit: you could also create synergy between elements by stacking one element before hitting the target with a different element (i.e. ice first then fire).
The 4th encounter in the default Tab (Spell Mastery) slot would be replaced for the element tabbing. This allows for magnitudes, cooldowns, and cast speeds of encounters easier to balance with those of other classes.
The alternate paragon path could be a tank, as previously mentioned. The game needs more tanks and tanks need to be more fun to play.
I feel the effort here is worth it.
The call out some players were making is that "Ray of Frost does more damage than other At-Wills", which isn't correct. If the call out is "Ray of Frost works better with other powers and feats to increase overall damage" then that is a fully different call out.
If someone says Ray of Frost does more damage than the other At-Wills, and then the other At-Wills get a damage increase, it still wouldn't change the situation as those damage increases wouldn't match the cohesive advantage of Ray of Frost.
My statement was to make sure people are discussing the actual issues/stating the correct situation. At any point in time the person who is interacting with the community on any given issue could have a range of experience and expertise. To make sure that works out the best, as accurate information as possible should be used. Having been the one who set the current magnitudes of Wizard At-Wills, I do have the knowledge of the different aspects of damage of them and how they relate in direct comparison which is why I knew to make the call out on that feedback.
But if I get busy and ask someone else to collect feedback from the thread to work from, they may not have that knowledge and be able to read between the lines to what is really being said.
Instead of making this a thread of combativeness, lets make it one of working together for positive changes to show how well that can work and why we should do more of it.
It's gonna be a little bit long but I won't be over-focusing on individual Powers unless mentioning how they would interact with the new Mechanics.
Wizard - No Paragon
Arcane Affinity: (Replaces Arcane Mastery)
Arcane Stacks up to 5 times. 0.5% Damage increase on Arcane Powers. 8 Second Duration.
Chill:
Stacks up to 4 times. Slows enemy. Cannot cause Freeze.
Class Mechanic: Spell Mastery (New)
Instead of granting a 4th Encounter slot, this now switches between the Normal and Master Spell versions of your slotted Encounters in a similar way to switching weapons with a Ranger.
The way this works however is upon using the Normal version of an Encounter, you have a 50% chance to allow use of the Master Spell version. Master Spells have no CDs since they can only be Proc'd from their Normal version and thus share a CD with them. Uses of Master Spells cannot stack but can be saved for later.
Class Features:
Evocation:
When not in a party, you deal 5% more Damage.
Arcane Presence:
No changes.
Chilling Presence:
No changes.
Echo of Mastery: (Replaces Orb of Imposition)
Upon using a Master Spell, there is a 10% chance to immediately be able to use it again. 30s CD
Master Spells:
Repel:
Deals 250 Magnitude Damage and Knockback to all targets within 20'. Control Immune targets receive 300 Magnitude Damage instead.
Entangling Force:
Target takes 500 Magnitude Damage and all enemies within 20' are pulled toward it for 5 seconds, taking 50 Magnitude Damage per second. Control Immune targets take 300 Magnitude Damage instead.
Icy Terrain:
Requires Icy Terrain (Normal) to be Active. Deals 300 Magnitude Damage to all targets standing on Icy Terrain.
Ray of Enfeeblement:
Maintains current effect however if the target is killed before the effect ends, it passes to a nearby target and the duration is refreshed.
Shield:
Can be applied to Self or Party members for a Shield equal to 50% of Your Max HP. When the Shield breaks you gain 5% Increased Damage for 10s. Cannot be manually broken.
Wizard - Thaumaturge
Chill becomes Chill Mastery:
Works the same as Chill currently does. Stacks up to 6 times, Freezes target at max stacks with certain Powers.
Ignite: (Replaces Smoulder)
Certain Powers inflict the target with Burn stacks. For each stack on a target, they take 25 Magnitude additional Damage from Fire based Powers, stacking up to 4 times. Upon reaching max stacks Burn changes to Meltdown, which causes certain Powers to consume all stacks, dealing 300 Magnitude Damage to the target and 150 Magnitude to all targets within 15'. Stacks expire after 10s, Meltdown counts as 4 Burn stacks and stacks have a 1s ICD.
Powers that Inflict Burn/Trigger Meltdown: Scorching Burst (Trigger only), Fanning the Flame (w/Feat), Fireball, Furious Immolation.
