Semi-drifting until end of May (14/5/19)

Okay, it’s like 10 more days before I set off to Heliopolis City for PC hunting. At the same time, this will cover the final member of the current crop of active adventurers in my Neverwinter character roster. Namely, a drow wizard named Sheallyn Melarn. More specifically an Arcanist.

Wizards are now interesting to play. The problem last time around was that the thaumaturge tree was effectively anti-boss but nothing else. By this, I mean control wizards should just spend Les Zen on an anti-boss loadout slot for a thaumaturge. Which was never practical. It’s worse than carrying a magic sword and entering a goblin lair in Goblin Slayer. You know it’s not going end well because it’s not going to start well in the first place.
Mostly SFW except for the Japanese brand of 2D waifu aesthetics

The plan for the next Neverwinter post would possibly involve a few screen grabs on my current character roster. Hopefully, no idiot is going to say that sun elf Devout cleric looks like He Ying Ying or that drow Arcanist wizard looks like Shalynn Tsai. Because that’s not true and there’s no need for POFMA and the most metal Tamil in Singapore to prove me right. Arylos is weirdly (?) based off Emiya Kiritsugu and Archer, though. Pretty sure I pulled off a Koutetsujou no Kabaneri where Ikoma was concerned. Those who know where Eren Yeager came from should know what I’m talking about.

Back to the wizard. The changes to this class can be summed up in two things: AoE spec and single-target spec. While it’s not entirely true, Thaumaturge does have better AoE options while the same could be said for Arcanist when it comes to single-target. If you think Thaumaturge is mainly good for debuffs, I can testify that a hdps Thaumaturge is 100% doable so long you got the right gear and correct feats. That actually happened during a previous Master of the Hunt run. The fight was swiftly done with the Thaumaturge hitting more than 2 million points of damage while Arylos only racked up more than 1 million. I swear if that wizard was never self-handicapped in the first place, the damage might even breach the 3 million mark. And one more thing: Unless I remembered it wrong, that Thaumaturge happened to be a tiefling. Increased damage once target’s HP drops to 50% or less? Considering the current state of combat advantage damage, I wouldn’t be surprised if tiefling population is now increasing at a rate that’d make Planned Parenthood wonder what to do next.

Now the tricky part in using an Arcanist is that how would you ensure a lack of AoE options won’t give you problems. Thankfully, the lesser the number of options available, the easier to plan. It’s like deciding your best and winning XI in soccer (football if you’re as pure as an English football fan), be you a Nordic-Teuton broomstick named Jurgen Klopp or a bald salty Catalan called Pep Guardiola (note that for some reason, Pep seems to be a popular name in Catalonia just like Jurgen in Germany).

For Arcanist, you’ll need to make the most out of three things in solo running: Evocation, Storm Fury, and Icy Terrain. Icy Terrain should be a no-brainer since it’s a magnitude 200 encounter power that comes out faster than Jeremy Clarkson’s jokes (something which logically and naturally got him into a fight with George Michael before). Modify the engine with Evocation and there you have it. So what about Storm Fury? While I’ve yet to test it against Benicio Del Toro’s fellow furries in Barovia, a combination of moderate Briartwine reflecting 3% damage back to the dealer and Storm Fury is naturally good. Unless you’re running with a taunting companion, you may need this combination so that your counter-offensive game can help taking down at least 70% of the enemies in the map. This comes to using Shield via Spell Mastery. It’s... well, a useless strategy to me. The devs closed the gap between normal version and Spell Mastery version of almost every, if not every encounter power. Shield got it especially bad. However, normal version remains useful on a relative basis. This means a decent balance between surviving and using counter-offensive lightning bolts to maintain the dps momentum. You don’t have to worry about your HP dropping too fast and you don’t have to ask whether the damage is worth it. Remember, moderate Briartwine now deals better damage than previously. This leaves us the Spell Mastery and final encounter power slots. You most likely need an effective dueling strategy, so Ray Of Enfeeblement should be a decent option. Yes, it’s just a single target debuff. But the damage is quite good for a debuff power. Most importantly, it’s fast to come out. That suits the fast execution style and my inner Saxon, so feel free to dismiss my opinion and mess around especially if you favour unleashing the hold-and-execute style and your inner Roman. And yes, I know Jeremy Clarkson comes from a nation of Anglo-Saxons.

For Spell Mastery, it’s a no-brainer for me to use Repel. Yes, the damage for Spell Mastery version isn’t good, but I’m not a chooser when it comes to jailbreaking, beggar or no beggar. And besides, Repel got low cooldown. You don’t get that now everyday.

