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Which tree is higher PVE dps (Thaumaturge or Renegade)
nauch
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Looking for strictly max lvl PVE which has the most damage. I am leaning more towards Renegade, but I have never played that tree. Currently I am Thaumaturge and thinking about getting a respec.
Post edited by nauch on
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I'm at 9.6 GS.
PvE Enthusiast.
Ok, but no.
Please, add something constructive then, Mr Best Control Wizard.
PvE Enthusiast.
I can vouche for this as well.
Currently 10.1k GS
I run:
Shard of the Endless Avalanche (primarily for the knockdown)
Steal Time (aoe stun)
Shield (insane AP generator)
Conduit of Ice (tabbed) - Ray of Enfeeblement for single target heavy places
Pop Arcane Singularity, use Shield explosion (AS will pull them back in), Conduit of Ice a high health mob, Shard of the Avalanche the mobs when they land from the AS, Steal Time, and re-cast shield. On large groups of mobs, I have enough AP to cast a new Singularity and repeat. Smaller groups of mobs, where I'm not capping AP so easily, I weave in Magic Missiles which also procs Chaos Magic.
The -10% defense on arcane encounters (like ray) the -15% mitigation with conduit, then on top of Ray, then you can still spec into Nightmare Wizardry to give everyone constant combat advantage.
With conduit and ray alone you ALMOST double the dmg a target takes, i'd say about 45% dmg increase, and that's for everyone on your team.
Thing is some of the feats are broken in that tree.
I'm also using a cheap lesser plaguefire enchant for another -15% defense, that's -25% defense and about -35% mitigation from ray/conduit combo.
Even then I still almost top the charts most of the time.
And since the 20% ice dmg on chill-less target feats doesn't work for anything other than your At wills it seems, you can do mastery Conduit for the bigger aoe and extra CC, aoe -15% mitigation.
Not sure if that one feat increases shard dmg, but I know it does NOT increase Ice Ray's dmg.
So I'd probably suggest the first 2 feats (unless your Tiefling then one doesn't work lol) then the chilling cloud dmg boost feat (which is actually pretty good if it works, for aoe) the storm pillar one is terrible. Then the feat for defense debuff and cold dot.
I definitely agree Thaum is better single target, but I'm still not convinced on aoe. I will have to play around with it more- maybe use Chill Strike on tab to get more out of Elemental Empowerment instead of Conduit of Ice. The servers are just too laggy for us atm to run anything.
I'll play around with it more in Spellplague / Kara later tonight.
"Did you change something? I've never been within a few hundred k damage of you. Usually you are at least a mil ahead"
It may just be a play-style difference but for me, Renegade is the clear choice.
I think it boils down to whether or not Thaums lower personal dps makes up for it in party dps gain. This really isn't easily answered. For single target on bosses? Almost definitely. However, every T2 I have done so far, I am in charge of adds. Either I am mass controlling them or I am solo single targeting ranged mobs so that the Cleric can kite the melee, or I am knocking them to their death.
When I am mass controlling adds, everyone else is usually focused on the boss- meaning (for our group at least), Thaums defense/mitigation debuffs are not really benefiting them. Now, controlling the mobs on top of the boss would be a way to ensure the boss is getting hit with the defense/mitigation debuffs, but that also puts the melee in your group at risk. If they are constantly having to move away from mob abilities, that is lowering their dps.
I'm sure some people could pull Thaum off so the mobs + the boss are getting the defense/mitigation debuffs. That being said, I do not believe it is completely realistic. Again, I share Pyke's opinion when he stated "Thaum looks better on paper, but when applied to actual gameplay, renegade simply performs better".
I, personally, do much more damage as Renegade. Not only does this help me kill mobs more quickly by myself, but damage output increases action point gain, which in turn lets me Singularity more for control.
The tooltip of Nightmare Wizardry seems to imply that everyone attacking the mob benefits from the combat advantage. Honestly, I am not sure though and have not verified.
