Grimah's Comprehensive Wizard guide

grimah · July 2013

Grimah's Comprehensive Guide to Wizardry for those new and old.

Hi there, ive been playing my wizard for a fair while now. Done most endgame things, played with different specs and have been following the progression and info our community has offered and compiled it all together here (as well as my own findings/tests).

So I am fairly experienced in different roles a wizard can do for each encounter. Anyways i noticed alot of guides out there speak of only one singular spec, and how this is better than that. Which i wholeheartedly disagree with, not on a technical level but as a gamer, we should be encouraged to play the way we want, and show different ways to be useful, and not have people stop you because so and so said "this is the best, yours is bad"

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Contents

Post 1

Starting wizards

Race
Leveling advice

Role of Wizardry

Control
Single Target
AoE
Pushing and Bumping

Class Mechanics

Teleport
Arcane Stacks
Chill Stacks
Smoulder *New*

-Post 2

Powers and Abilities

At-Wills
Encounters
Dailies
Class Features

Power and Spell Mechanics

DoT
AP Gains
Aoe Limits per power

Power Loadouts

Area Damage
Single Target
PvP

-Post 3

Feats

Heroic
Oppressor
Thaumaturge
Renegade

-Post 4

Statistics

Attribute Points
Weapon/Armor Enchants
Companions
Armor Sets

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New Player Section!

This section is for players who have yet to build their control wizard and gives some insight on attributes and race selection, skip over to the next part if you are already maxed level

Attributes

Str: +1% Stamina Regeneration and DoT resist.
Con: +2% Maximum HP
Dex: +0.5% Deflection +1% AoE resist.
Int: + 1% Damage and Recharge increase.
Wis: +1% Action point gain, Recharge increase, Control Duration and Control resist
Cha: +1% Critical chance, Companion Stat Bonus, Combat Advantage damage

Wisdom, Int and Charisma are all good choices for PvE. Renegade specs makes the most out of Cha due to the combat advantage bonus. However the pet bonus is semi-useful for all wizards (only applies to pet's base stats), and critical chance. You cannot go wrong with either three stats, for a wizard's duties. You may wish to consider higher than normal CON if you wish to focus in PvP.

Recharge increase: Recharge increase does not reduce cooldown by that percentage but increases the number of times you can cast it by that percentage. Here is the formula:

Original Cooldown / (1+ recharge percentage) = Cooldown

For example, Shield has 19.75 cooldown you get 30% from stats, and 10% from feat. it would translate to: 19.75/ (1+ 0.30 +0.10) = 14.1 seconds.

Races

Human

Half-Elf
Dwarf
Halfling
Half-Orc
Tiefling

+2 to any attribute
+2 CON and
+2 CHA or WIS
+2 CON and
+2 STR or WIS
+2 DEX and
+2 CHA or CON
+2 DEX and
+2 STR or CON
+2 CHA and
+2 CON or INT

+3% defense
+1% deflect, crit severity, gold find
10% Resistance to DoT
+3% deflect
+5% crit severity
+5% damage on targets lower than 50%

+3 extra heroic feat points (at level 10/15/20)
+1 non-class stat
20% Resistance to knockback/repel
10% resistance to control
+10% runspeed for 3 seconds entering combat (20 second cooldown.)
10% chance when hit to lower attacker's power by 5%

Wood Elf

Moon Elf
Sun Elf
Drow
Menzoberranzan Renegade

+2 DEX and
+2 INT or WIS
+2 INT and
+2 DEX or CHA
+2 INT and
+ 2 DEX or CHA
+2 DEX and
+2 WIS or CHA
+2 DEX and
+2 WIS or CHA

+1% crit chance
+1% AP and stamina gain
+2% AP gain
Recover twice as fast at campfires
Recover twice as fast at campfires

10% resistance to slows
10% resistance to control
10% resistance to control
5% chance to reduce target defense by 10% for 4 seconds
5% chance to reduce target defense and power by 6% for 4 seconds

More information is found here

If you are trying to min max your character for PvE you will probably want to roll as much INT and CHA as possible for damage, or the highest of all three primary stat. However, choosing your race will not seriously hurt your character at endgame as long you pick good starting right rolls. So if you would rather be a drow wizard over a high elf, then i would not dissuade you.

TIP: Starting with high CHA will give you an advantage because crit is the hardest thing to gain from gear (diminishes early) and combat advantage if renegade. so if you have high CHA you have the choice to focus in damage or use your +attributes elsewhere whilst keeping the base line incase you want to respec.

As for racials go i will briefly go over the ones that effect the class the most, If you want to PvP exclusively, I suggest looking for a PvP focused guide and using this guide to answer any questions you have about the class mechanics.

Human: gives you +3 extra feat points, which can be seen as +3% damage in most specs (just to keep it simplified)

Sun Elf/Moon Elf (High elf): +2% AP gain (and +1% ap/power) can go along way if you stack these up, giving you that bit more push to get out those dailies (good for dungeons). Great starting racial stats

Tiefling: +5% damage on targets lower than 50%, this is a great damage racial, can be translated as 2.5% more damage, but works better because there are times/bosses as they get harder during the fight. Great startng racial stats

Half-Orc: +5% crit severity, nice complement for spellstorm mages as they crit alot. not very good racial stats however.

Halfling: +3% deflect, can be a nice little boost if you want to build deflect for pvp, along with 10% control resists. Not much going for it in PvE however.

Dwarf: +20% resistance to knockbacks which is great for PvP, as well as a WIS/CON roll is beneficial here also

Drow: 5% chance to reduce target defense by 10% for 4 seconds. nice random debuff for you and your team

Leveling up/what powers to pick?

I cannot tell you to use this spec or that. As it is honestly bad advice, each person prefers different playstyles, some hate certain spells whilst others dislike certain paragon paths, you must make up your own mind and i will give you the best advice i can to do so from this guide!

TIP 1: Put points into every encounter you come across.

Despite what you read in the tooltip, EVERY encounter has its place in PvE, you may thing repel is stupid when you first get it, because it pushes everything away. But then you get to certain places where pushing groups of 5 to their deaths is very useful! So if in doubt put points in all encounters (i have every encounter maxed at 3!)

The hardest time for you to decide which points to put in, is when you are given the choice of arcane presence and chilling presence. To be safe i would only put 1 point in chilling presence, if you want that extra feature to be used whilst leveling (cannot wait till higher level) put only 1 point into arcane presence.

Try every new encounter you have, on mastery and normal. have fun and play around, and understand what it is used for. You dont have to use them during leveling, but its important to understand what they do for later application.

TIP 2: Magic missile and Chilling Cloud

You may max out magic missile as its your most decent at-will during leveling. but when you get to chilling cloud, just put 1 point into this. and try using this as your main at-will and see how it feels to you. The choice between magic missile and Chilling cloud often determines their build, so knowing this first hand will help you determine which way you wish to go, Arcane vs Cold

TIP 3: Which Paragon to choose?

Spellstorm mage is all about burst, high damage. Flame is all about apply a damage over time effect called Smoulder (look further down the guide). The damage in its current state leans towards spellstorm, However they are both functional and fun. If you are looking to throw fireballs however you may be disappointed.

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Wizardry 101

A Wizard's Role

Well simply put, you do what the group requires you to do, or what you think is best for the group, we excel in many things, single target damage, aoe, controlling adds, pushing things off cliffs. As a wizard you must learn to use more than 1 set of spells to master wizardry and challenge yourself to make any group composition work.

Control:

The primary reason we get invited to parties is to provide control, its in our name after all. Almost all our spells provide some sort of control, whether its a knockdown, stun, slow or knockback. With a full set of controlling spells equipped you can lock down/keep away, and severely dampen enemy monsters, it is common to see groups with two wizards and no tank, using the combined control skills of the two wizards to reduce their threat so even though you are all squishie people, the cleric has sufficient time to keep everyone alive, this includes all T2 bosses/dungeons

AOE:

Wizards have the highest aoe damage of all classes, we have a huge selection of aoe encounters that nearly all do high damage with added control of one sort or another, and some do not have or have a aoe limit. You can go two different routes here, either damage over time aoe (which will proc weapon enchants and class features) or high burst aoe, we have enough encounters to cover both options.

What makes us excel over say, a gwf aoe, and not just in damage. is the ability for us to force and move mobs to our pleasure, placing them away from a large nasty, or pulling them all in a nice group so you and your team and blast them all in a swift move.

