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Psst.. Control Wizards, Think the mechanics need a complete rework.
elimin3
Member Posts: 45 Arc User
So, The last time I played paper and pencil... It was rule set 2.5...You know back in the THAC0 days? Coming back to a DND game meant I needed to learn a lot about the new ruleset.
I really do not have much to go on, but I did find a post doing some rather quick googling, and came across this.
I agree with nearly every post that places the Control Wizard squarely between War Wizard and Control, and I think this needs to be addressed before release.
I cannot take credit for this source, I simply want to site it to someone who has not had a chance to read the new ruleset.
Feel free to indulge more, on more classes here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19626922/Making_the_control_wizard_in_4e
Actually, I think they are close. I just want to see some simple things change. Forget about the damned PVP already. Make a DND game.
I really do not have much to go on, but I did find a post doing some rather quick googling, and came across this.
I agree with nearly every post that places the Control Wizard squarely between War Wizard and Control, and I think this needs to be addressed before release.
I cannot take credit for this source, I simply want to site it to someone who has not had a chance to read the new ruleset.
Feel free to indulge more, on more classes here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19626922/Making_the_control_wizard_in_4e
Actually, I think they are close. I just want to see some simple things change. Forget about the damned PVP already. Make a DND game.
First, let me say this is currently a work in progress. Currently presented at 1st level with a little looking ahead.
Definitions
A Control Wizard is not about AoE damage. That's a Blaster. Control is about using status effects and terrain modification to limit the effectiveness of your enemies. Damage is a secondary concern.
Now, will killing a creature limit its effectiveness? Sure. But that's only an effective control mechanism at really low levels when monsters die pretty easily. As 4E turns into padded sumo fairly quickly, dealing damage fails as a control mechanism against everything except Minions - and as minions have 1 hp and virtually all spells do some damage, control wizards who don't focus on damage still don't have much trouble killing a bunch of them in one shot.
What control wizards do care about is putting monsters down and keeping them down until their allies can deal with them. Sleep is the premiere example of the control wizard ideal - it can potentially knock a monster unconscious and keep it that way until its allies are dead and it can be coup de graced. Now, that's not likely to happen given just the spell by itself, which is where optimization comes in.
Theory
The first thing to notice is spells which apply various disabling conditions, the most useful at 1st level being the daily Sleep, but others have some effects that we could care about. The second thing to notice is in order to maximize the effectiveness of a spell with a disabling effect a wizard must both hit the target and then get them to continue to fail a saving throw. As saving throws are now 50-50 affairs, this is as important as maximizing to hit chances.
There honestly isn't much we can do about to-hit except ensure we have a decent intelligence and hope our allies take some cool powers to help in this department. However, there are some feats we'll take a look at that might help here.
Fortunately, skewing saves in our favor is possible. The orb implement specialization lets a wizard 1/encounter make a foe take a -wis mod penalty to all saves against a particular power under which it suffers that was cast by the wizard. Bizarrely enough, wisdom is now *really important* for wizards, almost more so than intelligence. Yes, this only works 1/encounter against one enemy, but you should be able to get to a point where chances are when you put that enemy down they will stay down, making the combat much easier for team hero.
Some conditions are more desirable than others. Helpless is by far the best condition, followed by stunned. Dazed and immobilized both have their uses and are relatively common in the wizard's arsenal. Other possible useful conditions include slowed, weakened, and so forth.
Attributes
One of the things I've noticed about 4E is how much of the game is about attributes. As such, the attribute layout of the build is one of the most important decisions to make. For a control wizard, I'd argue that the following is the optimal attribute set (using standard PB).
Str 8*
Con 12
Dex 10*
Int 16
Wis 16
Cha 12
*can probably be switched with little downside
The cha 12 is important because when the character gets +1 to all stats then she'll have the 13 necessary to qualify for Spell Focus right away at 11th level, which will help with the penalizing opponent saving throws.
Int/Wis/Con gives you one decent stat boosting all of the defenses - as a wizard you can basically ignore strength and dexterity (as we passed up wand specialization), and charisma past 13 isn't important. More constitution would be nice, but we care a lot more about the intelligence and wisdom because that's where our offense is.
