Pure damage Wizard build - Feywild

kerrovitarra · August 2013

1. Introduction

Hi all! I finally overcame my laziness and decided to describe my current build. It's a "glass cannon" build for those, who can dodge red circles.

2. Build

Race: Tiefling, Human, Sun Elf or Moon Elf

Initial stats roll (STR/CON/DEX/INT/WIS/CHA)
10/8/10/18/13/13 or 10/8/10/16/12/16
Choise between this 2 otions is 2 INT and 1 WIS or 3 extra CHA. Or in numbers 2% damage, 3% recharge, 1% AP gain or 3% crit chance and 3% combat advantage bonus.

I use thaumaturge paragon path, cause it gives maximum stabile damage boost both for you and your party. Here is a screenshot of my feats.

Heroic feats
Tier 1
Weapon Mastery: 3% chance to crit.
More crit more damage.

Toughness: 6% extra maximum hitpoints
Just a filler. But it better, than Controlling Action, believe me.

Tier 2
Fight On: Reduces your encounter cooldowns by 8%
Usefull feat, but there are not so much feat points to take all sweet feats.

Wizard's Wrath: 6% extra AoE damage.
More damage - good.

Tier 3
Blighting Power: Your Cold powers deal an additional 9% extra damage to targets effected by chill.
One of the options of this build is full frost mage, so +9% damage from frost spells are really usefull. But if you want, you can switch it with Arcane Enchancement.

Tier 4
Learned Spellcaster: Increases the bonus damage intelligence provides by 5%
It's near 6% damage boost for all your spells (depends of your INT).

For humans only. Take one of following
Focused Wizardry: Your area effect powers deal 9% more damage.
AoE damage increase for PvE.
Prestidigitation: You and your allies gain 3% increased Stat Ratings.
For PvP and party buffing.

Paragon feats

Thaumaturge

Tier 1
Tempest Magic: When your target is below 30% maximum hit points, you deal 10% extra damage.
Nice execution ability.

Malevolent Surge: When you kill a foe you gain 10% more damage for each foe you kill. Stacks up to 3 times, lasts 4 seconds
Nice boost for you damage, when you kill enemies.

Tier 2
Nothing to do there.

Tier 3
Frozen Power Transfer: Chilling Cloud now grants 5% bonus damage for every target you strike with its third strike. (This bonus lasts for 8 seconds and is reset if you cast the third strike of chilling Cloud again)
Core damage increase for my build. Increases your damage up to 25%.

Tier 4
Transcended Master: Shard of Endless Avalanche deals an additional 15% damage. Icy Rays deals an additional 20% damage if cast on the same target twice.
Nice boost for Bowling Ball damage for AoE and Icy Rays for single target fights and PvP.

Elemental Empowerment: Your Cold Encounter Spells also deal 30% of your weapon damage over time to their target. Arcane Encounter Spells weaken a target's defenses by 10% for 3 seconds.
Quite optional feat after Chilling Cloud fix, but increases your burst damage in PvP and increases AoE damage via 10% debuff. You can easily replace this with Destructive Wizardry (don't forget to take Storm Pillar), Nightmare Wizardry from renegade or Bitter Cold from oppressor.

Final Feat
Assailing Force: Your Conduit of Ice power now reduces the Mitigation of affected targets by 15%
Core thaumaturge feat. Increases party damage for 15% on target and nearby 5 enemies.

Renegade

Tier 1
Critical power: When you land a critical hit you gain 5% of your total action points. 10 second cooldown.
Very useful feat for tier 1 feats. Can give you up to 25% extra AP, when crits with AoE power.

3. Powers*
Here's screenshot.

*you can take Ray of Enfeeblement instead of Shard, if you don't want to use it and take one (or more) point from Icy Terrain to Storm Pillar for charging AP out of combat and Destructive Wizardry build.

