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Controlling Wizard thoughts......
sheepdog3
Member Posts: 42 Arc User
Here is where I thought to put a thread for the Controlling Wizard and everyone to put in their input.
My initial thoughts (and I will be updating as I progress more) as of level 9 are this........a bit disappointing.
In the initial videos they showed the wizard as having much more control of the battlefield, but by playing solo and in some of the instances when getting swarmed on by 3-6 mobs, you have no AoE (i.e. Color Spray type control spell). All of my control spells at this level seem to work on one creature. Would be good if the damage output of the wizard were more (my Beta 1 Cleric did more damage.)
Don't get me wrong, I like the class and I know with DnD from 1st edition on, Wizards have always had a hard life early on in their careers with survival, so I am just hoping that they improve later on.
So if anyone has hit level 15 or 20 yet can please put some input in I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!
My initial thoughts (and I will be updating as I progress more) as of level 9 are this........a bit disappointing.
In the initial videos they showed the wizard as having much more control of the battlefield, but by playing solo and in some of the instances when getting swarmed on by 3-6 mobs, you have no AoE (i.e. Color Spray type control spell). All of my control spells at this level seem to work on one creature. Would be good if the damage output of the wizard were more (my Beta 1 Cleric did more damage.)
Don't get me wrong, I like the class and I know with DnD from 1st edition on, Wizards have always had a hard life early on in their careers with survival, so I am just hoping that they improve later on.
So if anyone has hit level 15 or 20 yet can please put some input in I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!
"We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world...The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog...He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep...Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep...Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
Post edited by sheepdog3 on
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Comments
Yeah you'll get swarmed by 3-6 mobs, but don't freak out stay calm and use your stuns and ray of frost to keep the majority of them from you. Teleport away when needed and keep those stuns coming.
that sounds great but not practical due to your slows and stuns being single target. your enocunter power that stuns last maybe 2 seconds while the cleric has a root that is aoe that can easily hold 3-5 people for a much longer period of time.
4 people coming at me. Start with the encounter storm, choke another, push another. teleport away, Magic missle, done. You need to change your powers when you get different ones to suit your style.
I always get rid of the ice spike and take the mage hand(push power) much better.
The snow storm encounter power is a small aoe that does damage to everyone and puts chill on them.
Choke is great versus everyone but Bosses.
The ice spike is the good damage power but has no control.
Too situational. Only really useful for mobs with high hitpoints because weaker mobs die long before they can get 6 stacks and freeze. Does sub par damage compared to magic missile so its rarely used.
IMO stacks should build quicker
I played the wizard till about level 8, then switched out to the cleric and warrior. This is my first try at the game, and the wizard fared the worst.
The class might improve later on, but the other classes just played better right now and definitely were more powerful. The cleric right now is obviously doing higher dps and can heal himself. It could also be that since he can self heal, the dps just seems higher. But bottomline, he feels more powerful. This is a simple numbers issue, if the wizard is bumped up in dps, things should even out easily.
To the comment about not knowing how to play the wizard, there should be little skill involved at levels 1-10. We're all exploring the classes, and we're talking more about class comparison and the wizard as of Beta 2 feels weaker, and not quite as satisfying.
Regarding the Controller wizard issue, I can't comment too much. It seems strange that Ray of Frost is the right mouse click. I don't think it slows a target all that much and I know it will freeze after 6 stacks but playing solo, this is not very useful. I have to agree with the poster above that for a control wizard, he should have much more AoE spells. It might get better at higher levels, but I just don't understand how a DPS wizard would differ. Right down this control wizard is good for Single target dps, 1 good daily AoE spell only.
Overall a fun class, but needs some tweaks which I'm confident will occur. After all this is the wizard's weekend debut.
- Use feat points. Do not make your wizard have stronger or longer holds. Instead, work towards making its cooldowns lower. It is better.
- Use spell mastery. Best spell to put there is Repel imo. It will push multiple mobs away from you with a light press at tab.
- Use small stuns. Many powers give you a breathing moment when you use them, like just you stopped using power A, the monster gets stunned for 0.5 s before it attacks you. Even if its damage is low, use it.
- Play in a party. Do not attack first. Let others attack and after they have attacked the mob, then hold the monster so you don't get the aggro. Your daily fills up with hold, not damage. Hold as much as you can. Leave damage for others.
