test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
A message to CWs
bigbadbieber
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 24 Arc User
Please use arcane singularity during boss fights, not your stupid ice Dailies that do garbage dmg
thanks
thanks
Post edited by bigbadbieber on
0
Comments
+1 /10chars
Here for the build+guide
Nope.
/10chars
Lanaya@meeggtoast 13.4 BiS GWF
Shendelzare@meeggtoast 11.2k CN mule CW
Server: Dragon
Stream: meeggtoast
Guide: Meeggtoast's Destroyer Dps Guide
Apropos of nothing, Oppressive Force seems a little underrated. It doesn't give you the positioning power of Arcane Singularity, but it has no target cap and it activates near-instantly, and OF prevents foes from attacking your party longer than Arcane Singularity does.
Singularity actually isn't all that great as a proactive mitigation tool; mobs attack pretty much as normal right up until the moment they're sucked up into the bubble o' doom. They're out of action for maybe 2 seconds. Singularity does have a significant indirect advantage with respect to its damage output though: it allows the Wizard to use Shield Pulse as a guilt-free attack.
Anyway, I've noticed that PuGs seem to miss it when I use Oppressive Force. "Why aren't you using Singularity more often?" The answer is that it isn't always obviously the best tool for the situation.
The objective of a CW is to control the adds to mitigate incoming damage and prevent wipes while doing damage, not to simply spam Singularity to pump up the dps score of others. Scattering mobs can be a form of CC at times. Randomly scattering mobs for no reason obviously isnt productive, but there are situations where Ice Storm is useful.
This is troll, isnt he?
Let's just say that if you check his previous posts it is pretty clear that we should all be carrying torches or acid...
FH add are kited, so you use ice knife, Karra same thing ice knife, Spider if you singu the charging mobs will be able to use their charge like 3 times while your singu slowly drags them away and each hit does 4x more damage than a regular attack, daze daily is best for spider until she starts killing adds, and then ice knife b/c its all about burning boss. Spell plague depends on whether you have a good tank or not, if you have GF holding adds you won't need singu very much, maybe once or twice, otherwise ice knife for faster boss kill. Obviously CN all singu until mobs are bugged and then ice knife for damage.
So there are cases when each of the 3 dailies are useful, ice storm is really only useful in PvP though, and even then it's meh.
Oh and all other dungeons are worthless as they don't drop anything good enough to go there so I won't talk about them lol.
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
I guess it never happens that Astral Shield is on cooldown, half the party is at half health or less and 10+ mobs some with AoE and Cleaves overlapping. Yea scattering at least half of them, even killing 1-2 in the process, and buying the group 2-4 extra seconds is a very bad idea. Nevermind the fact that a single Shield Pulse or Ice Storm can do more damage then the combined Single target encounters of the TR/GWF/GF, if not killing adds out right, applying huge debuffs/procs and softening them up for melee to finish off.
I am not saying constantly scattering mobs should be part of a rotation, but certainly not wise to brush off its usefulness either.
....
You do realize that most mobs are MELEE, aye?
Unless the CW is dumb enough to be casting singularity on top of teammates, singularity will pretty much CC the mob threat for the duration of it's cast. (Archer mobs tend to be weak & even TRs can face tank them.)
But otherwise as long as the mobs aren't causing a party wipe, I don't care what CWs use.
Go ahead and use your flashy ice knife if it'll kill the boss faster & we're safe from mobs.
A.) The pull of the Singularity isn't totally irresistable; mobs typically do a pretty good job of running against the pull for the first few moments.
B.) A lot of melee mobs have some sort of charge ability that bypasses or temporarily renders moot the pull of the Singularity.
C.) A lot of mobs (whether you classify them as melee or not is probably debatable, but they're not lolarchers) have looong cone/aoe powers that they use pretty much with impunity even while under the effects of Singularity.
I don't know whether your point here comes from experience playing a CW or whether you're just going by what you've seen as a third party, but in my experience as the caster of Singularity, I get a crapton of aggro just from casting the thing, and mobs have very little problem attacking me during the initial stages of the Singularity's pull. In fact, there's often enough red stuff aimed my way during a Singularity that the basic tactic of positioning for maximum shield pulse damage (and/or for a directed Shield-pulse ledge push) can be extremely dangerous.
If, in other words, you're coming at this from the perspective of a non-CW, then it's entirely possible that what you're seeing is the Singularity taking aggro away from you, and directing it at the CW. That's not necessarily a bad thing mind you; my only point is that Singularity isn't necessarily the best panic-button CC in the arsenal.
