Wizard Mechanics Guide (Module 18)

Author: Sharpedge

Formatted by: Janne

Last Updated: 25/02/20 – Due to IRL issues further updates will be on hold until I am able to play the game again.

Preface

Due to my general disinterest with module 15 and 16, I skipped playing both and as a result did not write guides or update my old content for these time periods. However, come module 17 the content interests me enough to resurface and as a result of this, I have taken the time to write the document you see here. During both Module 16 and Module 17, I had the privilege of being invited to a closed beta where I could playtest the new content and so this guide comes with quite a lot of foreknowledge of what the content in module 17 is like, as well as the usual rigour which I like to apply to testing game content. Module 16 changed quite a lot in the game, removing many mechanics outright and simplifying the game as a whole and as a result, my guide will be quite condensed compared to those before. However, there is still quite a bit of room to explore.

Credits

Many thanks to the  following people who have contributed to this document either directly or indirectly:

• Janne, for help with formatting and proofreading and for hosting this on her site.
• Lightbringer, for help with proofreading the document and fixing mistakes.
• Miotest for pointing out a change made to Storm Spell and Striking Advantage.
• Pitshade, for pointing out errors missed by proof readers.
• Sacramentum, for help with proofreading the document. Helped update the Consumables section.
• Skullelf, for proofreading and adding suggestions to the guide. Also for adding the consumables section.

Legend

For easier reading and reference there are tooltips throughout the guide, words with tooltips have dotted underline.
Also the powers and skills are color coded to their mechanics:

• Arcane Powers.
• Cold Powers and Chill Stacks.
• Fire Powers and Smoulder.
• Lightning Powers.

Part 1 – Wizard Theory

This section deals exclusively with the theory side of the Wizard, fortunately for people who do not like mathematics, it is much shorter than before.

1. Class Mechanics

These are the fundamental mechanics built into the class that make it tick.

1.1 Arcane Stacks

Arcane Stacks increase your damage by 0.5% per stack. They stack up to 5 times by default, although the feat “A Step Above Mastery” raises that limit to 10 and also increases the damage buff from 0.5% to 1%. Arcane Stacks can be obtained from the following sources:

Unlike previous modules, Arcane Stacks remain active until their duration (8 seconds) has expired and do not fall off the moment combat ends.The list of powers in the table above also happens to be the list of powers which benefits from Arcane Mastery. Arcane Power Field is supposed to double the damage buff from Arcane Stacks while it is active. It is bugged and doesn’t double the bonus from A Step Above Mastery. Arcane Presence does not make Powers count as Arcane Powers for the purposes of other powers that modify Arcane Damage, for example Imprisonment. It is worth noting that Maelstrom of Chaos and Lightning Bolt refresh the duration of Arcane Stacks, even though they do not apply them.

1.2 Chill Stacks

Chill Stacks slow the enemy and depending on feats and class features, grant additional bonuses to damage and utility. Upon reaching 6 Chill Stacks, if you hit the enemy with Icy Terrain or Ray of Frost they will become Frozen, which is a control effect with a base duration of 5 seconds. Chill Stacks have a ~2.8 second duration and can be acquired from the following sources:

 The following feats modify the behavior of Chill:

• Relative Haste – Grants 1% Cooldown Reduction for each stack of Chill on your enemies, capping at 10%.
• Frigid Winds – Grants 1% increased damage per stack of Chill on an enemy, capping at 6%.
• Chilling Advantage – Increases your Critical Severity by 4% per stack of Chill on the enemy, capping at 24%. Broken as of the current preview patch.
• Snap Freeze – Applying Chill deals 40 Magnitude damage. This triggers off of every hit of Icy Terrain and Ray of Frost. Note this feat is bugged and if you are the only Wizard in the group it only applies 7 times.
• Rimefire Weaving – Having Chill on a target reduces its damage resistance by 5%.

It is worth noting that Maelstrom of Chaos and Lightning Bolt refresh the duration of Chill Stacks, even though they do not apply them.