Rotations
(Bold - spell mastery)

AoE
Dailies: Opressive Force and Arcane Singularity
At-wills: Chilling Cloud and Ray of Frost
Encounter set 1:
Conduit of Ice, Icy Terrain, Steal Time, Shield
Classic AoE rotation. Less popular after shield nerf.
Encounter set 2:
Conduit of Ice, Icy Terrain, Sudden Storm, Steal Time
New AoE rotation. SS gives tons of damage, but more difficult to strike all enemies in pack. Frost-based.
Encounter set 3:
Conduit of Ice, Shard of the Endless Avalance, Sudden Storm, Steal Time
New AoE rotation. Arcane-based.
Class Features: Evocation is essential, second is for your personal preference: Chilling Presence, Eye of the Storm or Storm Spell. All of them are very good and near equal.

Single Target
Dailies: Ice Knife and Opressive Force or Arcane Singularity (in some rare occasions)
At-wills: Chilling Cloud and Ray of Frost
Encounters: Icy Rays, Shard Of the Endless Avalanche (or Repel, if it's difficult to use Bowling Ball), Conduit of Ice, Chill Strike
Class Features: Chilling Presence and Storm Spell.

B*tch duty (singularity bot)
Dailies: Arcane Singularity and "doesn't matter"
At-wills: "doesn't matter" and "doesn't matter"
Encounters: Entangling Force, Conduit of Ice, "doesn't matter", "doesn't matter"
Class Features: "doesn't matter" and "doesn't matter"

4. Gear

High Vizier set is the only option of t2 sets. Gives a lot of damage boost to you and party. Effective both for PvE and PvP.
Stat priority:
Armor Penetration 24% (2540 rating)
Recovery ~3000 (easy to get: HV set and Ancient set of weapons gives A LOT of recovery)
Critical ~3000
Power

Enchants:
Vorpal - best option
Lightning - for AoE
Terror - party buffing
Plaguefire - cheap and cheerful

Pet: Ioun stone of Allure or Cat.

5. Notes
This build isn't an absolute truth, it's mostly a description of my playstyle. And sorry for my English, it's not my native language. If you find some mistakes, please, PM me them.

kerrovitarra · August 2013

Also, there is an another version of build, more arcane-based.
http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=of3:4yk0c:b8j7,13g30n0:60000:b50zv:b0000&h=0

AoE rotation

Dailies: Opressive Force and Arcane Singularity
At-wills: Chilling Cloud and Storm Pillar
Conduit of Ice, Shard of the Endless Avalance, Sudden Storm, Steal Time
Class Features: Evocation and Storm Spell or EotS (Storm Spell preferrable)

Single target

Dailies: Ice Knife and Opressive Force or Arcane Singularity (in some rare occasions)
At-wills: Chilling Cloud and Magic Missile
Encounters: Icy Rays, Ray of Enfeeblement, Conduit of Ice, Chill Strike
Class Features: Eye of the Storm and Storm Spell.

Shield taken only for pushing stuff in plague or CN. If you won't go there, feel free to max Ray of Frost, Ice Storm or Chilling Presence.

kidbs · August 2013

If you are going for pure damage, I would make a few suggested changes to your build. First, drop Ray of Frost as one of your at-wills and take Storm Pillar. Next drop Elemental Empowerment and take Destructive Wizardry instead. You will then alternate Storm Pillar and Chilling Cloud in between your encounter abilities and be giving yourself and even more substantial damage boost. I also stuck with Bitter Cold rather than Critical Power as I'm finding my AP generation to be just fine

I run with your Encounter 3 set up and without a doubt it is the highest damage setup that we have.

freedumb4eva · August 2013

I thought for sure that you would want Storm Pillar + feat. since you always post about damage wizard.

I made a few different choices in my feats, at-wills, and slotted encounters, but your build is alright. I wouldn't make these same choices, though.

I really like Transcended Master for single target and PvP. I think that is a great choice. I haven't tried it with SotEA yet. Too bad Renegade can't get this feat, that would be great.

kerrovitarra · August 2013

I thought about Destructive Wizardry and Storm Pillar feat. But those feat and at-will are inconvenient in use and are not applicable in single target fights. So my choice fell to Elemental Empowerment (same 10% damage buff, but less uptime) and Ray of Frost (I call it "Ray of Good" - very powerfull at-will, good synergy with frost feats and Storm Spell; it also very good in PvP).

freedumb4eva · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

I thought about Destructive Wizardry and Storm Pillar feat. But those feat and at-will are inconvenient in use and are not applicable in single target fights. So my choice fell to Elemental Empowerment (same 10% damage buff, but less uptime) and Ray of Frost (I call it "Ray of Good" - very powerfull at-will, good synergy with frost feats and Storm Spell; it also very good in PvP).

