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Ability Roll Scores for CW (Mostly PvP)
kgrizzle22
Member Posts: 111 Arc User
Since these are the only things that are permanent along with your race I tend to make sure I choose the best possible ability score per class.
I'm curious if there is a "best" ability score roll and race combo for the CW class right now? I'll probably be more PvP oriented but I also want to be competitive in dungeons at 60.
(Really really annoying that these are permanent, should be able to pay for an Ability Point Roll respec, meh)
I'm curious if there is a "best" ability score roll and race combo for the CW class right now? I'll probably be more PvP oriented but I also want to be competitive in dungeons at 60.
(Really really annoying that these are permanent, should be able to pay for an Ability Point Roll respec, meh)
Post edited by kgrizzle22 on
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Do most people seem to have roughly the same starting ability scores? I'm assuming Tiefling is easily the best race for all CW's. Unless you really hate the tail/other aesthetics...
Human's just as good, and arguably better given that only humans can take both Practiced Spellcaster and Focused Wizardry.
Edit: That said, it really doesn't matter much. As you imply, it's mostly a matter of aesthetics. If you want a half-orc mage, then have at it.
Tieflings get 2 more stat points (which translates to either 2% dmg from INT or 2% crit rate/bonus combat advantage dmg for CHA) AND 5% more damage on <50% hp targets, which will more than make up for 3% damage via learned spell caster. Focused wizardry hardly matters in PVP, since you will more than likely use single target skills, and even if you do use aoe skills, only SOME of them are affected by it.
CW gears barely have any defense on them, so 3% from the human racial hardly does anything.
That's my 2cents on the matter.
Thanks for the responses in here.
Now I'm pretty sure I'm going tiefling but I'm not sold on which ability score rolls at character creation to go with. I read another post that argues Int/Cha is the way to go, then another person argued against it saying Int/Wis is the way to go.
Wish you weren't permanently stuck with these rolls since the game changes patch after patch anyway...
Don't sweat it. Check this table: http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Ability_Score_Rolling
Notice that in almost every case, your three main attributes add up to a total 44. Avoid the rolls that have a 15 in them, and you pretty much can't go wrong; remember that although your original roll is irreversible, the stat points you get from leveling can be reset. So you do have some wiggle room; for example, if you think you set INT too high at the outset, you can compensate by skipping it a couple of times during the leveling process, and reallocate to taste.
For illustration's sake, let's say you roll 18/13/13 INT/WIS/CHA (as I did). Toss in my human +2 bonus (which I allocated to INT), and you end up with 20/13/13 INT/WIS/CHA.
Depending on what you choose when you level up, by level 60, those initial stats can end up looking like any of the following:
- 22/19/19 INT/WIS/CHA
- 23/18/17 INT/WIS/CHA
- 24/17/17 INT/WIS/CHA
- 25/16/19 INT/WIS/CHA
- 26/19/15 INT/WIS/CHA
Or any permutation that flips the WIS and CHA. That's a lot of flexibility. Trust me, you're never gonna get kicked from a team by any sane person because your CHA maxes out at 19 (20 with a campfire buff).In any case, we're talking about single-digit-percentile differences here.
And if you choose Tiefling, you'll have a cushion that a lot of us don't have, stat-roll-wise. Add an extra 2 points to the lines above.
The main reason people advise against going pure INT/CHA rolls is due to the Eye of the Storm class feature, which can proc a 100% crit rate buff for 8(?) seconds with a certain internal cooldown, which sort of makes stacking crit rate (which CHA provides) rather pointless on a CW.
However, this is only true right now since Spellstorm mage is the only available paragon path for CWs. Once more paragon paths gets released (according to http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?419511-Wizard-s-new-paragon-path it should be a fire based one) then INT/CHA would doubtlessly be the way to go (for a PVPer at least).
Personally I am running a pure INT/CHA tiefling that went with a 16 INT/16 CHA (18/18 with racial bonuses) base roll CW, which is why I am eagerly awaiting the new fire based paragon for their much more promising powers in comparison to the spellstorm ones currently. Things are subjected to changes of course, and we will very likely not see the paragon paths be made available for a LONG time (at best we would see it in 3 months? if being optimistic here...).
