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Deagen's Control Wizard Guide
tresdyn
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 41
Renegade Control Wizard Build
Updates:
5-25-2013
Added in Companion Suggestions
Fixed the mistake in PvP Feat Spec Listed at the end of the Guide
Fixed the information about Storm Spell Class Feature
I got my Castle Never Orb!
My Twitch Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/deagen I stream everyday from Noon - 6-7pm Eastern. I do a Pizza Giveaway for my viewers every Friday at 6pm Eastern, and we also do a Homemade Cookie Giveaway for my subscribers every other Sunday. Cookies are shipped all over the world.
I haven't been topped in damage in a dungeon in ages, and have spec'd numerous ways to test out all the powers a control wizard has access to. This is what I think (personal opinion) is the best for a control wizard.
Best race: Tiefling or Human, (although I chose Elf... Because pointy ears are HAMSTER!)
Attributes: Int > Cha > Wis
Stats: Most CW's will say power, I disagree.... The amount of damage you get from power is almost nothing, it is far better to stack Tennebrous Enchants in your offensive slots than anything else. If you cannot afford them stack either Crit or Armor Pen.
So overall: Crit = ARP > Recovery = Power
I would shoot for this for end game stats:
3000 Power
3000 Crit
2200 ARP
2750 Recovery
DR's start to kick in very hard for Power and Crit and going past 3k isn't worth it unless you have the stats in the other categories as well.
2200 ARP is all that is worth having as it scales very well up to that point.
Recovery also starts to fall off very hard after 2500. These are stats you "should" have with a cat companion and while having ONLY Tennebrous enchants in your offensive slots.
Gearing up as a fresh 60:
Start with PvP. In about 3-4 hours you can have a full set and start running T1 Dungeons. And the PvP Orb is a great until you can get the Castle Never one.
Best Companions for the Control Wizards:
For Leveling the Cleric is the best, although it seems like it does nothing sometimes it will save you time with healing you and tanks almost as well if not better than the other ones. It casts the big heal and will pretty much pull agro and die, but it's still to get the heal.
At lvl 60 the best companion is currently the Cat companion. It is better than the Stone because it give more Crit and Recovery instead of Power which doesn't scale as well. It can be purchase from the Astral Diamonds vendor for 980k Astral Diamonds, and is worth every penny.
Tier Set To Go For:
Shadow Weaver's by far is the best currently. The tool tip on the 4 set sounds like the crit severity isn't supposed to go above 10% bonus for the party, but in fact this bonus has stacked over 200% on my party's. It doesn't not seem to work all the time, and is very hard to reproduce, but I have screen shots with over 200% crit severity.
I have hit 30k Chill Strikes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLHu0dn7uMg
And I hit a 80k Ice Knife last night while running Castle Never: (no highlight yet)
Weapon and Armor Enchants You Should Get:
I am currently using the Plague Fire Enchant in my weapon, this works great with CW because we hit everything multiple times very quickly during our AOE rotations. The dot from this can also proc your Tennebrous enchants in your offensive slots for added damage.
I just finally finished my Greater Vorpal Enchant last night, which will provide another 38% Crit Severity and I have yet to test this to see which one overall is better.
As far as armor enchants go, really the only useful one for everyone except a GF is the Soulforged which will make you immune to damage for 2 seconds when you take damage below 25% health. This seems to proc a lot, and has saved me on both PvE and PvP.
Control Wizard Abilities will be Ranked by how many * are next to the name, none being the lowest, 4 being the highest.
Your At Wills
**Magic Missile**: By far the best at will we have as Control Wizards, use this, love this.
Ray of Frost: Pretty Crappy, and only used in very few situations.
Chilling Cloud: I tried to like this I really did, and it might be better eventually when they allow a frost mage build to be more viable.
Storm Pillar: The ONLY reason you will / would ever use this is to boost your AP while out of combat to refill your daily, outside of that, it is tuuuuurrrrrible.
Class Features
Tried all of them while leveling and by far the most useful ones are:
**Evocation**: Boost all AOE damage by a total of 15%
***Storm Spell***: Shocks your targets on 10% of all your attacks. Does pretty awesome damage and can proc on all your AOE abilities. This and Evocation are pretty close in total DPS output but Storm Spell beats out Evocation by the slightest margin.
