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Top 5 LESS useful skills for an edngame 100% PvE control wizard?

valeriob80valeriob80 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 155 Bounty Hunter
edited October 2013 in The Library
I opened a similar thread for Trickster Rogue weeks ago and it helped me a lot. Since in this game we can take almost all the existing skills and have to discard just a few of them, which ones are in your opinion the ones to send into oblivion?

I know that every skill could be useful in specific situations and builds, but the bar has very limited slot and there are some that would likely never take place in it.

I'm not an expert CW at all, but will list the ones guides said less useful for PvE:

Arcane Presence, Chilling Presence (there are better ones to fill these slots)
Repel, Stormfury (mostly for pvp, not useful in pve)

Could you make your personal top5 of the skills you would leave out of a 100% PvE build? :-)
Post edited by valeriob80 on
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  • degraafinationdegraafination Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    No Repel for PVE?

    Um, Draco?
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  • valeriob80valeriob80 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 155 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    As said I'm not in endgame with CW, just read in a couple of guides that Repel was more a PvP skill.

    Which ones are for you the skills to discard?
  • tang56tang56 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    Hmm. I dunno really. I feel all the CW powers are pretty useful, depending if you need to blow AOEs or go single target. Even Maelstrom of Chaos is now useful with it being able to interrupt Valindra like GWFs slam in MC. Honestly, imo CW is the only class where the majority of the powers aren't subpar compared to a few outstanding ones.
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  • grimahgrimah Member Posts: 1,658 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    the at-wills and class features i do not use. pretty much it.
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  • magemyronmagemyron Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    I opened a similar thread for Trickster Rogue weeks ago and it helped me a lot. Since in this game we can take almost all the existing skills and have to discard just a few of them, which ones are in your opinion the ones to send into oblivion?

    I know that every skill could be useful in specific situations and builds, but the bar has very limited slot and there are some that would likely never take place in it.

    I'm not an expert CW at all, but will list the ones guides said less useful for PvE:

    Arcane Presence, Chilling Presence (there are better ones to fill these slots)
    Repel, Stormfury (mostly for pvp, not useful in pve)

    Could you make your personal top5 of the skills you would leave out of a 100% PvE build? :-)

    Repel along with Shield are most useful for pushing groups of mobs into cliffs, so it has uses on both environments. Also, Chilling Presence is one of our best Class Features because it raises damage up to 18% with all our magic, the only requirement is to generate chill stacks, which a handful of our spells are capable to, it's especially effective when you're using Oppressor path or many chill causing spells.

    The almost never used skills are already mentioned by you: Arcane Presence is utter subpar compared to Chilling Presence, seeing how difficult is to maintain/create arcane stacks if you don't spam Magic Missile. Easier way to produce arcane stacks is with tab Entangling Force, and that can't be used on all situations. And Storm Fury causes a weak damage effect only when you are under half HP, making it unreasonable to slot in, comparing to other class features.

    Personally, I can't use Storm Pillar for anything other than building AP out of Battle. It's just too bulky for constant use, so it goes into "useless" skills for me. I've seen people effectively using Maelstrom of Chaos, for defense and attack, so it has uses. But it's overshadowed by our many other more useful Dailies (Singularity, Oppressive Force, Ice Knife...).

    Everything else in our grimoires can be greatly useful, IMO. ;D
  • pointsmanpointsman Member Posts: 2,327 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    I opened a similar thread for Trickster Rogue weeks ago and it helped me a lot. Since in this game we can take almost all the existing skills and have to discard just a few of them, which ones are in your opinion the ones to send into oblivion?

    I know that every skill could be useful in specific situations and builds, but the bar has very limited slot and there are some that would likely never take place in it.