Single target damage:

Dungeon trash clearing asside, we will be required to perform single target damage in many boss and is just as important as your capablilty to do area effect damage or control. Despite what some wizards say, we do a less than rogues (by roughly 10-20%), but can compete with most other classes. In certain boss fights you may find it more effective to take time to change spells to single target damage.

The main strengths that wizards provide when it comes to single target damage, is that we do not have to avoid melee ranged red attacks, and we can continue attacking immediately after a teleport, and we also apply debuffs to help party members. However we are limited in the selection of single target but the tools available to us are nothing to laugh at, just be sure you grab these encounters for these occasions.

Pushing things and Bumping:

Sometimes pushing things off cliffs and into pits is a fast and effective way to get rid of trash, there are 3 methods. You may wish to skip this if you are new to wizard class and come back to this later.

1. Place singularity into hazardous terrain (lava) this will suck anything moving nearby into that area and kill them instantly

2. Repel on mastery, equip this spell and you can push 5 targets across large distances over cliffs to their doom, Repel has a cone but long range and will push anything within that line of sight.

3. Bumping is slightly different, it consists of the combination of arcane singularity and shield (activation). Place your singularity at the edge of within 15-20 ft of the edge of where you want to push off the mobs, once they get sucked up into the black hole, they will spin for a moment and then when you see the black hole expanding, this is when you need to activate your shield, for maximum push, your shield goes off as the blackhole bursts. if you have latency its safe to use your shield as you see the blackhole near/at its biggest.

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Class Mechanics

Teleport
This is our shift/double tap move, it will teleport us in the direction you point or press using the awsd keys for 25 feet, very useful to move out of red zones safely, and the speed you teleport will allow little break in your casting actions. With a full stamina bar you can teleport 3 times (will some stamina to spare), and only takes 5 seconds to recharge enough stamina to whole teleport at 10 strength. Use it often! and be mindful of your stamina bar when you notice you teleported too many times.

In PvP you want to time this against opponents encounters and/or dailies. to get the most out of it, many smart opponents will rush at you, without even casting any abilities, to force your teleports so keep an eye out for certain casting animations.

Arcane Stacks
Now many new wizards and some old wizards will forget about this, each stack will give you a 3% arcane damage increase per stack. This stacks up to 5 times. These will effect of most of your arcane spells. You gain arcane stacks from casting arcane spells, and 1 stack from a full rotation/combo of magic missile.

Repel: Push range
Shield: Cooldown Reduction (10% cooldown reduce each)
Steal time: Longer Stun and increased Slow.
Entangling force: Control Duration. (10% each)
Ray of Enfeeblement: Debuff Duration (10% each)

Chill Stacks
These will stack up to 6 time, and when the 7th one hits, they will become frozen. once the freeze ends the stacks will drop off and you will have to begin from 0. Each stack of chill slows them by around 10%. they will become unfrozen sooner if they are damaged.

These chill effects are important for certain feats for wizards including damage bonus, mitigation or debuffs. And almost all cold spells apply chill, some multiple times/aoe, and some spells will keep your current stacks refreshed

Smoulder:
This is a new effect you gain when you choose the paragon of flame. It is a dot that ticks once per 1.5 seconds (roughly) based on your level. At level 60 it does 422-470 per tick and ticks for 4 times after application and successful critical hits will apply to all 4 ticks, however new application of smoulder will replace the previous one.

Smoulder is replaced by Rimefire smoulder (same damage) when you apply chill to a smouldered target, but refreshes the ticks. (Currently this refreshing can halt/reset the smoulder timer lowering its damage per second.)

grimah · July 2013

Powers and Abilities

At-Wills

Magic Missile (Arcane): At-Will Our best single target at-will. Applies arcane stacks which is useful when casting certain other powers and increasing its own damage. (Recommended for Renegade paragon)

Ray of Frost (Cold): Great to use to apply stacks of chill fast (even faster with oppressor feat line). It has low damage, however it has the highest chance to proc class features/and feats. (Recommended for Oppressor paragon)

Chilling cloud (Cold -AoE on third strike): First two strikes will refresh chill and casts an AoE at the 3rd strike which applies chill. The radius of the aoe is 10ft. The damage is lower than magic missile unless hitting alot of targets, however it benefits from procing feats/class features more than magic missile giving it equal footing.(Recommended for Thaumaturge paragon)

Storm pillar (Lightning): Takes along time to charge (2 seconds, same as full cycle magic missile and chilling cloud) and creates a stormpillar that will attack a target when fully charged. It does moderate/high damage but can be cumbersome to use, this is because you must charge fully to create the storm pillar and if you miss your mark you will lose out on the extra damage (so you will have to overcharge, potentially using more time).

Sorching Burst (Fire): This is an AoE charge spell similar to storm pillar (2 seconds full charge), starting at a small radius (0) increasing to a 15ft radius (more than a teleport in diameter) but requires a lock on, and does relatively low damage, It however applies smoulder to all targets hit. (Recommended at rank 1 as Flame wizard)

Our neighbourhood wizard @pfft2 did some wonderful tests with at-wills, detailing proc rates and damage over a length of time check it out here:

Testing At-Will Powers

Encounters

Chill strike (Cold - AoE on mastery) 5 limit on mastery: One of our best single target damage encounter, also does aoe damage while slotted in mastery (Limit of 5), and will stun its primary target. great for clearing our weak mobs, and leveling (Recommended)

Conduit of Ice (Cold - DoT) 5 limit: High damage over time when chill is placed on target, placing it in Mastery improves its radius significantly and applies chill with each tick (ticks 6 times) and increased damage by 5% per chill effect for both single target and nearby enemies.(Recommended)

Entangling Force (Arcane - DoT) 5 limit on mastery: Holds the target in the air for duration, Your best single target CC, improving ranks will reduce its cooldown and increase duration/damage. When put on mastery it will suck nearby enemies towards your target. This spell is great for leveling and has its uses in select dungeon encounters, and PvP. (Recommended)

Repel (Arcane - AoE on mastery) 5 limit on mastery: May not sound so great, but this spell will make things alot easier in many situations in T2, and almost a must have in certain fights. it has a low cooldown and big range, so you dont need to be near the target to push them. Does even more pushback with arcane stacks. On Mastery it will push anything within your line but has a small radius (5 targets max), so positioning is required. (Recommended at 1 point atleast)

Shield (Arcane - AoE) 5 limit: reduces damage, and will lose its effectiveness when struck but will automatically refresh itself, the cooldown to recast is significantly reduced depending on your arcane stacks (50% reduced cooldown at 5 stacks).
The resistance can save you from lethal damage. When charged it will absorb 50% normal and 80% on Mastery it gives 10% resistance whilst it is charging up (at rank 3).
It is great during the leveling phase, but later on, you can opt out for more damage. (Recommended at 1 point atleast)

Icy Terrain (Cold - DoT) unlimited: Will apply chill, and ticks 7 times (so around 2200-2500 damage at level 60) and can crit. Its damage alone is one of the lowest of all our spells. However it still applies weapon enchants, and procs storm spell class feature and has no target limit. This is best used with Conduit of Ice (Mastery) for combined damage and snergises well with the Chilling presence class feature.

Sudden storm (Lightning - DoT on mastery) unlimited: High damage and will hit multiple targets, does even more damage on Mastery. Its fires in a tight column ahead of your character, so it requires a bit of positioning to make most use from it or using entangling force on Mastery/singularity. Its one of our hardest hitting aoe encounters.

Fanning the flame (Flame - DoT): Highest damage single target encounter, does even more damage if nearby targets are effected by smoulder (half smoulder damage each). Does minor aoe damage on mastery.

Ray of enfeeblement (Arcane): Our Highest damage single target encounter, and also reduces target mitigation by 20%. Gives a fair amount of AP when used too. However do not use this on Mastery, as it will increase its cooldown. (Recommended)

Ice Rays (Cold): Our highest single target ability when Mastery (in one encounter) however it has a lengthy cooldown. Most useful when Mastery, for PvP or single target encounters (as there is limited other choice in that scenario). (Recommended)

Steal time (Arcane - AoE) 5 limit: This spell procs weapon enchants and storm spell during its channeling, it slows enemies caught within its radius (including their attack speed). and stun them after the channeling ends. It can do alot of damage, and our best AoE CC encounter. (recommended)

Shard of Endless Avalanche (Arcane - AoE) 5 limit: It will knock prone those that it hits and knockback a little and prone again when it explodes, Use it vs two or more targets, our hardest hitting aoe encounter. On mastery you can drop it at a target position and control which direction to push. fun and effective CC and damage.

