Since every paragon path has its unique powers, it would be pointless introducing the paragon path if it doesn't use its own unique powers and use other powers instead.
Well that's pretty obvious. Read the previous posts like page 11. Why is the paragon path called master of flame when realistically you're only getting 2 maybe 3 abilities and still having to use the majority of spells and abilities not even fire related. The whole point of my other posts including the original post that was why only give 2 or 3 abilities. Paragon should change out a bunch more than just the couple unique abilities you get and give 4 or 5 options for spells. it should change more than only a few things if its a specialization. Right now you would still technically have to use a lot of other abilities outside of the specialization aka paragon. Make it so if it is a spec that if you want to you can fill your bar entirely with fire abilities rather than 2.
The Master of flame is built around smolder and rimefire or w/e its called. If you have to weave something that stacks chill then you should have more than just one ability smolder adding more dots onto a target add in at least another fire spell that has a separate Dot effect other than just smolder and then it wouldn't be an issue of a slow burning dot that doesn't crit. Its like what the majority of other CWs are saying it should be called master of elements instead of fire if you have to weave frost and fire in order to dps. If its going to be Master of flame then it should have more abilities that involve fire rather than just some feats that add in to 2 powers. Since when has weaving frost with fire be considered a fire specialization? I can think of one game and one ability.
Even more so when you look at the majority of sets that are out there currently that are all power based and only 1 crit based set. If the build is around rimefire/smoulder (Dot) without crit base or at least for now that means you need to build power and so far all the sets are built that way. You would be stacking power and AP. a single ability is not worth that change I should have more than just that. On top of that the current state of those spells dmg is weak.
Well that's pretty obvious. Read the previous posts like page 11. Why is the paragon path called master of flame when realistically you're only getting 2 maybe 3 abilities and still having to use the majority of spells and abilities not even fire related. The whole point of my other posts including the original post that was why only give 2 or 3 abilities. Paragon should change out a bunch more than just the couple unique abilities you get and give 4 or 5 options for spells. it should change more than only a few things if its a specialization. Right now you would still technically have to use a lot of other abilities outside of the specialization aka paragon. Make it so if it is a spec that if you want to you can fill your bar entirely with fire abilities rather than 2.
I agree that we basically still need Arcane Singularity or Oppressive Force, and we are also forced to spend at least two or three points on them so wasting more points on another no-much-better daily power is not that worthwhile. And yeah, the amount of unique powers provided by each paragon path doesn't feel like it's enough, yet considering that paragon paths were introduced from 4e resource books so any addition/modification to them needs an approval from WotC.
There is just no way that I will give up Storm Spell and Eye of the Storm for a small amount of crit severity which I can just get from active companions.
Smoulder and Rimefire cannot crit, but Storm Spell and Sudden Storm can crit. There is no way that Fanning the Flames comes even close to the damage of one Sudden Storm crit.
This Paragon Path would be a lot better if you just copied the Storm powers and gave them fire graphics...
It is not conceivable to me that I could come close to my current damage output with this new Path. Since I don't gain any more control either, then I can ignore it completely. I would even go as far as to say those that spec down this Path are just silly individuals.
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gutbusterfiendMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited November 2013
I avg between between 80k -100k crits with the current paragon spec that's live as thauramage or how ever you spell it. 60-80k crits as renegade (more frequent). I have no idea how this new paragon build could even compare to the stormcaller path. In its current state. Keep in mind I am running all perfects and mostly rank 9/10 enchants. I also have a full set of all end game cw sets. That's the main reason I am arguing how much this spec needs work.
Ha ha pooof I'm trying to kill some redcaps with these new spells and it takes a very long time. The damage is very low even though they give no crowd control... These spells are incredibly weak. As mentioned before the visual effects are totally unimpressive.
So, part of the problem may stem from Furious Immolation actually dealing it's damage in two parts. The pull deals damage, and then the column of fire deals damage as well. Though based on your charts it also looks like you are comparing a Arcane Singularity Crit of 14K to what I assume is a non crit on part of Furious Immolation's damage. That hardly seems like a fair comparison.
In a direct comparison, Furious Immolation flat out does more damage per target than Arcane Singularity. With that said, it's very possible that feats are interfering with that comparison and bumping up Arcane Singularity while not affecting Furious Immolation. Would you mind taking a screenshot of you feats? (Actually very likely as there are some feats that specifically affect Arcane damage powers)
Checking it out on a target dummy. Furious Immolation is doing maybe 2/3 of the damage of Oppressive force on a single target. Without any feats or class features. No boons. Also removed my weapon enchant. I respeced and removed them, didn't want to taint the tests with something that boosted one and not the other.
So the negatives: It does less damage per target. Its limited to 8 targets. It has a huge aoe so you can't pick which 8 are getting pulled.
The positives: Its ranged & targeted. It pulls enemies. *Smolder.
Alternatives-
Singularity: Also targeted, also pulls (but slower), hits almost twice as many targets (15 iirc). Not tested damage.
Oppressive Force: Dazes everything around you, does more damage, hits more enemies. Not targeted, doesn't pull.
Maelstrom of Chaos: ??? Anybody tested?
*Smolder isn't much of an advantage since we have 2 class features that may grant smolder to other dailies. One of them just gives it to dailies, and the other grants smolder on crits.
Were you adding together both of furious Immolations hits? It deals damage twice. (Much like Oppressive force actually deals damage 5 times)
Also regarding Smolder not being an advantage on Furious Immolation it's not entirely fair to dismiss it just because you have other options of applying it. Paragon Paths are a bundle of options, and nothing guarantees a person uses all of them together. You could easily slot other Class features and use Furious Immolation by itself.