Dexterity may be a tempting distraction with Arcane Reach available. However, its really painful to get the dexterity necessary for it, and dexterity does very little for a wizard as a stat otherwise. Every point in PB is precious now. I recommend passing on Arcane Reach, and just choosing a good range of powers to reduce your need for it in the first place.
Races
Strangely enough, you want a race that's going to boost your wisdom more than your intelligence. Basically, each is a 5% shift in your favor either on to hit or on their saves, but you get to activate your orb ability *after* you hit, meaning as long as you've got multiple useful disabling attacks the limiting factor really is the saves - and we want to make it count. So wisdom is more important.
This gives us a choice of Dwarf, Elf, or Human. Elf is clearly a bad idea - we don't care about dexterity. Human lets us access the human feats (which are actually pretty good), but loses the boost to constitution. It also gives us another at-will power, which mostly means we can pick up something random like Magic Missile as we'll already have all the useful control at-will powers. Human and Dwarf are probably even picks.
Powers
There are a few things to consider with choosing powers. The first thing to look for is secondary effects - as a control wizard your job is to slap some sort of debilitating condition on the monster(s) to make them less effective. The second thing to look for is a diversity of defenses the attacks target. While defense scales with level, there is certainly variation within the MM, and individual monsters have weaker and stronger defenses. Being able to have a spell which targets their weak defense can prove to be really handy.
at-wills: Ray of Frost and Thunderwave give you the two at-wills that have useful secondary effects, which means some control in your at-wills. If you're human you get to grab some pure damage, ie MM, because everything else is HAMSTER.
encounter: There are actually a number of useful options here. However, both our control at-wills target fortitude, and sleep is a shoe-in for daily which targets will. This leaves Icy Terrain as the only useful reflex targetting control option for 1st level encounter spells. If one isn't as interested in diversity as that, Chillstrike and Ray of Enfeeblement are both decent options, and target fortitude.
daily: You take sleep, because everything else sucks. Your other option for your book can be any of the remaining - you're going to use sleep every day until you get better options, so your other pick isn't really that relevant.
Feats
Spell Focus is the only feat that really helps us with saves, and that's paragon level, so what we're looking for is feats that make us hit more often.
If we're human, the feat Action Surge gives us a fairly large to-hit bonus when we use our action point for a standard action, and a likely shoe-in. Other than that, straight up bonuses to hit are non-existent in the feats section.
The other tack we can take is looking for ways to get combat advantage. Wintertouched works with two of the powers i've recommended (Icy Terrain, Ray of Frost - could also work with Chilltouch), and gives you automatic combat advantage some of the time (for +2 to hit). It also combos well into a paragon level feat (Lasting Frost) to enable its conditions more readily.
Outside of that we're looking at general use feats. Improved Initiative is always good, and feats like Jack of All Trades or Linguist is actually mildly tempting (especially with the dearth of useful feats for a wizard). If you're human, you'll want Human Perserverance for the sweet +1 to saves. You may eventually be interested in Expanded Spellbook, but certainly not at 1st level, and given that virtually all your powers are combat options, having more options probably isn't going to be all that relevant (ie, without 3.x's crazy divination, you'll have to go generalist most of the time anyway). However, finding 6 (much less 7) feats you want before paragon tier is going to be really hard - here's hoping for a splatbook with some feats we'll actually care about in the not too distant future.
You can of course always set feats on fire for +1 damage, but you're playing a control mage, not a blaster, and +1 damage is so little you could forget to add it in and not even notice.
Skills
Choose some stuff. No seriously, it really doesn't matter. I'd probably load up on knowledges to be able to identify monster weaknesses so you can target low defense values. Avoid diplomacy - with zero guidance on proper DCs for various situations, diplomacy is magic tea party. So you might as well play magic tea party and not bother to roll.
Paragon Paths
While every wizard path is potentially of interest, the Blood Mage is by far the best package.
Battle Mage's "Battle Action" is pretty good to ensure you get that hit in, but his other abilities and his powers aren't anything really exciting if what you're interested in is control.
