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Stox's PVP Thaum CW Guide
stoxforum1
Banned Users Posts: 265 Bounty Hunter
I've had a lot of requests for this lately so here we go.
http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=p5r:27fpq8:1get58,13m0cn0:1u0000:1uu55v:100000&h=0&p=ssm
I run Thaumaturge, high life, high regen, high debuff / prone build. I'm halfling for the control resist and max int/con build. Yes I give up some damage compared to the glass cannon CWs with 22k life, but my extra survivability makes up for it. First targets in any premade will be CWs, and my team will have the other CW down long before I am taken down. I spend a lot more time on the field, usually end up with more kills, and far less deaths than other CWs (think less than a third of their deaths.) A lot of times I simply rotate to cap points, as in stay there long enough to harass the senti, but knowing I don't have a daily ready I just sit on point, cap it, and leave the person who is contesting the point there. If the points are capped, you're not bleeding and losing points to the other team, so be smart about knowing when you can kill and when you just need to cap and stop wasting time.
For the gear, Sylvan Talisman can usually be found on the AH for cheap, it's 510 hp, 108 regen, 128 life steal with an offense slot. Abolethic Cloak is from the CW class specific quests and is 600 hp, 75 power, 100 regen with an offense slot. Another pretty good neck imo for survivability is bloodied frostwolf pelt, it loses the hp but adds arm pen, life steal, and regen. The rings I use are defensive slots for more life, but if you need the offense slots another good way of boosting survivability is the House of Xolarrin Signets, green rings with 175 regen, 150 life steal. The belt I use mainly because I felt I needed a little more arm pen, but Reinforced Frostpelt Girdle is also a solid choice with 600 hp, 125 regen, 150 lifesteal and a defense slot. I mention all of these items with life steal also because I know a lot of people like the 3x life steal dread boon. I personally use the madness one, but if it gets nerfed you will see me using the life steal boon and a lot of this equipment as well, and probably changing the orb to the VT one as well.
Armor Enchant:
Soulforged is recommended
Weapon Enchant:
As is the case most of the time with CW, it's a preference. I run vorpal, I have a friend with a similar build that uses feytouched, plague fire would also be good.
Artifact choices I have made are Bloodcrystal, Lantern, and Waters, but I also believe Emblem of Seldarine to be a very solid choice. The emblem is the artifact that will give you the most survivability in PVP. In fact it's basically 15 seconds of saying you can't kill me. It also has life steal, and again if I switch to the life steal boon, this artifact will almost certainly go in but it definitely deserves a great recommendation.
Feats are mainly for shorter cooldowns, more damage, and not so much aoe, I'm almost straight down thaum with the exception of severe reaction. This feat does not get enough credit. I can't tell you how many times this has pushed the OP GWF away from me as I'm laying on the ground prone and he's about to IBS me. He misses, he's pissed, and I'm glad I specced into this every time it happens. lol
At wills:
storm pillar (for building ap before a match), magic missile, ray of frost
Class features:
storm spell and eye of the storm
Encounters used:
Shard, conduit of ice, ray of enfeeblement, icy rays, chill strike, repel, entangling force.
Dailies:
Ice knife and Oppressive Force
Typical rotation:
Entangling force > shard on tab (drop the shard on their head,) ray of enfeeblement, shard, icy rays, aim the shard at them if you didn't hit them with the second one. So what you get is entangle > prone > debuff > chance at hitting them again and proning > root > prone if the second shard did not hit them.
Another rotation would be to use chill strike instead of ray of enfeeblement, so you would get entangle > prone > debuff > stun > chance at hitting them again and proning > root > prone if the second shard did not hit them.
Now where this can turn south quickly is if another CW has in say 3 moves that can make shard disappear. i.e. they're running repel, chill strike, and entangle. Luckily this is a thaum build, so just go to the good old hit super hard with lots of debuffs build. Entangle, CoI, RoE, and hit them with Icy Rays on tab.
