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Chilling Presence or Arcane Presence for Renegade SS CW?
shinjusuke96
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
New to Neverwinter PvP, but I picked the Control Wizard to maximize my, well, Control. I like CC'ing people, even if it means I hand kills off to teammates instead of getting them myself.
I've heard from basically everyone I've talked to that going Oppressor tree, even if you dig CC'ing people, is a huge waste at the moment if you intend to PvP.
The reason I specify this is that I have Orb of Imposition slotted, and it would take a hell of a lot of convincing for someone to get me to change it out (for non-boss-battle situations I mean).
So, I'm unsure whether to take Arcane Presence or Chilling Presence for my other spot. The reason this is a concern for me is I don't want to waste my feat points on the Chilling Advantage Feat if I'm not going to be taking Chilling Presence into PvP.
Chilling Presence provides a 2% damage bonus per chill stack on a target, that scales up to 8% per stack with rank and doubles on frozen targets (totaling 96% damage increase on frozen targets at lvl 70) and the Chilling Advantage Feat provides 10% crit while Chilling Presence is slotted.
However, Arcane Presence provides 33-34% your Arcane Mastery bonus (3% arcane damage increase per stack, with 5 stacks totaling a 15% arcane damage increase) per rank to cold based attacks (so with max Arcane Mastery stacks, an increase of ~20% damage to cold attacks). However, the important part is that it also provides a flat 5% cooldown reduction per rank, totaling a 20% CDR at level 70.
Would some more experienced Control Wizards be willing to divulge their personal preference and why? Obviously, Chilling Presence, if you keep chilling stacks up and get them quickly, is a higher "burst damage" increase, but I feel llike the 20% CDR might be more beneficial for both continuing a CC chain in addition to an increase in DPS (which is also a more consistent increase, due to not relying on chill stacks). Thanks in advance for opinions and politeness.
I've heard from basically everyone I've talked to that going Oppressor tree, even if you dig CC'ing people, is a huge waste at the moment if you intend to PvP.
The reason I specify this is that I have Orb of Imposition slotted, and it would take a hell of a lot of convincing for someone to get me to change it out (for non-boss-battle situations I mean).
So, I'm unsure whether to take Arcane Presence or Chilling Presence for my other spot. The reason this is a concern for me is I don't want to waste my feat points on the Chilling Advantage Feat if I'm not going to be taking Chilling Presence into PvP.
Chilling Presence provides a 2% damage bonus per chill stack on a target, that scales up to 8% per stack with rank and doubles on frozen targets (totaling 96% damage increase on frozen targets at lvl 70) and the Chilling Advantage Feat provides 10% crit while Chilling Presence is slotted.
However, Arcane Presence provides 33-34% your Arcane Mastery bonus (3% arcane damage increase per stack, with 5 stacks totaling a 15% arcane damage increase) per rank to cold based attacks (so with max Arcane Mastery stacks, an increase of ~20% damage to cold attacks). However, the important part is that it also provides a flat 5% cooldown reduction per rank, totaling a 20% CDR at level 70.
Would some more experienced Control Wizards be willing to divulge their personal preference and why? Obviously, Chilling Presence, if you keep chilling stacks up and get them quickly, is a higher "burst damage" increase, but I feel llike the 20% CDR might be more beneficial for both continuing a CC chain in addition to an increase in DPS (which is also a more consistent increase, due to not relying on chill stacks). Thanks in advance for opinions and politeness.
Post edited by shinjusuke96 on
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Is the damage difference that significant?
Also, is this a moot discussion seeing as Eye of the Storm exists? Would a build utilizing that rather than either "Presence" be superior?
Almost anyone in PvP is using EotS and SS. I've seen maybe 10 out of 200+ not use those feats. About 50% of a CWs damage in PvP comes from SS, and EotS just enables it waaaay too well.
Arcane Mastery relies on size of Arcane stacks for max potential... which in turn, requires use of certain powers, such as the basic magic missiles at-will, or most commonly Entangling Force encounter. The problem is, PvP requires speed, and often the side that casts a vital power first will gain a decisive advantage over the other.
A typical combat rotation from CWs starts off with fundamental CCs like EF or IR as first strike, then the main damage dealing encounter power, and then the secondary utility or damage. This is what is referred to as a "rotation", so when the first "rotation" goes off, typically you have a couple of stacks of AM on the foe.
Now, if this was PvE, you'd fire off some more magic missiles to stack of AM in theory, but in most cases when your first rotation goes off all the mobs are already dead. Conversely, in PvP, your CCs don't last all that long and when your first rotation goes off your major encounter powers are on cooldown, and the enemy is about to retaliate. You need to spend that time buying more distance or dodging their attacks, so while you do this the AM stacks will naturally fall off -- hence, you don't really get the leisure of stacking up AM to your lining.
Thus, all things considered, people find it better to have CP slotted because most every frequently used attacks involves chill stacks... IR.. Chill Strike.. Icy Terrain.. and mostly Ray of Frost... so they are easy to build up, and it even has a CC feature attached to it. For Renegades it is double the importance since one of its feats increase the crit chance by a woppin' +10%... and last but not least, the power augment for off-hand for Chilling Presence is that ice-spells get an additional 5% crit chance.
So if you manage maybe 40% crit chance with a CW, if it is renegade CP makes you 50% crit chance, and additionally all your ice-spells will be 55% crit chance. This is handily more useful than Arcane Presence.