    I'm not an expert CW at all, but will list the ones guides said less useful for PvE:

    Arcane Presence, Chilling Presence (there are better ones to fill these slots)
    Repel, Stormfury (mostly for pvp, not useful in pve)

    Could you make your personal top5 of the skills you would leave out of a 100% PvE build? :-)

    Here is my list, but then again I am by no means an expert CW

    1. Storm Fury - it is worthless
    2. Orb of Imposition - way inferior compared to rest of the choices, after respeccing I only put the minimum required 1 pt into it, and never use it
    3. Icy Rays - for PVE it kinda sucks, only really useful in PVP (IMO)
    4. EITHER Chilling Cloud OR Magic Missile depending on whether you go down the Chill or Arcane path - you are only going to use one or the other as your main at-will, so the other one becomes useless to you (can't really say the same about Ray of Frost or Storm Pillar as they have uses other than as a main at-will).
    5. Maelstrom of Chaos - I have not used it, but just reading about it, it seems roughly equivalent to Oppressive Force and Shard of the Endless Avalanche, so for me it is useless.
  • vorphiedvorphied Member Posts: 1,870 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    pointsman wrote: »
    Here is my list, but then again I am by no means an expert CW

    1. Storm Fury - it is worthless
    2. Orb of Imposition - way inferior compared to rest of the choices, after respeccing I only put the minimum required 1 pt into it, and never use it
    3. Icy Rays - for PVE it kinda sucks, only really useful in PVP (IMO)
    4. EITHER Chilling Cloud OR Magic Missile depending on whether you go down the Chill or Arcane path - you are only going to use one or the other as your main at-will, so the other one becomes useless to you (can't really say the same about Ray of Frost or Storm Pillar as they have uses other than as a main at-will).
    5. Maelstrom of Chaos - I have not used it, but just reading about it, it seems roughly equivalent to Oppressive Force and Shard of the Endless Avalanche, so for me it is useless.

    Storm Fury I totally agree with.

    Orb of Imposition I have yet to find a situation where I'd slot it over another passive.

    Icy Rays is fantastic in a single-target rotation for burning down Valindra or any other (admittedly rare) solo or duo boss. In all other PvE, yes, it's worthless.

    Personally since I use Frozen Power Transfer, I don't have any use for Magic Missile. My other At-Will is usually Ray of Frost for the added Chill/Freeze and for how quickly it ticks and sets off procs.

    Maelstrom is fun, but generally subpar. The problem is that targets are completely free to walk away from you before you finish casting, and thus they evade the entire payload of the spell. Needs a much wider radius or a slow/stun component to be truly viable. Oppressive Force has its uses; it's a happy middle ground when you want an AoE damage daily but don't want to scatter everything to the four corners. It's still a little messy, but the damage is decent, especially since it can proc Storm Spell multiple times as it ticks. I won't even go into the current bugs with these skills and HV :P
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  • magemyronmagemyron Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    pointsman wrote: »
    Here is my list, but then again I am by no means an expert CW

    1. Storm Fury - it is worthless
    2. Orb of Imposition - way inferior compared to rest of the choices, after respeccing I only put the minimum required 1 pt into it, and never use it
    3. Icy Rays - for PVE it kinda sucks, only really useful in PVP (IMO)
    4. EITHER Chilling Cloud OR Magic Missile depending on whether you go down the Chill or Arcane path - you are only going to use one or the other as your main at-will, so the other one becomes useless to you (can't really say the same about Ray of Frost or Storm Pillar as they have uses other than as a main at-will).
    5. Maelstrom of Chaos - I have not used it, but just reading about it, it seems roughly equivalent to Oppressive Force and Shard of the Endless Avalanche, so for me it is useless.

    Totally forgot about Orb of Imposition. Maybe because I run away from it automatically, so that I forgot it exists xD.
  • degraafinationdegraafination Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    As said I'm not in endgame with CW, just read in a couple of guides that Repel was more a PvP skill.

    Which ones are for you the skills to discard?

    Repel is great for PVE. Put that sucker on tab and push everything off ledges (Pirate King DD, Rimehound, anything with a cliff, really).