1.3 Smoulder

Smoulder is a Damage over Time (DoT) effect with a duration of 12 seconds. It ticks once every 3 seconds, dealing 20 Magnitude per hit. Smoulder can be applied from the following sources:

• Scorching Burst.
• Fanning the Flame.
• Fireball.
• Furious Immolation.
• Critical Conflagration.

Applying Chill to an enemy who is afflicted with Smoulder converts it to Rimefire Smoulder, which extends the duration by another 12 seconds. Mechanically, there is theoretically no difference between Rimefire Smoulder and regular Smoulder, however in practice Rimefire Smoulder appears to benefit from more damage increases than Smoulder does, leading it to do significantly more damage. Applying either Smoulder or Chill while Rimefire is active will refresh the duration of Rimefire Smoulder and applying Smoulder while Smoulder is active will refresh the duration of Smoulder. The following feats modify the functionality of Smoulder:

• Smouldering Recovery – Every hit dealt by Smoulder to an enemy regenerates 0.25% Action Points.
• Glowing Flames – Smoulder deals 16 Magnitude damage to enemies within 15’ of the afflicted target. Increases to 32 Magnitude with Directed Flames. Does not benefit from Critical Burn.
• Critical Burn – Increases your Critical Severity by 10% and increases the damage of Smoulder and Rimefire Smoulder by 25% on Critical Hits.
• Directed Flames – Removes the DoT portion of Smoulder and converts it into a single hit for 64 Magnitude. This feat has an Internal Cooldown of 12 seconds.
• Rimefire Weaving – Having Smoulder on a target reduces its damage resistance by 5%. Having Rimefire Smoulder instead reduces its damage resistance by 10%. This feat is bugged and applies for all allies despite saying it is only for your damage. It also stacks, even though it should not.

1.4 Lightning

This is the least developed class mechanic for the Wizard class and in my opinion, it needs improvement in comparison to the others. To the point where it probably does not even warrant having a section of its own. The mechanic has nothing interesting to lend itself, unlike the other 3 mechanics and doesn’t impact gameplay in any way. With that being said, the following things apply “shock”:

• Storm Spell – When you Critically Hit, there is a 20% chance to shock your target for 100 Magnitude damage.
• Storm Fury – When you are hit by an enemy, they are shocked for 50 magnitude damage. This only occurs once every 3 seconds.
• Striking Advantage – Dealing Combat Advantage damage has a 20% chance to trigger an additional hit for 80 Magnitude. This always deals Combat Advantage damage.

Lightning Bolt, Storm Pillar and Maelstrom of Chaos are also Lightning themed powers, but as the mechanic is not utilized in any meaningful way, it is currently just fluff. Iced Lightning is a feat which increases the damage of Lightning themed powers by 10%.

2. General Mechanics

This section deals with mechanics that are not specific to the Wizard class. For the purposes of avoiding redundancy, a mechanic will not be explained here if it is covered on Janne’s Site.

2.1 Cast Time, Cooldowns and Action Points

Every power either has a Cast Time (CT) or Cooldown (CD), with some exceptions and either gives or consumes Action Points (AP). Here is a table listing the Base values for Wizard powers:

*Shield, Fanning the Flame and Fireball do not scale with AP Gain.
**Conduit of Ice has 10% variance in AP Gain.

2.1.1 Action Point Gain Multipliers

As this mechanic is not explained elsewhere, I will endeavour to explain it here. The way it functions is as follows:

1. Every Wizard Daily Power consumes 1,000 AP.
2. Every At-Will and Encounter Power generates 16.7 AP, multiplied by the CT of the power. For example, if a power has a CT of 10 seconds, it will generate 167 AP, or 16.7% of the bar.
3. The base value for Action Point Gain (APG) acquired in step 2, is then multiplied by every different source of APG there is. For example, with the boon Call of Power and 12 Constitution, the first hit of Magic Missiles will generate  AP.
4. The intention of this is that for every 60 seconds of time spent attacking an enemy, irrespective of what abilities you use,  you will regenerate 1 daily power.
5. The Inventory display for APG is incorrect and adds different sources of APG, it does not multiply them.