Singularity isn't a good CC spell. It's only useful if you do singularity + something else (like shield, icy terrain, or just gathering mobs in a corner for the gwf). Ice storm can be a good spell. It's not always the best choice but sometimes it is.
A few examples come to my mind:
- when there is at least 2 mobs including a non-controllable one. Ice storm makes more damage than ice knife. If the mobs you focused is bumped, then you were focusing the wrong one anyway.
- the last phase of the last spellplague boss, you better kill all those non-controllable minions. Ice storm is a good start.
- the final boss of the fardelver crypt. Sometimes, after a shield pulse, imps have not much hps left and ice storm will finish them off. Since the CW should be the only one dealing with adds (with the DC maybe), it's not your business.
I'd say that midly experienced CWs will only use singularity/ice knife. Other CWs may have a wider variety of spells and will change spells depending on the dungeons, on boss fights, etc. Many CW spells are overrated, some are underrated. Ice storm is one of them, so is oppressive force.
Good summary.
Interesting point, but it is better to just save the daily for the next encounter
That's 1 example.
That's the second example.
I have no trouble charging my AP bar, really. So i don't need to "save" it for the next encounter.
There are some other examples. It's just hard to make a comprehensive list. I use it all the time in Frozen heart (except during boss fights ofc), it's a great help to kill golems. Really, a lot better than ice knife. You can pull two golems, use ice storm, hit them for 7 to 15k each, charge your daily, do it with the next golem or get to a cliff with your daily up...
In epic DV, you also want thoon hulks to fly all over the place. The CW and the GF can take care of that. Chilling them is suicide. Singularity won't do much, unless you have a cliff, but using shield only should be a better choice even in this situation. So, ice storm is again a great help in there. It's the only spell allowing you to take care of 2 hulks at the same time. It's an interrupt, a bump and a stun. All you need to stop the black hole effect.
It is a good spell, better than ice knife for dps. But you have to learn to use it, because the bumps can be a negative side effect. Or a good one, depending on the situation.
Since you asked, the following are good scenarios to use Ice Storm:
- To finish off a handful of adds at or below 20% health.
- To deal significant damage to multiple CC immune mobs.
- To toss a handful of adds of a bridge or area with more than one ledge instead of wasting 7-8 seconds throwing a singularity and shield punting, risking someone getting smacked in the face.
- Someone is down and you want to clear the area instantly for a revive.
- Astral Shield on cooldown and the party is taking lots of damage, to buy a few seconds for pots cooldowns and Astral Shield to come back up.
- Situations where everyone is on the boss (example: final boss in Karrundax) and the adds are not a priority but still want some limited CC. Ice storm will do nice damage to the boss and toss a few adds out of the way for a few sec, while the CW never breaks single target dps on boss.
- My personal favorite, a Huge heal burst for a CW with Lifesteal
Dont get me wrong, I am not running with Ice Storm slotted 100% of the time. The group make up also determines whether I would slot it or not. But you asked for examples
For CWs that have no issues with AP, saving Dailies is blasphemy :P
Like the above poster, it's definitely not always on my spell bar, but it's a good spell and i can use it when it's required or a better choice.
It isn't an issue of not being able to charge up the daily fast enough, but min-maxing to the point where you have singularity up as much as you can to increase control and mob positioning efficiency.
The examples you provided are mostly swiss army type niche scenarios. Ice Storm is indeed useful in very specific spots, but I'll stick with my premise that CW should be casting Singularity as a rule of thumb on ALMOST all scenarios.
There are relatively few CWs with a lifesteal build, that is a case that I cannot comment since I have not built a CW stacking lifesteal nor do I have any experience with it.
In the example that, "Some mobs are left with a little HP." Guess what, another Arcane Singularity will kill them off too, along with still providing better control.
Someone mentioned that Arcane Singularity is not a good CC ability... what are you smoking sir? It's by far the most important spell for a great CW to drop as often as possible.
Gathering the mobs with the Sing and then Mastery EF + Shield Pulse is far better damage than a one time Ice Storm. Not to mention that the Mastery EF + Shield Pulse will restore nearly 80% of an AP meter, if not the entire AP meter.
To say that it's not a good crowd control probably is to overstate the case, but what he meant was that it's not the best CC ability we have for mitigating damage -- that is, to take as many mobs as possible out of the action as fast as possible and for as long as possible so the party can breathe. And that much is most certainly true, for all of the reasons discussed in this thread: Singularity allows many mobs to continue to attack for several seconds after it's cast. And Singularity itself has a non-trivial cast time.
So, for example, if you're surrounded and you need the mobs to stop attacking NOW, hitting Oppressive Force might be a better idea.