****Eye of the Storm****: You have a 5% chance on all of your abilities to proc a 100% crit chance for 8 seconds! This ability is the best Class Feature we have and should always be in your arsenal.... period.
Daily Powers
*Ice Storm*
Fun to use, does pretty decent damage but... Knocks things back and causes problems for melee dps in your party. So not a great ability to use compared to other dailies.
*Oppressive Force*
Pretty good damage and a Daze on all the targets it hits which can be nice to give a breather for your team if overrun.
****Ice Knife****
Such a beast ability and so satisfying to crit something with. It hits like a truck, stuns, and can really help take down an annoying elite or take a chunk out of a boss. It's a MUST for pvp.
****Arcane Singularity****
Best daily you have for PvE, it will allow you to group up mobs and knock them off edges or group them so you team can AOE them down. Doesn't do much damage but it's the versatility of this ability that makes it a must. However, it is very situational in PvP and generally it's much better to Ice Knife a squishy than to AS a whole team.
Maelstrom of Chaos
This ability blows hard, do not waste points into this.
Encounter Powers
****Chill Strike****
Should be in your spell mastery slot while leveling and most the time in dungeons during AOE damage time. It is a fantastic ability.
**Entangling Force**
Perfect ability, and soooo good in PvP. It lets you set up almost your whole dps rotation and allows you to blow people up before they can react. Also has a wonderful spot in PvE which I demonstrate in my PvE spec video linked at the bottom of this guide.
**Conduit of Ice**
This ability has a better place in the leveling process in my opinion than it has in late game PvE or PvP content. But it is worth skilling up as it is better than some of the other encounters.
Repel
I have this ability maxed but I have to be honest here. I HATE this ability, it feels clunky and the mechanic of it is just awkward. Even for use in PvP if you want to argue that, it does terrible damage and you are better off bursting someone down rather than knocking them back in my opinion.
**Ray of Enfeeblement**
Should be in everyone's kit for PvP and does have a spot in PvE if you are running more than one CW. Otherwise, it's better to have more control abilities to make sure you are able to do your job of keeping mobs off DPS, Healers, and Yourself.
**Icy Terrain**
People overlook this ability so much and it is silly. This ability is GREAT, adds chill, slow mobs, eventually freezes. You know those times when you can't cast an ability so save your life, or you healers can't get a important cast off? This ability if placed early in a pull can be a life saver half way through, it gives everyone that second they need to make sure the group is ok. I run this almost all the time in my PVE build, but it has no place in PvP.
****Steal Time****
The best AOE skill we have as Control Wizards, does great damage and stuns everything. So yes, max this, use this, love this.
Sudden Storm
Terrible damage, can't crit, crappy aoe. Don't level this garbage.
****Shield****
Great and used by me all the time in PvE, as long as you use your knockback during a Arcane Singularity nobody will complain as the mobs will get knocked back and then pulled right back grouping them together again. It does great damage and depending on how many mobs you hit can almost instantaneously refill your daily.
**Icy Rays**
I love this ability but only for PvP and situational boss fights in PvE. When put in your mastery slot this can do great burst damage, and has a brief immobilization which can be great for controlling an enemy and starting your dps rotation.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche
Terrible ability, so sad when I see other CW's use this HAMSTER. Stop it just stop..... Only use is for PvP because of a bug where it can dispel Clerics blue circle. And if you are skilling this to exploit a bug in PvP you are bad and should feel bad.
This ability "could" however be pretty awesome if it was re-worked. I like the thought of have something we can drop then throw in another direction. If only it was vector targeted or something where you would click where you want it to drop, then click and drag a vector targeted line on the ground to then launch it in that direction. Just a thought.
My PvE Trash Clearing Spec is this:
Chill Strike on Mastery
Icy Terrain
Steal Time
Shield
Rotation, Arcane Singularity the mobs in.... Icy Terrain, Shield, Once AS pulls them back in use Steal Time. Rinse Repeat. Your Daily should be up almost all the time if you are pulling enough mobs.