As for what base roll to choose right now...it will largely depend on you, really. Since you plan to mainly PVP, then I would advise going for 16/12/16 INT/WIS/CHA. Afterall, eye of the storm does not have a 100% up time (and is very random as well, sometimes proccing when you need it the least) so at least having some base critical rate would be good.
30 seconds is the internal cooldown, which is why Eye of the Storm has fallen out of favor at least in PvE. It turns out to be a relatively small over-time damage buff: if your crit chance is already at let's say 35%, and your crit severity is at 75%, then for the 8 seconds during which Eye of the Storm is active you're only netting (1 * (1.75)) / (1 + (0.35 * 0.75)) = about 38.6% in extra damage output. Multiply that by the buff's maximum uptime (8 / 30), and you end up with a net, over-time boost of about 9.65%.
Which isn't terrible mind you, but it's easily outdone (again, in PvE) by the likes of Storm Spell, Evocation, and (for chill mages) Chilling Presence.
In PvP, Eye of the Storm obviously has more utility, but as you say it's not something around which you should build your character.
As for why people advocate WIS over CHA? Very few do these days, it seems, but most seem to gravitate to WIS because they think it gives them better control ability (faster encounter cooldowns, faster AP gain, slightly improved control duration). It's a feel thing; some people swear up and down that the minimum WIS they can put up with, vis-a-vis AP generation, is ~18. Some people swear they notice no difference between low and high WIS values. It all depends on how you prefer to play, and/or what you're accustomed to.
In any case, WIS certainly isn't useless, but if I had to pick a stat to dump for a PvP-centric build I have to agree with you: it'd be WIS.
So yeah, a roll with 16/16 INT/CHA sounds best. In case it wasn't clear, in my previous post I didn't intend to directly advocate my INT-heavy stat roll; my point was simply that you have a fair amount of flexibility with respect to where your stats end up almost regardless of your original roll. I feel the OP over-estimates the importance of his initial stat selection. It ain't gonna make or break you in the long run.
Wis 16 (+6% Recharge Speed, +6% Action Points gain, +6% Control Bonus, +6% Control Resistance)
Cha 14 (+4% Critical Chance, +4% Combat Advantage damage, +4% Companion stat bonus)
+16% +24% +12% = 52% total
A 52% total increase is the best I found. A Moon Elf's racial traits also work build up fairly well along with that, considering their +1% to Action Point gain, and +10% bonus to Control Resist. (the Sun Elf's +2% AP gain is arguably better than the +1% AP gain/+1% stamina regen the Moon Elf gets).
From there, assuming I got to level 60 increasing Int/Wis, I'd have Int 24/Wis 22/Cha 16 at endgame. That's a +26% Recharge Speed and +12% AP gain bonus potentially built into that CW. The beauty I see in that is how Ability Score-given bonuses have no soft-cap to contend with, meaning that if you then invest having 3000 points in bonus Recovery that you'd end up with significantly better cooldowns and AP gains on top of longer control durations than most DPS-focused CWs (which seem to dominate the Library) are used to having - usually a 8% difference.
I figure some can argue that 8% on a 15 second cooldown power doesn't make a whole lot of difference, but cooldown is not just one power; it's all four of your powers. All of your abilities contribute to Action Point gain too. Most of the Encounter make some use of Control Duration bonuses as well. Not to mention that when building a Neverwinter character, it's all the small bits together than add up.
* * *
edit:
On a tangent, if I wanted the absolute max percentile bonus at endgame, I'd go with the above starter stats, but put through my levels raise Wis/Cha (ignoring the Int primary stat - shocking!)
Wis 22 (12% x4)
Cha 20 (+10% x3)
Total: 98%
I wonder how that would do. I mean, the higher crit rate is probably nice, but it comes at the cost of a lower damage bonus and recharge rate. 98% total, though, is pretty **** impressive! Maybe just not efficient, though.
16 int, 16 cha, 12 wis is what I'll likely end up with. I guess I should have said I plan to be 50% PvP/PvE but to be honest I can see myself getting burnt out on PvP a bit faster which is what I'm starting to realize with my TR. I'm assuming 16/16 int/cha would translate fine to PvE as well.
