Neverwinter Control Wizard Thaumaturge Endgame Guide

Neverwinter Control Wizard Thaumaturge Endgame Guide by runicfi

Provide sufficient control, then do maximum damage. Excess control is a waste, excess damage cannot be made.

Some Powers ( at the moment ) are clearly awesome and some next to useless. I’ve respecced around 10 times to try different builds, and found one that clearly tops all the others in terms of damage. Anyhow, here’s a breakdown of my findings and views on the powers from a PvE Dungeon DPS -perspective:

Best race: Tiefling or Human
Attributes: Int > Cha > Wis
Stats: Power > Crit > Recovery

At-Will:

Magic Missile

The most damaging At-Will that should always be used for DPS.

Ray of Frost

Useful if you need to stun a mob or slow them down.

Chilling Cloud

Decent damage if you build having a lot of the Chill -damage increasing features. Loses to magic missile however. AoE of the third attack is really small and you will put out more DPS in total with Magic Missile.

Storm Pillar

Just plain bad damage from itself. Small damage and takes time to charge, during which again Magic Missile will have accomplished more.

Class Features

I fully level all the Class Features as they’re more useful than the useless Encounter ones. And as we all know, the game forces you to level things you wont necessarily need.

Mostly I use Storm Spell and Eye of the Storm.

Daily Powers

Ice Storm

Nice damage and a lifesaver, but don’t use it in a group dungeon unless the scattering is spesifically required or you want to be an idiot and hated by your whole group. It will throw the mobs around, lower everyones DPS and possibly cause problems for the tank.

Oppressive Force

A good AoE damage ability that will also give the group time to breathe as it dazes the mobs. This is one of the better options for a Daily.

Ice Knife

A powerful single target nuke, which I personally use for bosses and elite mobs. Also stuns.

Arcane Singularity

The daily your group likes. Puts all mobs in a bunch so they can be AOE’d easily. The other “best” option for a dungeon enviroment.

Maelstrom of Chaos

Needs to be targeted and has a low channeling time, doesnt do that impressive damage. Bad.

Encounter Powers

Chill Strike

This spell should be on every CW’s spell mastery slot. Deals huge AoE damage, and stuns the main target.

Entangling Force

A lifesaver, and a good source of control. I have this maxed ( one point is enough too ) since otherwise I’d have to put the points into a crappy ability.

Conduit of Ice

A decent dot that increases damage by a lot. When Feated, also lowers the mobs mitigation, increasing the effect even further. Very good if Feated or if you’re going for an icy build.

Repel

Bad, except for pushing mobs off cliffs if you want to “cheat.”

Ray of Enfeeblement

This is a part of my rotation and maxed, does decent damage and reduces mob mitigation, increasing everyones damage further.

Icy Terrain

The immobilization is short, the AoE is small. Terribad.

Steal Time

An ability for controlling a lot of mobs, if your group struggles with adds or large groups, replace Sudden Storm with this one. I have it maxed. Does allright damagewise.

Sudden Storm

Does decent AoE damage.

Shield

A decent ability, not usually in my bars when doing a dungeon but can be useful in some future encounter where you will automatically die without it.

Shard of the Endless Avalanche 

Takes ages to use, first to land it and then hurl it, and the end result is some minor damage, during which time you would’ve done 3x the DPS with other abilities. Utterly bad.

What Powers should I skill up and how?

Fully skill the powers I have slotted in my hotbars ( detailed below ) the rest doesn’t matter. Entangling Force and Steal Time can be useful if more control is required.

What do I have in my hotbars in a PvE Heroic Dungeon for maximum damage at the moment:

Spell Mastery: Chill Strike
Feature: Storm Spell
Feature: Eye of the Storm
Encounter: Ray of Enfeeblement
Encounter: Conduit of Ice
Encounter: Steal Time
At-Will: Magic Missile
At-Will: Ray of Frost
Daily: Ice Knife
Daily: Arcane Singularity

As you can see, all are damaging abilities ( no surprise here when you want to do damage. ) And with this kit I have managed to do maximum DPS that hasn’t been matched by another set of abilities, in my use atleast.

Feats:

With these Feats I’ve achieved more damage than with anything else so far. You get action points fairly quickly, allowing for multiple dailies per fight. Your Conduit of Ice, and all Arcane Encounter spells in addition to the debuff from Ray of Enfeeblement take away a targets mitigation: pop them on a boss and watch him burn. Your at wills deal 30% something more damage, which is a huge damage increase. You also gain damage by killing mobs, and even more against targets below 30% health. All this in addition to granting Combat Advantage to your group, which again, increases damage.

PvP Guide

Spell Mastery Ray of Enfeeblement, slot in Chill Strike, Entangling Force and Conduit of Ice, kill stuff.

Attention to all Renegade -wizards!

No, your spec doesnt provide more crowd control, and it provides less damage increasing talents than the following Thaumaturge build, which also includes the 2 best damage increasing Feats of your Feat tree. 

The only Feat related to crowd control in Renegade is Maelstrom of Chaos providing Chill, and no one uses that crappy spell. A CW’s role also isn’t that of just control: it is to provide the control your group needs, and then maximize damage output. Excess control is waste. You can gain equal control in any Paragon Feat -tree by putting Steal Time and/or Entangling Force into your hotbars, or even Shard of the Endless Crappyness if you will. If you like doing excess control, go ahead. Stop posting about the things mentioned above continously, read the thread, because everything you’re about to say has already been discussed in it. Posts regarding above matters will be ignored, atleast by me. I don’t hate on Renegade.

The day Renegade makes my CW do more damage than Thaumaturgy, or Thaumaturgy doesnt allow me enough control to clear a dungeon, be it T1/T2/T999, is the day I spec Renegade. Currently grinding Castle Never and Tier 2 dungeons just fine.