Were you adding together both of furious Immolations hits? It deals damage twice. (Much like Oppressive force actually deals damage 5 times)
Yes. Again, with no feats and no class powers selected. I tried to take off anything I thought would skew the numbers. FI is doing about 2900 on a target (two hits of about 1400) OF is doing about 4800 to the target with its 5 hits.
The only thing FI has going for it is smolder. That would put the numbers closer. But 2 of the new class features we have can grant smolder to OF.
Now that I have more time, I feel that I should reiterate my opinion a little bit better. I will be comparing some of the new abilities of the Master of Flame Paragon Path with those that I currently use. I make these comparisons because they are how I consider this new Path vs the one that I already use. I compare these abilities with my existing ones because they are what I would be replacing with abilities from the new Path.
My current mastery encounter is Conduit of Ice, and my slotted Paragon encounter is Sudden Storm.
The current Fanning the Flames encounter does not provide me more damage as a mastery than Conduit of Ice because Conduit of Ice reduces the mitigation of all affected targets in it's radius. Fanning the Flames not only does less damage over time than Conduit of Ice and it also doesn't reduce the mitigation of it's affected targets, which would increase the damage that my entire party does to the targets affected. Conduit of Ice also provides me with control via Chill stacks, when in the mastery slot.
The two most attractive passive Class Features of the Master of Flame Paragon Path, for me, are Critical Conflagration and Swath of Destruction.
The amount of increased damage that targets affected by Smoulder/Rimefire take via Swath of Destruction does not equate to the amount of increased damage that targets affected by Assailing Force will take via procs from Conduit of Ice. Since Conduit of Ice does more damage, provides more control, and debuffs targets more via Assailing Force than Fanning the Flames, Smoulder/Rimefire, and Swath of Destruction, then there is just no way I would give up either Storm Spell or Eye of the Storm for either of the new passive Class Features in this situation.
Neither of these passive Class Features in the Master of Flame Paragon Path seem to out-do Eye of the Storm and Storm Spell, which is their competition when consider this new Path. Storm Spell can crit, but Smoulder/Rimefire can never crit, so why would I drop Storm Spell just to give my dailies a bit of Smoulder/Rimefire? I wouldn't. Why would I want to gain a small amount of crit severity with Critical Conflagration over the ability to crit on all abilities for a short time? My answer is that I wouldn't.
In my opinion, Smoulder/Rimefire need to do enough damage to compete with or out-do the damage of continuous Storm Spell procs. Then, the added crit severity and Smoulder/Rimefire procs from Critical Conflagration would be more attractive, to me.
The Swath of Destruction passive Class Feature would be more attractive, to me, if Smoulder/Rimefire could crit. Then, Smoulder/Rimefire could synergy better with Critical Conflagration, Vorpal Enchantments, and other crit severity bonuses.
My other option would be to replace my current Paragon encounter with Fanning the Flames. However, Fanning the Flames does not come close in comparison to the damage of Sudden Storm. Sudden Storm is an AoE that can crit each target hit for well over 10,000 damage. Whereas, Fanning the Flames, when slotted normally, is a single target hit. Therefore, I cannot see myself slotting Fanning the Flames over Sudden Storm. Many players also prefer Shard of the Endless Avalanche over Sudden Storm, which does even MORE damage than Sudden Storm, while also providing control via knockback/down. I can't seem to figure out a situation where Fanning the Flames would become more attractive to slot than Sudden Storm and Shard of the Endless Avalanche.
If Fanning the Flames were an AoE, regardless of how it were slotted, and it had damage comparable to Sudden Storm, with the added bonus of Smoulder/Rimefire, then it would be a more attractive encounter, for me.
Another major problem, for me, with the Master of Flame Paragon Path, is that Chill stacks are currently intended to boost Smoulder, and not vice versa. One of the nice things about the Spellstorm Paragon Path is that Sudden Storm refreshes the duration of Chill on affected targets. This lends more control to the Spellstorm Pagaon Path than the Master of Flame Paragon Path. That would not be a problem if the Master of Flame Paragon Path were a lot better at overall DPS than the Spellstorm Paragon Path, which IMO it is not. In a small summary, the Master of Flame Paragon path has both less control and less overall DPS than the Spellstorm Paragon Path.
I sort of like Scorching Burst and I feel that it is fairly equivalent to Storm Pillar. Much like all of the Master of Flame Paragon Path abilities, I feel that it could use some more damage, though.
I don't think that it's fair to compare Furious Immolation to Oppressive Force/Arcane Singularity because it is meant to replace Maelstrom of Chaos. Since I don't find Maelstrom of Chaos to be very effective for me, and I don't find Furious Immolation to be very effective either, then I would simply continue with not using either of them. Nothing changes there.
In my opinion, there is no draw that would make players want to drop the Spellstorm Paragon Path for the Master of Flame Paragon Path given that the Spellstorm Mage path seems to provide both more damage and more control than it does.
Edit: Final draft submitted. Cheers.
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gutbusterfiendMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
Were you adding together both of furious Immolations hits? It deals damage twice. (Much like Oppressive force actually deals damage 5 times)
Also regarding Smolder not being an advantage on Furious Immolation it's not entirely fair to dismiss it just because you have other options of applying it. Paragon Paths are a bundle of options, and nothing guarantees a person uses all of them together. You could easily slot other Class features and use Furious Immolation by itself.
You have an entire forum of players who are testing this build and all but what maybe two telling you the Master of flame path is terrible. No player that has any clue what they are doing is going to use this build. You also have players running combat logs for hours and number crunching. Any experienced Theory crafter / number cruncher is going to tell you the same thing the build is bad, there is a complete lack of damage and a complete lack of control. Now people are taking pictures of logs or parsers and posting them along side 14 pages in the forums based on this build still saying its bad.