With that being said, there are not many different sources of APG. Here are the ones I could find:

• Constitution gives 0.25% APG per point.
• Call to Power gives 1% APG per point.
• Inner Calm (Sun Elf Racial Bonus) gives 2% APG.
• Wanderlust (Moon Elf Racial Bonus) gives 2% APG.
• Artifact Offhands give 2.5% APG.

2.1.2 Flat Action Point Gain

Whilst the section directly above deals with AP multipliers, not all sources of AP act as multipliers against a power’s base AP. The sources listed here act as an additional “source” of APG, but none of the sources listed here benefit from AP multipliers themselves.

• The Epic Snail bonus called Quick Action, Gives 5 AP every second, for 10 seconds.
• The Legendary Snail bonus called Quick Action, gives 10 AP every second for 10 seconds.
• Smouldering Recovery gives 2.5 AP every time Smoulder damages an enemy.
• Spell Twisting gives 10 AP every time you use an At Will after using an Encounter.
• Combustive Action gives 200 AP every time you kill an enemy who is afflicted with Smoulder, but has a CD of 1 second. It is intended to give only 10, but it is bugged.
• If the Quick Action Chaos Magic buff triggers, it gives 200 AP over 5 seconds.
• Black Ice Overloads give 12.5 AP every 0.25 seconds, for 2 seconds totaling to 100 AP.
• Sigil of the Devoted gives 15.625 AP every second, for 15 seconds (16 total triggers).
• Envenomed Storyteller’s Journal gives 340 AP over 15 seconds.
• Sunlord’s Gift Elixir gives 110 AP over 20 seconds.
• Lathander’s Dew gives 10 AP every 3 seconds.
• Potion of Power (legacy) gives 250 AP on use. These are no longer obtainable.
• Fey Weapons give 100 AP on Encounter use, once every 30 seconds.
• Burning Weapons give 250 AP on Daily use, once every 30 seconds.
• Executioner’s Zeal gives 30 AP whenever you kill an enemy.

In the end, the gain of AP in a given time is obtained by adding the sum of AP, gained by the casting of abilities (which are influenced by percentage AP gain sources), to the sum of AP from all the applicable additional sources (which aren’t influenced by percentage AP gain sources).

2.1.3 Cast Time and Cooldown Reduction Percentages

These mechanics are covered extensively on Janne’s Site and so I will not go into much detail here. The general idea is, the final CD of a power is equal to its base CD divided by the sum of all Cooldown Reduction (CDR) sources and the minimum CD of a power is equal to its CT. Here is a list of all the methods a Wizard can reduce CDs via Recharge Speed Increase (RSI):

• Charisma gives 0.25% RSI per point.
• Quick Turnaround (boon) gives 1% RSI per point.
• Relative Haste gives 10% RSI.
• Rapid Recovery gives 100% RSI for 5 seconds.
• Arcane Empowerment gives 400% RSI for 10 seconds.
• Artifact Offhands give 2.5% RSI.

2.1.4 Non Recharge Speed Cooldown Reduction

Whilst RSI is the most common method to reduce your CDs, it is not the only method. There are 2 other ways to reduce your CDs. Flat reductions (for example, 2 second reduction on daily use) or percentage reductions (for example, 30% on daily use). Here is a list of these types of reductions:

• Opportunism reduces your CDs by 30% on Artifact use. It is from the Legendary Griffon.
• Artificer’s Persuasion reduces your CDs by 2 seconds on Artifact use. It is an Insignia Bonus and you can find out how to get it on Rainer’s Pocket Wiki.
• Alacrity reduces your CDs by 2 seconds on Daily Power use.
• Encounter’s Reprieve grants a 10% chance to reduce your CDs by 1 second on Critical Hits.