A lot of CWs like to use repel against GWFs, but I don't usually. You will have to choose what to get rid of for this, but normally I swap out RoE.
Also remember that as a CW positioning is your friend. i.e. don't make it easy for them to get you. If you have the point capped, make them chase you off. If for instance you're on the small map, why not go up top right to start with and snipe? I also have far spell in, so if I'm running with chill strike, you better believe I'm going to abuse that range for chill strike and magic missile.
Any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvements, please let me know.
http://nwcalc.com/cw?b=p5r:27fpq8:1get58,13m0cn0:1u0000:1uu55v:100000&h=0&p=ssm
I run Thaumaturge, high life, high regen, high debuff / prone build. I'm halfling for the control resist and max int/con build. Yes I give up some damage compared to the glass cannon CWs with 22k life, but my extra survivability makes up for it. First targets in any premade will be CWs, and my team will have the other CW down long before I am taken down. I spend a lot more time on the field, usually end up with more kills, and far less deaths than other CWs (think less than a third of their deaths.) A lot of times I simply rotate to cap points, as in stay there long enough to harass the senti, but knowing I don't have a daily ready I just sit on point, cap it, and leave the person who is contesting the point there. If the points are capped, you're not bleeding and losing points to the other team, so be smart about knowing when you can kill and when you just need to cap and stop wasting time.
For the gear, Sylvan Talisman can usually be found on the AH for cheap, it's 510 hp, 108 regen, 128 life steal with an offense slot. Abolethic Cloak is from the CW class specific quests and is 600 hp, 75 power, 100 regen with an offense slot. Another pretty good neck imo for survivability is bloodied frostwolf pelt, it loses the hp but adds arm pen, life steal, and regen. The rings I use are defensive slots for more life, but if you need the offense slots another good way of boosting survivability is the House of Xolarrin Signets, green rings with 175 regen, 150 life steal. The belt I use mainly because I felt I needed a little more arm pen, but Reinforced Frostpelt Girdle is also a solid choice with 600 hp, 125 regen, 150 lifesteal and a defense slot. I mention all of these items with life steal also because I know a lot of people like the 3x life steal dread boon. I personally use the madness one, but if it gets nerfed you will see me using the life steal boon and a lot of this equipment as well, and probably changing the orb to the VT one as well.
Armor Enchant:
Soulforged is recommended
Weapon Enchant:
As is the case most of the time with CW, it's a preference. I run vorpal, I have a friend with a similar build that uses feytouched, plague fire would also be good.
Artifact choices I have made are Bloodcrystal, Lantern, and Waters, but I also believe Emblem of Seldarine to be a very solid choice. The emblem is the artifact that will give you the most survivability in PVP. In fact it's basically 15 seconds of saying you can't kill me. It also has life steal, and again if I switch to the life steal boon, this artifact will almost certainly go in but it definitely deserves a great recommendation.
Feats are mainly for shorter cooldowns, more damage, and not so much aoe, I'm almost straight down thaum with the exception of severe reaction. This feat does not get enough credit. I can't tell you how many times this has pushed the OP GWF away from me as I'm laying on the ground prone and he's about to IBS me. He misses, he's pissed, and I'm glad I specced into this every time it happens. lol
At wills:
storm pillar (for building ap before a match), magic missile, ray of frost
Class features:
storm spell and eye of the storm
Encounters used:
Shard, conduit of ice, ray of enfeeblement, icy rays, chill strike, repel, entangling force.
Dailies:
Ice knife and Oppressive Force
Typical rotation:
Entangling force > shard on tab (drop the shard on their head,) ray of enfeeblement, shard, icy rays, aim the shard at them if you didn't hit them with the second one. So what you get is entangle > prone > debuff > chance at hitting them again and proning > root > prone if the second shard did not hit them.
Another rotation would be to use chill strike instead of ray of enfeeblement, so you would get entangle > prone > debuff > stun > chance at hitting them again and proning > root > prone if the second shard did not hit them.