I think most people are going to have a different answer here. I personally use:
Magic Missiles
Storm Pillar (only for action point gain out of combat)
Shard of the Endless Avalanche
Steal Time
Shield
[TAB] Conduit of Ice (aoe) / Steal Time (aoe) / Repel (knocking off) / Ray of Enfeeblement (single target) / Entangling Grasp (single target control)
Ice Knife
Arcane Singularity
I've found this build to provide me with the best control and damage for large groups of mobs.
-Steal Time is high damage + aoe stun. Self explanatory.
-Shard of the Endless Avalanche is moderate damage + aoe knockdown
-Shield is absurdly high damage and the knock-back is negated if you cast Singularity first (it pulls them back in instantly). Shield alone probably accounts for half my action point gain. On encounters with very large amounts of adds, 1 shield gives me full action points.
-My tab skill as you saw changes a lot. I'm still not quite sure what I like best for aoe situations. I like Conduit of Ice's control (stacks chill on all mobs when its on tab). I tried Sudden Storm for awhile but I disliked the positional requirements, lack of crits, and lack of crowd control. I may also play around with using Chill Strike, which I had originally.
Those overall damage meters at the end aren't a real accurate source of feedback.
Use Steal time in your tab slot, stack recovery, pop singularity, use steal time, grant combat advantage to yourself and the group, then explode your shield after using steal time just before the mobs go into the hole, and watch all the orange numbers dance on your screen as you top the meters. You can also weave in Conduit of Ice in between steal time and the shield explosion and your Conduit will deal combat advantage damage as well. You're also giving Ray of Enfeeblement, -20% target defense from Elemental Empowerment, and 15% mitigation on a target from Conduit for single target.
Not to mention, that since Steal time and Shield Pulse both do not suffer from an AOE cap like chill strike does, everytime you get off that combo, if you have 2300+ recovery (as you should easily have if you have around 9k GS), you will instantly have another daily power up and you can repeat the process. This is how a single mage is able to constantly CC adds in top end tier 2 dungeons.
Yes, I did. I'm just going to assume that you didn't get to read my more recent post (9:53)
No doubt it is higher damage to put Steal Time on tab and than cast Shield. But how are you casting Steal Time so much? Even with the Fight On heroic feat + 2730 recovery, my Steal Time cooldown is 14.5 seconds. I'm guessing you do:
Singularity
Steal Time
Shield
Conduit of Ice
re-cast shield
Singularity
At this point is where I'd like more info- your Steal Time is not up yet, do you just use Shield without it and than use Steal Time with the next Singularity? So basically Steal Time + Shield combo every other Singularity?
Also you listed -20% defense but I only show Elemental Empowerment providing -10%? Unless it is a stacking debuff?
Just curious what is your reasoning to use Conduit of Ice as renegade? The ability seems pretty lackluster especially without the thaum talent. Even with that I don't see why you would use it in your tab?
Also the more I am looking at it the less thaum looks like the better way to go. The Mitigation debuff doesn't have that much uptime and the 10% defense debuff even less.
2 core Feats broken, makes this tree hard to get.
Typical Thaumatuge builds would go:
tempest magic, malevolent surge, snap freeze, elemental empowerment, assailing force, reaper's touch, nightmare wizardry.
Typical Renegade builds would go:
reaper's touch, nightmare wizardry, Phantasmal destruction, masterful arcane theft, chaos magic, tempest magic, malevolent surge/snap freeze.
Since the first 10 points of either tree will be picked by either side (typically tempest magic + malevolent surge for thaumaturge, reaper's touch + nightmare wizardry for renegade), we will have to compare snap freeze/elemental empowerment/assailing force vs phantasmal destruction/masterful arcane theft/chaos magic.
Thaumaturge side:
As of now, snap freeze is broken (apparently it works for at-wills though), so that's one strike down. Elemental empowerment's first effect (30% weapon damage dot when using cold encounters) only works with COI and untabbed chill strike. While this means that it works perfectly in pvp (since people typically use ROE on tab and use chill strike as a single target stun), but it is a pretty big loss in pve since tabbed chill strike is quite a staple. For its second effect, the only arcane encounter that does not proc the -def icon is shard of endless avalanche. So elemental empowerment is half-broken.