2.2 Magnitudes and Target Caps

Magnitudes are an important concept which were finally made visible in module 16. They have always existed, but were previously obfuscated behind numbers and you had to reverse engineer the game a bit in order to find out what they were. Prior to module 16, I referred to them as “Ability Coefficients” but now that we have an official terminology for them, we will progress with that.

The basic idea of a Magnitude is, that it is a value that you multiply your Weapon Damage by, in order to determine how much damage you do. For a full explanation of them, you can take a look at Janne’s Site.

The concept of a Target Cap (TC) is to establish how many enemies a power can effectively hit, in order to allow different powers to do varying amounts of damage and be better against different groups of enemies. Say for example, 1 power did 0.5 damage, but had a TC of 3. It would deal 1.5 damage against 3 targets, making it better against 3 targets than a power which does 1 damage, but has a target cap of 1. Prior to Module 16, every Area of Effect (AoE) had its own TC, but as of module 16, all AoEs have a TC of 15.

Here is a table listing the Magnitude, Magnitude per Second (MpS) and Required Target Number for AoEs to be superior to the weakest Single Target power, for every power, the columns represent the following:

• Type – the type of skill, for example, at will.
• MpS Empowerment Arc – Magnitude per Second with Arcane Empowerment active.
• MpS No Empowerment Arc – Magnitude per Second with Arcane Empowerment inactive.
• MpS Average Arc – Average Magnitude per Second assuming base AP gain across a theoretical fight with infinite duration, taking into account uptime and downtime of Arcane Empowerment.
• Target Count AoE – How many targets you need to hit to break even with the best Single Target power.

The top 4 for each power type is highlighted in their respective column.  The final column is how many targets an AoE power needs to hit in order to surpass the strongest single target power. The Magnitude of Entangling Force increases with its duration on the target, which is increased by Arcane Stacks, for every 0.5 seconds it lasts. Note that whilst Arcane Empowerment is not in this table, it is the best Daily Power for Arcanist. Also note that whilst Icy Terrain performs on paper better than Ray of Enfeeblement for single target, it does not scale with the Arcanist self buffs and it also assumes every tick hits.

As you can deduce from reading that spreadsheet, on Single Target, the best powers for Arcanist are as follows:

• Magic Missiles.
• Entangling Force.
• Ray of Enfeeblement.
• Repel.
• Disintegrate.
• Arcane Empowerment.

If you have Snap Freeze allocated, then you can replace Ray of Enfeeblement with Icy Terrain and Magic Missiles with Ray of Frost, although most of the time I prefer to leave Ray of Enfeeblement as most bosses move around too much to take advantage of Icy Terrain. If you are the only Wizard in the group it is also better to use Assailing Force due to the bug with Snap Freeze only causing it to apply 7 times. As far as Class Features go, you want to be using Storm Spell and Chilling Presence with Snap Freeze and Storm Spell and Arcane Power Field with Assailing Force.

If you are playing Thaumaturge and using Critical Conflagration (which you should be using), then the ideal power line up for Single Target is as follows:

• Ray of Frost.
• Entangling Force.
• Repel.
• Ray of Enfeeblement.
• Icy Rays.
• Ice Knife.

 I do not recommend playing Thaum on Single Target, as a damage dealer, it is underwhelming. There is however an alternative route to playing thaumaturge, which is viable due to bugs, which I will list here:

• Ray of Frost.
• Scorching Burst.
• Ray of Enfeeblement (mastery).
• Icy Terrain.
• Entangling Force.
• Repel.
• Furious Immolation.

This build requires you to be crit capped and using Swath of Destruction and Critical Conflagration as your class features, as well as having Rimefire Weaving. It is not a DpS build, it is a support build which relies on debuffing enemies to increase party performance. It is not worth using in a 5 man group (in my opinion) but is a very strong asset in a 10 man group, due to bugs. Note, that your rotation is very important for this build. The rotation you should use is as follows:

1. Furious Immolation.
2. Icy Terrain.
3. Ray of Enfeeblement.
4. Ray of Frost (1 cast).
5. Scorching Burst (1 cast).
6. Entangling Force.
7. Repel.