Now where this can turn south quickly is if another CW has in say 3 moves that can make shard disappear. i.e. they're running repel, chill strike, and entangle. Luckily this is a thaum build, so just go to the good old hit super hard with lots of debuffs build. Entangle, CoI, RoE, and hit them with Icy Rays on tab.
A lot of CWs like to use repel against GWFs, but I don't usually. You will have to choose what to get rid of for this, but normally I swap out RoE.
Also remember that as a CW positioning is your friend. i.e. don't make it easy for them to get you. If you have the point capped, make them chase you off. If for instance you're on the small map, why not go up top right to start with and snipe? I also have far spell in, so if I'm running with chill strike, you better believe I'm going to abuse that range for chill strike and magic missile.
Any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvements, please let me know.
Post edited by stoxforum1 on
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Comments
I'm working on a halfling PVP CW build right now as well and would appreciate any comments to my post:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?578691-PVP-Discussion
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#BringBackShard | M5 CW Bug List | My M3 PvP Gameplay
There's no contest between squishy glass cannon CWs and tanky builds like this, none at all. This performs quite good in PvP, even without a DC to babysit you, and with a good DC you're godly.
Also Severe Reaction is a HUGE life saver. If I spec with it, I win 75% of encounters that were nigh impossible before. So much free stamina.
The only thing I missed with this spec was Glacial Movement freeze ray feat, but one cannot have it all.
The thing is that it can turn south in various ways. If an HR is using Disrupting or Constricting, space meatball also goes away. Also no matter how much you try to perfect the EF->animation cancel/Tab Shard sometimes the casting takes too long and you fail to land it on the choked target.
I wouldn't even mention the bugs with the Shard (bouncing upon summoned, sometimes disappearing without doing anything) etc.
I showed an alternate setup in case people are having trouble with shard. And if you build arcane stacks first, EF will last long enough to drop the shard on someone without having to bug anything.
13.2%. The gear with regen also gives me HP is why. If I could find a spot for more deflect / life steal without sacrificing the hp I probably would.
You have to avoid hitting the guy, you need to move the boulder past them :P It's quite hard to do IMO so I usually try to explode them in their head. But if you're successful, it ends up as EF->Prone 1->boulder pushed PAST the guy (not on their location)-->prone 2-->shard explodes-->prone 3.
Nice tip with the arcane stacks for EF duration I completely forgot about it as a Freeze Ray user.
As I said, this happens to me accidentally, cause I am not that sure of my shard skills to attempt this, so I try the 2 prone move with shard exploding on their head instead.
You're correct, it's just my phrasing I think. Sometimes you miss the drop on a person, so this is another chance to prone with the stun.
Bugging anything? Probably you misread.
Shard behaves in a buggy way. I am trying the shard on tab for some days, in full PuGs and I've seen it fail in every possible way. I got to say though that it also is amazing when it works.
As far as the discussion on the number of prones you are getting, it's two maximum (if we are talking about hitting one person with it).
Then you should fix your OP
"So what you get is entangle > prone > debuff > chance at hitting them again and proning > root > prone."
thats 3x prones.
If you meant it is as alternative combo then its wrong, because you will never want to do the alternative combo since it allows the enemy to stand up and dash away if you don't have choke up.
I changed it so that hopefully it makes more sense. Sometimes what I have in my head is not what comes out. lol
Looks like they were buffed from camp fire. So -3 from everything and -4 more for int and con and that would be my base.
Just like your other guide, this one it's pretty good, can I add it too to mmominds.com??
Just like the other one, you are more than welcome to use it. Thank you.
I've been away from the game for about a week, what upcoming changes are happening?
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#BringBackShard | M5 CW Bug List | My M3 PvP Gameplay
CW class specific quests. http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/List_of_quests#Control_Wizard_quests
i also wanted to know if dwarf's race ability which is 20% resist knock works against prone effects like shard, knife, gwf controls
is CW's wisdom bonus helpful against gwf knock abilities?
what i was thinking about is dwarf with max wisdom may help me to deal better with gwf
has anybody tried smth like that?