You guys have done great with the first build and the majority of the game. There are serious problems with this build even more so when it is not based around control as stated in an earlier quote and it does 1/4 to 1/2 the damage of the other build that is high damage and control. What would the purpose of this build be if its not control. I can only see it being damage. and if thats the case it should out damage the previous paragon path and by a lot since again another big issue brought up here is there is no functional control in any of these skills.
Well, actually one of the reasons the Master of Flame path is not Control centric is because Wizards already have a lot of control options. Entirely possible a future wizard paragon will be more control based, but ideally by then we'll have better interactions with control immune creatures.
14 forum pages now stating this please consider that.
My current mastery encounter is Conduit of Ice, and my slotted Paragon encounter is Sudden Storm.
The current Fanning the Flames encounter does not provide me more damage as a mastery than Conduit of Ice because Conduit of Ice reduces the mitigation of all affected targets in it's radius. Fanning the Flames not only does less damage over time than Conduit of Ice and it also doesn't reduce the mitigation of it's affected targets, which would increase the damage that my entire party does to the targets affected.
If Smoulder/Rimefire procced Assailing Force, then Fanning the Flames might become a more attractive mastery encounter for me, depending in its' overall damage. For me, that would be a step in the right direction.
Similarly, Fanning the Flames does not come close in comparison to the damage of Sudden Storm. Sudden Storm is an AoE that can crit each target hit for much well over 10,000 damage, whereas Fanning the Flames, when slotted normally, is a single target hit. Therefore, I cannot see myself slotting Fanning the Flames over Sudden Storm. None of the passives of the Master of Flame Paragon Path make up for this decrease in overall damage. Many players also prefer Shard of the Endless Avalanche over Sudden Storm, which does even MORE damage.
If Fanning the Flames were an AoE regardless of how it were slotted, and it had damage comparable to Sudden Storm, with the added bonus of Smoulder/Rimefire, then it would be a more attractive encounter, for me.
None of the passives in the Master of Flame Paragon Path out-do Eye of the Storm and Storm Spell. Storm Spell can crit, but Smoulder/Rimefire can never crit, so why would I drop Storm Spell just to give my dailies a bit of Smoulder/Rimefire? I wouldn't. Why would I want to gain a small amount of crit severity with Critical Conflagration over the ability to crit on all abilities for a short time? My answer is that I wouldn't.
In my opinion, Smoulder/Rimefire needs to do enough damage to compete with or out-do the damage of continuous Storm Spell procs. Then, the added crit severity and Smoulder/Rimefire procs from Critical Conflagration would be more attractive, to me.
The Swath of Destruction passive Class Feature would be more attractive, to me, if Smoulder/Rimefire could crit.
Why would I ever spec in to the Mater of Flame Paragon Path if my DPS would go down without gaining any type of control? My answer is that I wouldn't do that.
Why would I use Furious Immolation over Arcane Singularity/Oppressive Force? My answer is that I wouldn't. Furious Immolation does less damage and/or has less utility than both of these dailies.
I would like to know what the Combat Designer believes is the draw that would make players want to drop the Spellstorm Paragon Path for the Master of Flame Paragon Path?
To be fair, Fanning the Flames does deal more damage than Sudden Storm to the primary target, and has the potential to deal considerably more if there are Smoldering targets nearby. (With the addition of Fanning the flames also getting an extra burst of damage from Smolder targets who are killed, it potentially does way way more damage.)
It's also important to note that Sudden Storm does 0 damage when you fail to hit your target with it, and also requires you to be at close range. Regarding Conduit of Ice, it's not entirely fair to compare a single power with another power that is directly tied to a really powerful end tree feat.
Now I'm not at all saying that Master of Flame paragon won't see improvements, but there is a risk that people
don't know really what they are doing yet. Several have commented on Fanning the Flame, but it's not always clear if they understood that it has a lot of damage bonuses built into it. It's possible that the path may go out of the gate a bit weak, but there is nothing saying it will have to stay that way. If it came out really strong it would likely need to be reined in and that will also make people upset.
With all that said, Control Wizard is kind of a special case in that their damage types are directly modified by their feats, so some of the feedback may stem from feats making non paragon powers that much better.
To be fair, Fanning the Flames does deal more damage than Sudden Storm to the primary target, and has the potential to deal considerably more if there are Smoldering targets nearby. (With the addition of Fanning the flames also getting an extra burst of damage from Smolder targets who are killed, it potentially does way way more damage.)
It's also important to note that Sudden Storm does 0 damage when you fail to hit your target with it, and also requires you to be at close range. Regarding Conduit of Ice, it's not entirely fair to compare a single power with another power that is directly tied to a really powerful end tree feat.
Now I'm not at all saying that Master of Flame paragon won't see improvements, but there is a risk that people
don't know really what they are doing yet. Several have commented on Fanning the Flame, but it's not always clear if they understood that it has a lot of damage bonuses built into it. It's possible that the path may go out of the gate a bit weak, but there is nothing saying it will have to stay that way. If it came out really strong it would likely need to be reined in and that will also make people upset.
With all that said, Control Wizard is kind of a special case in that their damage types are directly modified by their feats, so some of the feedback may stem from feats making non paragon powers that much better.
Hi, thanks for responding. I took a lot of time editing my post to a final draft, please give it a review in case you missed anything that I wrote. Thanks for your time.
Fanning the Flames may deal more damage to a single target, but the overall DPS is lower because it only affects one target when not slotted as a mastery. Perhaps if Fanning the Flames procced damage OUTWARD to targets affected by Smoulder/Rimefire, then it might be more attractive.
Sudden Storm should never miss since I use it in conjunction with Icy Terrain and Steal Time, which slows and/or roots/stuns targets. My opinion is that the DPS of Sudden Storm and Shard of the Endless Avalanche are so much higher than Fanning the Flame because Fanning the Flame is a single target encounter.