Dailies

Ice Storm (Cold - AoE) 5 limit: Our first daily, Does good damage, and knocks back everything it its. Because of this, a well placed singularity can be more useful than using this daily.

Arcane Singularity (Arcane - AoE) 15 limit: Our staple CC spell, will suck enemies within a large radius into a black hole and spit them out at that spot, great for pulling things away, holding them in place for AoE damage, and pushing large groups off cliffs to their deaths. Enemies affected by singularity are also immune to damage from Sudden storm, Shard of endless avalanche and Oppressive force. (Recommended)

Oppresive Force (Arcane - AoE) unlimited: Useful Daily that will daze enemies around you, a good oh Sh*t daily, as the activation is fast and does moderate amount of damage, because of its quicker activation it is our best life saver daily.

Ice Knife (Cold): Our only single target daily. It knocks down and does alot of damage, and prones (Recommended)

Maelstrom of Chaos (Arcane) 10 limit: Does alot of damage for an aoe, and will transport enemies near you to the target location. However this radius is rather small, especially when comparing it to arcane singularity.

Furious Immolation (Fire - AoE) 8 limit: Does moderate to high damage with a large radius, pulls everything up into a tight group and shoots them into the air, fun spell and quick results.

Class Features

Orb of imposition: Increases your control spells duration by 5/10/15%. Useful, but not game changing.

Arcane presence: at 3 ranks it will increase your cold based damage by 3% per stack. most useful when using magic missile, and cold encounter spells.

Chilling presence: Unlike Arcane presence, this will increase all your damage output by 3% on a chilled target, chills can be applied very quickly in aoe situations and kepted consistantly on single target (such as chilling cloud) does 18% bonus damage on maxed stacks.

Evocation: Increases your AoE damage by 15% at rank 3, very useful during leveling phase or solo because of its consistency and does not rely on chill or arcane stacks, or procs. However only works with some spells, Ice storm (daily), Chilling cloud (third strike), Shield, Mastery - Chill strike, Mastery - Repel, Shield, Steal time, Icy terrain and Shard of Endless Avalanche.

Storm Fury: An amusing spell, constantly shoots lightning at targets when your health drops below 50%, because you will rarely stay below 50%, it is more useful in PvP, but not very noticable in damage

Combustive Action: When using a daily you will also add smoulder and increase the vunerablity of targets to fire damage by 3/6/9%. Debuff does not last long to make a noticable impression.

Storm Spell: gives you a 10% chance to proc (at rank 3) to shoot a lightning bolt that does around 1700 damage using it will contribute around 8-10% of your total damage and can crit. (Recommended as spellstorm wizard)

Critical Conflagration: Gives you 5/10/15% more critical severity, as well as applying smoulder to targets when you crit with arcane/cold spells you apply smoulder too, very easy way to apply smoulders without worrying about which spells you are using.

Eye of the storm: At rank 3 it has a 5% chance to proc when using an at-will and a 15% chance to proc on an encounter giving you 100% crit chance for 3 seconds. Highest damage contributing class feature and synergises extremely well with the feat "nightmare wizardry". bare in mind it makes your crit stat obselete whilst it is up and running. (recommended as spellstorm wizard)

Swath of Destruction: Increases smoulder damage by 8/16/24% and damage done to smouldered targets by 2/4/6%. Keep smoulder up and reap the rewards, does pretty much what it says!

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Spells Classed as Damage over Time (DoT)

These spells are classed as DoT Damage, meaning the damage is calculated on spell cast (does not increase from effects afterwards) if you crit on them initially the remaining ticks will also crit, also these DoT effects are not classed as AoE (if they provide that function) so will not benefit from AoE damage increases.
AP Gains

Now here is some important stuff. AP gains are important to get off your incredible dailies we will providing unmatched utility such as arcane singularity or oppressive force dailies, here is a breakdown of data I found posted by @Lemandal

At 2039 recovery (+17.1%) :

At-Wills

Magic Missile: 3% from full rotation.
Ray of frost: 9% full channel.
Storm pillar: 4% full charge.
Sorching Burst: 3-4% full charge
Chilling cloud: 3% full rotation.

Encounters

Steal Time: 12-13%
Ice Rays: 10%
Shard of the Endless Avalanche (shardplosion): 10%
Conduit of Ice: 9-10%
Icy Terrain: 7-8%
Entangling force: 7%
Ray of Enfeeblement: 6%
Shield pulse: 5%
Sudden storm: 5%
Fanning the flame: 4-5%
Chill strike: 4-5%
Repel 3% per target

Spell AoE Limits

This following information was researched by our fellow wizard @itsamepikmario

Arcane Singularity: 15 targets. The targets chosen were those who were closest to the center of the Singularity at any given moment.

Chill Strike - Spell Mastery: 5 targets.

Chilling cloud: 5 targets.

Conduit of Ice: 5 targets.

Conduit of Ice: Spell Mastery: 5 targets.

Entangling Force: Spell Mastery: 1 target for choke, 5 targets for pull.

Fanning the Flame: Spell Master 5 targets

Furious Immolation: 8 targets

Ice Storm: 5 targets

Icy Terrain: Infinite targets.

Icy Terrain - Spell Mastery: Infinite targets.

Maelstrom of Chaos: 10 targets.

Oppressive Force: Infinite targets.

Repel - Spell Mastery: 5 targets.

Shard of the Endless Avalanche: 5 targets with explosion.

Shard of the Endless Avalanche - Spell Mastery: 5 targets with explosion.

Shield: 5 targets

Shield - Spell Mastery: 5 targets

Steal Time: 5 targets with slowing portion, 5 targets with damage cast. Every tick of precast grants a stack of the Steal Time buff, capping at 15, and every tick procs any spell effects that can be procced.

Steal Time - Spell Mastery: As above.

Sudden Storm: Infinite targets.

Sudden Storm: Spell Mastery: Infinite targets including DoT

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Spell Builds (EXAMPLES ONLY)

To make the most out of a wizard is to adjust accordingly to different situations, because a build maybe useful during leveling phase for example, does not mean it will be effective in a dungeon environment, or PvP. THESE ARE ONLY EXAMPLES, I MAY NOT EVEN USE SUCH LOADOUTS!

Area Damage

Two examples, Arcane or Chilling depending on your spec.

At Will: Chilling cloud
Mastery: Conduit of Ice (Larger radius, applies chills, crits and ticks 6 times)
Encounter 1: Shard of avalanche (does alot of damage or use shard if you need knockdown)
Encounter 2: Icy Terrain (applies chills, works great with conduit for quick freezing and increases conduit damage, hits everything too ticks 8 times)
Encounter 3: Steal time (Does not hit everything, but its stun and slow is valuable whilst you are close to apply icy terrain, does alot of damage too, and gives you time to recast shield, also applys 6 "hits" so weapon enchants or storm spell procs will work too)
Daily 1: Arcane Singularity (Use this when there are alot of mobs, bring them together and whack on conduit and icy terrain underneath them, use shield before they get pulled up to regenerate AP and deal damage, they will get pulled straight back up into the hole and drop down in a nice compact pile for you)
Daily 2: Oppressive force (Use it when you dont need to use arcane singularity, though it is more situational)
Class Feature 1: Chilling presence (You will be applying chills alot so this feature will be in effect)
Class Feature 2: Storm Spell (Extra damage, will proc multiple times on these spells)

At Will: Magic Missile (if renegade or chilling cloud)
Mastery: Entangle (Gathers things in a bunch for you and generates alot of AP and quick arcane stacks)
Encounter 1: Sudden Storm (does alot of damage and refreshes arcane stacks)
Encounter 2: Shard of avalanche (Mix of Control and damage applies arcane stacks)
Encounter 3: Steal time (its stun and slow is valuable also applys 6 "hits" so weapon enchants or storm spell procs will do so)
Daily 1: Oppressive force (Use it as your main aoe daily, for big damage and quick execution)
Daily 2: Arcane Singularity (Use this if things are running amock otherwise stick to oppressive force)
Class Feature 1: Eye of the Storm (More Crits!)
Class Feature 2: Storm Spell (Extra damage, will proc multiple times on these spells)

Single target

This is the most effective single target build i have tried however you may wish to switch between magic missile and chilling cloud depending on whether you wish to have alot of crits or a consistant 18% damage (and benefit from cold power feats if you have taken them).

