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What's the point to freeze mobs?

ianthewizard2012ianthewizard2012 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,142 Arc User
edited August 2013 in The Library
The description of CW's mechanic Chill mentioned "Frozen targets recover sooner if they take enough damage."

We freeze them in order to damage them. But if they recover sooner by taking enough damage, what's the point to freeze them?
Post edited by ianthewizard2012 on

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    kerrovitarrakerrovitarra Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 559 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2013
    Stun interrupt attacks.
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    fallenjedi29fallenjedi29 Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Chill is the "control" in Control Wizard
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    ianthewizard2012ianthewizard2012 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,142 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    kerrovitarra,

    Yeah, that's a point.


    fallenjedi29,

    But the freezing duration is short and break soon if mobs take too many damage. Is there a way to extend the duration?
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    jawarisinjawarisin Member Posts: 149 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    ianthewizard2012 wrote: »
    kerrovitarra,

    Yeah, that's a point.


    fallenjedi29,

    But the freezing duration is short and break soon if mobs take too many damage. Is there a way to extend the duration?

    Imagine playing with intense lag where you loose control of your character every few seconds. That's how it feels for the add
    CW Renegade comprehensive build+guide PvP:
    Here for the build+guide
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    diogene0diogene0 Member Posts: 2,894 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    ianthewizard2012 wrote: »
    The description of CW's mechanic Chill mentioned "Frozen targets recover sooner if they take enough damage."

    That doesn't mean you can't stack more chill when they are released from the frozen state. Chill is one of the most powerful stun abilities, even with this limit. When you stun a pack of mobs, you don't get aoes for quite some time too. That's really the only purpose of control. Typically, you want to cast conduit of ice (TAB) or the ice AOE at will spell i don't remember the name to refresh the chill effect. Chill strike also works but it's really an underwhelming spell, except if you want some more damage and a lot less control.

    There's also another reason why icy ground is a popular spell: it procs the 4 pieces High Vizier's set, which means a lot more defence for you and -450 for every single mob you hit.
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    fallenjedi29fallenjedi29 Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    The beauty of chill is once its broken you just reapply and they are frozen again, its very useful to keep adds gathered up in an area which allows your tank(s) to regain or establish aggro mix in some arcane singularity and icy terrain and mobs are less likely to scatter around the room
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    ianthewizard2012ianthewizard2012 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,142 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Thanks for all the suggestions.
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    copticonecopticone Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    In my opinion, freeze mitigates damage to the entire party more than steal time and Singularity (not counting Singularity+tossing off the side). When a target is frozen, they are completely taken out of the equation for that 1-2seconds, with no way of dealing damage. This is especially useful on elite mobs that do nasty AoEs or Cleaves. With a Singularity, mobs can still attack, AoE, and Cleave up until the point they are sucked into the black hole. Steal Time, while extremely useful, stuns all the mobs at the same time. So it provides the biggest mitigation but once the effect is gone, all the mobs are free to do whatever they want at the same time. With AoE freezes constantly being applied, the mobs will freeze and break freeze independently from each other. So if you maintain a constant AoE chill effect, there will always be a portion of the adds that are stunned, which translates, in a way, into a constant flat mitigation percentage. I like to think of it as CWs version of Foresight.
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    fondlezfondlez Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    copticone wrote: »
    With AoE freezes constantly being applied, the mobs will freeze and break freeze independently from each other. So if you maintain a constant AoE chill effect, there will always be a portion of the adds that are stunned, which translates, in a way, into a constant flat mitigation percentage. I like to think of it as CWs version of Foresight.

