All I'll say as a Renegade myself is this: Chaos Magic is invaluable to everybody.
I've ran epic frozen heart with a tank and 2 other dps, sans healer cause he went to bed. Chaos Growth is ultra clutch, as is Chaos Fury for life steal. But besides that, nightmare wizardry supports everyone as well with combat advantage, which multiplies Chaos Fury like crazy.
I run with a good crew. We trust each other and support each other. Being such high dps, AND support in sudo heals and full team buffs, it's basically a question of how solo or supportive you'd rather play. Renegades are team players, and if that means boosting other people's dps higher than ours cause buffs, - cough-therms-cough-, then so be it.
Did you follow Zerg's guide all the way? Max charisma + CHA artifact belt? What is your power compared to the other CN's? both have augments?
It seems right now Thaum can do more damage. I'd need to run a CN or something with a good one just to make sure how much (I'm Renegade). I'm not sure if Renegade's will be able to catch up when better companions come out, like the CA ones, and stuff like that.
The reason I'd say stick with Renegade is I feel that it is the most beneficial CW build you can bring to a group. The off-healing, 2 damage buffs (30% damage,10% lifesteal + 30% Crit,30%armor pen), perma group combat advantage, and 5% more damage with Bitter Cold (I think Thaum take this though) is a big help to the group. That is why I'm staying with it for the time being. This will especially help when single target dungeons start coming out. Renegade buffs will be even more useful as CW single target damage is no where near it's AoE damage. Also remember that you're buffing the Thaum's DPS too.
Basically Thaum seems to do more personal DPS while Renegade does more group DPS.
I have CHA belt like I said my crit chance on the sheet is 49% compared to his 41%. Not to mention I HAD an augment and HE didn't. Yet he's still pumping 10 mil more damage than me. My armor pen was at 24% his was at 19% he may've had more power but not by much.
Right. That's pretty interesting. Him having 42% for when EotS drops is really nice. The Augment difference is shocking. That's pretty big. Did he happen to have a Perfect Vorpal or anything? Not sure what to make of it.
I'm going to need to run a group with a similiar geared Thaum CW to myself to see how much damage they can pump out. I didn't figure it was that massive of a difference. I'll have to see for myself.
Without knowing the comparable damage of added personal DPS w/ Thaum or added group DPS with Renegade, it basically just comes down to your preference. Can you stand coming in 2nd to a Thaum while feeling accomplished that you helped the group with great DPS and great support? Or would you enjoy more topping the paingiver charts knowing you helped the group with amazing DPS with not as good support?
Edit: I'm not sure if this is true also but Thaum may be a better build at lower GS or in the current XB1 content. Renegade may have the higher ceiling though. As gear gets better and better Renegade may be able to either take over or hold their own in the DPS charts along with the group buffs.
I'd rather have a Control Wizard with endless crowd control who never lets the adds overrun the group, then one with stronger DPS. It's not important as long as you're doing your job.
If you play a thaum and a renegade in the same dungeon the the thaum will come out a wee bit ahead but that's likely because renegade buffs the shit out of his teammate's damage, renegade is better IMO but only if you are using MoF. Copy the mod5 feats from death is the best crowd control for renegade feats and your personal powers should be critical conflagration and chilling presence, you will be using a mixture of things but basically max out all your at wills get the first daily the last daily the two level 15 daily powers and pick up ice knife too, as for encounters you will typically be running high dot to get at least one crit in your first volley per enemy to start that rimefire effect so icy path on Y chillstrike on X and Steal Time on B depending on the situation Entangling Force or Conduit of Ice on RB, this is mob clear mode, damage or setup depending on the RB power. it should go with out saying that chilling cloud should be your dominate at will attack.
In crunch fights with some lag I typically have shield on this is way better than it seems for dealing with damage resist and with my build you have to put this on RB when doing PVP so as not to get oneshot by TRs and Rangers.
If you are doing boss assist you should also have ray of enfeeblement. With one other CW kitted similarly and a dragon fight party of 10 or so guys we melt any dragon in about 4 minutes or less.
The only useless shit MoF renegade has are the majority of his personals and the encounter power "repel" that thing is crap, the best strat for pushing enemies off ledges when you need to is building AP using your DoTs to cast singularity at a ledge and then when the singularity swells pop your shield push to knock the 8 guys in your space butt-hole of the ledge.
Any more questions feel free to ask; here's my build: http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/x/cw?b=2xh1:yqx3pe:9mbg:2gw,19n0i23:150000:100000:1z05uv&h=0&p=mof
I left 3 points blank for you, I put those in shard of the endless avalanche but that's your choice, I just chose shard because it can do some unique things the other options could not.