Spellstorm is playable, but its a type of control that doesn't benefit from our wisdom focus as much. Its best ability is the ability to get access to a power again, except what you really want is to renew a daily, which is hard.
Spiral Tower isn't the easiest to get into for most wizards (needing proficiency in longsword is mildly annoying), runs one ability off charisma, and generally seems more geared towards multiclassed characters than straight wizards.
By contrast, Blood Mage is absolutely amazing. Blood Action can turn your crippling control spell into a killer power simultaneously. Bolstering Blood would seem to just add damage, but its psychic damage which means it adds the psychic keyword to the spell. This is useful if you're interested in the feat Psychic Lock, which you probably should be as a control mage, as it lets you use it on any spell you want. And Burning Blood is the 'spend a healing surge to kill every minion in a 121 square area automatically' power. Which is awesome control through damage at any level, and the only type of damage-based control that exists at high levels (killing minions). And then there's the daily power, destructive salutation is simply one of the 5 best wizard powers in the PHB, regardless of level, and it stuns (save ends), which is perfect for a control mage. The Utility power isn't bad either. You may or may not care about the encounter power - highly dependent on what your party is doing.
Epic Destinies
There are two really tempting options here.
Archmage is the obvious choice, and has a lot of really great abilities. However, the best of them doesn't open up until 30th level, meaning you'll get very little use out of it. All the abilities are generally useful, and tend to make you more versatile or increase your staying power. The 30th level ability is power, but for such a short time its easy to discount it.
Demigod is the other good choice, and its +2 to two stats (int and wis for control wizards) is a great number boost that aids you in performing your role. You also get this benefit right away, meaning you'll be using the epic destiny benefit you really care about for most of your epic career. (and you get the satisfaction of turning into a god at the end of the campaign - no complaints with that). Demigod is the raw power choice.
The other epic destiny you can qualify for is Eternal Seeker, but given your strong stat focus on int and wis you really don't want to be selecting powers from many of the classes. If you haven't chosen to multiclass into cleric, you might search the cleric power list for some useful powers. But wizard powers often a pretty good control set - this seems to be a novelty epic destiny choice for a control wizard rather than something that usefully furthers your role/schtick.
Future Power Choices
In progress...
Edit: I completely misread Human Perserverance, its actually pretty awesome. Must've had 3.x on the brain. Recommendation changed.
"It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously." Peter Ustinov
Post edited by elimin3 on
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Comments
While I never really cared much for the 4E rules, I can only say... THIS!
Seriously, there are already more then enough PvP centered games out there, and the D&D theme is neither befitting one, nor are it's rules useable for such a game.
I know you may be used to your Overpowered wizards from pen and paper, but this game is only D&D in flavor, and they are going for a MUCH more balanced game than the pen and paper version
Controller should have light CC and secondary damage, i dont want a class that make the content irrelevant by making mobs play poker and take naps for 5 hours whill everyone kills it Zzzzzzzzzzzzz, a controller should live within the same balancing schemes as the other classes, i dont want super OP gamebreaking classes all in the name of feeling special about your choices
As for above, dont know what you are talking about but there's is only one rellevant PVP mmo on the market, out of of ALL of them, and that is EvE online, and if any game has the most interesting pvp it would be D&D because of all its diffrent builds
The Chill elemental mechanic is better off on the War Wizard with the Control Wizard making use of Arcane spells like Sleep, Web, Cloud of Daggers, and the like. Also changing Arcane Mastery so that it fills a visible meter then by hitting tab you can use any of slotted encounter powers Spell Mastery version instead of just one. Sure you lose the extra power, but gain much greater flexibility.
discussing & often complaining about the imaginary.
[SIGPIC]http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/image.php?type=sigpic&userid=1618000&dateline=1316204434[/SIGPIC]
Besides, there are no "minute long sleeping" spells in 4E, they all have been toned down to last only seconds.
Bottom line: Most powers chosen by Cryptic aren't control wizard spells.