    Orb of Imposition was pretty worthless. Never used Sudden Storm of M. of Chaos. Chilling Presence? Not much use. Storm Fury was pretty lame too.
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  • valeriob80valeriob80 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 155 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    Thanks!

    So the skills that pretty much everyone would avoid are:

    - Storm Fury
    - Orb of Imposition
    - Maelstrom of Chaos

    Other skill mentioned are:

    - Arcane Presence (what exactly does this skill? I can't understand my client's tooltip... maybe it's poorly translated. I'm going frost thaumaturge anyway, not arcane, so I think I can skip it... should I skip the Arcane Mastery feat too?)

    - Storm Pillar (Magemyron mentioned it, anyone else agree? Pretty much everyone is using Chilling Cloud/Magic Missile/Ray of Frost if I'm not wrong, so it seems quite useless)

    - Icy Rays (just for few bosses)

    About Chilling Presence, it's a +3% for each stack right? But are the stacks lasting? I mean, would a mob have often 6 stacks on it or more likely 1-2 of them? Cause in those days, leveling my char up, I see they vanish so quickly... Evocation with a +15% on AoE all the time seems better...)

    Sudden Storm has high damage but low AoE/range if I'm not wrong. It could be maybe useful with Singularity/Tabbed Entangling... no?

    Thanks everyone for the help!! :-)
  • degraafinationdegraafination Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    Thanks!

    - Storm Pillar (Magemyron mentioned it, anyone else agree? Pretty much everyone is using Chilling Cloud/Magic Missile/Ray of Frost if I'm not wrong, so it seems quite useless)

    Storm Pillar can charge up your daily if you need it. No target needed.
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  • uurbsuurbs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 449 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    - Maelstrom of Chaos
    I consider it very useful. Especially, if you run with another CW. One casts Arcane Singularity and the other Maelstrom of Chaos, as Sudden Storm, Shard of the Endless Avalanche and Oppressive Force don't do damage to targets during a Arcane Singularity.

    valeriob80 wrote: »
    - Storm Pillar (Magemyron mentioned it, anyone else agree? Pretty much everyone is using Chilling Cloud/Magic Missile/Ray of Frost if I'm not wrong, so it seems quite useless)
    If you use a Thaumaturge build and Destructive Wizardry, you gain a 10% bonus to all damage for 5 seconds. Therefore I don't consider it useless.
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    - Icy Rays (just for few bosses)
    Yes, but you do regularly need to be able to make maximum single target damage and Icy Rays on tab (Arcane Mastery slot) does the most single target damage.
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    Sudden Storm has high damage but low AoE/range if I'm not wrong. It could be maybe useful with Singularity/Tabbed Entangling... no?
    Yes, that is exactly when and what it is used for, therefore making it an important spell for both main paragon feat trees (Renegade and Thaumaturge).
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  • vorphiedvorphied Member Posts: 1,870 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    Repel is great for PVE. Put that sucker on tab and push everything off ledges (Pirate King DD, Rimehound, anything with a cliff, really).

    Orb of Imposition was pretty worthless. Never used Sudden Storm of M. of Chaos. Chilling Presence? Not much use. Storm Fury was pretty lame too.


    Sudden Storm used to be awful because the actual damage was significantly lower than the tooltip damage. On top of that, it couldn't crit at all.

    Now that it deals full damage and can crit, it's amazing in PvE. The cone isn't huge, but it has no target cap and has a very low cooldown.
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  • tang56tang56 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    - Storm Pillar (Magemyron mentioned it, anyone else agree? Pretty much everyone is using Chilling Cloud/Magic Missile/Ray of Frost if I'm not wrong, so it seems quite useless)

    If there are no really threatening big bads that need freezing(and are also CC-able) in a group then I'll put storm pillar in over ray of frost. Similar story if there's a lot of mobs that are CC resistant. Throw down a fully charged storm pillar once I've hit max chill stacks on them with chilling cloud and whatever encounter I'm using with it to stack chill(typically icy terrain or COI). The extra AOE damage from a charged storm pillar is better than the single target freeze imo.
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  • valeriob80valeriob80 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 155 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    So, what to leave out from a Thaumaturge chill 100% PvE build beside of Storm Fury/Orb of Imposition/Maelstorm of Chaos/Arcane Presence? :-/