- Daily. Daily is where you shine. Choose and use wisely.
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Lastly, ask the devs during feedback to replace the useless freezing ray at-will with some better control option.
Maybe the warlock will be fire based.
It would be better if Ray of Frost was changed as it very much is a grouping spell. The CW shines in a party for sure. Having 4 encounter power with one being very powerful is a nice touch.
My best moment was using the Daily on the spiders in the kobold mission and they both landed on traps for an insta kill. Freaking awesome. The class isn't bad, just more difficult than the Guardian/Cleric but I feel on par with the Trickster in difficulty.
hi
im just testing out the fourm area don't mind my message it means nothing.
Put Repel in Tab at level 9
That is the best and for most part only AoE. You can even push 4 monsters to their death from a cliff with a push of button.
I did, as soon as I got it. I think the CW Arcane Mastery (AM) mechanic needs a bit of work. Several abilities are too weak without it and the AM versions should be made the standard version. For example, Repel, should be an AOE push by default, and perhaps add something else for AM, like adds stacks of Chill to all enemies hit. Entangling Force definitely needs a longer duration by default, but leave the "pull in other enemies" effect with AM. Icy Terrain should be targeted by default. Chill should either freeze mobs at 4 or 5 stacks instead of 6, or increase the duration of the freeze effect and how much damage is needed to break them from it.
Overall, I like the potential of the Control Wizard, but it just needs a lot more balancing.
Bad.
Arcane and frost do not seem to work together at all. Frost is far more useful than arcane seems to be, just based off of trying two builds, trying to synergize the powers, and trying to survive.
Let's take a look at the powers:
Chill strike: This is your best ability. If you take this off of your action bar, you'd better have teammates, because you're not killing much.
Entangling force: Good control, not long enough to actually DO anything. Single target. In instances it helps with the boss, or solo it might act as an interrupt, but that's about it.
Conduit of Ice: Based on your talent choices later, it looks like you better get used to it. It's not a very good AoE (see priests searing light or burning whatever, those rock as AoEs), and the control it offers you is very low - not even decent as a slow.
Repel: Good unless you're in an instance. Doesn't lock them down so much as delay them. I'm neutral about this one. It needs the AoE power inherent to be somewhat useful.
Ray of Enfeeblement: We're a debuffer? This power has no control mechanic to it whatsoever, save for lowering enemies power to hit. I think this should have a control mechanic assigned to it of some sort. Sad thing is, with some abilities, we make better debuffers than controllers.
Icy Terrain: Without it being targetable, there's not really a reason to use this. Most mobs get out of it pretty quickly, so the slow component should be improved somewhat, perhaps more of a root.
Steal time: I tried to make this work. Even empowered. It just seems you take too much damage for this to be viable. Anyhow, I can play with it more to see if there's ways to synergize it, but I think the overall "meh" that is Arcane is the problem more than this power.
OVerall, frost is much stronger than arcane for your role. I love magic missile, but the clouds at will... why take something else if it's not going to synergize with your abilities?
I spent several hours trying to get arcane working, but it made me far more squishy than frost, so I just neded up giving up save for 1-2 good "get away" abilities.
Also, dear lord, I though the rogue was squishy. The control wizard (even with the easy-mode this game is) goes down like a dress on prom night. His damage is sub-par, and he rarely out-DPSes a priest (which may be intended, but there is no "metric" for control). In fact, I out-healed several, which you will have to learn to love as you level, because your spare cash is going into potions. I played all three classes; all except the wizard had enough gold at 20 to get their mount. I was about 40s short.
Secondly, aside from GW and DC, potion chugging as a way of staying alive needs to go. It's not "actiony" to be hitting your 3 and 4 buttons every 5-6 seconds to stay alive. They need different dynamics which feed into health of some sort.
By level 9, I was ready to quit the wizard, but I persisted up to level 25. And while the experience comes readily, as with any other class, it's possibly the most tedious class to level. None of your abilities synergize well, and I'm just left with the feeling of mashing buttons, not keeping foes locked down. The longest "lockdown" you have is less than 4 seconds. The PBAoE dynmics and AoEs you do have are just outstripped by the cleric (who has no problem firing off loads of AoE controlling, and longer holds, too).