Um... this is pretty much every control wizard power so far...
at-wills:
magic missile - damage
ray of frost - damage and snare
snow balls power - damage, snare on third attack aoe damage/snare
lighting thingy - aoe damage, micro stun
encounters:
ice comet that stuns its target(in tab - aoe damage)
force choke(if slotted in tab you also pull all the enemies around the target to it)
push(in tab - aoe push)
ray of enfeeblement debuff(in tab - 2 charges)
stop time - aoe stun(in tab - also buff)
some ice field power that snares, does damage and eventually roots(in tab you can choose where to put it)
dailies:
big ice blast thingie - aoe damage, knockback
magnetic thingie that made all the things fly around - aoe damage and 2 times aoe daze
ice block single target power - damage, I think stun as well but I'm not sure
class powers:
increased damage from chills
slows all the enemies around the control wizard
attacks have 10% chance to stun the target
That seems like lots of controlling powers. I think that the problem with the control wizard is not that that kind of powers are absent but that their effects are too quick to disappear.
Comparing Neverwinter to D&D and other games is useful to help highlight what it is about those other games that makes us like them - but it's less useful to assume that Neverwinter's classes should mimic other games, even D&D. The medium is different, so the story-telling and mechanics have to be different, just like the differences between comic books and the movies that are based on them. Sometimes significant changes are made to the "mechanics" in order to get the screenplay to come to life in a meaningful way, and I look at each game the same way: they're different, so things have to be translated differently. I would love to see mez duration increase, but not necessarily for the CW to "more closely mimic" any given standard. I really enjoyed how the CW played and have very little to complain about.
Just my two cents of course :]
Because of PvP considerations, it is highly unlikely you will see a longer time on status effects. Andy Velasquez himself stated "in PvP 2 seconds means death". He was specifically speaking of CC here, so you can draw your own conclusions. Mine are, that you will not seem any 2,3,4 second stuns or holds. Just isn't going to happen.
That said, I do hope that the 'slow' on Ray of Frost is tweaked a tad to be a bit more noticeable, as a slow is not as deadly in PvP as a hold, or stun is...
Well, to me, the "slow" mentioned above does not equal snare. And it's close to a 10% slow, as well as very low damage. A complete snare or even a noticeable slowdown takes 6-9 seconds to build up (RoF or multiple chill abilities) before it happens - by which time you're being beat on. Cleric? I can just lay down Chains, Sunburst, and the mobs are dead. They never touched me, unless they were a melee lieutenant mob, which I just dodge back and killed with the flaming spear encounter power.
Granted, I think things do change for a wizard at high levels. But that's not very helpful when you've spent your mount gold at lower levels on potions since everything hits you.
I haven't noticed a stun, if it is present, it lasts under 2 seconds. The AoE damage is nice, though. About the only AoE damage ability up to 27, and it usually one-shots minions if it's in tab.
The problem I see (well, experienced) is, most of those are single-target or very limited without being in tab. These effects should be present for a wizard without tab.
The problem I see is simply that there's not enough AoE. I've played a cleric up to 12 and have 3 instant CC abilities. A wizard at 12 cannot keep mobs off of him, has two AoE powers (and one is a daily at that). He can keep them away for a short time, but off? No. Could be duration, I suppose, but it seems like 7 of the 10 or so powers you get to use on a regular basis are by default not AoE. That makes it hard unless you're fighting a singular foe, like a boss. THAT you excel at, no doubt - I think most never even took me down to 75% unless they had that stupid charge ability and use it right after you lock them down/away.
A cleric CAN keep mobs off of himself, and better, at level 30. Again, none of us have seen end-game, but it does worry me for the leveling process. If it doesn't seem quite right here, then it's probably not right at the top, or your lower-level abilities will never get used at higher levels (which is a shame).
The other majorissue is that the arcane and frost stacks don't synergize in any way. That would be like playing a rogue who only gains stealth bar by using a ranged attack, or GW only regenerating block by using shield bash. Or, a cleric who can only regen Divine power by healing.
This situation gets worse for CW at 30 when you get lightning... and no feats to support lightning. I think I saw two three-point feats which affected a daily power. It just seems like an afterthought. And lightning doesn't build arcane stacks, and they don't synergize in any way with your other abilities.