    We miss 20 points to take all skills at max level, avoiding those 4 I save 11 (Orb of Imposition is forced to 1 point), so I need 9 other points ^_^

    Storm Pillar could be left at 1 if it's for out of combat AP charge pourpose, right? (-2)
    Magic Missile could be left at 1 in a frost build (-2)

    Then? 5 points :D

    Shard of the Endless Avalanche maybe?
  • kozi001kozi001 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 876 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »



    - Storm Pillar (Magemyron mentioned it, anyone else agree? Pretty much everyone is using Chilling Cloud/Magic Missile/Ray of Frost if I'm not wrong, so it seems quite useless)

    - Icy Rays (just for few bosses)

    About Chilling Presence, it's a +3% for each stack right? But are the stacks lasting? I mean, would a mob have often 6 stacks on it or more likely 1-2 of them? Cause in those days, leveling my char up, I see they vanish so quickly... Evocation with a +15% on AoE all the time seems better...)


    Chilling presence is real good in single shooter! If you use lots of ice based spells.

    Storm pillar has damage boost with its feat and can charge your AP!

    Tabbed Icy ray does awesome damage with its feat as well! Again in some single shooter case.
  • focusmanfocusman Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    I use Storm Pillar a lot because of the feat i specced in (10% more dmg for 6 seconds). Arcane presence and Storm Fury I didn't put any points in.

    Shard of the endless avalanche is a must have if you ask me. But for NW classes I think CW is the one with the most usable feats/powers of all, it all depends on the way you play.
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  • uurbsuurbs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 449 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    For my Thaumaturge/Frost spec, I only put 2 points in Ice Storm (needed for advancement in the tree, elsewise I consider this a less-usefull power), as well as in Entangling Force (don't use that very often with my Thaumaturge anyway). I put only one point in Shield, as I don't use that for damage. You can also decide to either use Evocation or Eye of the Storm--depending on the Critical Chance you have.
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  • tang56tang56 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    valeriob80 wrote: »
    So, what to leave out from a Thaumaturge chill 100% PvE build beside of Storm Fury/Orb of Imposition/Maelstorm of Chaos/Arcane Presence? :-/

    We miss 20 points to take all skills at max level, avoiding those 4 I save 11 (Orb of Imposition is forced to 1 point), so I need 9 other points ^_^

    Storm Pillar could be left at 1 if it's for out of combat AP charge pourpose, right? (-2)
    Magic Missile could be left at 1 in a frost build (-2)

    Then? 5 points :D

    Shard of the Endless Avalanche maybe?

    For me personally I did:
    Ice Storm 2
    Magic Missile 2
    Shield 1(only use for throwing)
    Orb of Imposition 2

