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I leveled a CW 1 to 50 this weekend, AMA.

jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
edited April 2013 in The Library
Ask me anything gais.
Post edited by jkaplan92 on
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  • abaddonxkabaddonxk Member Posts: 203 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    How many items with cool, unique appearances did you find? Orbs, Robes, Cloaks, etc. :P
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    abaddonxk wrote: »
    How many items with cool, unique appearances did you find? Orbs, Robes, Cloaks, etc. :P

    In terms of armor, none whatsoever. BUT I will reserve my judgment on this until launch, and advise you guys too as well. I literally got 0 item drops in any dungeon that I did so I cannot comment on that at all, and I assume armor from dungeons does have a different appearance.

    While leveling there are give or take 4 armor sets you will get, kind of like armor tiers, and each has a slightly different appearance. You can kind of tell that the armor has the same "base" to it but it gets more ornate and cooler looking as you level up, keep in mind this is exclusively the green quality dropped and quest reward gear, again dungeon gear will probably look very different.

    There was definitely more diversity for orbs. At first it was mostly just colors but towards the higher levels I've been getting some more unique looking ones. For example the one I have now has these cool spikey rings around the orb itself, kinda hard to describe but it looks cool trust me.

    While leveling I will admit there isn't as much gear variety as would be ideal, but as long as there is a lot in the end game I am satisfied, and I think there will be. It took me 26 hours played to get to 50 and I think people will be able to hit 60 in around 30 hours played, so the leveling experience in this game is really short compared to other games, so for me its really going to be all about how things are at level 60.

    Despite the lack of diversity while leveling I still felt like my guy was getting cooler and I got satisfaction out of seeing the looks of a new tier.
  • derresshderressh Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    What was your most used spell mastery? Mine has been chill strike nearly all of my gameplay time.
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    derressh wrote: »
    What was your most used spell mastery? Mine has been chill strike nearly all of my gameplay time.

    I stopped using chill strike all together around level 35ish I believe. I'm not really sure which spell mastery i like best right now. I think ray of enfeeblement, steal time, and conduit of ice all seem pertty solid. Chill strike is probably good too but I think chill strike is only good for people who are spcced into opressor. I used opressor from 35-50 and still didn't use chill strike, i think other abilities are just stronger. I switched to renegade at level 50 to test it out and its way stronger so I will be using renegade at launch.
  • kharnagexkharnagex Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 211 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    yeah i got one, whens the scourge warlock coming out lol I hate using cold magic.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    kharnagex wrote: »
    yeah i got one, whens the scourge warlock coming out lol I hate using cold magic.

    I wish I knew, i really wanted to play warlock too.
  • torchwood1203torchwood1203 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Have you tried out Thaumaturge?
  • losse1losse1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    What race did you pick and do you think race is worth contemplating other than for looks?
    "The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose." -Charles Dickens
  • bizi974bizi974 Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    26 hours to lvl 50 seems very quick. How did you level so fast?
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    @Torchwood: No I haven't however I just got done running some dungeons with someone with that spec. He out damaged me, but only very slightly, probably by about 5% however I think that renegade is still better because with my build I was debuffing the mobs damage, lowering their mitigation (which raised the entire parties damage including the other wizard) and I had more abundant CC while still doing almost as much damage and healing the party via the last feat in renegade. I am nearly certain that renegade will be the best tree at level 60 because when you cap eye of the storm it will synergize REALLY well with the crit severity you get from renegade feats, that and the best thermaturge feats are the first tier ones in my opinion and as I understand it I'll be able to get those while having renegade maxed out.

    @losse1 I played tiefling and I think it is BY FAR the best race choice if you want to min max your character, the extra damage below 50% is really strong and the status bonuses are the best you can have for a wizard.

    @bizi974 It was kind of quick but I could have done it faster, as I said I think people can hit 60 in 30 hours played with no exp boosters or any other item shop bonuses. I like to level efficiently, its just the way i play mmos so I always try to quest as fast as possible... I know that turns some people off but its fun for me.