Those are the two major problems I see with the class as of BWE2, and if those were fixed, we wouldn't need damage. Fights would be longer (*** it is now) than any other class, but we wouldn't also have to be potion-holics.
That's my take.
Im not even going to bother reading through the rest of your post. Multiple people tested Ray of Frost against a single target in a group of mobs. The target reached the player at the same time as the other mobs did. There is NO noticeable slowing effect and the freeze only lasts 1 sec. Given they were on top of you by the time you got 5 stacks of ice on them and they froze, a 1 sec freeze to do anything is not meaningful.
Go back and play it again.
Well in drawing my own conclusion I would say that anyone whose number one concerning in balancing powers for a D&D centric game is for PVP play, shouldnt be in charge. This game is D&D focused. PvP should be a far distant concern. I guarantee if they did a marketing study of their core audience they would find most of us are 30+, predominantly male, and predominately have D&D PnP experience and are here for the PvE play.
lanessar13, the effect of the cold blast spell lasts exactly 2 seconds according to the description and is visible when you attack a group of enemies. Apart from that - I played CW to level 30 and there were at least 2 aoe powers that disabled all(or most of? I'm not sure if there is a limit to how many targets a spell can affect) the enemies in an area without them being slotted in the tab slot. If you wanted solid cc I think you would go for stop time, ice field, push in the tab slot and the force-choke thingie as a single-target disable. That way you have 3 aoe disables and 1 single target. If you put the double daze aoe power as a daily you should be able to control most of the enemies on the battlefield for at least some time. Your damage will suck though but I think that is the point
At lower levels I found that most groups had 1 big enemy and a lot of smaller one. I aimed to disable the big one while I took care of the rest with the aoe skills and with the dailies. Overall it was a little bit harder than playing some of the other classes but not impossible. Later on I actually kept on doing the exact same thing but then again most of the weak enemies died after the aoe spell if I managed to aim it correctly.
Agreed. And dont work well against groups. And bosses are immune to all of them turning the CW into nothing more than a ranged DPS'er.
But seriously, if your character isn't functioning the way you intended, you might consider that maybe people just haven't found the optimal build by beta weekend 2.
Crazy, right? That there's enough combinations of active powers and passive feats that it's going to take more time than 6 days of separated experimentation to find something that works the way we want it to?
Second, Neverwinter is an Action-MMO. Control wizards have the nifty little teleport that shifts them around the battlefield. One of the reasons you probably don't have ridiculously long CC is because you're actually supposed to be challenged. The minor snares and freezes aren't much by themselves, but mix into that the teleport and you have some nice battlefield control.
And yeah, like ranncore said...don't expect to master a class in a weekend.
sand1972, I do not agree with what you said - bosses should never be affected by hard CC the way the regular mobs are. Why? Because the bosses are not a crowd - they are the main attraction. Currently the bosses are not affected by CC but are affected by negative effects the wizard inflicts upon them and I think it should stay that way.
To me the biggest complaint people have against the wizard as it is, is not the lack of control but the lack of duration of said control spell. I think the naming of the class is mainly due to its D&D role as a controller rather than the extent of its purpose. A wizard remain a dmg dealer primarily, but contrary to the striker he also control the flow of combat.
Most of the wizard spells are in part control spells. The lvl 1-30 spells just dont control the whole field of battle for the length of a fight which tend of happen in MMOs. In a solo game it make sense, in a MMO based on D&D it would be ludicrous. D&D wizard is renown for being a wimp by himself for a few levels and it is well know to be reliant on a team to protect it. And its where the beauty of short CC come into play, team play.
The short CC stacks. Multiple wizards in a group can effectively, if well played, control a few powerful ennemy and reduce their dmg output significantly. They dont need to be CCing all the mobs, all the time. Most mobs are better dealt with pure dmg from a striker. Boss on the other hand can be kited with a wizard, some can be stuned or dazed. The value of multiple wizard is clear, even if you dont have CC that last for a long period of time, because each can take turn without making them overpowered or necessary.