The reason that I compare Counduit of Ice to Fanning the Flames is more accurately stated in the edited version of the post that you replied to. This final draft is more concise.
I compare Conduit of Ice mastery to Fanning the Flames mastery and Sudden Storm slotted normally to Fanning the Flames slotted normally, because these are the considerations that I have to make as a player when swapping to the Master of Flame Paragon Path. I think that it is fair to compare them simply because they are the encounters that I will be replacing if I were to swap to this new Path. Similarly, I compare the Spellstorm Mage Paragon Path's passive Class Features with the new passive Class Features of the Master of Flame Paragon Path because they will replace one another depending on the Path that I follow.
I've tested new paragon path and I have similar opinion as most of the players. Master of Flame isn't what I expected, I thought fire path for wizard would have more devastating spells.
But.
I believe this paragon path can be competitive to Spellstorm Mage and in some situations even surpass SM. Master of Flame is highly DoT path, smolder and rimefire are very interesting options. While I thought it gonna be quite the opposite I'm not of that path. Spellstorm Mage means for me burst damage, when Master of Flame is DoT. You can't expect that you will burn everything, sometimes DoT is safer and better option. I haven't seen Valindra's Tower yet so I can't say if DoT is better there or old way to burst adds is still the best option. Even if it would be better play as Spellstorm Mage in VT I can easily imagine dungeons and such circumstance where damage over time is a key to victory. I think Master of Flame shouldn't be doom to fail so fast :>
Ach I forgot to mention, that so far Master of Flame is definitely better in PvP than SM. It's obvious for me, that with new
paragon path wizard is becoming better class if we speak about PvP. Fanning the Flame, Chill Strike and RoE on the target sounds delicious !
To be fair, Fanning the Flames does deal more damage than Sudden Storm to the primary target, and has the potential to deal considerably more if there are Smoldering targets nearby. (With the addition of Fanning the flames also getting an extra burst of damage from Smolder targets who are killed, it potentially does way way more damage.)
It's also important to note that Sudden Storm does 0 damage when you fail to hit your target with it, and also requires you to be at close range. Regarding Conduit of Ice, it's not entirely fair to compare a single power with another power that is directly tied to a really powerful end tree feat.
Now I'm not at all saying that Master of Flame paragon won't see improvements, but there is a risk that people
don't know really what they are doing yet. Several have commented on Fanning the Flame, but it's not always clear if they understood that it has a lot of damage bonuses built into it. It's possible that the path may go out of the gate a bit weak, but there is nothing saying it will have to stay that way. If it came out really strong it would likely need to be reined in and that will also make people upset.
With all that said, Control Wizard is kind of a special case in that their damage types are directly modified by their feats, so some of the feedback may stem from feats making non paragon powers that much better.
My Opinion: A single target spell like that is a flawed design. Not because its single target, but because it draws power from adds around it. If there are adds, as a CW my goal is to disable or destroy them. They need to be gone so that they aren't damaging the party. I already have an arsenal of spells that do this faster/better than Fanning the Flames. And once the adds are gone, why would I use Fanning the Flames on the target without its power boost?
I'm not trying to be mean. I just don't get the logic behind it. Besides asethetics (it does look cool in tab) why would a CW use this spell? When would we ever use this encounter spell?
(The daily I would use, but its completely outmatched in damage.)
Halgarth's Legacy-NWS-DSTGFZHFR
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited November 2013
If Smolder could crit, the path would also be more attractive. Improving critical chance and critical severity are two ways to push your damage higher as your advance your character, and if Smolder isn't boosted by them, it's potential to do damage is going to be severely curtailed as gear and abilities get better and better.
So I think one problem you're going to see is that people with higher level gear, better crit chance and high crit severity (like those using Vorpal Enchantments) are going to see significantly worse performance in this paragon path than with Spellstorm.
If the key component of the path, Smolder, can't critically hit, the that makes the paragon path extremely difficult to work with.
Personally, I'll give you guys the benefit of the doubt that we're still figuring things out here, whereas we've had 6+ months to theorycraft the Spellstorm Paragon path to the bone, but it's difficult to imagine the Master of Flame could compete while Smolder lacks the ability to crit.
I took Master of Flame for another whirl, and my impressions aren't entirely negative. I see some potential, but I remain a bit concerned about the powers.
- Fanning the Flames depends on a lot of conditions to perform well and deals its primary damage slowly. The secondary damage potential, as lordgallen indicated, is high, but it's largely wasted due to how specifically the stars need to align to trigger it. Trying to effectively manage Smolder application, enemy proximity, and enemy health levels while employing the perfect timing and targeting for Fanning the Flames to take advantage of ideal conditions is a lot of effort for the payoff. Most NPCs will be dead by the time you get the flame train in high gear, unfortunately.
And then there's this...
BUG: Fanning the Flames and Scorching Burst not benefiting from Armor Penetration. Smolder also doesn't appear to benefit from Armor Penetration.
That's what I observed in my test just now by comparing damage numbers in my log. Pretty important to have that corrected to truly test results.
I think Master of Flame will shape up to be quite interesting after a bit of tweaking and, to be fair, more player testing.
To be fair, Fanning the Flames does deal more damage than Sudden Storm to the primary target, and has the potential to deal considerably more if there are Smoldering targets nearby. (With the addition of Fanning the flames also getting an extra burst of damage from Smolder targets who are killed, it potentially does way way more damage.)
It's also important to note that Sudden Storm does 0 damage when you fail to hit your target with it, and also requires you to be at close range. Regarding Conduit of Ice, it's not entirely fair to compare a single power with another power that is directly tied to a really powerful end tree feat.