Here is an example of this build in action.
http://www.twitch.tv/deagen/c/2325627
PvE Boss Build for Controlling Mobs
Entangling Force on Spell Mastery! BUT WHY DEAGEN? Your job for boss fights is controlling adds, not dps'ing boss. You get insane AP regen from casting EF on a group and helps keep your daily permanently up.
Icy Terrain
Steal Time ( sometimes swapped for Ray of Enfeeblement ) if you do use this, just cast on boss whenever possible.
Shield
Rotation, Arcane Singularity the mobs in.... Icy Terrain, once they are groups closely use Entangling Force and then Shield Knockback. Once they get pulled back use Steal Time, your daily should be recharged so now just repeat.
Here is an example of this build in action.
http://www.twitch.tv/deagen/c/2325605
PvP Build
PvP Single Target Burst Spec
Icy Rays on Mastery
Chill Strike
Ray of Enfeeblement
Entangling Force
Rotation, Ray of Enfeeblement, Entangling Force, Ice Ray casted once and then Chill Strike (all these first hoping to proc your Eye of the Storm Class Feature for best chance at a big crit) then cast your last Icy Rays. If your target isn't dead it's either because you didn't crit, you have bad gear, you are attacking the wrong target, or they are being healed.
Here is this Spec in Action:
http://www.twitch.tv/deagen/c/2325683
Character Stats:
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg484/Deagen/Stats.png
PVP Feats:
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg484/Deagen/PVP_Feats-1.png
PVE Feats:
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg484/Deagen/PVE_Feats.png
This guide is a work in progress and will be updated consistently everyday. Your constructive responses can help make this guide a community CW standard and start weeding out the terrible builds and false information that is not only present on twitch.tv but here in the Control Wizard Forums.
Thanks for reading my guide please leave a comment!
Deagen
Updates:
5-25-2013
Added in Companion Suggestions
Fixed the mistake in PvP Feat Spec Listed at the end of the Guide
Fixed the information about Storm Spell Class Feature
I got my Castle Never Orb!
My Twitch Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/deagen I stream everyday from Noon - 6-7pm Eastern. I do a Pizza Giveaway for my viewers every Friday at 6pm Eastern, and we also do a Homemade Cookie Giveaway for my subscribers every other Sunday. Cookies are shipped all over the world.
I haven't been topped in damage in a dungeon in ages, and have spec'd numerous ways to test out all the powers a control wizard has access to. This is what I think (personal opinion) is the best for a control wizard.
Best race: Tiefling or Human, (although I chose Elf... Because pointy ears are HAMSTER!)
Attributes: Int > Cha > Wis
Stats: Most CW's will say power, I disagree.... The amount of damage you get from power is almost nothing, it is far better to stack Tennebrous Enchants in your offensive slots than anything else. If you cannot afford them stack either Crit or Armor Pen.
So overall: Crit = ARP > Recovery = Power
I would shoot for this for end game stats:
3000 Power
3000 Crit
2200 ARP
2750 Recovery
DR's start to kick in very hard for Power and Crit and going past 3k isn't worth it unless you have the stats in the other categories as well.
2200 ARP is all that is worth having as it scales very well up to that point.
Recovery also starts to fall off very hard after 2500. These are stats you "should" have with a cat companion and while having ONLY Tennebrous enchants in your offensive slots.
Gearing up as a fresh 60:
Start with PvP. In about 3-4 hours you can have a full set and start running T1 Dungeons. And the PvP Orb is a great until you can get the Castle Never one.
Best Companions for the Control Wizards:
For Leveling the Cleric is the best, although it seems like it does nothing sometimes it will save you time with healing you and tanks almost as well if not better than the other ones. It casts the big heal and will pretty much pull agro and die, but it's still to get the heal.
At lvl 60 the best companion is currently the Cat companion. It is better than the Stone because it give more Crit and Recovery instead of Power which doesn't scale as well. It can be purchase from the Astral Diamonds vendor for 980k Astral Diamonds, and is worth every penny.