This relies on Furious Immolation critically hitting, if it does not, you probably want to stop hitting until Smoulder falls off. If it does critically hit, then you will force Smoulder to stack on an enemy (it should not stack). This also causes the Rimefire Weaving feat to stack. You will need to refresh both Rimefire and Smoulder at least once every 12 seconds with an individual cast of Ray of Frost and Scorching Burst. Otherwise, after this point you can cast powers off cooldown.

Here is a picture showing the debuff effectiveness with the rotation above in use:

Effectiveness is the measure of how much your damage is increased by Damage Resistance Debuffs. In this picture, 20% is from Rimefire Weaving, 10% is from Ray of Enfeeblement and 4% is from Swath of Destruction, totalling to 34% debuff effectiveness. Note, this functioning this way is 100% a bug and will likely be fixed, do not expect for this to remain as is for an extended period of time. Realistically, accounting for uptime you will only be able to keep up 24% and in a group, allowing for other debuffs that would only be a ~15% damage increase. It is hard to justify doing this in a 5 man group, but in a 10 man group it is ok. You can see in this picture below that Rimefire, Smoulder and Ray of Enfeeblement are active. This is the situation you are trying to create.

2.3 Trigger Mechanics

Trigger mechanics are mechanics that occur without direct player control, on the condition an event occurs. For example, Storm Spell is a Trigger Mechanic as it “triggers” 30% of the time, when you Critically Hit. Trigger Mechanics fall into 2 very broad, general categories. Inherited Procs and non-Inherited Procs. Inherited Procs are Trigger Mechanics that are not really independent from the power that triggers them, as they take on the properties of whatever causes them to proc. For example, Shatter Strike is an Inherited Proc; If it is activated by an Encounter, then anything that increases the damage of the Encounter will also increase the damage of Shatter Strike. Alternatively, if the power that triggers Shatter Strike Critically Hits, then Shatter Strike will Critically Hit as well.

Here is a list of all Wizard Inherited Procs:

• Snap Freeze – Deal 40 Magnitude damage every time you apply Chill.
• Shatter Strike – Deal 150 Magnitude damage to Control Immune enemies with Control Powers. Does not trigger off of Ray of Frost.
• Shatter – 20% chance when damaging a Frozen enemy to Shatter them, dealing 250 Magnitude damage and Stunning them for 5 seconds.

Here is a list of all Wizard non-Inherited Procs:

• Smoulder – 20 Magnitude per tick, ticks 4 times.
• Rimefire Smoulder – 20 Magnitude per tick, ticks 4 times.
• Arcane Power Field – 50 Magnitude per tick, ticks 4 times on Daily Power use.
• Storm Fury – Deals 50 Magnitude damage when you are hit by an enemy, can only trigger once every 3 seconds.
• Glowing Flames – Smoulder deals 20% of its damage to nearby enemies within 15’.
• Storm Spell –  30% chance to deal 100 Magnitude damage on Critical Hits.
• Striking Advantage – 20% chance to deal 80 Magnitude damage when you deal Combat Advantage damage.

Usually, non-Inherited Procs end up being underwhelming, as they do not benefit from many buffs that they otherwise would, or should. In the case of Smoulder, if it is triggered off of Critical Conflagration for example, it is not capable of Critically Striking.

2.4 Control Mechanics

Although Wizards are no longer strictly a “control” class, they still have control hard coded into them more than any other class. For example, they have a feature called, “Control Mastery” which extends the duration of Stuns, Roots, Holds and Dazes by 2.5 times. The durations of Wizard Control effects are as follows:

Prior to Module 16, there were many ways to increase and reduce the duration of Control Effects. I cannot think of many anymore and maybe in the future I will expand on this section, as I am unsure of if and how they have changed the functionality of these mechanics. They may not have changed the mechanics of Control Resistance and Control Bonus at all, but without testing it we cannot be certain. If you are interested in reading how they used to behave however, here is a reference to my prior work.