Class Feats:
Critical Conflagration:
Unchanged except it now applies Burn on Critical Strike.
Swath of Destruction:
Targets affected by Burn take 1% more Damage per stack, capping at 4% with Meltdown.
Grants Fanning the Flame (Normal) the following effects:
Applies up to 2 Stacks of Burn to all enemies within 20' of the initial target based on how many the target currently has (1 for 1/2, 2 for 3/4). If the initial target is under the effect of Meltdown, it is triggered and in addition to the Damage, a stack of Burn is applied to all targets hit. If this stack causes a target to receive Meltdown, it is also triggered but does not apply further stacks of Burn.
Combustive Action:
When a target is killed by Meltdown Damage, gain 3% of your Max AP.
Frost Wave:
No changes.
Master Spells:
Fanning the Flame:
Deals 75 Magnitude Damage per stack of Burn applied to targets up to a maximum of 10 for a Max of 750 Magnitude in a 15' radius around you. Consumes a Stack of Burn from each target hit and does not trigger Meltdown.
Icy Rays:
Creates a Magic Array that follows you and strikes a target randomly for 100 Magnitude Damage every second for 5s. Each hit adds a stack of Chill and can Freeze the target. Range 40'.
Chill Strike:
Hits all targets including those near the initial target for 250 Magnitude Damage. Deals an extra 50 Magnitude to any target standing on Icy Terrain (Normal).
Conduit of Ice:
Freezes and refreshes the duration of Freeze on all targets hit. Applies 2 Stacks of Chill but deals no damage. 30' Radius.
Fireball:
Becomes a Targeted AoE that deals 750 Magnitude Damage in a 20' area. Adds Burn to all targets. Can trigger Meltdown.
Paragon Feats: (Only where changes apply)
Burning Recovery: (Replaces Smoldering Recovery)
When a target inflicted with Burn or Meltdown dies, restore 0.5% of your Max HP per stack. 5s CD
Glowing Flames: (New)
When Meltdown is applied to a target, nearby targets take 100 Magnitude Damage.
Destructive Field: (Replaces Chilling Advantage)
When a target effected by Meltdown dies, gain a stack of Destructive Field, stacking up to 3 times. Your next AoE Power consumes all stacks to deal an additional 50 Magnitude Damage per stack.
Critical Burn: (New)
Gain 10% Critical Severity. Meltdown now has a 50% chance to Crit on activation.
Cascade Meltdown: (Replaces Directed Flames)
When a stack of Burn is applied to a target there is a 20% chance Meltdown will be applied instead.
Rimefire: (Replaces Rimefire Weaving)
Targets take 1% increased Damage for each Chill or Burn stack on them to a maximum of 10%.
Wizard - Arcanist
Arcane Affinity becomes Arcane Mastery:
Gain 1% Damage increase on Arcane Powers per stack. Stacks 5 times. Stacks now last 15 seconds.
Storm Mark: (New)
When hit by certain Lightning based Powers, targets receive the Storm Mark effect for 10s. While Storm Mark is applied, the target takes 20% more damage from Lightning based Powers. Certain Powers can consume Storm Mark for additional Damage or effects.
At-Will: Storm Pillar (New)
When fully charged, places a Storm Pillar near the target that lasts 6s and deals 100 Magnitude Damage to a single nearby target every 2s. When it would expire, Storm Pillar will attempt to consume Storm Mark from a nearby target to refresh its duration.
No longer refreshes Arcane/Chill stacks.
Class Feats:
Eye of the Storm:
Using a Daily or Encounter Power deals 100 Magnitude damage to all targets with Storm Mark within 20' of you and refreshes its duration. Can only occur once every 20s.
Storm Spell:
Effect unchanged. Additionally applies Storm Mark to the target.
Storm Fury:
When struck by a target effected by Storm Mark, deal 50 Magnitude Damage to them. Additionally, Storm Mark deals 50 Magnitude Damage to a target when applied.
Arcane Power Field:
Duration increased to 10s. Magnitude 100. Has a visual effect now.
Master Spells:
Lightning Bolt:
Deals 400 Magnitude Damage to the target and creates an electrified area at that location for 5s that applies Storm Mark to all targets that enter and deals 100 Magnitude damage to any target already effected by Storm Mark as well as refreshing its duration.
Disintegrate:
Deals 500 Magnitude Damage to the target. Consumes Storm Mark to deal an additional 250 Magnitude Damage.