    Tips for leveling:
    1. Use the renegade tree in my opinion.
    2. CC is your friend, don't try to be a glass cannon, you can maximize offensive stats but you need to have a good bit of CC as your powers. You will find that the game is much easier when you have a lot of CC abilities and you will still do very good damage. I recommend entangling force, steal time, and frozen terrain (cant remember what its called exactly). You should focus on rotating these abilities and using blink to dodge large attacks.
    3. I mainly focused on power as my primary stat. Crit and armor penetration are both good as secondary stats I think.
    4. GET AZURE GEMSTONES and socket them into every single yellow slow you get. They will give you +3.5% exp per slot. I had them in 3 slots so I was getting +10.5% exp for most of my leveling time. It isn't really worth fusing the stones to higher than 3.5%, you will be changing gear often so its better to have a lot of the 3.5% stones
    5. Avoid dungeons, they aren't worth the exp and the gear doesn't really make a big difference.
    6. Skip skirmishes and their quests.
    7. PvP is a nice way to get exp when you're underleved for the quests you have (but its currently bugged and gives no exp once you're over level 20 :(
    8. Start crafting with leadership first. Get the small bonuses of exp and work it up. If you play this game more than give or take 1 hour per day while you're leveling you WILL outlevel your armor crafting profession to the point where you can't make yourself anything useful unless you spend tons of diamonds. Leadership just makes sense to work on first for anyone that cant afford the diamonds or plays more than extremely casually.

    Thats about it for leveling tips.
  • dboss777dboss777 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 37
    edited April 2013
    What's your damage compared to a rouge of equal gear?
  • zalathorm7zalathorm7 Member Posts: 128 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    What 2 dailies are best to use in groups?

    I'm a rogue and find ice storm immensely annoying. The aoe knockback is great for solo, truly clutch situations, or for pvp. However, just popping it for damage is at the expense of the rest of the group's dps and ability to kill quickly.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    @dboss777: I would say rogues do about 15% more damage in the dungeon runs I've done, however I think control wizard is a stronger class overall because we bring so much CC and utiltiy on top of our damage. With that said I think that at level 60 wizards will be even closer if not higher than rogues on the damage charts. The build I used was not optimal and I would have changed it if I had enough zen for another respec. On top of that the eye of the storm class feature which unlocks at 50 is immensley powerful and I didn't have it in my dungeon runs, having that maxed will increase our damage A LOT as well as having my optimal spec I think I could come very close to rogues if not higher, but with the build I run I am also significantly debuffing the mitigation of mobs so I end up increasing the damage of my whole party which kind of skews the numbers a bit.

    @zalathorm7: Ice storm is the highest dps daily but as you said it can be really annoying for other members of the group. I think arcane singularity is the best daily for group play. It does pretty solid damage, has a large radius, sucks all mobs into a single area to allow you and your group to aoe effectively, and it also CCs the effective mobs for 4 or 5 seconds. I think a lot of the dailies need to be buffed however because ice storm and singularity are really the only viable ones in my opinion. Ice knife is decent to have, but it only does a little bit more damage than ice storm and is single target. I can't remember all of the ability names off the top of my head... The last daily you get, something malsetorm... It's pretty bad, it does less damage than ice storm and has a really small radius.... That ability really needs a buff. Same with the first daily you get, the one that dazes enemies and pulls in the metal stuff.
  • zalathorm7zalathorm7 Member Posts: 128 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    jkaplan92 wrote: »
    @dboss777: I would say rogues do about 15% more damage in the dungeon runs I've done, however I think control wizard is a stronger class overall because we bring so much CC and utiltiy on top of our damage.

    Hah, I wish you'd post this over on the rogue or class discussion forums. A few people are claiming that rogues are doing 150%-200% more damage than the next person. The point you reinforce here is that without a clear difference in the DPS between strikers and more hybrid classes, the hybrid classes will always bring more to the table. I would argue that 15% is too narrow of a margin.

    Anyway, I dont want to divert conversation in your thread. I just laughed when I saw how different people are viewing rogue balance
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • horrorscope666horrorscope666 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 415 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    jkaplan92 wrote: »
    While leveling I will admit there isn't as much gear variety as would be ideal, but as long as there is a lot in the end game I am satisfied, and I think there will be. It took me 26 hours played to get to 50 and I think people will be able to hit 60 in around 30 hours played, so the leveling experience in this game is really short compared to other games, so for me its really going to be all about how things are at level 60.