2.5 Buffs and Debuffs

There are 2 types of buffs and debuffs. Firstly there are Outgoing Damage Debuffs, which reduce the outgoing damage an enemy deals to you, then there are Defense Debuffs,which increase the damage you deal to the enemy. As far as buffs go, there are personal buffs and there are shared buffs. In the interest of making this easier to read, the buffs are covered in one section and the debuffs are covered in another.

2.5.1 Damage Buffs

All damage buffs are additive with each other, with the exception of your damage attribute (Intelligence for Wizards) which is multiplicative. For example, if you have the Feat Frigid Winds and the Class Feature Chilling Presence and 6 stacks of Chill, they will add with each other for a net damage increase of 12% and will not multiply for an increase of 12.36%. The difference between personal and shared buffs is self explanatory, the personal ones only apply to you and the shared buffs apply to everyone. As of Module 16, Wizard only has a single shared buff, Controlled Momentum, which is a 2% buff and is applied by the following powers:

• Ice Storm.
• Chill Strike.
• Entangling Force.
• Repel.
• Shield Burst.
• Icy Terrain.
• Icy Rays.
• Steal Time.
• Shard of the Endless Avalanche.

Here is a table of all personal buffs and their percentages:

Powers which constitute Area of Effect are as follows:

• Repel (Mastery).
• Icy Terrain.
• Shield Burst.
• Steal Time.
• Lightning Bolt.
• Storm Pillar (Fully Charged).
• Arcane Singularity.
• Oppressive Force.
• Maelstrom of Chaos.
• Chill Strike (Mastery).
• Fanning the Flame.
• Conduit of Ice.
• Chilling Cloud (3rd Hit).
• Scorching Burst.
• Fireball.
• Furious Immolation.
• Ice Storm.

2.5.2 Defense and Damage Debuffs

Defense Debuffs cause an afflicted target to take more incoming damage, whilst Outgoing Damage Debuffs cause a target to deal less outgoing damage. The way the 2 work are as follows:

Wizard does not have many of either of these; When it comes to Defense Debuffs, we have the following:

Ray of Enfeeblement is also an Outgoing Damage Debuff, which reduces the damage an enemy deals by 10%.

Part 2 – Item Mechanics

When it comes down to building your character, the mechanics of some items are not that clear and it can be a deciding factor for how you decide to complete your build. This section aims to cover items of potential interest, which have bonuses that are not stat related. It is worth noting that when looking for items, both Janne’s Site and Rainer’s Pocket Wiki are great resources.

1 Artifacts

There are many useful Artifacts, so to make it easier this section is broken down broadly into 3 categories. The first is burst DpS artifacts, which are good if you are the main damage dealer in a group and are killing enemies quite rapidly. The second are burst Support artifacts, which are good if there are multiple contributing DpS, but the debuffs have short durations and are only good for short fights. The third type are long duration debuffs, which are good for long fights, both when there are many contributing DpS and only a few. There are niche cases where you might want a defensive Artifact, the best 2 for PVE would be firstly the Forgehammer of Gond and secondly the Wheel of Elements.

1.1 Burst DpS Artifacts

There are 5 Artifacts which fall into this category. They are as follows:

• Soul Sight Crystal – 25% personal damage buff against a single target for 10 seconds.
• Sigil of the Cleric – 25% Action Points regenerated over 10 seconds. This is an inferior version of the Envenomed Storyteller’s Journal.
• Envenomed Storyteller’s Journal – 30% Action Points over 15 seconds. It is bugged and generates 34%, not 30%. If you activate it during Arcane Empowerment you gain no action points.
• Wyvern-Venom Coated Knives – In combination with the Opportunism mount power which is acquired from the Armoured Griffon, if you deliberately miss enemies with  this artifact you can reduce your Cooldowns by 30% every 15 seconds.
• Decanter of Atropal Essence – 1% damage buff that stacks up to 10% by the boon of Atropal hitting enemies 10 times, for 20 seconds. The base duration can be extended 10 times by 1 second so long as you are hitting enemies, sometimes even more if you hit multiple enemies at once. Longest duration I have seen for it is 52 seconds.