I also know CW's excel quite well in Castle Never which is something I definitely plan to set as a goal for this character if I enjoy it thoroughly.
I know with the 18 12 18 roll I can have 24 18 18 but people are saying that I will have a significant tougher time CC'ing + knocking mobs off with lower starting wisdom...
Why can't we just buy respec coins so I can start leveling this **** character without caring about starting ability score rolls, haha. Bored of the TR!
Just roll something. Play it out awhile. Get a feel for it.
For what it's worth, I think the people you've talked to are overstating the case, but that's a subjective judgment. Put it this way: almost no one on this forum advocates a literal max-WIS-and-overstacked-Recovery approach to high-end CW builds. A lot of the people on this forum are successful without that approach. A lot of people are successful without paying much attention to WIS at all.
YMMV. I understand why you're hesitant; I'm a lot like that when it comes to these things -- comes from years of being an OCD min/maxer. Hell, I spend more time on the test server of this game and analyzing results than I do on live at the moment, because (among other things) I want to make sure I know all that I can reasonably know before I finalize my respec. But believe me when I say that the starting ability rolls really aren't that important. The real brain teaser will arise later, when you try to decide how to readjust your leveling attributes if you decide to respec.
Sometimes being locked into a choice is actually a good thing, after all.
Here for the build+guide
Touche, well stated. I went ahead and made the 18 int 12 wis 18 cha build. Since you mentioned leveling stats, I figure I might as well just ask: I was planning on just putting pts in int/cha all the way up to 60 considering the more damage you have seems to make for faster leveling...
Any particular skills/feats that you consider a must have for optimal leveling speed?
This may be dated but I figured I would just follow this guys build:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?201791-CW-Icy-Aoe-build-Great-for-Leveling
Great. Hope you enjoy it!
If you're comfortable with the possibility of respeccing later, then I'd say INT/CHA is definitely the way to go for leveling. By the same token, crit seems to be the best gear stat for leveling. The main thing is to immediately identify any new Orb that drops, and equip it if it's a weapon-damage upgrade. Other than that, don't stress about items too much.
On my first character (CW) I wasted a lot of time sorting through my inventory, weighing this-or-that alternative green, and so on. I saved bounty tokens and traded them in at the end of every area; I ran skirmishes and PvP when the events were active. Etc, etc. On my second character I just followed the sparkling trail like a bloodhound on the scent, basically ignored my inventory (only selling when I was in the mood, tossing bounty tokens out, ignoring unidentified cross-class drops) -- and although that approach consistently left me under-leveled (by 1-2 levels) for each new area, I still easily completed the content and rushed to 60 in a little less than 30 hours of played time. At the end my second character also had roughly the same amount of gold my first character had (~60 gold), though in fairness I didn't have to buy a horse or a companion on the second toon.
As for feats, again it depends on how comfortable you are respeccing later. For pure leveling purposes, the best approach is probably to cherry pick lower-tiered paragon feats from every tree -- for instance, putting five points in Reaper's Touch (Renegade) gives you a far better return in the short term than putting five points in one of the first two Thaumaturge feats, but following the Thaumaturge tree to the very end is probably safer from a long-term point of view (unless you want to roll a Renegade, which is a valid choice, but it's not the most popular spec for PvE these days. In PvP, Renegade might be better than Thaumaturge, even now.)
Me? I just followed the Thaumaturge tree. It didn't really start to shine until the late 40s, when I picked up Elemental Empowerment. Then it really shined when I picked up Assailing Force at level 50. From a solo-leveling point of view, the improvement you'll see from feats (particularly Paragon feats) is very incremental and (generally speaking) hard to notice until you've invested a lot of points.
Heroic Feats you don't want to skip are Toughness (9% HP), Weapon Mastery (3% crit), Blighting Power (+9% damage against targets who've been chilled), Arcane Mastery (+6% damage on all Arcane spells), and Learned Spellcaster (+5% to all damage; the tooltip is wrong btw -- don't be put off by the description). You should have three Heroic feat points leftover to do with as you please. Fight On is a decent place to dump points. Wizard's Wrath and Controlling Action might not be terrible choices either.