At-will: Magic Missile or Chilling Cloud (if using chilling presence)
Mastery: Ice Rays (Does alot of damage when uses on mastery, more than most, with debuffs and buffs ive seen this hit for 40k+)
Encounter 1: Ray of enfeeblement (High damage, mitigation debuff)
Encounter 2: Conduit of Ice (High damage total, and also a mitigation debuff if thaum specced)
Encounter 3: Chill strike (High damage, applyies 2x high vizier set debuff if worn)
Daily 1: Ice knife (Single target damage daily, use it after apply any debuffs you have)
Daily 2: Arcane Singularity (incase you need it)
Class Feature 1: Eye of the storm (crits! yes).
Class Feature 2: Storm Spell (10% for 1700 damage at level 60) or Chilling presence (18% more damage!)

PvP

This is where you will find the most variation, This is a kill something before they have a chance to react. Rely on blink to avoid encounters (ignore auto attacks)

Mastery: Ice Rays (This is beastly in PvP, because enemies can not dodge it. I usually use this either when i know they will dodge or after ive applied debuffs)
Encounter 1: Ray of Enfeeblement (Debuffs target, high damage. Use first if they are not looking)
Encounter 2: Entangling Force (Holds them in place for everyone to bash on relentlessly, use this before Ice knife for a guaranteed hit, use it before they realise you are there so they do not dodge/evade/block it)
Encounter 3: Chill strike (Short duration stun, but slow cast animation. Can be swapped out for repel or conduit of ice)
Daily 1: Ice knife (Prones and alot of damage, use it only when you know they are out of stamina, controlled or unaware)
Daily 2: Oppressive force (Unstealth those pesky rogues, can use arcane singularity here too, if theres a group of them in a cleric circle, a well placed arcane singularity can work wonders for your team)
Class feature 1: Storm Spell (More damage)
Class feature 2: Eye of the storm (Proc this and they will feel it)

grimah · July 2013

Feats!

Note: Some of these feats may not be functioning properly or as intend, because of bugs which some of you may know by now are a plague in this game, I will consider what i can as intended and obvious bugs i will try to leave out as the game changes come fairly often.

Heroic Feats

Tier 1
Controlling Action: Gain an additional 2/4/6/8/10% Action points when using powers on a controlled target
Useful feat for gaining extra AP, it does not stack additively. so if you gain 20% this will give you an extra 2% instead of 10%, works only when targets are slowed, stunned, dazed, prone. and the effect is applied to the spell that did it also. Does not work on immune mobs despite displaying stacks of chills.

Weapon Mastery: 1/2/3% chance to crit.
An extra crit boost, additive. Useful to increase your overall damage output, as it becomes harder to get more crit from the stat once you get over the 3000 mark, this feat will give you the edge, coupled with charisma. it can help you push your crit over the 40% mark.

Toughness: 3/6/9% extra maximum hitpoints
Useful feat for all round, works after any item or enchant boosts. give you a bit more durability in PvP and may save you from PvE encounters. Without this or any hp enchancements, at minimal CON your looking at below 20k HP mark at level 60, (you will get one shotted).

Tier 2
Fight On: Reduces your encounter cooldowns by 2/4/6/8/10%
Adds additively, However encounters cooldowns, are all our cooldowns.

Original Cooldown / (1+ recharge percentage) = Cooldown

For example, Shield has 19.75 cooldown you get 30% from stats, and 10% from feat. it would translate to: 19.75/ (1+ 0.30 +0.10) = 14.1 seconds.

Battle Wise: reduces your threat by 2/4/6%
We draw agro so easily in dungeons it can be a bit fustrating, however even 6% less threat will not make any difference, a 6% less angry target will rarely decide to go bother someone else, over you.

Wizard's Wrath: Increases your area damage by 2/4/6%
Area damage is where we excel in (over other classes). A helpful boost that will stack with another similar feat further up the tier. This now applies to all aoe spells. Works with Chilling cloud (third strike), chill strike - Mastery only, Repel - Mastery only, Shield, Conduit of Ice, Sudden storm, Shard of Endless Avalanche, Steal time and AoE dailies.

Tier 3
Blighting Power: Your Cold powers deal an additional 3/6/9% extra damage to targets effected by chill.
We have many useful cold powers, and many of these will apply chill, especially during AoE phases. During the times you do not use chill it is generally when you are not dealing damage

Lightning teleport: When killing a foe you gain 2/4/6/8/10% of maximum Stamina
You will be killing things alot during solo (ofcourse) and also in dungeons. However the times you most likely will be using teleports are during phases where you can not reliably kill anything.

Arcane enhancement: Your arcane powers deal 2/4/6% extra damage.
We have a fair number of arcane powers. However, magic missile is our best single target at-will for damage and just this spell alone will count for a big slice of your contributing damage so this is useful if you use this spell alot.

Tier 4
Learned Spellcaster: Increases the bonus damage intelligence provides by 1/2/3/4/5%
This is a confusing tooltip, it actually increases your damage by that set amount, also your intelligence bonus will apply to this bonus too. so if you have 20% from Int, you will get 1.2/2.4/3.6/4.8/6%.

Prestidigitation: You and your allies gain 1/2/3% increased stat rating
Does exactly what it says, increases you and your party member stats by 3%, can be a useful boost, 3000 recovery would become 3090 etc. Also stacks with other wizard's prestidigitation and has unlimited range (just for party members)

Focused Wizardry: Increases your area damage by 3/6/9%
Just like wizard's wrath this now applies to all aoe spells. Works with Chilling cloud (third strike), chill strike - Mastery only, Repel - Mastery only, Shield, Conduit of Ice, Sudden storm, Shard of Endless Avalanche, Steal time and AoE dailies.

Paragon Feats

Oppressor

This is your go to PvP tree centered around applying chills faster than other paragon paths giving you the ability to slow and freeze your opponents It is a niche build and usually overlooked by the wizard community, it is good for PvP due to its distrupting nature, burning away rogue stealth meter, Freezing guardian fights which bypasses block. The reason it is overlooked is because it does not provide any party friendly damage buffs/debuffs and lower PvE damage.

Tier 1
Severe reaction: When struck you have 15% chance to repel your attacker by 1/2/3/4/5 feet and restore 2/4/6/8/10% of your stamina. This only works on enemies within 20 feet.
There are a couple things bad about this feat, firstly 15% chance, that is 1 in 6-7 hits. And at high level anything hitting you hurts. Secondly, 5 feet is ridiculously small, you will barely notice the distance but will interrupt them for a split second.

Bitter cold: You gain 1/2/3/4/5% bonus to damage after afflicting an enemy with cold. lasts 6 seconds and does not stack.
You maybe apply chill effect quite often if not always, so 5% extra damage buff that can easily be refreshed is a useful feat indeed.

Tier 2
Brisk Transport: After teleport you gain 2/4/6/8/10% extra run speed for 3 seconds.
10% is noticable, but only slightly, and for 3 seconds this will not get you anywhere quickly.

Chilling Control: Sudden storm(encounter) has a 10/20/30/40/50% chance to apply chill to enemies hit by its primary strike.
Useful if you are using sudden storm but will calculate the chance on cast rather than per target, would be alot more reasonable if it was 100%.

Twisting Immolation: Targets swept up into the air by Furious Immolation(daily) are now briefly dazed for 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1 seconds after landing.
Combustive Action(feature) debuff duration is also increased by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds.
Useful if you rely on using furious immolation as your main daily as the daze can keep things in check for that bit longer. Otherwise skip this.

Tier 3
Cold infusion: Foes inflicted by chill deal 1/2/3/4/5% less damage
A nice additional debuff to go with chill. 5% may not be noticeble amount but in some scenarios where your tank friend needs to hold out against many nasties, this can help him/her out.

Glacial Movement: Ray of frost has an additional 5/10/15/20/25% chance to apply another stack of chill.
Only useful if you plan to use ray of frost as your main at-will, as the chance is too low to be relied on.

Tier 4
Alcarity: When you kill an enemy afflicted by chill, the cooldowns of Icy Terrain and Entangling force are reduced by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds.
Very useful feat, Entangling force is one of our staple spells for generating AP. Just make sure you kill things.

Controlled momentum: After using a control power, your at-will deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage
Nice damage boost, and lasts for 6 seconds.
Spells that proc are: chill strike, entangling force, repel, shield, icy terrain, icy rays, steal time, shard of the endless avalanche.

Final Feat
Shatter strike: Your Ice storm daily now applies 5 stacks of chill instead of 1. Your Chill Strike encounter now applies 3 stacks of chill instead of 1.
The icestorm daily can be useful but make sure you apply 2 stacks of chill prior to use it (within icy terrain suggested) as it will then freeze anything you hit.

