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Cold based Builds

belaz50belaz50 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
edited May 2013 in The Library
Any good cold builds out there?

I have been looking through all the powers and abilities from the last beta weekend. http://nwowiki.co/index.php?title=Control_Wizard is the info which seems pretty close as far as I can remember what was there.

Anyway I have been trying to come up with a really solid cold damage based build (none of that arcane stuff) to try and maximize the chill and freeze effects.

With no cold based Paragon path it really doesn't make for much choice when building for cold. In fact you seem to have to "waste" a few feat and paragon points when climbing the trees to get to the only decent cold buffing options. There really isn't an optimal cold build that compares to what you can build with arcane. I am not even really finding any mixed builds that I really like as all around builds, at least that have the nice synergies that full arcane and its powers can have.

I am disappointed that arcane feels so much more fleshed out and cold is stuck in the corner with the dunce cap on.

I guess its down the arcane trail until they release a cold based paragon path? So sad
Post edited by belaz50 on

Comments

  • derresshderressh Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    Yeah, it is rather unfortunate that cold powers seem to have gotten shafted compared to the Arcane powers.

    I'm not sure about an entire build, but I messed around a bit during BWE4 with Icy Terrain + Spell Mastery Conduit of Ice. The Icy Terrain immobilizes enemies in the initial hit of the skill, and slowly applies chill stacks with the DoT. Conduit of Ice on Tab also added chill stacks to the enemies each time they're hit by it (along with increasing the damage it does for each chill stack) and both of them combined resulted in an AoE freeze after a couple of seconds.
  • rkv13rkv13 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 217 Bounty Hunter
    edited April 2013
    That's disappointing...

    From what I saw in the CW forum it seemed most players didn't like all the Ice powers. Mostly, I figure, because they wanted to play a War Wizard casting lightning and fireballs all around like a WoW Mage. At first I wasn't a fan either, but after watching some youtube videos of CWs in action it grew on me. Logically, too, the Control Wizard would focus on Ice and Air powers to disable their enemies, and the War Wizard would focus on Fire and Earth powers to blast foes into oblivion (covering all four Traditional Elements).

    It's surprising to hear it's so difficult to specialize in Ice magic. Seemed like that was the original intent of the CW. I hope you'll stick with the concept anyway, as I'm sure come Open Beta they'll have reworked the Power Point and Feat systems some more. People have been complaining about it enough, I'm sure they've noticed.
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  • altodarraltodarr Member Posts: 60
    edited April 2013
    What are you talking about?

    Out of the 27 paragon feats there are:
    15 feats that have something to do with cold powers/chills
    7 feats that have something to with arcane powers
    3 feats that have something to with lightning powers (1 in each tree)
    9 general feats

    Majority of feats in the Oppressor and the Thaumaturge tree have something to do with cold powers including both of the last feats.
    Even in the Renegade tree there are only 3 feats for arcane powers.
  • belaz50belaz50 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    altodarr wrote: »
    What are you talking about?

    Out of the 27 paragon feats there are:
    15 feats that have something to do with cold powers/chills
    7 feats that have something to with arcane powers
    3 feats that have something to with lightning powers (1 in each tree)
    9 general feats

    Majority of feats in the Oppressor and the Thaumaturge tree have something to do with cold powers including both of the last feats.
    Even in the Renegade tree there are only 3 feats for arcane powers.

    Yeah you are right there are plenty of cold feats around, but they don't stack or they don't do much more than add once stack of chill. Seems weak for the point investment maybe?

    Plus it feels like you have to spend points in things that don't directly affect your 4 encounter powers and maybe that is the problem, no choices for cold damage. Maybe its the fact that the oppressor tree looks extremely weak and boring? I don't know, it just feels like I am wasting points somewhere picking up things that affect arcane in some way or making lighting chill things somehow.

    It might also be that a couple of the cold based abilities rarely get used, in fact I have never seen anyone use Icy Rays and that is a bit bothersome, does it suck that badly? Chill strike also seems to get removed from bars fairly quickly due to damage or cast time or recharge time, who knows.

    I am just saying that I can build a few nice looking/feeling storm builds that I feel would be all around decent and you wouldn't be wasting points on cold based things. You can swap around arcane encounters as needed, like using repel for pvp.

    Every cold build I look at feels boring or bland or like I am wasting points somewhere on things that will never affect the 4 cold encounters or the two cold dailies. It just seems that its the lack of options that hinders any cold builds I can come up with.
  • abaddonxkabaddonxk Member Posts: 203 Arc User
    edited April 2013
    belaz50 wrote: »
    ...in fact I have never seen anyone use Icy Rays and that is a bit bothersome, does it suck that badly? Chill strike also seems to get removed from bars fairly quickly due to damage or cast time or recharge time, who knows..

    Yes, Icy Rays is kinda horrible. Chill Strike on the other hand is a very good ranged AoE in the Tab slot, and seemed to be used by the majority of CW's.

    I can actually see some really good builds focusing on Cold. You'll be extremely limited if you restrict yourself to using 100% Cold powers and never anything else, but that's the case with Arcane as well (only 1 At-Will).

    Here's an example, a group-based AoE powerhouse: Take the Wizard's Wrath Heroic feat. Go down the Thaumaturge tree, taking Destructive Wizardry, Snap Freeze and Frozen Power Transfer. Arcane Singularity and Ice Storm/Ice Knife as your Dailies. Storm Pillar and Chilling Cloud as your At-Wills. Chill Strike in your Tab slot, and whatever Encounters you like. Evocation as one of your passives.