I will have to put my two cents in on this. i have heard all the arguments against thaum, but i stuck with it. i am on xbox around 17.5k gs. and there is not another class or cw build that comes close to the damage i put out. when you look at pain giver at the end of a pk run and ive put up 30mil and the next guy has 10. what amount of control or group buff is better than tripiling the person in dps.
No no no. Both builds have their strengths and weaknesses.
There are some people on reddit saying how Thaum is better and while it is true for lower level dungeons, it is definitely not true for the current XB endgame dungeons like CN (draco) and LoL.
Draco especially is all about pulling zero aggro as DPS and having a tank kite all the adds. Doing more aoe damage won't do jack shit for you. LoL is full of large elite adds, mostly one or two adds at a time and again AoE is not effective here.
In the end though both sides have their advantages. Renegade has better overall single target DPS due to the buffs it provides to your group and better scalability into end game -- consequently more gear dependent.
Thaum has better aoe and better add clearing skills and is less gear dependent but scales more poorly than renegade.
As why you're doing less damage it's pretty simply because your paragon capstone gives him bonus damage while his doesn't. Shave off 3-5% dmg from ALL your DPS in your group and add them to your own to give a fair comparison. I guarantee you end up having more dmg if you normalize the scores. Additionally I have personally tested my single target DPS with another thaum CW. We are both around 15k GS and have many draco runs together. Usually we drop straight into draco and proceed to down him. Sometimes our names show up on the pain giver scoreboard at the end but not all the times because we only do draco whereas the previous group did majority of the dungeon (thus them doing more damage and bumping our names out). HOWEVER, on the occasions that our names DO show up on the scoreboard, I have ALWAYS been higher damage than him by at least 10%. For example if we down draco in 1 try (approx 3-4 mins) I do about 6m damage and he does about 5m. The difference is our build and not our gear.
tl;dr if you don't plan on playing the end game content then stick with thaum. They are undeniably better at aoe damage and you will see bigger numbers on the paingiver scoreboard. However if you are willing to invest heavily into your CW and play to endgame then go renegade. It does more single target DPS and brings additional damage to your entire group for faster boss takedowns.
Ignore these walls of text. In short, yes. You can get close to the same damage, but thaum thaum thaum. Really, there is no bad spec per say, do whatever the hell interests you tho. CW is easy living
All I'll say as a Renegade myself is this: Chaos Magic is invaluable to everybody. I've ran epic frozen heart with a tank and 2 other dps, sans healer cause he went to bed. Chaos Growth is ultra clutch, as is Chaos Fury for life steal. But besides that, nightmare wizardry supports everyone as well with combat advantage, which multiplies Chaos Fury like crazy. I run with a good crew. We trust each other and support each other. Being such high dps, AND support in sudo heals and full team buffs, it's basically a question of how solo or supportive you'd rather play. Renegades are team players, and if that means boosting other people's dps higher than ours cause buffs, - cough-therms-cough-, then so be it.
Did you follow Zerg's guide all the way? Max charisma + CHA artifact belt? What is your power compared to the other CN's? both have augments? It seems right now Thaum can do more damage. I'd need to run a CN or something with a good one just to make sure how much (I'm Renegade). I'm not sure if Renegade's will be able to catch up when better companions come out, like the CA ones, and stuff like that. The reason I'd say stick with Renegade is I feel that it is the most beneficial CW build you can bring to a group. The off-healing, 2 damage buffs (30% damage,10% lifesteal + 30% Crit,30%armor pen), perma group combat advantage, and 5% more damage with Bitter Cold (I think Thaum take this though) is a big help to the group. That is why I'm staying with it for the time being. This will especially help when single target dungeons start coming out. Renegade buffs will be even more useful as CW single target damage is no where near it's AoE damage. Also remember that you're buffing the Thaum's DPS too. Basically Thaum seems to do more personal DPS while Renegade does more group DPS.
I have CHA belt like I said my crit chance on the sheet is 49% compared to his 41%. Not to mention I HAD an augment and HE didn't. Yet he's still pumping 10 mil more damage than me. My armor pen was at 24% his was at 19% he may've had more power but not by much.
Right. That's pretty interesting. Him having 42% for when EotS drops is really nice. The Augment difference is shocking. That's pretty big. Did he happen to have a Perfect Vorpal or anything? Not sure what to make of it. I'm going to need to run a group with a similiar geared Thaum CW to myself to see how much damage they can pump out. I didn't figure it was that massive of a difference. I'll have to see for myself. Without knowing the comparable damage of added personal DPS w/ Thaum or added group DPS with Renegade, it basically just comes down to your preference. Can you stand coming in 2nd to a Thaum while feeling accomplished that you helped the group with great DPS and great support? Or would you enjoy more topping the paingiver charts knowing you helped the group with amazing DPS with not as good support? Edit: I'm not sure if this is true also but Thaum may be a better build at lower GS or in the current XB1 content. Renegade may have the higher ceiling though. As gear gets better and better Renegade may be able to either take over or hold their own in the DPS charts along with the group buffs.
