For the upcoming module, Northdark Reaches, we did some work on the Wizard class. This included a significant amount of bug fixes and balance passes, mostly to magnitudes of various powers but also a few functional changes. While it is not a complete revamp of playstyle or how the class feels, we wanted to make sure Wizards are competitive with other DPS classes and, hopefully, give a few more viable choice to Wizard players.
Bug Fixes
Maelstrom of Chaos should now calculate its damage similar to other character powers.
Maelstrom of Chaos should no longer decrease its critical damage the higher the character's Critical Avoidance stat.
Storm Fury should no longer decrease its critical damage the higher the character's Critical Avoidance stat.
Repel should now deal damage to control immune targets when used from the Spell Mastery slot.
Fireball now gains a 10% bonus to damage when used in the Spell Mastery slot.
Arcane Tempest now gains a 10% bonus to damage when used in the Spell Mastery slot.
Arcane Conduit now gains a 10% bonus to damage when used in the Spell Mastery slot.
Oppressive Force now correctly states that the magnitude in the Daze portion of the power as 375 magnitude. The Repel portion of the power now states 325 magnitude. Functionality did not change for this power.
Arcane Power Field daily is now properly modified by the caster's stats.
Chill Strike now receives the 10% bonus damage benefit from Spell Mastery when used from the Tab slot.
Storm Spell now correctly deals reduced damage on non-crits.
Shield spell now properly provides a 20% max HP shield, and a 30% shield when used in the Tab slot. Previously both standard and Tab slots were providing only 20%.
Shield now properly deals more damage on critical hits (from the AoE caused by reapplication).
Fanning the Flame's AoE damage over time component is now properly increased by Spell Mastery.
Spell Mastery tooltip clarified (no functional change).
Balance Fixes
Base Class
Magic Missile: Mag increased from 40 to 60
Ray of Frost increased from 55 to 65.
Shield: Mag increased from 230/253 to 350/400; Shield amount increased to 30%/40%; casting time reduced from 1.6s to 0.53s
Arcane Singularity: increased Mag from 800 to 1200
Ice Knife: increased Mag from 1800 to 2300
Arcane Presence: increased from 0.5% to 1.0%
Orb of Imposition: increased from 20% to 25%; added "Your control powers do 5% more damage against control-immune targets."
Entangling Force increased from 500 to 600.
Repel increased from 500/200 to 580/300
Ray of Enfeeblement increased from 450 to 520.
Icy Terrain increased from 350/385 to 400/440.
Oppressive Force increased from 325+375 to 370+420.
Arcanist
Storm Pillar: increased from 30-80, 40 to 40-100, 50. Will no longer generate AP if you don't hit any targets
Arcane Bolt: increased Mag from 60 to 120
Lightning Bolt: increased Mag from 200 to 350
Steal Time: increased Mag from 260 to 350
Arcane Tempest: increased Mag from 300 to 400
Arcane Conduit: increased Mag from 200 to 300
Maelstrom of Chaos: increased Mag from 600 to 1400
Arcane Empowerment: increased damage bonus from 10% to 20%; decreased recharge speed bonus from x5 to x3. Rebuilt to subtract 1s from Encounter cooldowns every 0.5s (instead of speeding up Recharge). NOTE: This change is experimental and may be reverted.
Eye of the Storm: decreased internal cooldown from 20s to 10s
Storm Fury: increased Mag from 50 to 200. Fixed a bug where it was critting every time
Arcane Power Field: increased from 50 to 60. Fixed a bug where it didn't accept buffs or mods. This should be a significant power increase.
Alacrity: increased cooldown reduction from 2 seconds to 5 seconds
Snap Freeze: increased Mag from 40 to 70
Chaos Magic: increased proc chance from 5% to 7%
Elemental Reinforcement: increased damage bonus from 5% to 7%
Disintegrate increased from 400 (600) to 500 (750).
Storm Spell increased from 100 to 120.
Striking Advantage increased from 100 to 120.
Iced Lightning: damage bonus increased from 10% to 30% and now includes Striking Advantage as well.
Thaumaturge
Scorching Burst: increased Mag from 30-80 to 60-110
Chilling Cloud: increased Mag from 65 to 90
Fanning the Flame: increased base Mag from 100 to 500, tick mag from 33 to 100, and reduced cooldown from 21 to 18
Conduit of Ice: increased Mag from 230 to 350
Fireball: increased Mag from 250/550 to 350/700
Furious Immolation: increased Mag from 700 to 900
Ice Storm: increased Mag from 600 to 1200; eliminated knockback and replaced it with knockdown
Swath of Destruction: increased bonuses from 5%/2% to 10%/3%
Combustive Action: increased AP bonus from 1% to 5%
Frost Wave: increased chill stacks from 3 to 6; fixed bug where it failed to Freeze
Relative Haste: increased max cooldown speed bonus from 10% to 20%
Smoldering Recovery: reduced Directed Flames bonus from 1.5% to 0.3% (still a net buff due to changes to Directed Flames)
Glowing Flames: increased damage from 20% to 30%
Icy Veins: increased range from 15' to 20'
Frigid Winds: increased damage bonus from 1.25% to 1.5%
Directed Flames: reduced damage from 80% to 25%, but can now proc every second (down from every 12 seconds, although there was a bug that meant it wouldn't even proc that often)
Smolder: increased damage per tick from 40 to 150. Note this will affect a number of Smolder-related Feats and Class Features as well.
Icy Rays increased from 520-720 to 600-850.
Chill Strike increased from 575/225 to 660/300.
Shatter Strike increased from 250/150 to 300/200.
Short version is lots of 10-20% increases across the board, with bigger (sometimes much bigger) increases to things that looked especially weak. Smolder in particular was increased dramatically, in part because Thaumaturges needed the help and in part because all the Smolder-improving Feats and Class Features were pretty pointless while Smolder was so weak. (Some of those Smolder improvements might be a lot better now, even if their numbers didn't change, just because Smolder is so much better.) Almost all buffs; only nerfs are Storm Pillar no longer serves as an AP generator during downtime (which was never intended), and Arcane Empowerment doesn't give quite as much recharge speed as it used to (although it continues to give an awful lot, and should still be very strong).
Note the goal of these changes wasn't just to give some buffs to powers everyone uses already. We also want to bring up as many powers as possible into the usable category. The hope is that some powers that were long considered "useless" might now be worth of consideration.
We did not have time to make every change we wanted to make, but we hope that with the player feedback we received during the development work and Preview, we were able to get the Wizard to a better place!
Robert Gutschera Lead Systems Designer
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11529193-developer-blog%3A-wizard-updates