    First good job answering questions. If this game weren't FTP, I'd put a huge red flag on this game. You are betting that things you have done to 50 will be different and better at 60, not sure why. You are betting that there is this amazing end game at 60 and we haven't been shown that. I'm just saying history isn't on the games side here. Yes the Foundry is this games wild card for sure, but the stock game should still be able to stand proudly on it's own. So a question to anyone, do we plan on their being a lot more itemization at 60?
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    @zalathorm7 yeah, I was doing dungeons with a really skilled rogue the other day and that was the one that did about 15% more damage than me. I did dungeons with another rogue at 50 earlier in the day and literally doubled his damage, generally I think 15% is about where rogues dps will fall given equal skill, and I agree that that margin is arguably too low given the CC and utility that wizards have. Control Wizards should not pull equal dps to rogues... If you want to top the charts every game play a rogue, if you want to play a really fun class that does a lot of damage while having tons of cc and utility, play control wizard. Our CC is far better than a rogues at level 50 so if we did equal damage it would be imbalanced.

    That said, at lower levels rogue does more than 15% more damage, and rogue is by far the easiest class to solo and level as, soI understand the sentiment of people feeling it is overpowered, but at level 50 I don't think it is, it is by far the best soloer, but in group play it is pretty balanced in my opinion.

    @horrorscope666 I've been playing MMOs for 10 years now so I've been there for my fair share of hyped up games falling on their face, utterly terrible end-game content, etc. I'm generally prett cautious about hyping up games or expecting great things, and I don't expect anything from neverwinter. Here is my position on the game:

    The base combat is extremely fun for me, at its core the gameplay is awesome and I haven't enjoyed combat so much in a really long time. Dungeons are very fun and challenging, and I think with the systems in place there is potential for really amazing end game dungeons and hopefully raids. PvP is awesome in my opinion and it has a lot of potential as well if cryptic can add ranking systems, competitive features, and allow people to create pvp maps with the foundry. Overall I'm cautiously optimistic about this game, as I said, I enjoy the gameplay itself, right now it depends on what cryptic unveils for an end-game. I have no assumptions about what that will be. What I do know is that my experience in neverwinter has been refreshing to say the least and I haven't enjoyed leveling in an MMO this much in a very long time. As for itemization, i personally don't care that much about the limited armor skins. I would be willing to bet a lot that there will at least be 4 or 5 separate skins for armor sets at level 60 depending on rarity, pvp gear, etc, and for me that is perfectly fine. Look at WoW... you have raid gear, pvp gear, and quest gear... there really aren't many separate sets of armor in that game, everyone is typically wearing the same pvp gear or the same pve gear for their class and nobody ccomplains.

    The key will be whether or not cryptic gives the necessary support to this game. If they can add pvp features and raids or difficult dungeons and continue to produce that content every couple of months, I think this game could be very succesful. If they cannot I think it will be mildly succesful because there is a niche following of D&D fans and foundry users.
  • millertime197933millertime197933 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 124 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    When it comes to the stat readout at the end of a dungeon or skirmish, my CW usually topped the DPS charts, occasionally I was bested by a rogue. The thing is, I feel most of my damage came from AoE damage, where as the rogue was more single target. I kept chill strike tabbed, and had sudden storm, entangling force, and shield for my encounters. I also used ice storm for my AoE. I made it to level 39 by the end of BW4. I think the rogue tops wizard on DPS for single target, whereas the CW, with the right setup, would top on trash/masses. Keep in mind, skirmishes and dungeons can have a lot of trash at times that is clustered around the fighter that charged in first, which helps make AoEs more effective. Also, icestorm knocks back bad guys, which negatively affects everyone elses DPS.

    In terms of balance, I think it is about right, and a 15% difference between a CW and a rogue in DPS can be misleading when you just look at the total damage inflicted. A good rogue should be managing their agro too, so likely they are not spamming their abilities, whereas as a CW, i would spam my nukes, and if something agroed me, I would blow it back with shield or use entangling force.