Thaumaturge

This is a good all-rounder build, works effectively and grants you versitility with your gear choices, as well as provide you high damage. The tree is designed primarily to debuff (increase damage done) and requires no gear/stat specifics to be used effectively but requires you to be locked into specific spells instead.

Tier 1
Tempest Magic: When your target is below 30% maximum hit points, you deal 2/4/6/8/10% extra damage.
Useful during boss fights, when you must dish out some damage before the end. With the amount of hitpoints bosses tend to have, it can be a useful feat. (Stacks with Tiefling racial)

Malevolent Surge: When killing a foe you gain 2/4/6/8/10% damage for 4 seconds. stacks 3 times.
Sounds great. however it is very situational, during solo you will have killed most things at the same time. Remember it only works after you kill something it can speed along AoE fights/clearing.

Tier 2
Snap Freeze: Your Cold powers will deal 3/6/9/12/15% more damage to targets which are not afflicted by chill.
A moderate damage boost if you do not use cold powers (using magic missile instead of chilling cloud). only works with encounters.

Destructive Wizardry: When you strike two or more foes with storm pillar with it charged atleast halfway, you gain 2/4/6/8/10% damage for 6 seconds.
Storm pillar has a small aoe radius (not the pillar). But it can be useful if you are willing to use storm pillar once every 6 seconds in AOE situations, however it could be fustrating trying to hit 2 or more targets.

Drifting embers: Targets affected by Fanning of the Flame(encounter) have a 5/10/15/20/25% chance to spread smoulder when hit by other attacks.
There are just more effective ways to spread smoulder, Not very useful

Tier 3
Far Spell: Increases the range of your Magic Missile and Chill Strike by 2/4/6/8/10 ft.
Good for that extra poke in PvP, unnoticible in others.

Frozen Power Transfer: Chilling Cloud now grants 1/2/3/4/5% bonus damage for every target you hit with it's third strike. Lasts for 8 seconds and is reset when hit by the third strike from Chilling Cloud again.
Very nice damage bonus can stack 5 times if you hit 5 targets however the aoe is small though so you will not always be able to gain the maximum stacks for this buff and if you gain 5 stacks first then hit something that is alone, you will lose your 5 stacks and it will be refreshed as 1 stack.

Tier 4
Transcended Master: Shard of Endless avalanche deals 3/6/9/12/15% more damage and Ice Rays deals 4/8/12/16/20% more damage when cast on the same target twice.
Very nice damage increase for those who uses these encounters, especially Ice rays in PvP coupled with snape freeze.

Elemental Empowerment: Your cold encounter spells now deal 6/12/18/24/30% weapon damage on your target. Arcane encounter spells weaken your target's defenses by 2/4/6/8/10% for 3 seconds.
The cold dot lasts for 6 seconds, the average damage of this on the ancient T2.5 weapon is 240ish and applications refresh/override existing stack. ALSO the 10% defense reduction is actually Damage resistance, so with this feat you gain 10% more damage on every arcane encounter and for 3 seconds after it (for self and party). Overall a very useful feat especially when using arcane heavy loadouts.

Final Feat:
Assailing Force: Your Conduit of Ice now reduces the mitigation of effected targets by 15%.
Useful end feat great for aoe debuffing/and damage, as well as another additional damage increase for your fellows whilst accompanied with ray of enfeeblement.

Renegade

This is what I call the charisma tree, it benefits from critical rating/chance and combat advantage bonus. This tree will give you the ability to utilise combat advantage at any range and position for all your party members, as well as other bonuses for yourself and your team mates. A versatile build when it comes to spell selection, but requires a higher demand on the critical stat, and charisma.

Tier 1
Critical power: When you land a critical hit you gain 1/2/3/4/5% of your total action points. 10 second cooldown.
An okay feat for gaining those extra action points, It can be seen as having an extra encounter's worth of AP going off every 10 seconds, recommended for those with AP needs.

Reaper's touch: Increases your at-will damage by 3/6/9/12/15% when target is within 20 feet.
This is a nice damage boost but situational, since you need to get close enough to your target. In aoe situations you maybe in this zone often, however in boss fights you will need to be relatively close and it is difficult to judge your distance (as hit box is not visible), remember that your teleport is 25 ft.

Tier 2
Nightmare wizardry: When you crit you have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to gain combat advantage for 4 seconds.
This is the main damage dealling feat of the renegade tree, because without this feat, you will likely never be in a position for combat advantage, which is a 15% damage bonus (+any charisma or feat bonus). This is also a debuff for ANYONE to benefit from, so a huge boost, especially during aoe when melee classes will not gain combat advantage normally. It is heavily reliant on crit or EotS class feature (with EotS slotted this buff will have a 50% uptime).

Unrestrained Chaos: Maelstrom of chaos also applies chill effects to enemies or arcane stacks to yourself every second for 1/2/3/4/5 seconds.
Even if you decide to use this daily, it's effect is minor considering there are other ways to apply/gain these stacks.

Arcane Burst: Each target hit by Sorching Burst(at-will) has a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to grant a stack of arcane mastery.
You will be gaining plenty of stacks from magic missile and other spells, making this feat rather redundant.
x
Tier 3
Phantasmal Destruction: when you deal combat advantage damage you gain 3/6/9/12/15% critical severity for 6 seconds.
Coupled with Nightmare wizardry from tier 2, this is a good choice to have especially when you have high crit chance, but also remember you need to be close to get combat advantage working, or when nightmare wizardry has procced.

Energy Recovery: The third strike on chilling cloud now has a 25% chance to grant you 0.15/0.30/0.45/0.6/0.75% of your maximum hitpoints as temporary hitpoints. this effect is also increase by 0.15/0.30/0.45/0.6/0.75% for every additional target hit.
At 20,000 hp this will give you 150 temp hit-points when hitting one target, and with a 25% chance. I dont see how this will help you in any situation.

Tier 4
Masterful Arcane Theft: Steal time and Ray of enfeeblement deal 1/2/3/4/5% to targets effected by chill and an additional .6/1.2/1.8/2.4/3% damage per arcane stack on you.
With 5 stacks of arcane and chilled target your steal time and ray will deal 20% increased damage. this can easily be achieved by using magic missile, and a cold encounter, (icy terrain with steal time, or chill strike with ray for example). A useful feat if you use steal time and/or ray of enfeeblement

Chilling Advantage: When you have chilling presence slotted, your cold encounter spells have an additional 1/2/3/4/5% chance to crit.
Situational but has its uses when using a cold aoe setup, however to use chilling presence effectively you should use icy terrain, which does not crit. leaving only Conduit of Ice or Chill strike to benefit from this.

Final Feat

Chaos Magic: Your magic missile now has a 33% chance to apply 1 of 3 effects to the target. Only 1 of these effects can be applied at one time, and last for 10 seconds.
Chaotic Growth: Allies near the target are healed for 1% of their maximum hit points per second.
Chaotic Nexus: Enemies near target have their mitigation reduced by 15%
Chaotic Fury: Allies near the target gain 15% bonus power.
Sounds great, with a high proc chance and a constant use of magic missile this will activate alot for those within range of the target (25ft), however everytime it procs it will override the previous so do think on relying on one of the boons.

grimah · July 2013

Statistics

Recharge increase: Recharge increase does not reduce cooldown by that percentage but increases the number of times you can cast it by that percentage. Here is the formula:

Original Cooldown / (1+ recharge percentage) = Cooldown

For example, Shield has 19.75 cooldown you get 30% from stats, and 10% from feat. it would translate to: 19.75/ (1+ 0.30 +0.10) = 14.1 seconds.

Gear Stats
Recovery and Critical diminishing graph (sorry didnt have the data for 4000-5000 of the stat, but you can see the curve)

Power: Has no diminishing point. Something to increase once your other stats have reached your personal preference or before increasing it's value deteriorates. starting wizards, it gives around 1% more damage for every 166 points of power.

Critical: Increases your critical strike chance, an important statistic for damage output, and proccing certain feats. Reduced effectiveness if using a class feature called eye of the storm. This stat starts to diminish in its efficiency after around 2200 points.

Armor Penetration: Most important damage stat for PvE as it will give you effectively a % bonus. This stat is capped at 24% for PvE bosses which is 2530 other elites at 22% which is 2230. Some spells are current not affected by this stat

Recovery: Arguably the most important stat for a wizard to increase first. It gives recharge increase and most importantly action point gain. 2500 is an healthy amount to aim for, if you are finding yourself wanting more dailies up to cast, raise this further to 4000.