The Wisdom bonus is useful but not game breaking. You get much more passive defensive bonus if you halfling. Still Dwarf is super cool as a wizard
Hi Stox,
Here is the link for your post to mmominds.com
Ty a lot
So with the new changes, how do you think you will switch up your build?
I'm not sure whether to pump up ARP (3.5k) and sacrifice Regen/HP (~10%/30-33k) to try to get some burst back, or just accept that we are now going to do crappy damage if Tenacity goes live as is. Also with the CC resist, EF duration is such a joke so I guess I might have to start running with Orb just to land shard. Debating barkshield and soulforged as well.
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I mean obviously I will be tenacity stacking, PVP gear, maybe even pve accessories but that's something I may need to look at a bit harder as some of the current accessories are very hard to give up. Also, I can't say that I've noticed a change in the duration? What I have noticed is that classes resist a lot more, especially clerics. A halfling DC seems to resist like 50% of my prones and EF. lol The damage is going to come from debuff stacking, which is definitely less without HV, but what I think you'll find is everyone feels like they are suffering when it comes to damage, but if you try it out it's actually pretty nice because of healing depression as well. My best suggestion for your chance at landing shard is to build arcane stacks before doing EF > shard.
Yeah when I tested on ptr, an Icy Rays crit with p.vorp and 2k arp on a gwf (well geared) was only 2k... which just seems ridiculous. I don't remember if I had, but an enfeeble on em wouldn't have boosted it much either, however I was still receiving 7-9k crits from their encounters (I had 1000+ Tenacity), which isn't quite the same 1/4+ DR I experienced... so not sure that the suffering is balanced. GWF/CW are the bursty dps classes in pvp and I don't see the same reduction in burst from GWF that I do CW.
Anyway, do you think it's still worth having the amount of Regen you do (13.2%) given that Healing Depression will cripple it to 6.6% practically all the time? Or perhaps even adding more by using the Regen set? It would certainly cut out potential damage for what may not be that great of a return in survivability. My thoughts were to drop Regen to 1400 (10%) which would still tick at 1k when things get tough, use the Arp set, and throw the 800 stats into other areas -- mainly Arp. The HP on champion mage may justify losing the HP gear, but you could also keep it and push 38k? I dunno, I'm just really conflicted between going for more HP or more Arp with accessories.
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe Shield can make an entrance into the rotation in place of EF and swap Icy into tab. Could be a nice combo with p.barkshield. The rotation could be something like... Make meatball, stand near for mastery > MM to build mastery > Enfeeble > Shield push > Icy Rays them in place > Push meatball, with the intention of pushing it as it's about to explode. I could see it being a fairly deadly snipe from the pillars on Hotenow and it gives the option to push followers off.
You'd essentially be guaranteed a crit on one or more of the last three moves with EoS and if done right, you'd have shield back pretty quick to make it through more of their rotations. I'd likely slot Arcane Presence too -- 34% base dmg buff to Icy + 25% from 5 mastery stacks + 15% Snap Freeze + 15% Enfeeble + 20% and dot Transcended Master + 10% Elemental Empowerment + 50% Spell Mastery + 10% if they are below 30% HP... coupled with high Arp, could be a nice way to get damage back. This is how people get 20k+ Icy Rays on live, so if I went from 10k > 2k on ptr, I'd at least get my Icys to 4k... lol
The biggest stretch would be making it through all the time without losing the meatball, but with CC Resist it's more likely than before and it's no longer the focus of the combo. It would be very limited by the meatball CD, but slotting Icy in tab might allow for a smaller combo in between and more damage. Doesn't really help with the CC Resist problem (swapping control for control) but maybe adds some damage, though I'm not sure that I could part with the control over meatball... food for thought I guess.
I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with the EF > shard combo, but there's probably no better time to think about new combos than now given the impending changes.
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