Tier Set To Go For:
Shadow Weaver's by far is the best currently. The tool tip on the 4 set sounds like the crit severity isn't supposed to go above 10% bonus for the party, but in fact this bonus has stacked over 200% on my party's. It doesn't not seem to work all the time, and is very hard to reproduce, but I have screen shots with over 200% crit severity.
I have hit 30k Chill Strikes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLHu0dn7uMg
And I hit a 80k Ice Knife last night while running Castle Never: (no highlight yet)
Weapon and Armor Enchants You Should Get:
I am currently using the Plague Fire Enchant in my weapon, this works great with CW because we hit everything multiple times very quickly during our AOE rotations. The dot from this can also proc your Tennebrous enchants in your offensive slots for added damage.
I just finally finished my Greater Vorpal Enchant last night, which will provide another 38% Crit Severity and I have yet to test this to see which one overall is better.
As far as armor enchants go, really the only useful one for everyone except a GF is the Soulforged which will make you immune to damage for 2 seconds when you take damage below 25% health. This seems to proc a lot, and has saved me on both PvE and PvP.
Control Wizard Abilities will be Ranked by how many * are next to the name, none being the lowest, 4 being the highest.
Your At Wills
**Magic Missile**: By far the best at will we have as Control Wizards, use this, love this.
Ray of Frost: Pretty Crappy, and only used in very few situations.
Chilling Cloud: I tried to like this I really did, and it might be better eventually when they allow a frost mage build to be more viable.
Storm Pillar: The ONLY reason you will / would ever use this is to boost your AP while out of combat to refill your daily, outside of that, it is tuuuuurrrrrible.
Class Features
Tried all of them while leveling and by far the most useful ones are:
**Evocation**: Boost all AOE damage by a total of 15%
***Storm Spell***: Shocks your targets on 10% of all your attacks. Does pretty awesome damage and can proc on all your AOE abilities. This and Evocation are pretty close in total DPS output but Storm Spell beats out Evocation by the slightest margin.
****Eye of the Storm****: You have a 5% chance on all of your abilities to proc a 100% crit chance for 8 seconds! This ability is the best Class Feature we have and should always be in your arsenal.... period.
Daily Powers
*Ice Storm*
Fun to use, does pretty decent damage but... Knocks things back and causes problems for melee dps in your party. So not a great ability to use compared to other dailies.
*Oppressive Force*
Pretty good damage and a Daze on all the targets it hits which can be nice to give a breather for your team if overrun.
****Ice Knife****
Such a beast ability and so satisfying to crit something with. It hits like a truck, stuns, and can really help take down an annoying elite or take a chunk out of a boss. It's a MUST for pvp.
****Arcane Singularity****
Best daily you have for PvE, it will allow you to group up mobs and knock them off edges or group them so you team can AOE them down. Doesn't do much damage but it's the versatility of this ability that makes it a must. However, it is very situational in PvP and generally it's much better to Ice Knife a squishy than to AS a whole team.
Maelstrom of Chaos
This ability blows hard, do not waste points into this.
Encounter Powers
****Chill Strike****
Should be in your spell mastery slot while leveling and most the time in dungeons during AOE damage time. It is a fantastic ability.
**Entangling Force**
Perfect ability, and soooo good in PvP. It lets you set up almost your whole dps rotation and allows you to blow people up before they can react. Also has a wonderful spot in PvE which I demonstrate in my PvE spec video linked at the bottom of this guide.
**Conduit of Ice**
This ability has a better place in the leveling process in my opinion than it has in late game PvE or PvP content. But it is worth skilling up as it is better than some of the other encounters.
Repel
I have this ability maxed but I have to be honest here. I HATE this ability, it feels clunky and the mechanic of it is just awkward. Even for use in PvP if you want to argue that, it does terrible damage and you are better off bursting someone down rather than knocking them back in my opinion.
**Ray of Enfeeblement**
Should be in everyone's kit for PvP and does have a spot in PvE if you are running more than one CW. Otherwise, it's better to have more control abilities to make sure you are able to do your job of keeping mobs off DPS, Healers, and Yourself.
**Icy Terrain**
People overlook this ability so much and it is silly. This ability is GREAT, adds chill, slow mobs, eventually freezes. You know those times when you can't cast an ability so save your life, or you healers can't get a important cast off? This ability if placed early in a pull can be a life saver half way through, it gives everyone that second they need to make sure the group is ok. I run this almost all the time in my PVE build, but it has no place in PvP.