Now I'm not at all saying that Master of Flame paragon won't see improvements, but there is a risk that people
don't know really what they are doing yet. Several have commented on Fanning the Flame, but it's not always clear if they understood that it has a lot of damage bonuses built into it. It's possible that the path may go out of the gate a bit weak, but there is nothing saying it will have to stay that way. If it came out really strong it would likely need to be reined in and that will also make people upset.
With all that said, Control Wizard is kind of a special case in that their damage types are directly modified by their feats, so some of the feedback may stem from feats making non paragon powers that much better.
Well, forgive me for being so straightforward (and I already prepared to burn in hell for that), but this whole post is a pathetical attempt to justify new path design failure.
I did 2 tests with ACT - Fire and Lightning based Thaumaturge. Mirror feats, mirror encounters. Only difference - I took Evocation, while testing fire, instead of one with +15% crit severity and smolder refreshing on crits, since it gives more damage (while testing lightning, i took Spell Storm + EotS - 2 path-based features). Here are the results:
Im not talking its the best possible feats for fire path - with +15% damage for SoEA result prolly would be better. It was just an example. As you can see, Spellstorm Mage outdamage Master of Flame almost by 40% - and there are only 3 targets, not 15, like it is normally in dungeons!
More so, dummies have a strange ability to "Go Boom", when you pulling way to hard burst. And basically, when i was testing Spellstorm Mage I wa fighting 1-2 dummies instead of 3, (you can notice it by CoI and Chilling Cloud damage) because of those missing "boomed" dummies. While consistently damage 3 dummies, dps goes up to 19-20k. Which is 80% more damage, than Master of Flames.
The path will not "go out of the gate a bit weak", it will go out unplayable.
Edit
Only case, when Master of Flame is somewhat comparable with Spellstorm Mage is single target Renegade tree, since Rene's main single target powers (Missles and RoE) have terrible Spell Storm/EotS proc rate, and stability of Master of Flame is actually better for it. I mentioned it before somewhere.
So, part of the problem may stem from Furious Immolation actually dealing it's damage in two parts. The pull deals damage, and then the column of fire deals damage as well. Though based on your charts it also looks like you are comparing a Arcane Singularity Crit of 14K to what I assume is a non crit on part of Furious Immolation's damage. That hardly seems like a fair comparison.
In a direct comparison, Furious Immolation flat out does more damage per target than Arcane Singularity. With that said, it's very possible that feats are interfering with that comparison and bumping up Arcane Singularity while not affecting Furious Immolation. Would you mind taking a screenshot of you feats? (Actually very likely as there are some feats that specifically affect Arcane damage powers)
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
The point I was trying to make is that low base damage spells who can crit and benefit from critical severity are far better then spells with higher base damage and none crit! Which means that in the long run AS/OP are far superior then FI/MC.
Here is another test with NO FEATS or any spell that can apply debuff or mitigation to the targets!
As you can see with less hits AS does 50% more damage then FI and not the other way around!
20 hits with AS gave me 152,967 damage.
28 hits with FI gave me 75,589 damage.
The only way you can fix higher tier daily's is to give them critical... Until then no one will ever use them!
I really don't understand why you can't see where the problem is and how easy is to fix it!
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited November 2013
Bottom line is, if an ability can't crit, it's subpar.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche and Sudden Storm only started popping up in builds after they were adjusted to be able to crit. Prior to that, they were subpar.
If we're relying on Smolder for the consistent damage, it won't be inline with anything else until Smolder can crit.
Bottom line is, if an ability can't crit, it's subpar.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche and Sudden Storm only started popping up in builds after they were adjusted to be able to crit. Prior to that, they were subpar.
If we're relying on Smolder for the consistent damage, it won't be inline with anything else until Smolder can crit.
Tbh this flame tree fits renegade spec better then thumatage was testing on my CW on Preview shard
Gang Busters PvP Guild Recruiting When Mod 6 goes live Pm Me for more Info If you have any Paladin question Message Me and i will get back to you ASAP
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ministerofchangeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited November 2013
Ok a question and a suggestion:
Why didn't you guys just make a Fireball as the Encounter Power?
Here is a suggestion, why don't you guys make it so that the fire weapon enchantment can be used to activate smolder? It sets the targets on fire already so it make sense, and would be a useful addition to the path.
Bottom line is, if an ability can't crit, it's subpar.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche and Sudden Storm only started popping up in builds after they were adjusted to be able to crit. Prior to that, they were subpar.
If we're relying on Smolder for the consistent damage, it won't be inline with anything else until Smolder can crit.
True story Same goes for Oppressive Force and Icy Terrain! None used them before that...
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erebus2075Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2013
so tested out the fire paragon for cw the last two days, around 8 hours actual testing.
most say while it looks and sounds really cool, it is pretty terrible, the dps is just much much worse all around both aoe and single target is much worse then the lightning, it need a major dps buff and the dots need to stack for each fire skill you use else its just useless.
loosing eye of the storm is a major handicap in itself and the abilities you get to make up for it is just terrible in comparison..
i dont even use eye of the storm so dont give a **** about it, and switching storm spell for crit sever seems fine with me
the problem is encounter setup, atm im running coi on tab, ss/icy steal time and sotea, with fire id lose ss and the only slot to put fire on is either sotea or steal time, losing one cc for dot since id need coi and icy to utilize fire
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Bottom line is, if an ability can't crit, it's subpar.
Shard of the Endless Avalanche and Sudden Storm only started popping up in builds after they were adjusted to be able to crit. Prior to that, they were subpar.
If we're relying on Smolder for the consistent damage, it won't be inline with anything else until Smolder can crit.
Very, very true... Now I slot both of them for huge amounts of damage. Each encounter must be able to crit and smoulder must also crit.
Please fix all of our encounters so that they benefit from armor penetration as well...