Steal Time:
Deals 400 Magnitude Damage to the target and Heals you for 50% of the Damage dealt over 5s. While this healing effect is active, most lethal damage will not kill you.
Arcane Tempest:
Deals 350 Magnitude Damage around you and consumes Storm Mark from a single target hit to change the damage type to Lightning.
Imprisonment:
Reduces the target's Outgoing Damage by 25% for 5s. If the target has Storm Mark it is consumed and they take 500 Magnitude Damage as well.
Paragon Feats: (Only where changes apply)
Arcane Static: (Replaces Alacrity)
Arcane powers deal an additional 50 Magnitude Damage to targets effected by Storm Mark.
Precise Casting: (Replaces Snap Freeze)
If an Encounter Power hits a Single Target, it deals an additional 100 Magnitude Damage. If it hits more than 2 targets, the Magnitude decreases by 50 per target.
Iced Lightning: (New)
Cold based powers now deal Lightning damage, however still apply Chill.
A Step Above Mastery: (New)
While Arcane Empowerment is active, Max Arcane stacks are increased to 10. Increases the Damage bonus granted by Arcane stacks by an additional 0.5%.
Elemental Reinforcement: (New)
Casting the Same Type of elemental Power in succession grants stacks of Elemental Reinforcement up to a max of 3. When casting a Power of a different element, all stacks are consumed to increase the Damage dealt by 5% per stack.
My Wizard Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing
My Arbiter Cleric guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZGOcQIMLCh5I4lrH63REK5YVsa3Kpk1hOyfic21z8k/edit?usp=sharing
Suggestion - new spell called 'whirlwind', the same name as a lvl 7 d&d wizard spell, and in keeping with the 'storm'ish theme of arcanist. For the effect make it a fast acting, high damage AoE - it would be something like a cross between arcane tempest, icy terrain and steal time, so it would complement them for playstyle
> it would center round the caster, as we need to play that way already for steal time/icy terrain to work
> it would have a cast time like tempest, so no interruptions and fast acting
> damage would happen quickly - if not instantly then like entangling force with a few fast ticks all done in 2 secs
> range would be 20 foot (an average of the 3 other AoEs)
> magnitude 350-400 (since wizards are behind a lot in aoe damage)
> optionally there could be a daze/stun/slow, but really wizard needs more damage than 'control'
BTW i have a strong feel, that damage modificier already capped at 50% so increasing dmg % wouldn`t help for damage level. Can we get off some modificiers and increase magnitude damage ^_^
BTW 2
Low magnitude damage on skills killing all modificiers. Thaurm can get up to +40-50% dmg on feats and skills(10% from smolder, passive skill 10% to all aoe and Tab slot and 1.25%+0.5% for every frost on a target that stacks up to x2) but in the end get zero bonus damage. Heh. Normal skill that gives good magnitude is fireball but it has long cast time - 1.1 seconds X_X. And 2nd notice that while im on scaling in dungeon damage output is good, but without scale, im losing it at all.
Arcane. While using pillar of storm still can be stucked. If you use it on a target and if it dies from another shot, skill sometimes can be frozen, you can`t move on wasd, only shift. Steal of time - long cast time, cooldown bug, can easily intercept. new aoe gravity skill, sometimes give zero damage on a long distance target.
(sorry for my english but its not my first language, so if u dont understand something you can ask)
Reason: Since a lots people keep saying changing one power is not enough, but by changing the storm spell feat will effecting most of the skill's damage.
+1 if agree
Or make control ACTUALLY matter: let it affect bosses by giving our whole group combat advantage or an additional 5 percent damage for our party.
#makesupportmatter
Or
#makecwshithardagain
Most of the powerful AoE encounters of all other DPS classes are instant or almost instant in their cast times and are often more powerful than those available to the Wizard.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
You're talking about Arcanist which has no business doing anything AoE based.
Thaumaturge is for AoE. Arcanist is for ST only.
And thaumaturge has better st dps than arcanist not using empowerment daily. Only empowerment used at right timing, when all buffs (artifacts, mounts) are up, makes the difference.
Both paragons can be played aoe or st, if the right feats and powers are used.
My Wizard Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing
My Arbiter Cleric guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZGOcQIMLCh5I4lrH63REK5YVsa3Kpk1hOyfic21z8k/edit?usp=sharing