Also, nobody seems to have addressed the worth of the 20% recharge rate increase provided by Arcane Presence... To me that's the important part of the feature. Anyone care to provide opinions on the worth of 20% CDR vs the raw damage increase in CP?
TBH Orb and AP don't really matter when you kill someone in one rotation with the other feats.
To give you a straight answer, nobody has really extensively researched/experimented into an "ALL-CC" setup for PvP. I'm not sure if there were such setups in mod1, but at least since from mod2 up to current, CWs have basically been proven to be more of direct-nuking, mega-burst damage classes and most people build for it. As can be expected as a result, most people who play CWs haven't really diverged from that path, and thus, at least nowadays nobody really expects anything out of CCs.
Now, when I've first made my CW, my original plan was to "go all the way" and do extensive combat tests by actually investing into CC and testing it out myself, because the PvP community/forums is a good place for info, but limited to what is currently known/popular. Anything that is not well known, nor the 'majority' or 'fotm', the info is shady at best since nobody tests it out or rediscovers anything, and therefore it is often a repetition of what people have commented ages ago, or former biases that might not apply anymore.
By investing into CCs, I mean "all the way" -- investments to WIS stats, pretty much giving up on damage, acquiring +control bonus artifacts, all of them, slotting CC related class features, going into Oppressor...
But unfortunately, there was another setup I wanted to test out at that time, so my plan was diverted. So there isn't much info I can give you on that point. I do plan to eventually go back to my original plan, but like so much else, it takes resources and time investment to do so.
My recommendation would be that you should try it, if you want to risk having to spend a lot of AD (= potentially, money) into gearing up for CC setups. If that's not a risk you want to take, then play it safe, and do what the others are doing.
20% increase in recharge time, in a sense, logically, means 20% increase in your expected DPS. If you use skills 20% faster, your total damage landed on the target is also 20% higher over the same time unit spent.
...CP results in higher increase in damage... and the motto of the CW is "kill before be killed" and "death is the best control"
'nuff said.
I guess it'd take actually going into the math and seeing if it's possible to "infinitely CC chain" when you have a certain amount of CDR, cuz that's really the worth of the cooldown reduction.
Honestly, it's a huge shame that a class which has NEVER been about raw DPS (speaking as someone whose played a CC-focused wizard in classic tabletop DnD many times over many years) was turned into this Damage-heavy thing
Even with a significant amount of CD reduction it'd be not possible to "perma-CC" a class with a CW. That was possible when a certain not-very-carefully-thought-through mechanic called Frozen used to be able to effect people repeatedly, which resulted in endless popsicles. The devs eventually dealt with it by giving a immunity time, and the CWs had to let it go :rolleyes:
So a CW is basically a repetition of short CCs for mostly disruption purposes, ruining the timing and such, and then using that timing to land a few big attacks, and then the rest of the time he spends in defense until powers are recharged. My personal wish is also to see this changed, so that a CW becomes hated for not being a killer, but rather a constant source of frustration as a mighty CC/disruptor, which would probably mean the qualities of CC goes up, and the damage must come down in reverse proportion.
But of course, many people would not want that. Unlike the days of "traditional, main-stream fantasy", the trend nowadays for young people is an omnipotent lonewolf bad-<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> (hmm... I wonder where in blazes they got such an idea from.. :rolleyes:) On this you cannot deny. The current trend is an omnipotent, multi-purpose, "do-all" class/character that doesn't need any help, or any cooperation, and can basically handle everything by himself.
When you make a dedicated CC-class, it is more or less implied that the dedication to your role, also requires another dedicated role that sucks in CCs but excels in damage. So you CC, he kills. Unfortunately, due to the "bad-<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> lonewolf" trend, people want to kill themselves. They view 1vs1 as the best standard of measuring balance, so obviously a dedicated CCer is more close to a support role, and no matter how important, people do not want to "support".
So, even if the devs give CW players a special surprise, and basically grant them a vote to choose between one or the other: (a) CC-monster, or (b) "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds" a la Oppenheimer... I know the people will just stick with (b), and only oddballs like me are ever gonna vote for (a).
it's the 21st century. Need to adapt LOL
I think the fact that a good chunk of all 3 PvP campaign sections is dedicated toward getting multiple kills in rapid succession doesn't really help things. It would be far more helpful if you could progress by assisting someone that makes a double or triple or within 20 seconds of capturing, etc.
A fair point.
Another thing I notice, even with premades, is that the level of cooperation doesn't really go further above than "I'm going to x node, you and you go to y node" or "let's CC that guy".. and a lot of the action usually relies on individual judgement and reflexes, sense of combat, rather than premeditated or practiced tactics, formations, etc..
At least, during my hey-day in WoW gladiator pits with 2v2 or 3v3, everything was practiced-to-perfect, including counting the seconds to one CC being used, and then another player cycling other CCs at the right timing to keep it neutralized... positioning oneself, etc etc..
Again, this is usually a result of the "omnipotency" trend in current MMOGs, primary example being just how near invincible tough the tancleric healers are. For instance if the healers were weak in terms of self-preservation a need would rise for more active protection, tanking, revolving the team formation around the healer for max protection, etc etc.. but the reality of NW is quite opposite where the healer is so goddarn tough, that you send him to a node alone to hold off like 3~4 people at a time while the rest of the horde takes local numbers advantage.
One can only hope