I think the "extra encounter power" dynamic seems like a bit of a cop-out. Whatever mechanic was visualized didn't work, so it was taken out for an extra ability. DC works well. The rogues stealth bar seems to be working fine. GW block mechanic really rocks (so several tanks who've made 30 have told me). Hate to say it, but I think the current method isn't going to make the CW fun to play, as opposed to other classes.
I'm leaving off there as I have to attend my "Potions Anonymous" meeting. I just went on a bender.
This seems very limited - many times you don't want a big pushback in an instance. Just like you don't want a fear. I rambled on my post, but I do want to say, the main problem is synergizing abilities.
Literally, if they made a ******* of the cleric and CW mechanics, it would work as a controller much better than the wizard does now. The cleric has very good synergy, two modes which compliment each other, and his "divine mode" buffs really tend to make the wizard mediocre in comparison when controlling the battlefield. They also do better damage and heal. :-/
Control wizard is fine, its a CC class, CC class are a support class not a soloist, if you want to solo choose a class more suited for it, the problem here is people instantly want to turn this game into WoW where every class is the same, and the only diffrences is flavor spells and mechanics
Control wizard will always be about high control, low damage, low health, thats just what they do, and you cannot judge what a class can do at such low lvl
Then in those situations I would recommend Ray of Frost and the Grab spell. The biggest way you can customize your character in this game isn't by passive decisions made while leveling up - it's changing your powers to suite the situation at a campfire. The wizards have a variety of powers suited to handle any situation, but trust me, the first time 100 adds pop during a dungeon delve boss, you're going to wish you had AOE knockbacks. Many encounters are simply not survivable without them.
But by the way Ray of Frost synergizes extremely well with the AOE power that covers the ground in ice and adds chill stacks to monster going over it, a power which shares a feat buff with the strangle grab. Very useful for controlling movement through tight corridors.
This pretty much sums up the class to me. I see no Control in the Control Wizard. Got one up to 20, but my cleric is just making :eek: at lv17, way more aoe, way more dps, chains is a far better CC than anything my Control Wizard has
I also think the whole frost/Ice spell mechanic was very out of left field for me. I thought it'd be all arcane.
The dilemma I have right now is: I prefer arcane spells for grouping, because I have time to build Arcane stacks, but my (limited) AoEs are also frost, but the 'chill' effect is mob dependant, so if things die quickly, what's the point, and you need mobs to stay alive long because you need to build up chill consistently (since freeze lasts for about 0.3s)
Of course this could all be 'better at high lvl' because 'low level content is easy'. Cool, but I don't want to feel like playing an uncool (:p) class, just for a chance it might get better.
So far I only use 2 encounter spells:
Entangling force and (empowered for bosses) ray of enfeeblement. Tbh I don't even know how well ray helps, but if I'm already doing crappy DPS, might as well help out the rogues with theirs. Group of mobs I might throw out a conduit or steal time... I'd probably spend more time spamming the at will ice aoe/debuff, but I also need to spend time casting arcane spells, unless I want to lose my stack. An Entangling force with no stacks, is really only good for an interrupt.
And then couple that with the fact that most bosses (where debuffs etc actually start to matter) start to become very resistant to Entangling force? Eh...
Excellent write-up.
I'm sorry, but no.
I definitely do not want this game to be a WoW clone, nor do I want every class to be the same. And unlike many, I'm playing the betas to help make it the best game it can be, not just for early access.
That said, I was really looking forward to the Control Wizard. You're right that this class is supposed to be about high control and low damage - which is perfectly fine - but the problem is, there just isn't much controlling going on. The fact is, at least up to level 25, the Control Wizard doesn't really do what it's supposed to do. More of the abilities need control mechanics, the ones that already have control mechanics need tweaked to either last longer, be converted to AoE, or need better synergy. It has potential, but needs a lot of work.
I'm not just crapping on the class - I want the Control Wizard to be my main character. But if a lot of these things don't get fixed, I'll be skipping it entirely.
I strongly disagree. The knockback (Repel) is more of an "oh ****" button. It may get more use during solo play, but when running dungeons and group play, it should almost never be used. Assuming the tank is doing his job, why would you want to knock the mobs far away from everyone and spread them all out?
In fact, the Control Wizard's power should come from from his ability to lock opponents in place (and various other stun/snare type abilities). A Control Wizard should control - that's it's whole purpose - it's even in it's name.