    Where I think the CW is weak is escapbility, especially when solo. Sure you can teleport away, however once you teleport, there is a pause before you can move, and the bad guys are on you almost immedietly. I find it is only good for avoiding special attacks. CWs are squishy, so spamming heal pots sometimes does not keep up with the amount of damage you are taking. I tried a a gear build using lifesteal, got it up to about 250, but it barely healed 4-6 hp per magic missile, which did nothing to mitigate damage. Anyone know if lifesteal becomes more viable at higher levels? Even icestorm only healed like 50-80 dmg, and that isn't per enemy in AOE, that was total. I'd really like to dump the cleric companion for something a little more fun, but I think I would go bankrupt on heal potions very quickly. She at least gets off a heal or two before she goes down each fight, and tanks 1 or 2 baddies for a few seconds.
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    When it comes to the stat readout at the end of a dungeon or skirmish, my CW usually topped the DPS charts, occasionally I was bested by a rogue. The thing is, I feel most of my damage came from AoE damage, where as the rogue was more single target. I kept chill strike tabbed, and had sudden storm, entangling force, and shield for my encounters. I also used ice storm for my AoE. I made it to level 39 by the end of BW4. I think the rogue tops wizard on DPS for single target, whereas the CW, with the right setup, would top on trash/masses. Keep in mind, skirmishes and dungeons can have a lot of trash at times that is clustered around the fighter that charged in first, which helps make AoEs more effective. Also, icestorm knocks back bad guys, which negatively affects everyone elses DPS.

    In terms of balance, I think it is about right, and a 15% difference between a CW and a rogue in DPS can be misleading when you just look at the total damage inflicted. A good rogue should be managing their agro too, so likely they are not spamming their abilities, whereas as a CW, i would spam my nukes, and if something agroed me, I would blow it back with shield or use entangling force.

    Where I think the CW is weak is escapbility, especially when solo. Sure you can teleport away, however once you teleport, there is a pause before you can move, and the bad guys are on you almost immedietly. I find it is only good for avoiding special attacks. CWs are squishy, so spamming heal pots sometimes does not keep up with the amount of damage you are taking. I tried a a gear build using lifesteal, got it up to about 250, but it barely healed 4-6 hp per magic missile, which did nothing to mitigate damage. Anyone know if lifesteal becomes more viable at higher levels? Even icestorm only healed like 50-80 dmg, and that isn't per enemy in AOE, that was total. I'd really like to dump the cleric companion for something a little more fun, but I think I would go bankrupt on heal potions very quickly. She at least gets off a heal or two before she goes down each fight, and tanks 1 or 2 baddies for a few seconds.

    Rogues can actually do more aoe damage/trash clearing damage than wizards can at 50. As for single target, it really isn't that far apart if you use the build I have. My arcane missles hit for 30% more damage any by level 60 I think that my damage single target will be very close to that of a rogue and I will probably have higher overall damage, although I don't think CWs should given our other strengths.

    As for our survivability I disagree with you. First of all life steal is just a bad stat in my opinion. It seems to scale really poorly and I can't really justify having it at all right now. If you use my build you will get chaotic growth from your arcane missles. This means you will be healing for 3% of your maximum hp every second, this helps a lot with survivability. I agree that our blink/dodge is only really useful to dodge big attacks and less useful to create distance, but with the CC i have in my kit I never really had problems soloing. Steal time is such a strong ability, entangling force is also really strong, and I often used icy terrain as well so I almsot never had problems kiting and I only died once in my entire leveling experience and that was at level 46ish I believe when about 20 skeletons spawned that I thought were melee skeletons but in reality were mages... They all auto attacked at the same time and literally 1 shot me before I could react... But overall soloing is pretty easy as a CW in my opinion, probably not as easy as rogue but still.

    As for health pots, they are pretty cheap. At level 50 I had over 20 gold, at around level 40 the gold you get really picks up so you should be pretty liberal about spending gold on health pots. Remember that gold isn't even the main currency in this game, it has very little use beyond buying pots and kits, so I recommend buying as many pots and always keeping a kit of each type on hand as you level.
  • millertime197933millertime197933 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 124 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    jkaplan,

    Thanks for the tips man. With just a couple beta weekends to experiment I didn't get a chance to explore every angle on surviviability. I was also didn't level past 40. Steal time and icy terrain were great in BW3, but the level min got moved up. Good to hear they are still worthwhile. I definitely felt their loss this weekend. My basic cycle while soloing was to open up with icy strike (tabbed) to AoE a cluster, then to finish off with magic missile as they ran at me. Most stuff was dead by then. I then did the standard entangle force and icy ray on the harder dude that is often with the cluster. What I ran into problems with was, like you said, multiple casters. To a lesser degree, multiple "elite" bad guys too. I felt that 2 was easy. 3 became very hard. When I was in helms hold, 2x legion devils and an erinyes was a pretty standard mix and that was a difficult fight when my cleric was off training, and resource intensive. I can control 2 things, but the third is basically free to beat me down. If I have a targeting issue and use entangling force on the wrong bad guy, sometimes that free hitter is a caster who nukes me and knocks me down.