I feel like Destructive Wizardry will be a lot more reliable for you than Malevolent Surge, but only if you slot Storm Pillar for PvE of course.

tokse2 · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

Learned Spellcaster: Increases the bonus damage intelligence provides by 5%
It's near 6% damage boost for all your spells (depends of your INT).

You mean 0,6% damage boost for all your spells? (I.e. 23 intelligence: 13 intelligence * 5% = 0,65%) I that our best option?

kerrovitarra · August 2013

I mean ~6% damage increase. Tooltip of this feat is unclear. Quote from grimah's guide:

This is a confusing tooltip, it actually increases your damage by that set amount, so you cannot go wrong with taking this feat, 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%.

So with 27 INT it gives 5+((27-10)*0.05) = 5.85% damage increase.

tokse2 · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

I mean ~6% damage increase. Tooltip of this feat is unclear. Quote from grimah's guide:

So with 27 INT it gives 5+((27-10)*0.05) = 5.85% damage increase.

Ok, I wasn't aware the tooltip for that feat is bogus.

daswooly · August 2013

I've been trying to make a decision about 5/5 Learned spellcaster vs 2/5 Learned spellcaster + 3/3 Focused Wizardry. Any thoughts on this? It seems the latter will definitely perform better in aoe situations, but assuming you use chilling cloud and shard in your ST rotation as well, seems like it'd be pretty close for single target, no?

freedumb4eva · August 2013

tokse2 wrote: »

You mean 0,6% damage boost for all your spells? (I.e. 23 intelligence: 13 intelligence * 5% = 0,65%) I that our best option?

That's how it used to work.

kerrovitarra · August 2013

freedumb4eva wrote: »

That's how it used to work.

Do you have some test results?

ogsplat · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

Do you have some test results?

This testing was conducted at 26 intelligence.

Comparing the median values of 200 Magic Missiles attacks at 0/5 Learned Spellcaster versus 200 Magic Missiles attacks at 5/5 Learned Spellcaster, there is a 6.25% damage increase.

Comparing the median values of 200 Ray of Frost attacks at 0/5 Learned Spellcaster versus 200 Ray of Frost attacks at 5/5 Learned Spellcaster, there is a 6.12% damage increase.

Current as of 8/26/13 Mimic test shard.

kerrovitarra · August 2013

I tested it, but freedumb4eva told, that it gives only 0.6% damage

grimah · August 2013

its always been like that, atleast when i wrote my guide and quite some time before that, so im guessing it has always been that way.

kidbs · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

I thought about Destructive Wizardry and Storm Pillar feat. But those feat and at-will are inconvenient in use and are not applicable in single target fights. So my choice fell to Elemental Empowerment (same 10% damage buff, but less uptime) and Ray of Frost (I call it "Ray of Good" - very powerfull at-will, good synergy with frost feats and Storm Spell; it also very good in PvP).

It's actually really easy to use. Just alternate the at-wills during AoE. For single target you'll still want to use chilling cloud anyway as its stronger than ray of frost and boosts the damage of your other attacks.

freedumb4eva · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

I tested it, but freedumb4eva told, that it gives only 0.6% damage

I did not say that at all, I said that's how it USED to work back when I originally played during Open Beta...

ogsplat wrote: »

This testing was conducted at 26 intelligence.

Comparing the median values of 200 Magic Missiles attacks at 0/5 Learned Spellcaster versus 200 Magic Missiles attacks at 5/5 Learned Spellcaster, there is a 6.25% damage increase.

Comparing the median values of 200 Ray of Frost attacks at 0/5 Learned Spellcaster versus 200 Ray of Frost attacks at 5/5 Learned Spellcaster, there is a 6.12% damage increase.

Current as of 8/26/13 Mimic test shard.