Lifesteal: Give you life back on damage, it is not useful unless stacked to around 1000 but will give you a quick replenishment of health without needing to use potions, very good if you can get it to 9-10%, and will keep you topped up without having to put stress on a cleric.

HP: For defensive enchants HP can be useful and almost required for competitive PvP (currently they sport around 35k hp). some abilities from bosses or even elites at T2 dungeons can take you down in one ability.

Regeneration: A great stat for alot of situations, especially during leveling phase. It will regenerate more based on how hurt you are, if you are in PvP or PvE, and you take a big hit, regeneration can help you get your health back along with potions, whilst moving to safety.

Defense: An overlooked statistic. If you find yourself getting hurt too much and dying too much, defense is a safe investment 1000+ is recommended, more will help if you can find it.

Deflect: The worst stat for a PvE wizard, the % chance is not something that can be relied on to save you, for pvp it has its uses, but unless you can stack it high it won't be worth it.

Movement: We are so slow, this can help in that regard, gained from enchant armor pieces.

For a more indepth and alot better graph than mine, which includes formulas and all other stats (ignore the power as it is now outdated), take a look at https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3dqpvhuavj

Enchants and gear!

Weapon Enchants:

Vorpal: Greater = 38% Crit Severity Best for single target damage, burst damage, and just damage in general, especially at high ranks, the extra damage ONLY effects your crits, so lets say you have 33% crit

Without Greater Vorpal:
1st hit: 100, 2nd hit: 100, 3rd hit: 175 = 375

With Greater Vorpal
1st hit: 100, 2nd hit: 100, 3rd hit: 213 = 413

which equals approx 10.1% increase in damage.
(Spellstorm wizards will often average at around 50% crit rate with eye of the storm slotted would give you a 14% increase)

Perfect vorpal will most likely be the highest personal damage enchant (PvE) for you.

Lightning: Greater = 18% weapon damage. chains twice at 50% chance each time.
Best for aoe damage If you are using a particular spell loadout. It will proc 6x on conduit and steal time and 8 times on icy terrain. However be warned about using this enchant, you will more often than not agro adds and freshly spawned ones before the tank gets a chance to catch it. Only go for this if you can afford to get greater or higher, and you will see numbers bouncing around everywhere!

Plaguefire: Greater =+7.5% weapon damage and 2.5% per second for three seconds, stacks 3 times and applies 15% reduced defense with each stack.
Great for all situations, The debuff (-15% defense stacks 3 times at greater version) works well even if you have another non-wizard using it, due to our near limitless aoe application, and multiple applications from a single spell. (Does not stack with other player's plaguefire).

Will increase damage by 9% at 3 stacks of the greater version, but its not just for you, its for everyone!

Armor Enchants:

Soulforged: Upon death will resurrect you with 20/22.5/25/27.5% HP and another 10/12.5/15/17.5% over 3 seconds with a 90 second cooldown. A very welcome safety net. It will give you a second chance to fight and make up for mistakes! Fools people in PvP too, May take some getting used too but it will make alot of content much easier/forgiving.

Negation: At greater version it has a 20% chance to increase resistance by 25% for 6 seconds. This is quite good as it will save you during those nasty initial pulls and give you much needed durablity during a fight.

Barkshield: -This enchant refreshes up to 3 charges every 8 seconds and will use 1 charge when hit. Absorbing 1944 (3 charges), 1296 (2 charges), 648 damage (1 charge) at Greater version. Highly useful in PvE and also has its uses in PvP but wise opponents will know how to remove its usefulness. It will proc from any attack so weak attacks will use the charges too. Desirable and useful because of its quick cooldown and regular effect.

Here is a link that shows all of the enchants and their effects if you want to look for something else
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Runestone#Enchantments

Companions: (check for newer pet options!)

The first thing one should think about getting is an augment pet, these wonderful pets will transfer all their stats to yourself, and will not engage in combat! this is great because they will not get themselves killed and always provide you with their stats. You must have this pet summoned to receive their stats. It is advisable to save up and purchase one before any other big purchase. They are expensive, but if you partake in dungeons this will be the pet you will always have out. So it is best to start saving where you can, and spend AD sparingly until you get this.

Augment pets:

Ioun Stone of Allure

Ioun Stone of Might

Cat

Stats at 25 (before cha bonus)

250 HP
+155 pow, rec, crit
250 HP
+125 power, rec, arp, deflect
250 HP
+225 rec, crit

Starting grade

Blue
Green
Blue

Active bonus

7%/10% encounter use to slow
2%/3%/5% stamina/guard regen
25%/50% reduced fall damage, +125/+200 deflect

Acquired

1200 ZEN store
1000 tarmalune bars store (check auction house too)
833,000 AD. Pet vendor

Note: You will want to get a blue version, for the final item slot. Upgrading a green to blue will cost an additional 500.000 AD.

Pets for active slots

Active bonuses from pet bonuses will always work for your character as long as you are not in a PvP environment, and your pets are sitting your your active slot (no need to summon them), Pets are VERY expensive things, and most will not give you any noticable difference. Here is a link to a near complete list of companion active bonuses compiled by @Dardove

Upgrade costs are:

White to Green

300,000 AD

Green to Blue

500,000 AD

Blue to Purple

750,000 AD

Here is a short list that are more favorable active bonuses for wizards:

Utility:

Sprite

+2% AP Gain

More AP, more Dailies.
2500 ZEN Store

Cantankerous Mage

+15%/+25% Control duration,

Like having an rank 3 Orb of Imposition. Will give a flat +% increase duration of your stuns, frozen, daze and even knockback distance.
2000 ZEN Store

Slyph

+50% Control Resist,

Uses cryptics formula new = old/ (1 + bonus) in this case (1 + 0.5)

Reduces stun and daze durations, chance to resist being knockdown/pushback from enemies such as rimefire golems
Feywild Pack ($60)

Will o Wisp
+25% Control Resist, +15% Control Bonus

Stacks additively with Slyph and Cantankerous mage.
2500 ZEN store

Phoera

On Resurrection: +1000 Regeneration and Power; Duration: 10 seconds

Useful if using soulforge enchant, and you find yourself dying alot.
Lockboxes (check Auction house)

Vicious Dire Wolf

5% chance to interrupt your target.

Procs like stormspell class feature would, will proc multiple times from certain spells: conduit of ice, icy terrain, steal time. Stops all animations (including melee attacks). Very useful extra randomised control, but not to be relied upon.

Guardian Pack ($60)

Damage:

Fire Archon

Increase damage against targets with less than 30% Hit Points by 5%

Your overall damage will not increase noticably (damage meter) However the bonus kicks in where it matters most on certain boss fights. As many of them will get tougher as the fight progresses.
1000 Tarmalune trade bars
(Check auction house)

Wild Hunt Rider

On Encounter Use: 2%/3%/5% chance to increase damage by 10% for 5 seconds

Procs only from encounters and upon spell-cast so you will get the bonus for the encounter you cast, (around 25% uptime depending on spells used.)
800 ZEN store

Blink Dog

+2%/3%/5% Combat Advantage Damage

This bonus adds additively. Only get this if you have Nightmare wizardry feated (grants combat advantage).
Chest from Celandine's tower
(Check Auction house)

Aranea

3% chance to have lightning strike target
Lockboxes
(Check Auction house)

Dancing Blade

+3%/5% Critical Severity
765,000 AD Pet vendor.

Lightfoot Thief
On critical hit: Foes nearby target will bleed for 3x/5x level based damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds
Sword coast Aventures

Weapon Sets

Weapon sets are one of the important things to aim for because of the set bonus they give (will let you organise/allocate your stats easier.) Before getting such weapons, You may find PvP weapons to be a adequate substitute until you can get your hands on one of the below:

1 weapon damage = 30 power.

Below are the available weapon sets (stats of both main hand and offhand combined)

Ancient Court

Dread Legion
Fomorian Fabled
Fallen Dragon

Weapon Damage

671 -820
677 - 827
686 - 838
686 - 838

Power

1848
1867
1888
1669

Recovery
442
448
450
434

Deflection
207
218
207
232

Regeneration
207
-
207
-

Life Steal
-
218
-
434

Set Bonus:
+450 Recovery
+450 Recovery
+450 Recovery
+450 Recovery

Main Hand

Castle Never - Final boss
Valindra's Tower - Dungeon Delve
Crafted with materials from Malabog Castle (L20 Artificing)
Crafted with materials from Valindra's tower. (L20 Artificing)

Off-hand

Castle Never - Final boss
Valindra's Tower - Dungeon Delve
Malabog Castle - Second Boss
Valindra's Tower - First boss

Armor Sets

Note: Some of these set bonuses maybe bugged or not working as intended whilst you read this, please check to see if there are any problems with these armor sets, or what spells currently apply to them!!!
With enough AD from extended play, from selling things on Auction or Purchasing zen, eventually when you reach Rank 7 enchants and over, (e.g. +185 at rank 7 or +220 at rank 8 stat enchants). The actual Armor stats will become less and less important unless you are pushing strongly into one specific stat.)