As for powers, if you have a level 60 Rogue then you know you'll have more power points than you really need. I encourage you to experiment, but if you're looking for a bare-minimum list of powers that people will expect you to have in late-level PvE/PvP, then I'd go with the following, in no particular order:
Encounters:
- Steal Time (staple AoE stun)
- Shield (defensive power that doubles as an unlimited-target AoE attack that also pushes targets away)
- Entangling Force (your best single-target control, and an absolutely insane AP generator when used in the tab slot)
- Repel (situationally useful as a supplement to Shield pulse in high-end dungeons, also works as a GF counter in PvP)
- Ray of Enfeeblement (Mostly for PvP; I personally don't use it anymore even in PvP, but it'd be a crime not to take it and try it yourself)
- Icy Rays (also a PvP favorite)
- Chill Strike (your best AoE attack available at lower levels when slotted in tab. Also a relatively short-cooldown single-target stun)
Class Features:- Storm Spell - the best class feature. Gives you a chance to proc a lightning bolt on every attack. Once you've got Storm Spell, it should almost never leave your bar.
- Eye of the Storm - useful in PvP, it gives you a chance to proc eight seconds of 100% crit chance, on a 30-second internal cooldown. As mentioned earlier in the thread, this feature's popularity in a PvE context has waned somewhat because of the internal cooldown, but if I have to pick a second must-have class feature, then Eye of the Storm's PvP utility makes it the best candidate. With the exception of Storm Spell, almost all of the other CW Features are highly situational and/or build-dependent. Personally I favor Chilling Presence as a complement to Storm Spell in PvE, but that's because I use a lot of chill effects.
Dailies:- Arcane Singularity (this is pretty much what you'll use in 95% of all PvE encounters, late game)
- Ice Knife (sorta the PvP equivalent of Arcane Singularity; your best single-target daily)
I'm not gonna list At-Wills because you should take and rank all of them just to see which you like. Check the link in my sig if you're curious about At-Wills.The best leveling advice remains just to follow the main quest line slavishly, though. Also, get your Rogue alt to buy the white cleric companion and send her to your CW after you've finished the Wizard's tutorial. If you don't already have an account-wide mount, get your rogue to buy the CW a horse at 20. If you do those three things, you'll be 60 in no time.
Apologies for rambling.
Explains everything I really needed to know to be honest. Already bookmarked this, heh.
One question I had...which mounts are "account bound"? I'm very interested in buying one of these but I was under the impression that the only epic mount that was account bound was the one you get from the $200 pack?
I would love an account mount epic mount but I'm hesitant to spend $200 for that sole purpose, =X. Is there another one? (I'm assuming it's also the fastest movement mount as well?)
Thanks again pfft. The best help I've received in this game thus far.
Hehe, no problem. Glad you liked it. Didn't intend to go on at such length!
All mounts sold on the Zen store are account-wide. That means that you buy it once, and you can claim the mount on every character. The cheapest tier 3 mount on the Zen store is $25; it's the first thing I bought and I think it's the best singular investment you can make. With a top-speed (tier 3) mount, you will move 40% faster (210% total speed / 150% total speed = 1.4) than someone on one of the freebie horses.
I don't remember the name of my particular t3 mount offhand. Stormraider or something like that. It's a black, armored horse. You'll notice that all the rest of the +110% speed mounts are more expensive; that's because there's a vanity premium on using a different kind of creature than what the game offers you for free. If you wanna ride a spider or a wolf or whatever, you gotta pay extra.
All of that said, don't get me wrong: by no means is an epic mount required. I leveled my first character with a regular mount, and although the process would have been a little faster on the epic horse, the main reason my first character took so long is that I was smelling the roses (and didn't necessarily know what I was doing!).
Do keep in mind, though, that Zen-store companions are not account-wide. The freebie cleric's probably the best leveling companion available anyway (or near enough).
There's a lot more useful information in both. My post was just the basics to get you to level 60 as quickly as possible and without having skipped anything essential.
Well as soon as I hit lvl 20 on this alt I'll be buying that $25 mount, without a doubt. I thought those were single character mounts only. I'm not much for aesthetics anyway (although those spiders look <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>).
Thanks again for the help, I'm sure this info will help others as well
Here for the build+guide