Nowadays it gives the correct bonus, thankfully... in Open Beta it only gave 6% increase on the bonus that Intelligence provided. Now it works wonderfully by providing 6% on top of the bonus that already comes from Intelligence.

ctxsoul · August 2013

Kerrovitarra would you suggest this build to someone who just started the game:
http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=i3j:4yq7w:b8j7,13g3i50:60000:b50uv:b5000&h=0
^on a sun elf with the initial roll 18(+2)/13/13(+2) INT/WIS/CHA?
And if so would you say 26/15/21 and power>crit>arp>recovery>defense would be a good ideea?
If not what would you suggest?
And maybe some rotations, I mean the solo I could probably discover that myself.

(This game is more complicated than Wow but that's why I'm on the forums :P)

kerrovitarra · August 2013

Initial roll is fine. Same for 60 lvl. But I disagree with stat priority. If you want to do damage, you must raise arp first. Recovery will hit 3k by itself via HV set and ancient weapons. Crit isn't essential, if you would run with EotS all time, but some spells in my build (like Bowling Ball) are slow and EotS buff can expire before ball hit enemies. Keep this in mind.
As for feats, I dislike Nightmare wizardry. In my expirience this buff procs quite rare even with EotS. Maybe this is karma and you would be more lucky. The rest of the feats are fine.

grimah · August 2013

kerro i suggest you test using nightmare wizardry and just use chilling cloud (if you slot eots) it procs alot.

kerrovitarra · August 2013

Fine, but in my build I use CC only for buff. With the cooldown of SS there a no time to spam CC.

ctxsoul · August 2013

Kerro in your opinion what is the exact stat priority I should follow?
Btw at level 60 I should have 3k rec but what about the others?

kerrovitarra · August 2013

Armor penetration -> crit = recovery -> power -> defense

ctxsoul · August 2013

by crit = rec what do you exactly mean?

uurbs · August 2013

First Armor Penetration, next Critical Strike and equally important is Recovery after that Power and at last Defense.

zellista · August 2013

Why not get bitter cold instead of transcended master? 15% for Icy vs 5% for every skill.

ctxsoul · August 2013

Oh, OK thank you :P

kerrovitarra · August 2013

zellista wrote: »

Why not get bitter cold instead of transcended master? 15% for Icy vs 5% for every skill.

Bitter cold works only after applying chill. Here's currently a bug with applying chill on bosses.
Transcended master taken for single target.

noojster · August 2013

Finally kerro, this is the thread I am very curious about lol.

Anyway an awesome, straightforward build.

I also respecced after feywild back to Thaum.

I still preferred Controlling action over fight on though, and I am not contesting into a debate which is better, I already know your answer (yeah, AP from this feat is horrible lol, but still there is, and I want that)

I regret that I have put my 5 points on bitter cold instead of transcended master. I forgot how Icy Rays would be so powerful in PvP and Karrundax boss fights. Hope I get enough AD for a respec again.

May I get a suggestion from you?

here's my stats. 4k power, 1711 crit, 2225 Arp, 3600 recovery, 1500 def.

Which class feature combination would you suggest if Im going to use the CoI on tab, Steal Time, Shield, Icy terrain combo? (basically what copticone used to do)

Will Storm Spell + EotS be better than Storm Spell + Chilling presence? I have low crit as seen above. Thanks man.

kerrovitarra · August 2013

Is it able to you to drop ~500 recovery to crit? If yes, do it.
With your current stats and classic rotation they will be near equal. With higher crit ChP will be better. On single target boss fights before bug fix with chill EotS will be better.
BTW, you can take evocation. On my tests it works on all your spells in rotation.

noojster · August 2013

kerrovitarra wrote: »

Is it able to you to drop ~500 recovery to crit? If yes, do it.
With your current stats and classic rotation they will be near equal. With higher crit ChP will be better. On single target boss fights before bug fix with chill EotS will be better.
BTW, you can take evocation. On my tests it works on all your spells in rotation.

In copticon'es thread they stated there the powers affected by Evocation, not all. Can someone prove this? Anyway great advice, I'll try this. Its hard to squeeze in more crit and less recovery though , I am using High Vizier and CN orb+talisman, so I get more recovery and less crit. If I'll be going shadow weaver though, That will be a possibility.

Pure damage Wizard build - Feywild

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