This comes to Oppressive Force. My advice to every Arcanist is... well, just use it. Seriously, just use it especially if it’s solo running. The damage is now so good, you can one-shot the average mob without blinking and teleporting. The first shot of damage is already good enough, the second shot would just go full Magneto. Trust me, you only need to try it, not knock it.

So effectively, anti-mob strategy should look like this: Magic Missile to apply pressure, Icy Terrain modded by Evocation for AoE damage, and Spell Mastery Repel for maintaining distance after some time of applying fast pressure. And yes, Oppressive Force as well for the full Magneto.

If it’s dueling especially anti-boss: Magic Missile to apply pressure, Ray Of Enfeeblement to add damage, and Ice Knife for that cool 1400 magnitude damage. Which is a lot given it’s just a well crafted giant popsicle. Okay, it’s not. That one is really a dagger shaped guillotine never seen before in France.

Just a note on the feats: It doesn’t matter whether it’s solo’ing or raiding, if you want to choose between Assailant and Chaos Magic, then just take both. The reason why being that either feat requires 10% probability to proc upon encounter or daily power usage, so you might as well maximise the usage of practical mathematics. Personally, relying on either instead of both doesn’t feel right. It’s like having one row of nukes instead of two. Feel free to prove me wrong, though. After all, I don’t supervise the Weave whenever Mystra goes out dating with Kelemvor. Seriously, I don’t.

On the raiding, the challenge lies in the choice of class features. Should I go for Eye Of The Storm and Storm Spell for maximum damage output or something else altogether? The way critical chance works is very different from the maximum 50% Captain Nonsense stated before the mod was released. At least that’s how I see it. The thing with deflection and critical ratings seems to point toward a comparison between actual numbers instead of percentage. Simply put, it’s a case of X vs X instead of X% vs X% when it comes to critical chance vs critical avoidance, accuracy vs deflection, and combat advantage vs awareness. This means planning a critical based build involves a fair bit of dealing with the unknown. In short, how would you know your opponent’s critical avoidance in the same way the other party wouldn’t know the cards in your hand? There’s no foolproof way to do a critical based build unless it’s healing. The best advice I can offer is to make sure your critical rating manages to hit the 30K mark. Either that or your critical rating reaches between 20K to 30K with Eye Of The Storm for adding 10K more. Actually, that’s what I did for Sheallyn.

This comes to Storm Spell. 30% to deal magnitude 100 lightning damage upon critical hit didn’t seem right to me. Should 100% magnitude be seen as worth it? It’s like Toto Tan waiting to strike Toto (i.e. the Singaporean version of Powerball minus the balls. I guess?). Actually, there’s a way to better the odds. Not that it’s tantamount to Rig It Like Raj because the devs would ban my account for that. Ray Of Frost. Yes, that seemingly useless death ice ray. Why I say seemingly instead of not using this word at all is very simple: Just hold the mouse button instead of mashing it and you’ll know what I mean. Even in the event where the target is control immune, the reverse defibrillator will still work. The last time I tested this was the first time I tested it. If you want to know how decently good your Arcanist is, just do a live firing drill via Master of the Hunt skirmish. I know it sounds easy enough, but the mobs and boss there have high resistance against arcane damage. While it’s easy for Thaumaturge to bypass this handicap due to having a ridiculously versatile damage game, Arcanist doesn’t have such luxury due to the tendency of relying on arcane damage. I wasn’t expecting much, but... the seemingly absurd actually worked. Top of the damage dealer ranking ladder even though it’s just a live firing exercise.

To end this post, allow me to give a personal recommendation for Spell Mastery if you’re raiding as an Arcanist: Disintegrate.

P.S: I won’t be surprised if this scene is only other SFW video available on YouTube where Goblin Slayer is concerned. So please don’t risk it unless you’re of legal age and legal maturity. Don’t make life harder for the school authorities out to rectify a serious problem. At least I hope something good will happen after Instagram and all the justified panic.
Definitely SFW so long your eyes are on the protagonist instead of his rumoured girlfriend

Add P.S: Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder whether the Japanese are actually a bunch of accidental theologians. Emiya Kiritsugu’s brutal brand of justice highlighted the reason why everyone including homosexuals and heavy death metal fans needs the Gospel. Psycho Pass is all about original sin while the world of Berserk is one where God doesn’t exist. As for Hellsing, it’s a case of 404 God not found, be He real or not. Then you have Goblin Slayer where the seemingly least significant of monsters are the most dangerous since everybody else was too obsessed with demons, dragons, etc.