    How did you kite? When I run away the baddies pretty much keep pace with me and beat me down. Are you invested in movement gear? Perhaps my gear opened me up for more squishiness. Up until Sunday, which is when I started experimenting with equipment, I focused on power as a main stat. I didn't invest in and defense, deflection, etc. I think I got my power up to 1800 and my magic missiles were hitting in the 180 range. I'm curious to know if a balanced approach is better, say 200-300 in defensive stats, and accepting a 1400-1500 power rating. That might make my magic missiles hit in the 160 range, not sure on the math, and not sure if 200-300 defensive or deflection would do anything.

    I agree with you on gold. It is pretty useless.
  • eldurrp1eldurrp1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    How did you allocate your stats when levelling and why?

    Also, would you he willing to share your feat point allocation along with rationale behind where you spend points?

    Thank you very much for the insights provided.
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    @millertime: Helm's hold was rather difficult compared to most of the zones, however I still didn't really struggle much with it. As I said I only died once while leveling and that was kind of a fluke because I got 1 shot by something completely unexpected. Not trying to sound stuck up I'm just giving my honest impression of the difficulty. I don't think this game is easy, at least it doesn't feel easy. With health pots being so spammable its generally really easy not to die, but I still feel that a lot of encounters, even with small "trash" mbos take strategic thought and are interesting. Every time I entered combat I always found myself thinking about the situation. What mob should I use entangling force on? Which one should I focus on killing first? etc, and I think this is part of why I've really enjoyed the game so far.

    To answer your question about kiting. It's slightly difficult for me to answer because as I said a few posts back, I leveled all the way to 50 using the opressor tree. My skills were conduit of ice, frozen terrain, entangling force, and shockwave or steal time. Using these skills generally I would run into the mobs I was attacking face first, drop frozen terrain at the center of the pack, blink backwards, immediately cast conduit of ice on one of the tankier/elite mobs, shockwave/steal time them, and then use entangling force on a larger more damaging mob if one remained after that combo. I would almost always take hits initially when I ran in to drop frozen terrain, but after that most were dead via my aoe combo. As I said, I don't think this setup is optimal, it was just why I tried first and it worked well enough to have no reason to switch until 50.

    As for a renegade spec which I recommend, Steal time is the best ability this class has in my opinion. It's an aoe cc that seems to have a 3 or 4 second duration AND it does a ton of damage. I try to use this on cooldown and its generally my first ability in a fight. Once it is down I usually entangling force the most threatening mob and arcane missle the smaller mobs. Generally the smaller mobs are at low HP after steal time so I can typically kill them before any get a hit off on me. If I had shockwave slotted I would use it basically right after steal time, if I had frozen terrain I would use it after all of my cc was on cooldown and mobs were starting to approach me.

    As for stats. I focused heavily on power and it worked fine for me. I didn't really have any issues with survivability. Sometimes things got hectic but I just blinked around until my potion was off cooldown and generally that was enough to stay alive in the toughest situations. I didn't really experiment with stats much at all this weekend. I imagine you could be quite tanky with the right feats and a defensive stat priority. I know that life steal is not worth it at all, it scales really poorly and is just a useless stat. I would recommend stacking power and crit. Crit probably becomse the best stat after level 50, but before then I like power best, both are good. I can't comment on armor pentration at all, I have no idea what the math is behind that.

    @eldurpp: I focused on power first, crit second. Almost every other stat was meaningless for me and i generally took whatever piece of armor had the highest power regardless of its secondary stats. Crit was the exception, I would sacrifice some power to have a piece with crit on it. I think that beyond level 50 crit will probably become the best stat to prioritize, but power seems very solid. Lifesteal is terrible and should be avoided. I can't comment on armor pentration as I don't know how it really works. A lot depends on the math behind the stats. I'm not sure how much crit translates into what % and things like that, or if there are soft caps for stats like crit. Crit does seem to scale quite well though, I want to say i had 24% crit at level 50 which seemed quite good.