Tier 1

The table below shows the stat totals of each set, this includes head, chest, gloves and boots. the 2 set bonus is added the total, and displayed at the bottom. Check your collection tab to find out where each piece is acquired.

Archmage

Focal Magi
Fatebender
Gladiator Mage

Hit-points

-
-
-
+1968

Power

1148
492
1548
1148

Critical
-
1548
-
-

Recovery
1548
1148
1148
1548

Armor Pen
-
-
-
384

Defense
495
987
987
495

Deflection
492
-
-
-

Regeneration
492
-
492
-

Movement

-
-
-
108

Two set Bonus

+400 Recovery

+400 Critical
+400 Power
+400 Recovery

Archmage set:
Set Bonus 1: +400 Recovery
Set Bonus 2: Reduce cooldowns of control powers by 1 seconds when using a control power

(One of the best PvE set, most of the powers you use will be control ones, casting steal time will reduce everything by 6 seconds. you will be firing encounters more than your at-wills with this set on)

Works with:
Ice Rays
Entangling Force
Chill strike
Icy terrain
Shield
Steal Time

Focal Magi Set:
Set Bonus 1: +400 Crit
Set Bonus 2: grants 225 power and recovery to nearby allies.

(This effect will stack, hit 10 things with a control spell and thats 2250 power/recovery, to your friends. Pretty handy buff. Though requires alot of things to hit in the first place.)

Fatebender's Set:
Set Bonus 1: +400 Power
Set Bonus 2: Grants you a charge everytime you cast an At-Will. stacks 3 times, when you use an encounter it will deal 5% more damage and consume a charge.

(Effectively it is a 5% damage increase on your encounters, as long as you use at-wills which you should be/or can easily do.)

Gladiator Mage set:
Set Bonus 1: +400 Recovery
Set Bonus 2: Reduce recharge time of mastery spell by 25%

(Remember this recharge time is not the same as reduced cooldown, check the statistics section for the recharge formula. Also note that the boots on this set gives movement increase, so if you are wishing to use this set for its 2 set bonus only, you may wish to consider leaving out the boots.)

Tier 2

The glove pieces of these sets (excluding champion mage) can be upgraded through tailoring, which requires a rank of level 20 and can reinforce your gloves into a slightly better version, note that it consumes and replaces the item so make sure to take out any enchants.

High Vizier

Shadow Weaver
Magelord
Champion Mage

Hit-Points
-
-
-
2296

Power
1271
574
1721
1271

Critical
-
1721
-
-

Recovery
1721
1271
1271
1721

Armor Pen
-
-
-
448

Defense
521
1095
1095
521

Deflection
574
-
-
-

Regeneration
574
-
574
-

Movement

-
-
-
126

Two set Bonus

+450 Recovery

+450 Critical
+450 Power
+450 Recovery

High Vizier Set:
Set Bonus 1: +450 Recovery
Set Bonus 2: Steals 450 Defense from target and applies to yourself, when using a control spell, Stacks 3 times lasts 6 seconds and is refreshed at 3 stacks when another is applied.

(Stacks 3 times but can be placed on multiple enemies, most control spells will place this debuff but only some will give you the bonus. This stacks with other defense reduction % abilities and other wizards using this set. It is effectively a 20-25% damage bonus for that target and applys before damage is calculated. Note that this does not stack with other high vizier users)

Procs Debuff with:
Chill Strike x2 (x3 on mastery on main target, x1 on others)
Icy Terrain x1 per target.
Ice Knife: x3
Ice Storm: x2 per target
Icy rays: x1
Shard of Endless Avalanche x1 per target on roll, x1 on explode.
Oppressive force x3 over the duration per target

Buff and Debuff (buff stacks up to 3 times)
Entangling force x1 (x1 per hit on mastery)
Steal time x3 per target (x1 buff total, x2 on mastery)
Repel x1 (x1 per target on mastery)
Shield x1 per target.

Shadow Weaver Set:
Set Bonus 1: +450 Crit
Set Bonus 2: When usinga Control powers you grant allies 113 lifesteal. When using Arcane powers you grants allies 3% crit severity. Both stack 3 times and last 10 seconds, When target is afflicted by both buffs they double in value.

(The lifesteal is not as important to most, but 18% crit severity is very nice indeed, just make sure you cast a control spell within 10 seconds. Current bugged and will not activate after 1:40 until another 1:40 has passed)
Control spells:
Icy Terrain
Shield
Steal time
Entangling Force
Chill strike
Repel
Shard of Avalanche

Non-Control:
Ray of enfeeblement
Sudden storm.
Ice rays.
Conduit of Ice.
Fanning the flame.

Magelord's Set:
Set Bonus 1: +450 Power
Set Bonus 2: Grants +900 Recovery when striking an opponent over 75% with an encounter.

(Situational but good for trash, and it depends on what value your recovery is, the effects however, are not very noticable)

Champion Mage set:
Set Bonus 1: +450 Recovery
Set Bonus 2: Reduce recharge time of mastery spell by 30% and 5% more damage

(Remember this recharge time is not the same as reduced cooldown, check the statistics section for the recharge formula. Also note that the boots on this set gives movement increase, so if you are wishing to use this set for its 2 set bonus only, you may wish to consider leaving out the boots.)

Tier 2.5

These armor sets were added with the additional modules (feywild and shadowmantle and acquired through their associated zones)

Fabled Iliyanbruen

Dread Legion

Hit-Points
-
-

Power
1298
1762

Critical
-
-

Recovery
1743
1312

Armor Pen
-
-

Defense
531
543

Deflection
606
637

Regeneration
606
-

Life steal

-
637

Two set Bonus

+450 Recovery

+450 Critical

Fabled Iliyanbruen Set:
Set Bonus 1: +450 Recovery
Set Bonus 2: Direct damage Encounters apply 50% of its damage to nearby enemies, 20 second cooldown.

(to be added... the short: bad)

Dread Legion set:
Set Bonus 1: +450 power
Set Bonus 2: Chance when dealing damage to apply 1250 over 10 seconds, this DoT has a chance to hurt nearby enemies per tick.
Minor damage from set bonus, but highest total stats

pranax · July 2013

Excellent graph, ty!

Excellent information just in general. I have respeced my wizard twice now, and am just trying to make my own decisions on the best way that I like to play the class. So blindly following a guide isn't my style. This information helps me out a lot in deciding how to build/feat. Thank you

pranax · July 2013

Feats? ^^
pls

grimah · July 2013

Sorry i will work on feats. and general power setups. tommorow, kinda got pulled into some dungeon crawling mid way

Stay tuned.

henkminster · July 2013

Great Thread! Saves a lot of time for new Wizards and provides the necessary informations to make your own choices. ty
Keep it up!

Just an suggestion to enhance this guide. The most guides/threads never mention the mechanics how arcane/chill stacks works and the damage/CC loss from loosing the stacks due to the power/abilities setup. Maybe a point for a guide like yours.

grimah · July 2013

Okay! i think im pretty much done with Version 1.0

I still need to add and AP generation section for how much certain spells do. and total stats for those tiered armor sets! But i off to do some dungeoning for now.

Please feel free to suggest what else should be added, and if you have any questions yourselves.

kerrovitarra · July 2013

Disagree with passives. Storm spell is must have, cause does tons of damage. Next passive - chilling presence for single and aoe.

barwench · July 2013

Very nice guide , it answers quite a few questions I had!

grimah · July 2013

um... its the only feature i put that is "recommended"

kerrovitarra · July 2013

grimah wrote: »

um... its the only feature i put that is "recommended"

I was replying for you AoE, single and PvP power setups. It's not "recommended", it's must have, cause it's better, than any other passive.

grimah · July 2013

its not a must have because you can function without it. this is guide to help people make up their own mind, the power setups are just examples. i personally used stormspell always, because im too lazy to switch out evocation, but evocation is better in a strict aoe environment, if you check some parsers and such.

grimah · July 2013

updated AP gain per spells and a new graph link.

kerrovitarra · July 2013

grimah wrote: »

its not a must have because you can function without it.