****Steal Time****
The best AOE skill we have as Control Wizards, does great damage and stuns everything. So yes, max this, use this, love this.
Sudden Storm
Terrible damage, can't crit, crappy aoe. Don't level this garbage.
****Shield****
Great and used by me all the time in PvE, as long as you use your knockback during a Arcane Singularity nobody will complain as the mobs will get knocked back and then pulled right back grouping them together again. It does great damage and depending on how many mobs you hit can almost instantaneously refill your daily.
**Icy Rays**
I love this ability but only for PvP and situational boss fights in PvE. When put in your mastery slot this can do great burst damage, and has a brief immobilization which can be great for controlling an enemy and starting your dps rotation.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche
Terrible ability, so sad when I see other CW's use this HAMSTER. Stop it just stop..... Only use is for PvP because of a bug where it can dispel Clerics blue circle. And if you are skilling this to exploit a bug in PvP you are bad and should feel bad.
This ability "could" however be pretty awesome if it was re-worked. I like the thought of have something we can drop then throw in another direction. If only it was vector targeted or something where you would click where you want it to drop, then click and drag a vector targeted line on the ground to then launch it in that direction. Just a thought.
My PvE Trash Clearing Spec is this:
Chill Strike on Mastery
Icy Terrain
Steal Time
Shield
Rotation, Arcane Singularity the mobs in.... Icy Terrain, Shield, Once AS pulls them back in use Steal Time. Rinse Repeat. Your Daily should be up almost all the time if you are pulling enough mobs.
Here is an example of this build in action.
http://www.twitch.tv/deagen/c/2325627
PvE Boss Build for Controlling Mobs
Entangling Force on Spell Mastery! BUT WHY DEAGEN? Your job for boss fights is controlling adds, not dps'ing boss. You get insane AP regen from casting EF on a group and helps keep your daily permanently up.
Icy Terrain
Steal Time ( sometimes swapped for Ray of Enfeeblement ) if you do use this, just cast on boss whenever possible.
Shield
Rotation, Arcane Singularity the mobs in.... Icy Terrain, once they are groups closely use Entangling Force and then Shield Knockback. Once they get pulled back use Steal Time, your daily should be recharged so now just repeat.
Here is an example of this build in action.
http://www.twitch.tv/deagen/c/2325605
PvP Build
PvP Single Target Burst Spec
Icy Rays on Mastery
Chill Strike
Ray of Enfeeblement
Entangling Force
Rotation, Ray of Enfeeblement, Entangling Force, Ice Ray casted once and then Chill Strike (all these first hoping to proc your Eye of the Storm Class Feature for best chance at a big crit) then cast your last Icy Rays. If your target isn't dead it's either because you didn't crit, you have bad gear, you are attacking the wrong target, or they are being healed.
Here is this Spec in Action:
http://www.twitch.tv/deagen/c/2325683
Character Stats:
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg484/Deagen/Stats.png
PVP Feats:
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg484/Deagen/PVP_Feats-1.png
PVE Feats:
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg484/Deagen/PVE_Feats.png
This guide is a work in progress and will be updated consistently everyday. Your constructive responses can help make this guide a community CW standard and start weeding out the terrible builds and false information that is not only present on twitch.tv but here in the Control Wizard Forums.
Thanks for reading my guide please leave a comment!
Deagen
Post edited by tresdyn on
0
Comments
But yes, it does synergize well with Thaumaturge.
Try my pvp build and get back to me, just don't knock it till yea tried it.
P.S. I love you.
1) What kind of companion do you recommend, why and what stats/enchants on him?.
2) If you were to roll a tiefling CW would you still go for 18/13/13 int/wis/char or 16/12/16?
3) What's your reasoning behind so much crit, specially taking into account crit seems to hit heavy DRs in the early thousands and most people argue is not that worth it with "Eye of the Storm" equipped.
4) Regarding your claims about power and armor penetration. Have you tested this thoroughly? And if you have, mind sharing the specific math behind it?