    Shard is a must. With the Transcended Master at 5 on the Thaum tree both are very powerful powers for AOE and single target respectively.
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  • kerrovitarrakerrovitarra Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 559 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    Entangling Force, Orb of Imposition, Arcane Presence, Ice Storm, Storm Fury (or how this crappy passive sounds?) - completely useless spells in PvE.
    Shield, Repel, Maelstorm of Chaos - utility spells with rare conditions and places to use.
    All at-wills are usable and good. Most of passives usefull too.
    RoE, tabbed Icy Rays, Chill Strike and CoI - best single target spells for thau (dunno about rene).
    Sudden Storm, SotEA, Steal Time and tabbed Chill Strike (for rene) or tabbed CoI (for thau) - best AoE.
  • twstdechotwstdecho Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 630 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    Entangling force on tab is good for building AP and grouping mobs for Sudden Storm and CC.
  • kerrovitarrakerrovitarra Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 559 Bounty Hunter
    edited September 2013
    Entangling Force is good for wasting your tab slot: it doesn't do AoE damage, damage to CC-immune mobs or debuffing for damage. It pulls only 5 targets, that already must be close to eachother (cause low radius of grab). And there are a lot of other skills to build AP. Verdict - useless.
  • grimahgrimah Member Posts: 1,658 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    i think kerro is in the minority when it comes to entangling. though i do not use it too often, i definately see its use. Its a recommendation i give to starting wizards, and on those hazy setups you may end up in with little tank and you are a lone wizard.
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  • inthefade462inthefade462 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    well i'm kinda a newb wizard but I don't see how anyone thinks Entangle is bad? It sits in my tab slot for practically all trash clearing. The only thing that replaces it is Repel (Draco), or CoI/Chill Strike/Icy Rays on bosses depending on the fight & number of CWs stacking. While it may have a 5 target maximum for pulling it doesn't seem to have a target cap for AP gain. it gives basically 70-100% of my ap meter per use. The fact that it pulls mob together for shard is just a bonus.
  • vorphiedvorphied Member Posts: 1,870 Arc User
    edited October 2013
    well i'm kinda a newb wizard but I don't see how anyone thinks Entangle is bad? It sits in my tab slot for practically all trash clearing. The only thing that replaces it is Repel (Draco), or CoI/Chill Strike/Icy Rays on bosses depending on the fight & number of CWs stacking. While it may have a 5 target maximum for pulling it doesn't seem to have a target cap for AP gain. it gives basically 70-100% of my ap meter per use. The fact that it pulls mob together for shard is just a bonus.


    Tabbed EF has something going for it as long as they don't tweak its AP generation (and they might not since it's actually part of the tooltip). However, I find that relatively few encounters in the game really need that much cowbell -er Singularity.

    It's usually preferable to be using effective AoE damage/debuff spells in Tab, like CoI for Thaumaturge or Chill Strike for other. Tab EF is for when you really, truly must have as many Singularities as possible.
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  • uurbsuurbs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 449 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2013
    vorphied wrote: »
    [...]
    It's usually preferable to be using effective AoE damage/debuff spells in Tab, like CoI for Thaumaturge or Chill Strike for other. Tab EF is for when you really, truly must have as many Singularities as possible.
    Not only, if you use Shard of the Endless Avalanche or Oppressive Force, quite regularly, our melees (GF, GWF) do a lot more damage if you use Entangling Force right after the former powers, in order to group the MOBs back to together. We tried it out in the last couple of MC farm runs we were doing, and the over DPS increased, therefore we were faster.
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  • kerrovitarrakerrovitarra Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 559 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2013
    Maybe that's a point: I take useless melees in my group in rare cases. I prefer 4 CW and DC setup.
  • uurbsuurbs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 449 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2013
    @kerrovitarra, hey! I tried everything to convince those guys to go CW or DC, I even threatend their live, ruined their existence--to no avail, their are either stubborn and untouchable or dead (as a stone) :( :cool:

    Honestly, I prefer to play with certain people and if they don't like to play a cleric or a wizard, we make it work. We maybe could be faster, but that speed increase would be in the one digit percentage, IMHO.
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  • valeriob80valeriob80 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 155 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2013
    After reading all your answers I came up with a build, could you look at it and answer last few questions?

    100% PvE Chill AoE focused Thaumaturge build
    http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=i3i:4yqr4:8d0z,13h3i13:6u000:6uvyv:60000&h=0

    Powes: I have 4 points left, should I take Sudden Stor or Storm Spell? And if both, what else should I sacrifice?

    Feats: I'd like to take Tempest magi too, but does it stacks with Tiefling racial trait (some topics says yes, some Others no)? If yes, what else should I remove for it?

    Any other suggestion would be obviously appreciated :-)
  • kerrovitarrakerrovitarra Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 559 Bounty Hunter
    edited October 2013
    Sacrifice 2 points from shield and take both. Storm Spell - highest DPS passive. Sudden Storm - one of the most damaging spell.
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