"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
Its kinda hard not too because of the Arcane Mastery stacking buff that ties into alot of other skills. I would like to see Storm Pillar get a nice buff. Maybe then I'd switch, but as of right now the damage is blah and I can't remember if it generates AM stacks or not ?
I recently converted my magic missile slot to that ice crystal swarm. it behaves similarly but gives chillinstead of arcane mastery. since im more focused on locking foes down than dps its good for me. I also got a lot of the feats and bouses giving more bonuses to chill power dps...aoes...and holds.
the only powers I use that uses arcane is force choke and the singularty I use that to hold the boss still while I icebolt ppl into a statues and the singularity I use to gather people together for my AOE icehits.
I just use chill, and all ice abilities. I am speced for CC and AOE. I don't really build up Arcane stacks. It kinda sucks on bosses, as the chill effect does not go on them, but then I mostly keep out the adds, and with the feat snap freeze, you do 20% more damage anyways with cold spells on bosses so it is not an all out loss.
MM does almost double the damage of all the other at wills... dont know why you wouldnt use it.
Yeah, you are really missing a huge amount of dps if you don't, especially if you have the good feats that make it even better. If you have a group that doesn't mind you doing less dps and more into control, then it would be okay probably. Once Warlock and archer come in, or other ranged strikers, then it will be less important, since others will be more dps, but for now, we are really the ranged damage.
I find it hard to justify using anything else. You have a second at-will slot if you want a control at-will, at least one of your slots should be MM though. It triples the damage output of other at-wills.
The only other at-wills that I use aside from MM is storm pillar, which is semi-decent as a starter move when defending a point in pvp. Charge up and wait till someone comes in range (who isn't another CW) then throw that plus the regular CW cycles. The main purpose is still just to charge up the action meter while waiting at a point though (capturing/waiting for enemies).
Damage aside, until the other at wills give arcane mastery there's really no point. That said I'll still occasionally use ray of ice if I need to slow/freeze something but that's pretty rare over the benefits magic missile brings. The other two aren't even worth training much less slotting ever, in my opinion.
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blackfell274Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Any CW not using MM, with all due respect, has not figured out how to play one yet. There isn't ANY at-will that comes close to it.
Storm Pillar - forcing your CW to stand in one place to charge a spell that does LESS damage is ridiculous.
Chilling Cloud - Originally I thought it was OK, but after testing it often, I found that the third strike is TOTALLY not worth the less of DPS.
Ray of Frost - Your ONLY other option, and it should really only be used in PvE to CC if everything else is on cooldown. In PvP it is sometimes used.
Honestly I don't care if you build a CW for "control" or not. Regardless, MM should STILL be your main At-will. I run T2 and for the most part Chill Strike and Steal Time provide enough CC on any run. There IS such a thing as too much CC and it is up to a CW to figure out where that line is based on their own personal skills. The content as it stands right now does NOT need ANY sort of extreme CCing.
I run 2 CW one is DPS focused with MM, Tabbed chill strike, Condiut of ice, and Entangling force (still only lvl 30) + arcane sing
but my heavy crowd control wizard using only ray of frost with tabbed Conduit of ice, Chill strike, Icy terrain, and Entangling force. +arcane sing
I really like both builds, but my ray of frost build is amazing at crowd control, and damage is not bad not great but the dugeouns run a lot smoother when i can tie up groups of mobs
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losse1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
For solo I have found it much easier to live with a full cold build in the mid 50s. Dungeon finder doesn't seem to work so that doesn't really matter i guess ;( Unless it works after the first 60 mins, but 60 mins is enough for me. On the rare occassion I do get a group, the trickster, other CW and DWF are always max dps build so seems to work out good with me locking stuff down.
"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
Use mm on my crit/power CW. Try to use storm pillar at start of combat then mm pretty much thereafter... When I remember to use storm pillar that is. She is a force/lightning though, no cold spells.
Also made a "controller" CW, soumds redundant:), that packs all cold spells. He uses both the ray and the snowball one. Notice most trash seems to go down in one cycle either way +/- a shot. Only 24 on this guy though and am starting to notice a slowdown in my killing power.
MM is the way to go for me the damage is so much better, but I kinda wish they brought back the original MM it would make kitting so much better which is important for CW, what the heck is wrong with crytic these days.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "A sin is a terrible burden to bare, Remdemption is the only solution."
I would HAPPILY consider switching to Storm Pillar or Chilling Cloud if they were worth it, but they're really not worth it for the way I tend to play.
If cloud's AOE were upped, I could definitely see it's use. The width of an Icy Terrain seems like a bit too much though. Perhaps the width of an Un-Mastered Conduit, or a little bigger?
Storm Pillar could go one of two ways. Drastic damage increase, or remove the charge time.
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shadedkinMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I found a spec with cold that has been putting me on top DPS after runs. Still tweaking it. Maybe I will post it when I have perfected it. I don't use MM.
Nope, I bound my right-click to the Spell Mastery power instead.
OK that's a brilliant idea going to try that, it seems way more intuitive than the tab button. Now to figure out if key bindings can be changed per character instead of account wide since it wouldn't work for my rogue or DC
You should never be using only frost spells, at least not right now when a pure frost build has little to no support. Even Oppressor favors by Magic Missile, unless you're using Ray of Frost to specifically freeze something. Notice that all +damage Oppressor feats affect Magic Missile. For chill generation you already have Icy Terrain and Chilling Strike. If you need more than that you're doing it wrong. In fact the only spec that can afford to spec out of Magic Missile is Thaum, and he'll probably be switching back to Magic Missile once he no longer needs the extra AoE from other at-wills anyway. And what would your fourth encounter power be? How would you deal with Rimefire golems?