    Extremely eloquent explanation! I could not have said it any better. You should be a designer and rewrite all our spell tooltips, including our misnamed current Paragon path! :)
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    ianthewizard2012ianthewizard2012 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,142 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    copticone wrote: »
    In my opinion, freeze mitigates damage to the entire party more than steal time and Singularity (not counting Singularity+tossing off the side). When a target is frozen, they are completely taken out of the equation for that 1-2seconds, with no way of dealing damage. This is especially useful on elite mobs that do nasty AoEs or Cleaves. With a Singularity, mobs can still attack, AoE, and Cleave up until the point they are sucked into the black hole. Steal Time, while extremely useful, stuns all the mobs at the same time. So it provides the biggest mitigation but once the effect is gone, all the mobs are free to do whatever they want at the same time. With AoE freezes constantly being applied, the mobs will freeze and break freeze independently from each other. So if you maintain a constant AoE chill effect, there will always be a portion of the adds that are stunned, which translates, in a way, into a constant flat mitigation percentage. I like to think of it as CWs version of Foresight.
    Good explanation!
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    ianthewizard2012ianthewizard2012 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,142 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    And does Orb of Imposition increases the duration of freeze?
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    fallenjedi29fallenjedi29 Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    I think its intended to increase the duration, however I never use it so I couldn't even say that it actually works. Honestly I'm running
    the build outlined in @copticone signature, I love it great dps and lots of control. I'd direct you to read that guide its very informative.
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    kerrovitarrakerrovitarra Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 559 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2013
    ianthewizard2012 wrote: »
    And does Orb of Imposition increases the duration of freeze?
    Orb if Imposition is completely useless. Stun duration of freeze ~1 sec. With 3/3 orb it will be ~1.15 sec. Great investment of points, isn't it?
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    tyrtallowtyrtallow Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 747 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    I don't know about mitigation but to me the point of freezing has always been to buy me extra seconds while my main control skills are on cooldown. It's nice for generating AP (frozen targets count as controlled targets) and extremely useful in fights where you're supposed to separate the boss from all other adds (eg. Pirate King, most semi-boss fights, any kind of emergency in any fight). Done correctly, dropping Icy Terrain just below your Arcane Singularity and combo-ing that with Steal Time right after the mobs fall down guarantees that they'll be frozen in place for a few seconds right after being stunned. Those few extra seconds are all I need for my other powers to be ready and a few casts later I'm casting Arcane Singularity and repeating the process all over again. This is how I usually play when I solo control a T2, otherwise I slot Enfeeblement.

    BTW I play a Renegade so I could easily switch my focus from control to DPS as needed, but an Oppressor could do all of the above and sneak in extra Entangling Force/Icy Terrain casts thanks to Alacrity. They could basically spam Arcane Singularity faster and for all intents and purposes keep mobs perma-controlled all by themselves if they know what they're doing. To do my job I sometimes needed a bit of support from the cleric or GF so I didn't get one-shotted/bursted down.
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    diogene0diogene0 Member Posts: 2,894 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    tyrtallow wrote: »
    BTW I play a Renegade so I could easily switch my focus from control to DPS as needed, but an Oppressor could do all of the above and sneak in extra Entangling Force/Icy Terrain casts thanks to Alacrity. They could basically spam Arcane Singularity faster and for all intents and purposes keep mobs perma-controlled all by themselves if they know what they're doing. To do my job I sometimes needed a bit of support from the cleric or GF so I didn't get one-shotted/bursted down.

    That's my choice, and i don't even need to use EF on tab to do that. Making sure minions with less than 20k HPs have chill stacks is enough to make the CD on icy terrain dropping regularly. If and when i add EF on tab, it is indeed an easier permastun mode for mobs. I'm mostly operating outside of the DCs range, most of them are focusing on stuff doing no damage (aka "the boss"), so i've learnt to do my job on my own. The HV set helps me, so does permastun and some other neat oppressor feats. I know it's the least popular path, but it's really doing better than most people think, and yes, it is the best choice for maximum control. Alacrity procs all the time, and it's worth taking it even if i had to pick 1 underwhelming feat in the process.

    Last, but not least, it's really awesome in pvp. No other way to describe how nice it is to see EF available so often. :p
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    vrtesseractvrtesseract Member Posts: 631 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    Also freeze interrupts casting time so those nasty knockbacks and holds they are casting at your tank and cleric may never hit if you time it right.
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    schulz87schulz87 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    what does alacrity do? sorry
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    fondlezfondlez Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    schulz87 wrote: »
    what does alacrity do? sorry

    Nothing. It has never worked.
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    diogene0diogene0 Member Posts: 2,894 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    fondlez wrote: »
    Nothing. It has never worked.

    It works. I'm seeing it every day i play my CW.

    So, it reduces the CD on icy terrain and entrangling force when you kill a foe affected by chill. By killing, i mean YOU give the last hit. The bright side of things is:
    - no ICD.
    - you can stack icy terrain several times if you get your CD low enough.
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    copticonecopticone Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2013
    diogene0 wrote: »
    It works. I'm seeing it every day i play my CW.

    So, it reduces the CD on icy terrain and entrangling force when you kill a foe affected by chill. By killing, i mean YOU give the last hit. The bright side of things is:
    - no ICD.
    - you can stack icy terrain several times if you get your CD low enough.

    I think he may be referring to the Alacrity proc that non-Oppressors get.
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