Tbh this flame tree fits renegade spec better then thumatage was testing on my CW on Preview shard
It would benefit Renegade even more if the new mechanic could crit and benefit from crit severity/armor penetration.
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erebus2075Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited November 2013
well if you go test out setups using the NEW abilities (meaning actually using the paragon abilities and passives) you will see that the fire is extremely handicapped compared to the storm. its really sad to look at..
Comments
Well that's pretty obvious. Read the previous posts like page 11. Why is the paragon path called master of flame when realistically you're only getting 2 maybe 3 abilities and still having to use the majority of spells and abilities not even fire related. The whole point of my other posts including the original post that was why only give 2 or 3 abilities. Paragon should change out a bunch more than just the couple unique abilities you get and give 4 or 5 options for spells. it should change more than only a few things if its a specialization. Right now you would still technically have to use a lot of other abilities outside of the specialization aka paragon. Make it so if it is a spec that if you want to you can fill your bar entirely with fire abilities rather than 2.
The Master of flame is built around smolder and rimefire or w/e its called. If you have to weave something that stacks chill then you should have more than just one ability smolder adding more dots onto a target add in at least another fire spell that has a separate Dot effect other than just smolder and then it wouldn't be an issue of a slow burning dot that doesn't crit. Its like what the majority of other CWs are saying it should be called master of elements instead of fire if you have to weave frost and fire in order to dps. If its going to be Master of flame then it should have more abilities that involve fire rather than just some feats that add in to 2 powers. Since when has weaving frost with fire be considered a fire specialization? I can think of one game and one ability.
Even more so when you look at the majority of sets that are out there currently that are all power based and only 1 crit based set. If the build is around rimefire/smoulder (Dot) without crit base or at least for now that means you need to build power and so far all the sets are built that way. You would be stacking power and AP. a single ability is not worth that change I should have more than just that. On top of that the current state of those spells dmg is weak.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Smoulder and Rimefire cannot crit, but Storm Spell and Sudden Storm can crit. There is no way that Fanning the Flames comes even close to the damage of one Sudden Storm crit.
This Paragon Path would be a lot better if you just copied the Storm powers and gave them fire graphics...
It is not conceivable to me that I could come close to my current damage output with this new Path. Since I don't gain any more control either, then I can ignore it completely. I would even go as far as to say those that spec down this Path are just silly individuals.
Click Me
What we have so far in-game... is nothing that even resemble Wizard's at all
You can find the statue in Dread Spire.
So, part of the problem may stem from Furious Immolation actually dealing it's damage in two parts. The pull deals damage, and then the column of fire deals damage as well. Though based on your charts it also looks like you are comparing a Arcane Singularity Crit of 14K to what I assume is a non crit on part of Furious Immolation's damage. That hardly seems like a fair comparison.
In a direct comparison, Furious Immolation flat out does more damage per target than Arcane Singularity. With that said, it's very possible that feats are interfering with that comparison and bumping up Arcane Singularity while not affecting Furious Immolation. Would you mind taking a screenshot of you feats? (Actually very likely as there are some feats that specifically affect Arcane damage powers)
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Were you adding together both of furious Immolations hits? It deals damage twice. (Much like Oppressive force actually deals damage 5 times)
Also regarding Smolder not being an advantage on Furious Immolation it's not entirely fair to dismiss it just because you have other options of applying it. Paragon Paths are a bundle of options, and nothing guarantees a person uses all of them together. You could easily slot other Class features and use Furious Immolation by itself.
Yes. Again, with no feats and no class powers selected. I tried to take off anything I thought would skew the numbers. FI is doing about 2900 on a target (two hits of about 1400) OF is doing about 4800 to the target with its 5 hits.
The only thing FI has going for it is smolder. That would put the numbers closer. But 2 of the new class features we have can grant smolder to OF.
My current mastery encounter is Conduit of Ice, and my slotted Paragon encounter is Sudden Storm.
The current Fanning the Flames encounter does not provide me more damage as a mastery than Conduit of Ice because Conduit of Ice reduces the mitigation of all affected targets in it's radius. Fanning the Flames not only does less damage over time than Conduit of Ice and it also doesn't reduce the mitigation of it's affected targets, which would increase the damage that my entire party does to the targets affected. Conduit of Ice also provides me with control via Chill stacks, when in the mastery slot.
The two most attractive passive Class Features of the Master of Flame Paragon Path, for me, are Critical Conflagration and Swath of Destruction.
The amount of increased damage that targets affected by Smoulder/Rimefire take via Swath of Destruction does not equate to the amount of increased damage that targets affected by Assailing Force will take via procs from Conduit of Ice. Since Conduit of Ice does more damage, provides more control, and debuffs targets more via Assailing Force than Fanning the Flames, Smoulder/Rimefire, and Swath of Destruction, then there is just no way I would give up either Storm Spell or Eye of the Storm for either of the new passive Class Features in this situation.
Neither of these passive Class Features in the Master of Flame Paragon Path seem to out-do Eye of the Storm and Storm Spell, which is their competition when consider this new Path. Storm Spell can crit, but Smoulder/Rimefire can never crit, so why would I drop Storm Spell just to give my dailies a bit of Smoulder/Rimefire? I wouldn't. Why would I want to gain a small amount of crit severity with Critical Conflagration over the ability to crit on all abilities for a short time? My answer is that I wouldn't.
In my opinion, Smoulder/Rimefire need to do enough damage to compete with or out-do the damage of continuous Storm Spell procs. Then, the added crit severity and Smoulder/Rimefire procs from Critical Conflagration would be more attractive, to me.
The Swath of Destruction passive Class Feature would be more attractive, to me, if Smoulder/Rimefire could crit. Then, Smoulder/Rimefire could synergy better with Critical Conflagration, Vorpal Enchantments, and other crit severity bonuses.