    As for feats I wrote down my build before logging off of beta but its hard to explain without some kind of feat calculator tool. This is basically what I will be going for at launch, and I'll try to explain it below.

    heroic:
    0/5/0/0
    3/0/0/1
    2/3/3/3
    Renegade:
    0/5/5/5
    5/0/0/0
    Thermaturge:
    5/0/0/0
    5/0/0/0

    powers:
    enfeebling ray as mastery
    q is sudden storm (subject to change)
    e is steal time
    r is entangling force
    arcane singularity/ice knife as dailies
    class features: eye of the storm = must have, second = either storm spell or evocation

    Explanation: For the feat trees the columns of numbers correspond to columns in the feat page. So for heroic trees in the first column I have 3 in the middle feat and 2 in the bottom. I can't even remember what half of these feats actually do, I just wrote down the template so I could copy it at launch, but can't really describe the build unless someone knows of a site that has the tree for me to look at. As for abilities, its pretty self explanatory. Sudden storm may get swapped for something else, its situational which is why I wrote subject to change. Also I'm not sure how the paragon trees work, I assume I can put the 10 points I get after 50 into thermaturge but I have no idea.

    Edit: As for base character stats, I think for PvE you should allocate 100% of your stats to int and charisma. Int is a no brainer, but wisdom vs charisma is debatable. I think for renegade you want to get only charisma because crit is going to be your primary stat and because you will almost always be doing combat advantage damage so the +1% combat damage is really strong. Charisma might actually be ever better than int for renegades. Here is a site that shows the feats so you can try to understand the build: http://nwowiki.co/index.php?title=Control_Wizard
  • eldurrp1eldurrp1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    jkaplan92 wrote: »
    Edit: As for base character stats, I think for PvE you should allocate 100% of your stats to int and charisma. Int is a no brainer, but wisdom vs charisma is debatable. I think for renegade you want to get only charisma because crit is going to be your primary stat and because you will almost always be doing combat advantage damage so the +1% combat damage is really strong. Charisma might actually be ever better than int for renegades.

    I wondered how important Wisdom was. It gives a boost to recharge time, action point gain and control bonuses.

    With renegade, you have feats where
    • crits give back action points (probably more potent than action gain from wisdom if you stack crit)
    • crits trigger combat advantage (leverages Charisma and other crit boosting feats)
    • crits more potent under combat advantage (same as above)

    Based on what I've read, you focus more on arcane than cold, and it seems that you still have plenty of control with your abilities where you can focus more on damage and less on extending control windows.

    The question is, do you find yourself wishing that your encounter abilities were coming back quicker?
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    I think wisdom is good and probably ideal for most builds but for my build I think charisma is far better. I have a 10% reduction in my encounter abilities cooldowns from my second tier feats as well as the reduction from my int. In my opinion that is plenty, i think going full into charisma/int is optimal for this build. Also, most of my damage comes from arcane missles so from that perspective it really isn't that beneficial to have wisdom. Basically all that I gain from wisdom is increased CC duration (both because it gives me that as a raw bonus, and because it lowers the CDs on my cc abilities) and I don't think that outweighs charismas benefits for this build. I am getting 30% extra damage from arcane missles with 100% uptime because I always stay within 20 feet of my target, so if i wanted optimal damage I would only use enfeebling ray and arcane missles. My other abilities are basically in there to support my team.

    As for action point gain, its not that important in my opinion. I don't think a 5% or so increase in action point generation can compare to crit and combat advantage damage. That said I have considered taking my 5 points out of masterful arcane theft (tier 4 renegade feat) and putting it into Critical Power (tier 1 renegade talent) to get more action point generation but at this point I don't think its worth it because critical power has a 10 second internal cooldown. If it didn't have the cooldown it would be amazing and probably extremely overpowered.
  • deathssickledeathssickle Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    jkaplan92 wrote: »
    While leveling there are 4 armor sets

    Dwight-Schrute-False.jpg

    There are 5 tiers(just wanted to clear that up)
    I am usually Deaths Crowbar.