You can function w/o AS too, so what?

grimah wrote: »

updated AP gain per spells and a new graph link.

Where other spells? Ray of frost for example?

grimah · July 2013

thank you for the suggestion i will add more spells too.

grimah · July 2013

Adds the other spells (apart from shard as i do not currently have it) and their AP gains.

Decide not to write a dungeon/boss guide, because it changes (build wise) depending on what group you have, and their capabilities. Instead, i suggest a general boss tactics guide or youtube videos to give you an idea of what skills to apply.

eversummernights · July 2013

This is highly helpful. Coming back after a couple months without playing and its an awesome 'status update' on the class!

noojster · July 2013

Great guide. Can you also add which powers are DOT? Thanks

jackero0 · July 2013

grimah wrote: »

Feats!

Frozen Power Transfer:[/B] Chilling Cloud now grants 1/2/3/4/5% bonus damage to every target you hit with it's third strike. Lasts for 8 seconds and is reset when hit by the third strike from Chilling Cloud again.
[/I]

Great guide, mate!

Just some corrections...

Chilling Cloud now grants 1/2/3/4/5% bonus damage to every target you hit ...

it is FOR every target you hit not TO. that makes a big difference ... guess it's only a mistake.

The passive power Evocation does not provide 15% on all aoe spells. Just a few (dont have them all in my mind right now but it does not work for CoI and Icy terrain right now). Because of this, it makes that power not as effective as storm spell in my opinion. Storm spell does around 10% of your over all damage.

kerrovitarra · July 2013

noojster wrote: »

Great guide. Can you also add which powers are DOT? Thanks

CoI, IT, RoE.

grimah · July 2013

noojster wrote: »

Great guide. Can you also add which powers are DOT? Thanks

Sure! i suppose it is worthwhile adding to the guide, as some maybe confused about what a DoT does. i certainly was when they announced the changes. I have added it to the first section (below control spells bit)

jackero0 wrote: »

Great guide, mate!

Just some corrections...

Chilling Cloud now grants 1/2/3/4/5% bonus damage to every target you hit ...

it is FOR every target you hit not TO. that makes a big difference ... guess it's only a mistake.

The passive power Evocation does not provide 15% on all aoe spells. Just a few (dont have them all in my mind right now but it does not work for CoI and Icy terrain right now). Because of this, it makes that power not as effective as storm spell in my opinion. Storm spell does around 10% of your over all damage.

Thanks for spotting that out! it must have been inaccurate as i was typing from memory

if you see anything else please let me know!

As for evocation working, yes ive noted that in the aoe feat section. No AoE increases effect DoT spells, so what you pointed out actually ties in with the previous poster! ive also added that note to the DoT spells, it is included in the +aoe feats, but i will also add it to the evocation section.

I think you are correct, the original evocation test was using Evocation before the changes to DoT. Also im guessing your storm spell damage is high because you use plaguefire or another weapon enchantment that applies/activates the storm spell?

jackero0 · July 2013

grimah wrote: »

Also im guessing your storm spell damage is high because you use plaguefire or another weapon enchantment that applies/activates the storm spell?

No, I'm using a greater Lightning which does not proc storm spell. But I use CoI and IT and ST (as you do as well for aoe). Those powers proc a lot of storm spells. I've been using the act combat tracker a couple of times and storm spell dealt around 10-12% of my the overall damage in any T2 dungeon.
In addition i did some tests in CN as I'm running that dungeon often with a standard guild group (same ppl and chars each run). Storm spell + chilling presence seems to reach the best damage output in every run. But only with a good rotation (max stack of chill). Otherwise storm spell + Eye of the storm beats it sometimes.

grimah · July 2013

ah okay thanks it does 15%+ for me when i switched to plaguefire, maybe its just a variation of stats. Ive updated, change to stormspell. It is the one i use always. But i would like to point out to all new wizards, try out different combinations perhaps they will work just as well.

Ive also seen number of wizards actively using shard of avalanche so i wouldnt discount that spell just yet. (i respecced out of that myself)

threeravens · July 2013

Evocation is somewhat circumstantial in its viability.If, for example, I'm on a run with a lot of ads where I can use tabbed EF for max AP regen and AS spamming, then shield pulse can do crazy damage (I've had 15k crits when mobs were debuffed with CoI and the like).

So basically, it depends on how often do you utilize which kind of spellset and on the situation.

jackero0 · July 2013

Point is that Evocation works only for ST and shield push (and tabed CS). So, less than half your damage is buffed by evocation and thats less than 7.5%.

And by the way ... You can do 25k+ hits with shield push (without vorpal enchant and without evocation).

But no offence. Everbody has his own playstyle and prefered powers. There is more then just one perfect build.

h0tpajamas · July 2013

Was just curious your thoughts on the high vizier vs the champion mages set for endgame in both pvp and pve

grimah · July 2013

High vizier all the way. 1350 defense in pvp is a big chunk and alot of reduction

especially vs sentinel GWFs and GFs. where they get increased effectiveness from defense. get yourself plaguefire too and yourll be pushing enemy defense into the minuses. (my gwf sentinel for exampel is super tough but when i faced someone with my setup i died in 3 hits just like anyone else).

also great for pve. same thing applies some bosses have high defense. however ive yet to get a collection of boss defense numbers.

as for stats, HP is nice from the pvp set. but spell recharge/reduction is calculated strangely in this game. it is cooldown / (1+ %). e.g. 20 seconds / 1 + 0.25)

effectively giving you half of what it actually says.

If you do want less cooldown, i highly suggest archmage T1 armor. that will drastically reduce your cooldowns.

grimah · July 2013

made some edits and added the recharge increase formula, so people understand why it actually gives half of what it says.

pfft2 · July 2013

grimah wrote: »

made some edits and added the recharge increase formula, so people understand why it actually gives half of what it says.

It's not that recharge bonuses give you half of what they say they do. (Depending on which numbers you pick, recharge can give you significantly more or less than half of the common-sense value.) The recharge-bonus formula is designed to give you a linear benefit in terms of activations per unit time. All of Cryptic games have worked that way; it's a little counter-intuitive at first, but there's a good reason for it.

Let's say you have a power with a base cooldown of 10 seconds. Under Cryptic's rules, that power can be used at the following rates, given the following recharge bonuses:

1. At +25% recharge, you can use the power every 10 / (1 + 0.25) = 8 seconds.
2. At +50% recharge, you can use the power every 10 / (1 + 0.5) = 6.67 seconds.
3. At +75% recharge, you can use the power every 10 / (1 + 0.75) = 5.7 seconds.
4. At +100% recharge, you can use the power every 10 / (1 + 1) = 5 seconds.

If you just look at the gain in terms of the time shaved from the original cooldown, then there are clearly diminished returns: the first chunk of recharge shaves 2 seconds; the second chunk shaves ~1.33 seconds, and so on. But Cryptic isn't measuring time shaved; Cryptic's measuring the rate of power usage. Someone who has a cooldown of 8 seconds can use it exactly 25% more often than a guy using the base cooldown. Someone who has a cooldown of 5 seconds can use the power exactly 100% more often than the next guy with a cooldown of 10 seconds.

When we're talking about, say, cars, we don't say that there's a diminished return on speed, even though you can chart the same diminished returns on time saved with each incremental boost of speed: 60 MPH gets you to a destination 60 miles away in 1 hour; 90 MPH gets you to the same destination in 40 minutes; 120 MPH gets you to the destination in 30 minutes. Because it would take infinite speed to reach the destination in zero time, there will always be putatively diminished returns on time saved.

Now, let's look at the returns on the hypothetically more intuitive, WYSIWYG model of recharge:

1. At +25% recharge, your 10-second power would be usable every 10 * (1 - 0.25) = 7.5 seconds.
2. At +50% recharge, the same power would be usable every 10 * (1 - 0.5) = 5 seconds.
3. At +75% recharge, the same power would be usable every 10 * (1 - 0.75) = 2.5 seconds.
4. At +100% recharge, the power would be usable 10 * (1 - 1) = always.

In short, the supposedly intuitive model would give us vastly accelerated returns; it'd be totally broken beyond a certain point.

All of that said, Neverwinter doesn't appear to be the type of game in which huge recharge bonuses (50+%) are normally achievable, so the rationale behind Cryptic's somewhat cryptic recharge-rate methodology probably doesn't seem as sensible here as it might have in (for example) City of Heroes. But hey, you never know what will happen in the future.

Grimah's Comprehensive Wizard guide

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