Again, great guide, I specially love the videos, more of them will always be welcomed. I have a suggestion though, keep a change log/last date updated section, preferable at the top of the guide, for those of us who every so often want to see what have you changed without reading everything again.
As for Chilling Cloud. Like you, i tried to like it. Infact i went for maximum cold damage modifiers to see how it does. And i can tell you, the damage is awesome. The reason why it falls behind is the clunky animation. It feels like a turtle flying and the third attack takes 1.5 second to fire which causes the huge dps loss. I hope Cryptic can fix this.
As for Icy Terrain. I love it too, but it's bugged.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?288482-Please-Fix-Icy-Terrain
Please support this topic!
Great feedback! I will be sure to add it to the guide as soon as I can.
I am glad we share the same feelings behind Chilling Cloud, but for some reason I have not noticed this Icy Terrain bug. I will be starting my stream soon and I will be sure to keep and eye out for this issue.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
There is not much info out there ... and this for sure will help / guide alot of CW's around the shard's.
Followed ur tip's and now ur guide ... and 95% of the time im 1st @ dps meter ... awsome.
Thank's again for ur time.
PS: u r ADORABLE ... as requested lol
I have tested this myself and it's pretty ez to see that the damage bonus from 2 rays casted isn't that much more than just 1. Also, after the first 2 casts of RoE it acts like it's not even on spell mastery until you wait the whole time for it to charge back up 2 casts. That makes me think that having RoE in your kit but not in your spell mastery slot is best.
But could just be my opinion, go test it yourself on the dummies :P
Thanks for the feedback. Going to try this soon.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
I tried to respec like you but... :
Your current feat tree (PvE is the same one than for PvP I see): it's not possible, you spend only 14 points before starting to use points in the 4th heroic column while 15 spent points are needed.
I am interested to see your new feat tree. I won't fill my tree before heh... I'm cheap p.
(even if I guess the solution would probably be to spend 1 point in Arcane Enhancement and only 2 points in Learned Spellcaster).
I see the problem and will fix it as soon as I can, thanks for the feedback!
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
Yup you are correct, it has been updated. Thanks for the feedback.
Obviously. The first one is always -25% , the second one is always a total of 50% . So if you don't have it in mastery it will always be just 25%.
The argument is uptime versus burst; you have higher uptime without it being slotted but you suffer from the lack of burst otherwise. Thaumaturgy mages don't notice this simply because we have CoI + Empowerment so we get the same result even with one charge and even better when we have two.
What you should be paying attention to is how much overall damage you're dealing within a certain time frame then choose based on your playstyle/tactics. Don't be silly, please.
No matter how you slice it, I think there are abilities better for Spell Mastery than RoE in PvP, and this is my opinion. I have tested many specs, and the one I feel performs the best doesn't have RoE in your Mastery.
According to this http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?243552-Control-wizard-master-Bug-reports-Please-Sticky
Food for thought.
All the more reason to have RoE in tab then? That went contrary to what someone else wrote awhile back, but the damage doesn't stack that's for certain. The question then becomes whether or not the second charge benefits from double effectiveness or do you have to have at least one charge banked for the first one to give -50%.
Lift me up..
Panda@kristingrave - CW - Dragon
Death@healxyou - DC - Dragon
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
I say the hell with any class that doesn't allow me to set it up based on my playstyle/tactics. Thankfully the CW can be played within a pretty decent margin to fit a few playstyles/tactics without really sacrificing hardly any performance. To say that having RoE in mastery is far superior is really silly. There is absolutely NO evidence of such, and it proves to show that it is merely a matter of playstyle/tactics. With yours you might always put yourself in situations where you are constantly making use of double RoE. For others who tried it in mastery, like myself, the chances that I take FULL advantage of every second of a 50% debuff is extremely rare. I can't count how often I plan to set up a burst and get interrupted/CCd/Knockbacked and loose the opportunity of doing ANY damage. Maybe it HAS to do with my playstyle/tactics. Not saying that anyone's playstyle is superior, but I find that I need something in the Mastery Slot that I can ALWAYS take advantage of, not just the occasional alignment of all the stars for a perfect burst.