My other option would be to replace my current Paragon encounter with Fanning the Flames. However, Fanning the Flames does not come close in comparison to the damage of Sudden Storm. Sudden Storm is an AoE that can crit each target hit for well over 10,000 damage. Whereas, Fanning the Flames, when slotted normally, is a single target hit. Therefore, I cannot see myself slotting Fanning the Flames over Sudden Storm. Many players also prefer Shard of the Endless Avalanche over Sudden Storm, which does even MORE damage than Sudden Storm, while also providing control via knockback/down. I can't seem to figure out a situation where Fanning the Flames would become more attractive to slot than Sudden Storm and Shard of the Endless Avalanche.
If Fanning the Flames were an AoE, regardless of how it were slotted, and it had damage comparable to Sudden Storm, with the added bonus of Smoulder/Rimefire, then it would be a more attractive encounter, for me.
Another major problem, for me, with the Master of Flame Paragon Path, is that Chill stacks are currently intended to boost Smoulder, and not vice versa. One of the nice things about the Spellstorm Paragon Path is that Sudden Storm refreshes the duration of Chill on affected targets. This lends more control to the Spellstorm Pagaon Path than the Master of Flame Paragon Path. That would not be a problem if the Master of Flame Paragon Path were a lot better at overall DPS than the Spellstorm Paragon Path, which IMO it is not. In a small summary, the Master of Flame Paragon path has both less control and less overall DPS than the Spellstorm Paragon Path.
I sort of like Scorching Burst and I feel that it is fairly equivalent to Storm Pillar. Much like all of the Master of Flame Paragon Path abilities, I feel that it could use some more damage, though.
I don't think that it's fair to compare Furious Immolation to Oppressive Force/Arcane Singularity because it is meant to replace Maelstrom of Chaos. Since I don't find Maelstrom of Chaos to be very effective for me, and I don't find Furious Immolation to be very effective either, then I would simply continue with not using either of them. Nothing changes there.
In my opinion, there is no draw that would make players want to drop the Spellstorm Paragon Path for the Master of Flame Paragon Path given that the Spellstorm Mage path seems to provide both more damage and more control than it does.
Edit: Final draft submitted. Cheers.
You have an entire forum of players who are testing this build and all but what maybe two telling you the Master of flame path is terrible. No player that has any clue what they are doing is going to use this build. You also have players running combat logs for hours and number crunching. Any experienced Theory crafter / number cruncher is going to tell you the same thing the build is bad, there is a complete lack of damage and a complete lack of control. Now people are taking pictures of logs or parsers and posting them along side 14 pages in the forums based on this build still saying its bad.
You guys have done great with the first build and the majority of the game. There are serious problems with this build even more so when it is not based around control as stated in an earlier quote and it does 1/4 to 1/2 the damage of the other build that is high damage and control. What would the purpose of this build be if its not control. I can only see it being damage. and if thats the case it should out damage the previous paragon path and by a lot since again another big issue brought up here is there is no functional control in any of these skills.
14 forum pages now stating this please consider that.
To be fair, Fanning the Flames does deal more damage than Sudden Storm to the primary target, and has the potential to deal considerably more if there are Smoldering targets nearby. (With the addition of Fanning the flames also getting an extra burst of damage from Smolder targets who are killed, it potentially does way way more damage.)
It's also important to note that Sudden Storm does 0 damage when you fail to hit your target with it, and also requires you to be at close range. Regarding Conduit of Ice, it's not entirely fair to compare a single power with another power that is directly tied to a really powerful end tree feat.
Now I'm not at all saying that Master of Flame paragon won't see improvements, but there is a risk that people
don't know really what they are doing yet. Several have commented on Fanning the Flame, but it's not always clear if they understood that it has a lot of damage bonuses built into it. It's possible that the path may go out of the gate a bit weak, but there is nothing saying it will have to stay that way. If it came out really strong it would likely need to be reined in and that will also make people upset.
With all that said, Control Wizard is kind of a special case in that their damage types are directly modified by their feats, so some of the feedback may stem from feats making non paragon powers that much better.
Hi, thanks for responding. I took a lot of time editing my post to a final draft, please give it a review in case you missed anything that I wrote. Thanks for your time.
Fanning the Flames may deal more damage to a single target, but the overall DPS is lower because it only affects one target when not slotted as a mastery. Perhaps if Fanning the Flames procced damage OUTWARD to targets affected by Smoulder/Rimefire, then it might be more attractive.
Sudden Storm should never miss since I use it in conjunction with Icy Terrain and Steal Time, which slows and/or roots/stuns targets. My opinion is that the DPS of Sudden Storm and Shard of the Endless Avalanche are so much higher than Fanning the Flame because Fanning the Flame is a single target encounter.
The reason that I compare Counduit of Ice to Fanning the Flames is more accurately stated in the edited version of the post that you replied to. This final draft is more concise.
I compare Conduit of Ice mastery to Fanning the Flames mastery and Sudden Storm slotted normally to Fanning the Flames slotted normally, because these are the considerations that I have to make as a player when swapping to the Master of Flame Paragon Path. I think that it is fair to compare them simply because they are the encounters that I will be replacing if I were to swap to this new Path. Similarly, I compare the Spellstorm Mage Paragon Path's passive Class Features with the new passive Class Features of the Master of Flame Paragon Path because they will replace one another depending on the Path that I follow.
But.
I believe this paragon path can be competitive to Spellstorm Mage and in some situations even surpass SM. Master of Flame is highly DoT path, smolder and rimefire are very interesting options. While I thought it gonna be quite the opposite I'm not
Ach I forgot to mention, that so far Master of Flame is definitely better in PvP than SM. It's obvious for me, that with new
paragon path wizard is becoming better class if we speak about PvP. Fanning the Flame, Chill Strike and RoE on the target sounds delicious !