    When Arcane Singularity is available (or you have any other way of gathering enemies together), you can absolutely destroy groups of adds with the following combo:

    Arcane Singularity, gathering things together and holding them still.
    One round of Chilling Cloud, buffing your damage by 5% for each enemy in the Singularity on the 3rd hit.
    Storm Pillar, buffing your damage by another 10%.
    Wait, or use any Powers that don't add/maintain stacks of Chill*, until the enemies are no longer chilled from Chilling Cloud.
    Tabbed Chill Strike for truly incredible AoE damage, due to +6% AoE damage, +15% AoE damage, +20% Cold damage on non-chilled targets, +10% damage from Storm Pillar, and however much damage Chilling Cloud gave (+50% for 10 mobs, as an example).

    The way things seemed to stack through my testing in BW3 would give (1 * 1.21 * 1.2 * 1.6 = ) 232.32% damage (with 10 mobs) on Chill Strike, which is already pretty powerful. Now imagine if it crits. :rolleyes:

    *This is a perfect opportunity to be even better with a hybrid build; use Steal Time here, and have Arcane Presence as your second passive. This will give 5 stacks of Arcane Mastery for another +15% Cold damage - now 261.36% total Chill Strike damage - while also doing great AoE damage and stunning mobs.
  • altodarraltodarr Member Posts: 60
    edited April 2013
    Chill Strike on the other hand is a very good ranged AoE in the Tab slot

    Yep, I'll definitely go with that one. In a normal encounter slot with some random build it doesn't seem special but if you know what you are doing, it's hilarious.
    The funniest thing about chill strike is that you can get its cd down to about 7 secs easily on lv60. That's crazy for an instant cast, high dmg + stun aoe.

    And yes, icy rays is totally useless. Basically any other power is better than that one.
  • telekinetic13telekinetic13 Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    They plan on adding more paragon paths I bet this will change when we get a paragon path that is more ice friendly.
  • nec0enec0e Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    the paragon feat paths aside frm renegade are really lack luster, oppressor gives more chill on ice storm (seriously ice storm?) and tharmasurge gives dmg mitigation on conduit of ice
  • sent8sent8 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 70
    edited May 2013
    http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?201791-CW-Icy-Aoe-build-Great-for-Leveling

    Check out my build, Ice is great for keeping large groups CC'd while putting out big numbers.
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  • violated87violated87 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Cold is problematic because most of the power of a cold build revolves around chill stacks, and chill doesn't seem to work on bosses in the higher level dungeons and skirmishes. I tried again last night and they are just instantly removed or don't show up at all.
  • sent8sent8 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 70
    edited May 2013
    violated87 wrote: »
    Cold is problematic because most of the power of a cold build revolves around chill stacks, and chill doesn't seem to work on bosses in the higher level dungeons and skirmishes. I tried again last night and they are just instantly removed or don't show up at all.

    That is why Thaumaturge's Snap Freeze is a must have. Gives all your cold spells a 20% increase in damage vs anything not effected by chill. Thaumaturge also gives all of your cold encounter spells a DoT of 30% of your weapon damage.
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  • projxprojx Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Here's my build... I've lost the dps race once @ 60 to a TR 2500 GS higher than me (he doubled my damage and quadrupled everypne else). This build has good AOE and good single target and I play it with a striker mentality. Start with Tiefling (best race followed by human imo). INT / CHA every level with 20 starting INT.



    2 cont. action
    3 wep mastery
    5 fight on
    3 blight power
    2 arc mastery
    5 Learned Spellcaster

    Bitter Cold 5 You gain 1/2/3/4/5% increased damage after afflicting an enemy with Chill. (This bonus lasts 6 seconds and does not stack)

    Critical Power 5 When you land a critical hit you gain 1/2/3/4/5% of your total Action Point. (10 second cooldown)

    Tempest Magic 5 When your target is below 30% max Hit Points you deal an additional 2/4/6/8/10% damage

    Snap Freeze 5 Your Cold powers deal an additional 4/8/10/16/20% damage to targets who are not affected by Chill - (since some bosses aren't chillable)

    Malevolent Surge 5 When you kill a foe you gain 2/4/6/8/10% more damage for each foe you kill. Stacks up to 3 times, lasts 4 seconds

    Transcended Master 5 Shard of Endless Avalanche deals an additional 3/6/9/12/15% damage. (Icy Rays deals an additional 4/8/12/16/20% damage if cast on the same target twice)

    Assailing Force 1 Your Conduit of Ice power now reduces the Mitigation of affected targets by 15%


    Slotted PVE powers:

    MMissle
    RoFrost

    Tab: Conduit of ice (adds chill stack to everything - Procs 5% more damage / 15% less damage mitigation to mobs)
    SoEAvalanche
    Ray of Enfeeblement
    Icy Rays

    Tab Passives:
    Chilling Presence
    Eye of the Storm

    Daily:
    Ice Storm
    Ice Knife

    PVP:

    Mostly the same just switch Avalanche Shard for Entangling Force. Then swap Conduit of Ice from the Tab'd position with Icy Rays. You basically want to nuke your targets while conduit is lowering their mitigation by 15%. Once's you've lined up debuffs / chills you can see Icy Rays hit almost as hard as your daily. 4 pc pvp gear bonus is 25% time duration off your tab target power which is baller.


    Build benefits:
    Works great in PVE and PVP with pretty extreme damage. Pretty easy to go more control if needed as well.
    Gave in to that momentary sadistic twitch...
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  • projxprojx Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    sent8 wrote: »
    That is why Thaumaturge's Snap Freeze is a must have. Gives all your cold spells a 20% increase in damage vs anything not effected by chill. Thaumaturge also gives all of your cold encounter spells a DoT of 30% of your weapon damage.

    Agree 100% about snap freeze but for me instead of the 30% dot I buffed shard and IRays. My Icy Rays crits between 8-15k depending on how debuffed a mob is.
    Gave in to that momentary sadistic twitch...
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