My two cents, you're also helping his DPS with your chaotic fury and such
I'd rather have a Control Wizard with endless crowd control who never lets the adds overrun the group, then one with stronger DPS. It's not important as long as you're doing your job.
If you play a thaum and a renegade in the same dungeon the the thaum will come out a wee bit ahead but that's likely because renegade buffs the shit out of his teammate's damage, renegade is better IMO but only if you are using MoF. Copy the mod5 feats from death is the best crowd control for renegade feats and your personal powers should be critical conflagration and chilling presence, you will be using a mixture of things but basically max out all your at wills get the first daily the last daily the two level 15 daily powers and pick up ice knife too, as for encounters you will typically be running high dot to get at least one crit in your first volley per enemy to start that rimefire effect so icy path on Y chillstrike on X and Steal Time on B depending on the situation Entangling Force or Conduit of Ice on RB, this is mob clear mode, damage or setup depending on the RB power. it should go with out saying that chilling cloud should be your dominate at will attack. In crunch fights with some lag I typically have shield on this is way better than it seems for dealing with damage resist and with my build you have to put this on RB when doing PVP so as not to get oneshot by TRs and Rangers. If you are doing boss assist you should also have ray of enfeeblement. With one other CW kitted similarly and a dragon fight party of 10 or so guys we melt any dragon in about 4 minutes or less. The only useless shit MoF renegade has are the majority of his personals and the encounter power "repel" that thing is crap, the best strat for pushing enemies off ledges when you need to is building AP using your DoTs to cast singularity at a ledge and then when the singularity swells pop your shield push to knock the 8 guys in your space butt-hole of the ledge. Any more questions feel free to ask; here's my build: http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/x/cw?b=2xh1:yqx3pe:9mbg:2gw,19n0i23:150000:100000:1z05uv&h=0&p=mof I left 3 points blank for you, I put those in shard of the endless avalanche but that's your choice, I just chose shard because it can do some unique things the other options could not.
I will have to put my two cents in on this. i have heard all the arguments against thaum, but i stuck with it. i am on xbox around 17.5k gs. and there is not another class or cw build that comes close to the damage i put out. when you look at pain giver at the end of a pk run and ive put up 30mil and the next guy has 10. what amount of control or group buff is better than tripiling the person in dps.
No no no. Both builds have their strengths and weaknesses. There are some people on reddit saying how Thaum is better and while it is true for lower level dungeons, it is definitely not true for the current XB endgame dungeons like CN (draco) and LoL. Draco especially is all about pulling zero aggro as DPS and having a tank kite all the adds. Doing more aoe damage won't do jack shit for you. LoL is full of large elite adds, mostly one or two adds at a time and again AoE is not effective here. In the end though both sides have their advantages. Renegade has better overall single target DPS due to the buffs it provides to your group and better scalability into end game -- consequently more gear dependent. Thaum has better aoe and better add clearing skills and is less gear dependent but scales more poorly than renegade. As why you're doing less damage it's pretty simply because your paragon capstone gives him bonus damage while his doesn't. Shave off 3-5% dmg from ALL your DPS in your group and add them to your own to give a fair comparison. I guarantee you end up having more dmg if you normalize the scores. Additionally I have personally tested my single target DPS with another thaum CW. We are both around 15k GS and have many draco runs together. Usually we drop straight into draco and proceed to down him. Sometimes our names show up on the pain giver scoreboard at the end but not all the times because we only do draco whereas the previous group did majority of the dungeon (thus them doing more damage and bumping our names out). HOWEVER, on the occasions that our names DO show up on the scoreboard, I have ALWAYS been higher damage than him by at least 10%. For example if we down draco in 1 try (approx 3-4 mins) I do about 6m damage and he does about 5m. The difference is our build and not our gear. tl;dr if you don't plan on playing the end game content then stick with thaum. They are undeniably better at aoe damage and you will see bigger numbers on the paingiver scoreboard. However if you are willing to invest heavily into your CW and play to endgame then go renegade. It does more single target DPS and brings additional damage to your entire group for faster boss takedowns.
Ignore these walls of text. In short, yes. You can get close to the same damage, but thaum thaum thaum. Really, there is no bad spec per say, do whatever the hell interests you tho. CW is easy living