I can also see it as a viable way to deal with what has been a plague for most MMOs PVP since ... forever. CC is god in PVP. A good dps is useless if a good CCer is present. In the present incarnation, wizard can more or less kite on ennemy but to the cost of most of its dps. If you want to lock down a player (which as a player is aggravating since healer and CC tend to be the logical targets), you have to dedicate multiple wizard to do the job with any success. This in turn leads to the balance of it all, cost vs profit. Is it worth it for a wizard to go in CC frenzy or is he better dpsing down ennemies. Most class spells can be interrupted by a well placed CC without having to put them out of the fight for an extended time. 2-3 wizard together can still get of a freeze every 2-3 secs on a player if they are dedicated to it since they share the same chill stack.
All in all i think they need to hold off untill we see PVP before rebalancing the control spells. I think the way CC arent all powerfull will encourage thoughtfull use of control as well as cooperation between teamate instead of letting a single player deal all the CC and hence be the "public ennemy #1". DPS is still the best control by making ennemies dead.
You bring up valid points, and I think I really failed to mention that I enjoyed the class in it's current state. I would say near the end of sunday, I was finally starting to get the class, and use what I had to my advatage, based on the way Crytpic designed it, though I do think the controller spells need to be better. (No "sleep" was a bummer)
My post was to be directed at 4E rules, and more to the point, the control aspect of the class. The main reason the skills were tuned down, from what I have read in these forums, was for PVP. If most games can have two rulesets they should. Because quite honestly, pvp is a seperate beast all on its own. PVP, has become players with equal weapons on the battlefield, going at it with skills. Rather than having one class that trumps all. I do not know why this has become this way, but it just is. For me, pvp is more genuine when you do have classes that are utterly more powerful in the game than others, my time played in EQ on a Zek server was untirely about avoiding certain classes on my cleric because of this, and miraculously, people still played the other classes.
What is more exciting then having a Mad wizard "Player" Fireballing villages, that take a small party to tackle? I am totally ok with that! Hell, UO had a ton of this HAMSTER going on, it gave the game personality. It gave you a way to play in fear, and a way to play in power. This new fangled stuff is for the birds.
Anyways, Good topic here, let me not derail it.
First what you need to accept is that we arent asking for control wizards to be made all powerful. In fact many like myself are asking for their DPS and Health to be LOWERED.
Second, What we are asking for is for their control abilities to be INCREASED. And make them into actual control wizards. Its not hard. This isnt the first MMO to attempt to have a mezz class in game.
Maybe, if we had more useful debuffs other than enfeeblement. And to be honest since their is no hard data provided how do we know its even doing anything effective to the boss? Are only indication is that when its cats we dont see IMMUNE flash across the screen.
And I agree with you that bosses should be immune to hard stuns? But they should not be immune I dont think to snares (helps hold them for the tank so they arent charging about the screen) or additional debuffs.
You have no idea what you are talking about. CC doesnt stack in game. Bosses are immune to stuns and snares at present. And this is supposed to be D&D, PvP considerations should be a far distant second.
Secondly, wizards have several debuff spells: there's a whole tree of paragon feats (the bottom one, forget what it's called) that adds an additional array of debuff effects to several spells. All the different effects do stack.
Thirdly, they did increase the duration of all control effects based on feedback.
And finally, don't forget that a large portion of the control wizard's control is his ability to push opponents around the battlefield as well.
If you didn't get the chance to play with Icy Terrain yet it's a great spell that lays down a sheet of ice on the ground, slowing and adding Chill stacks to any mob moving over it.
/thread
If you think CC duration will solve this class, you haven't been reading much of the feedback. It's great to make CC longer (and it needed to be done), but that's only one of the issues.
1. Im not wrong. In testing using ray of frost on a single mob among a group of mobs, the chill did nothing noticeable to the movement speed of the targeted mob. They reached you at the same time as the rest of the pack of mobs.
2. Feats are not spells. Try again. You should not be required to use feats to do what normal spells do within the D&D universe, ie debuff spells.
3. I know its awesome that they are increasing. I wrote that past post prior to seeing that though.
4. Push? Great for soloing. Sucks when in a group situation. And push isnt mezz/conntrol. Its a soloable skill predominantly.