Lastly, assailing force. This works perfectly as far as I can tell.
Renegade side:
Phantasmal destruction seems to work just fine.
Not too sure on masterful arcane theft, but it should be working as far as I can tell. But depending on whether or not the second part of this feat works without needing chill stacks first would determine how useful it is to pve dps. If the second part of the feat (5% additional damage per arcane mastery) works without chill stacks (since it states "...and an additional"), 25% more damage with ROE/steal time can add quite a bit of damage overall. If it does not (since you can't stack chill on bosses/certain mini bosses), then this feat is considerably worthless in comparison (typical pve scenarios, the only way you would be getting chills on your target is via ray of frost/chill strike. Tabbed chill strike only chills the initial target too, so no aoe abuse with steal time).
Chaos magic seems semi-broken (ie it does not seem to proc 33% of the time, feels closer to 15-20%). The effects seem to work well enough, but since its various effects can override each other (correct me if I'm wrong), you are essentially gambling with the skill if you constantly spam your at-wills.The benefits from chaos magic on your party is random enough that you can almost never min-max it manually (ie spam at-wills till the effect you want occurs and stop, which would mean *your* dps would suffer in that case). It just seems too gimmicky at this point to me.
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From the feats comparison alone, the only real factor giving renegade builds any real advantage over thaumaturge seems to be from phantasmal destruction (which works with every skill that is capable of critting), and that snap freeze/elemental empowerment being broken.
To be honest though, I just feel that assailing force alone makes thaumaturge a better overall choice for those concerned with dps. And once they fix tempest magic (for tieflings)/snap freeze/elemental empowerment, you can expect to see a larger difference in dps.
If you want to be a cc bot then I say thaumaturge, killing machine with CC then renegade, tank caster build with cc then go oppressor.
You forgot ray of enfeeblement, and you can always just pop another shield in between, recast conduit on a higher health mob, or simply just single target to fill in the gaps.
P.S. The reason I say Renegade is more flexible is that I can swap CoI for Shield or Entangling Force and I am just trading out some aoe damage. If I was Thaumaturge, swapping out CoI would be a huge dps loss, which means I'd have to get rid of either Steal Time or Ray of Enfeeblment. Steal Time, while it would be significantly lower damage, is a huge aoe cc and very valuable IMO, while Ray of Enfeeblement is easily the strongest single target ability we have (although maybe it wouldn't be without the Renegade feat buffing it) and offers big debuffs for the group. Either way I have to make a pretty significant trade there. And if I did go ahead and swap out CoI anyway (i.e. only cold spell is now Chill Strike), then Renegade becomes superior dps.
edit- I just read @zellista's post above and he indicated Elemental Empowerment suffers the same issue that Snap Freeze does with tabbed Chill Strike. If that's true, then Thaum is useless for now. Pretty much every feat in that tree is broken.
Its actually pretty hard to nail down WHY renegade does so much better. Tool tips are lacking, and some things are not working as intended. For encounters I run many different things depending on the fight. Usually Entangling Force, Chill Strike, and Enfeeble see the most consistent use. Simple fact is, as Renegade you have A LOT of flexibility with your encounters. You have to understand that within 20 FT a 3 cast of MM hits harder than most encounters and once you have enough crit you build AP like no ones business and provide a constant stream of team buffs. As renegade I try to use my encounters more for their utility, and rely on MM to provide the majority of my DPS. It just works bro. All I see is hundreds of crits scroll across my screen, followed by a daily ever 5 MM full rotations. But honestly man, player skill has an enormous factor in this game. It really doesn't matter what spec you play if you don't learn how to combo your spells correctly. Positioning, team work, and consistent placement of encounters and dailies where they are needed the most with a whole lot of PEW PEW in between.
Until people actually lab/mine out the data from boss fights and figure out how much Assailing Force and Elemental Empowerment are actually contributing it'll be hard to tell which spec is superior.