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  • eldurrp1eldurrp1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    jkaplan92 wrote: »
    That said I have considered taking my 5 points out of masterful arcane theft (tier 4 renegade feat) and putting it into Critical Power (tier 1 renegade talent) to get more action point generation but at this point I don't think its worth it because critical power has a 10 second internal cooldown.

    Masterful Arcane Theft looks really powerful when you have stacks of Arcane Mastery up. (up to a 25% bonus)

    I think that it is likely better than Critical Power on a 10 second internal cooldown. (I wasn't aware of that cooldown)

    What do you like for your second At-Will? I didn't play long enough to pick up Chilling Cloud, so I don't know how it measures up to the Ray of Frost.

    I pretty much spammed Missles until I had a 1:1 situation where I could more-or-less kite with chill effects from the frost ray and encounter controls.
  • jkaplan92jkaplan92 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 111 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    Honestly every at will is just bad inc omparison to arcane missiles, they could really use some rebalancing in my opinion. I almost never even use my second at will however I do use ray of frost because all the others are just bad in my opinion. Chill gives me 10% extra damage on enfeebling ray, but enfeebling ray itself does very little damage, its the debuff that I like about it, so I think its not even worth the time to ray of frost to get that 10% damage, i would probably do more damage spamming arcane missle, but its debateable. The 10% would be significant when using steal time because that actually does a ton of damage, but I'm not going to ray of frost every single mob, thats a waste of time. I could use frozen terrain to aoe chill before use of steal time and that actually is really strong in my opinion (one of the skills I'm considering swapping in for sudden storm) Sudden storm does more raw damage but frozen terrain is a really strong cc and is probably better for the group overall.
  • derresshderressh Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    I kind of had the same mindset about At wills for a while, where every secondary at will was terrible, but I had ray of frost because it was the least terrible of them all.

    However, I found Ray of Frost to be exceptionally useful on CC-able boss mobs, and was able to permanently lock them down with a cycle of Chill Strike > Entangling Force > Ray of Frost > Repeat with a few Magic Missiles thrown in between. Sure, Ray of Frost did less damage, but it definitely payed off when the bosses couldn't do anything to save themselves.

    I think I'll try out the Int/cha build in OBT. Ran a Wis/Cha build with high base Int, low base Wis in the BWEs, but I think the extra damage from Int will synergize better with my high crit build than the extra couple % control duration from Wis.
  • abcdefg2234abcdefg2234 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 60
    edited April 2013
    So playing my CW through 3 beta weekends, I can tell you they were probably the most versatile and most fun class to play.

    Rogues stomp CWs on dps, clerics get heals and seemed like stronger attack spells, and of course fighters doing their fightering thing. CW was just straight fun to play.

    jkaplan, good thread dude, and you're absolutely right this class is strongest around it's crowd control abilities, not glass cannon build. My preferences differ a bit from yours, as I used no ice abilities after lvl 30. I hate ice, except the daily, so built around arcane and lightning and did extremely well.

    Steal time in mastery slot hands down the best ability. Big aoe damage, slow/stun enemy, speed up and COMBAT ADVANTAGE to your party. This was EXTREMELY useful at higher levels, especially in boss fights. With paragon skills you could boost arcane damage and effectiveness. I think there was also an ability that using the storm ability would boost arcane damage.

    Magic Missiles, storm abilities (forget their names, one encounter for big damage, one at will), mastery steal time, entangling force, and SHIELD! This shield spell was awesome because it actually did decent damage when you pushed it, and repelled all enemies around you.

    The CC was a little more lacking with this build, but with good timing on teleport, it really didn't matter plus my dps was enough to kill off most groups quickly with minimal damage taken, and less time kiting around. I could normally kill off 4-6 minor enemies before they could even swing at me, and have the tougher mob choking with entangling force and have my way. Larger groups and adds definitely made this build tougher to play than with an ice one with larger scale battles.
  • tacc4990tacc4990 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 161 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    I wish every crybaby that got Rogues nerfed and continues to beg for MORE nerfs would read this thread. PvP noobs getting killed by rogs is gonna destroy my class :(
  • mtorcmtorc Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Any feedback on the utility/damage for Shard of the Endless Avalanche and the Arcane Mastery stacks given from it?
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