Greetings
My Opinion: A single target spell like that is a flawed design. Not because its single target, but because it draws power from adds around it. If there are adds, as a CW my goal is to disable or destroy them. They need to be gone so that they aren't damaging the party. I already have an arsenal of spells that do this faster/better than Fanning the Flames. And once the adds are gone, why would I use Fanning the Flames on the target without its power boost?
I'm not trying to be mean. I just don't get the logic behind it. Besides asethetics (it does look cool in tab) why would a CW use this spell? When would we ever use this encounter spell?
(The daily I would use, but its completely outmatched in damage.)
So I think one problem you're going to see is that people with higher level gear, better crit chance and high crit severity (like those using Vorpal Enchantments) are going to see significantly worse performance in this paragon path than with Spellstorm.
If the key component of the path, Smolder, can't critically hit, the that makes the paragon path extremely difficult to work with.
Personally, I'll give you guys the benefit of the doubt that we're still figuring things out here, whereas we've had 6+ months to theorycraft the Spellstorm Paragon path to the bone, but it's difficult to imagine the Master of Flame could compete while Smolder lacks the ability to crit.
- Fanning the Flames depends on a lot of conditions to perform well and deals its primary damage slowly. The secondary damage potential, as lordgallen indicated, is high, but it's largely wasted due to how specifically the stars need to align to trigger it. Trying to effectively manage Smolder application, enemy proximity, and enemy health levels while employing the perfect timing and targeting for Fanning the Flames to take advantage of ideal conditions is a lot of effort for the payoff. Most NPCs will be dead by the time you get the flame train in high gear, unfortunately.
And then there's this...
BUG: Fanning the Flames and Scorching Burst not benefiting from Armor Penetration. Smolder also doesn't appear to benefit from Armor Penetration.
That's what I observed in my test just now by comparing damage numbers in my log. Pretty important to have that corrected to truly test results.
I think Master of Flame will shape up to be quite interesting after a bit of tweaking and, to be fair, more player testing.
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NIGHTSWATCH
Well, forgive me for being so straightforward (and I already prepared to burn in hell for that), but this whole post is a pathetical attempt to justify new path design failure.
I did 2 tests with ACT - Fire and Lightning based Thaumaturge. Mirror feats, mirror encounters. Only difference - I took Evocation, while testing fire, instead of one with +15% crit severity and smolder refreshing on crits, since it gives more damage (while testing lightning, i took Spell Storm + EotS - 2 path-based features). Here are the results:
Master of Flame
^
ACT
> Feats/Powers
vs
Spellstorm Mage
^
ACT
> Feats/Powers
Im not talking its the best possible feats for fire path - with +15% damage for SoEA result prolly would be better. It was just an example. As you can see, Spellstorm Mage outdamage Master of Flame almost by 40% - and there are only 3 targets, not 15, like it is normally in dungeons!
More so, dummies have a strange ability to "Go Boom", when you pulling way to hard burst. And basically, when i was testing Spellstorm Mage I wa fighting 1-2 dummies instead of 3, (you can notice it by CoI and Chilling Cloud damage) because of those missing "boomed" dummies. While consistently damage 3 dummies, dps goes up to 19-20k. Which is 80% more damage, than Master of Flames.
The path will not "go out of the gate a bit weak", it will go out unplayable.
Edit
Only case, when Master of Flame is somewhat comparable with Spellstorm Mage is single target Renegade tree, since Rene's main single target powers (Missles and RoE) have terrible Spell Storm/EotS proc rate, and stability of Master of Flame is actually better for it. I mentioned it before somewhere.
My videos
The point I was trying to make is that low base damage spells who can crit and benefit from critical severity are far better then spells with higher base damage and none crit! Which means that in the long run AS/OP are far superior then FI/MC.
Here is another test with NO FEATS or any spell that can apply debuff or mitigation to the targets!
Click Me
As you can see with less hits AS does 50% more damage then FI and not the other way around!
20 hits with AS gave me 152,967 damage.
28 hits with FI gave me 75,589 damage.
The only way you can fix higher tier daily's is to give them critical... Until then no one will ever use them!
I really don't understand why you can't see where the problem is and how easy is to fix it!
Shard of the Endless Avalanche and Sudden Storm only started popping up in builds after they were adjusted to be able to crit. Prior to that, they were subpar.
If we're relying on Smolder for the consistent damage, it won't be inline with anything else until Smolder can crit.
Tbh this flame tree fits renegade spec better then thumatage was testing on my CW on Preview shard
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Why didn't you guys just make a Fireball as the Encounter Power?
Here is a suggestion, why don't you guys make it so that the fire weapon enchantment can be used to activate smolder? It sets the targets on fire already so it make sense, and would be a useful addition to the path.
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True story
most say while it looks and sounds really cool, it is pretty terrible, the dps is just much much worse all around both aoe and single target is much worse then the lightning, it need a major dps buff and the dots need to stack for each fire skill you use else its just useless.
loosing eye of the storm is a major handicap in itself and the abilities you get to make up for it is just terrible in comparison..
was majorly
the problem is encounter setup, atm im running coi on tab, ss/icy steal time and sotea, with fire id lose ss and the only slot to put fire on is either sotea or steal time, losing one cc for dot since id need coi and icy to utilize fire
Oppressive force is a monster now that it can crit, and scales better with gear, so...yeah.
To the devs, what percentage of MoF's damage do you want to come from Smolder?
Very, very true... Now I slot both of them for huge amounts of damage. Each encounter must be able to crit and smoulder must also crit.
Please fix all of our encounters so that they benefit from armor penetration as well...
It would benefit Renegade even more if the new mechanic could crit and benefit from crit severity/armor penetration.