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Whenever you see those "key" words, you should immediately become suspicious. While MM may be the best for pure damage (emphasize, "may") that is not the only reason to use a particular At-Will. There are a lot of assertions out there based on parsing numbers on motionless, non-attacking target dummies. Still more based on the experience of this particular player or that one. And, I suspect, still more that is just random bullsh*t.
MM is a great skill, stacks arcane mastery and does very good single target damage. I do use it, along with Chilling Cloud. For me, when I have a group of bad guys close together with chill stacks on them, grouped up by AS, the chill stacks and CoI provide excellent damage mitigation, both offensively and defensively. When they are scattered, and everything is on cooldown, I go to MM to finish things off.
It's all situational. There probably are "best" skills/builds, when it comes to damage output, or damage mitigation, or control... but there are MANY ways to play and be an effective member of your team.
I repeat. You should never be using only frost spells. Those numbers are nice, until you factor in Arcane Presence and suddenly Magic Missile is giving Chilling Cloud 15% more damage. On top of that, having both MM and CC allows you to build arcane mastery stacks, chill and gives you both a single target and AoE at-will. Finally Arcane Presence gives your Chilling Strike, Icy Terrain, Ice Storm and Ice Knife a fat +15% damage. This is an especially powerful boost to tabbed Chilling Strike, which is considered a control power and so is affected by the Archmage set (ie, very spammable). Proper timing and the use of other arcane spells allows you to keep the stacks your MM has built up. And I ask again: what would you use as your fourth encounter power? There is no 4th frost encounter power. And are you seriously considering using Icy Rays as your third power in PvE? Are you really trying to market a wizard who refuses to use Arcane Singularity?
What is wrong with you people?
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Comments
the only powers I use that uses arcane is force choke and the singularty I use that to hold the boss still while I icebolt ppl into a statues and the singularity I use to gather people together for my AOE icehits.
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Yeah, you are really missing a huge amount of dps if you don't, especially if you have the good feats that make it even better. If you have a group that doesn't mind you doing less dps and more into control, then it would be okay probably. Once Warlock and archer come in, or other ranged strikers, then it will be less important, since others will be more dps, but for now, we are really the ranged damage.
That's cause yer probably a rogue
Storm Pillar - forcing your CW to stand in one place to charge a spell that does LESS damage is ridiculous.
Chilling Cloud - Originally I thought it was OK, but after testing it often, I found that the third strike is TOTALLY not worth the less of DPS.
Ray of Frost - Your ONLY other option, and it should really only be used in PvE to CC if everything else is on cooldown. In PvP it is sometimes used.
Honestly I don't care if you build a CW for "control" or not. Regardless, MM should STILL be your main At-will. I run T2 and for the most part Chill Strike and Steal Time provide enough CC on any run. There IS such a thing as too much CC and it is up to a CW to figure out where that line is based on their own personal skills. The content as it stands right now does NOT need ANY sort of extreme CCing.
but my heavy crowd control wizard using only ray of frost with tabbed Conduit of ice, Chill strike, Icy terrain, and Entangling force. +arcane sing
I really like both builds, but my ray of frost build is amazing at crowd control, and damage is not bad not great but the dugeouns run a lot smoother when i can tie up groups of mobs
Also made a "controller" CW, soumds redundant:), that packs all cold spells. He uses both the ray and the snowball one. Notice most trash seems to go down in one cycle either way +/- a shot. Only 24 on this guy though and am starting to notice a slowdown in my killing power.
That said I do enjoy both.
"A sin is a terrible burden to bare, Remdemption is the only solution."
If cloud's AOE were upped, I could definitely see it's use. The width of an Icy Terrain seems like a bit too much though. Perhaps the width of an Un-Mastered Conduit, or a little bigger?
Storm Pillar could go one of two ways. Drastic damage increase, or remove the charge time.
OK that's a brilliant idea going to try that, it seems way more intuitive than the tab button. Now to figure out if key bindings can be changed per character instead of account wide since it wouldn't work for my rogue or DC
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Never is a very strong word
With my spec, I did the following test:
Chilling Cloud
Chilling Cloud
Chilling Cloud
Magic Missile
1x Target
2x Target
3x Target
1x Target
Base 1st hit
491
0
0
618
Base Full Rnd
2583
3955
5327
3057
5x Arcane Mastery (15%)
2583
3955
5327
3516
Arcane Enhancement (6%)
2583
3955
5327
3726
Blighting Power (9%)
2815
4311
5806
3726
Bitter Cold (5%)
2956
4526
6097
3726
Froz. Pow Trans (5%/perT)
3104
4979
7011
3726
Chilling Presence (18%)
3663
5875
8273
3726
Since then, MM is "never" slotted on my bar. I started putting Storm Pillar to charge AP during down time, or Ray for PvP utility.
Whenever you see those "key" words, you should immediately become suspicious. While MM may be the best for pure damage (emphasize, "may") that is not the only reason to use a particular At-Will. There are a lot of assertions out there based on parsing numbers on motionless, non-attacking target dummies. Still more based on the experience of this particular player or that one. And, I suspect, still more that is just random bullsh*t.
MM is a great skill, stacks arcane mastery and does very good single target damage. I do use it, along with Chilling Cloud. For me, when I have a group of bad guys close together with chill stacks on them, grouped up by AS, the chill stacks and CoI provide excellent damage mitigation, both offensively and defensively. When they are scattered, and everything is on cooldown, I go to MM to finish things off.
It's all situational. There probably are "best" skills/builds, when it comes to damage output, or damage mitigation, or control... but there are MANY ways to play and be an effective member of your team.
And that's the ONLY truth... oops... wait...
What is wrong with you people?