Out of those listed above, I prefer to use the Envenomed Storyteller’s Journal.

1.2 Burst Debuff Artifacts

There are many artifacts that fall into this category, but I will just list a few:

• Wyvern-Venom Coated Knives – If you alternatively were to hit with this artifact instead of miss with it, it applies a 12% Defense Debuff as well as a 12% Outgoing Damage Debuff to enemies for 10 seconds. Different ranks of this Artifact stack (legendary and mythic for example) but the same ranks do not.
• Lantern of Revelation – 10% Defense Debuff that lasts 10 seconds. Does not stack.
• Heart of the Black Dragon – 10% Defense Debuff for 10 seconds. Does not stack.
• Charm of the Serpent – 10% Defense Debuff for 10 seconds. Does not stack.
• Token of the Chromatic Storm, Acid – 10% Defense Debuff for 10 seconds. Does not stack.
• Thirst – 10% Defense Debuff, lasts 10 seconds and does not stack.
• Tome of Ascendance, Illusion – 10% Defense Debuff, lasts 10 seconds and does not stack.

Each of these Debuff Artifacts will stack with each other, so in a group with multiple people using them, it is best to coordinate and find one that nobody else is using. Out of this category, I prefer the Wyvern-Venom Coated Knives, due to its versatility but if you are really into min-maxing you will ideally want all of them.

1.3 Long Duration Debuff Artifacts

There aren’t that many artifacts of this type and there isn’t really any content in the game at the moment that necessitates using them, but if there was, these are the ideal choices:

• Vanguard’s Banner – 5% Defense Debuff and 2,500 power buff. Lasts for 30 seconds.
• Tactician’s Banner – 5% APG Buff and 25% movement speed buff. Lasts for 30 seconds.

Ideally you would use the Vanguard’s Banner if you were using one of these, but it would likely be taken by someone else.

2 Mounts

These are an expensive investment to make and so it is understandable for a player to hesitate before just jumping onto one. There are two criteria to choose a mount: The combat power and the active effect. Both will be covered here.

2.1 Combat Power

There are both offensive and defensive mount powers and I am of the controversial opinion that the defensive ones are actually better than the offensive ones, which really do only make a minor impact. If you are in a group that is trying to break speed records however, the offensive ones are your go-to choice. In no particular order, the mounts I would choose between are:

• Armored Griffon – Reduces the enemies’ damage by 15% for 10 seconds.
• Tyrannosaurus Rex – 10% instance wide Defense Debuff which lasts 10 seconds and does not stack. If a group of people could co-ordinate the uptime of this in extended fights in theory it is better than the Bat Swarm.
• Bat Swarm – 5% personal damage buff and 5% Defense Debuff against 1 target for 10 seconds that stacks.

My personal choice is the the Bat Swarm as it stacks, but if there was ever content that needed mitigation I would switch to an Armored Griffon.

2.2 Active Power

Unfortunately for the most part, the good choices here don’t really overlap with the combat power, so you would be investing into 2 different mounts with the sole exception of the Armored Griffon. The power mount only beats the other offensive mount power, provided you cap cap your other offensive statistics without a mount power.

• Armored Griffon – On Artifact use, reduce your cooldowns by 30%. Combos well with the Wyvern-Venom Coated Knives.
• Black Ice Warhorse or Arcane Whirlwind – 10,000 Power.
• Coastal Flail Snail – 10% Action Points over 10 seconds.
• Triceratops – 50,000 Hitpoints. This mount has the best return on investment, giving more ratings than any other mount.

I personally recommend the Black Ice Warhorse or the Whirlwind for 10,000 power, but if you ever needed mitigation, the Triceratops would be the best bet.

3 Enchantment Slots

Enchantments are another expensive investment, that many people may want to hesitate a bit before they decide to make a choice. This section hopes to make the choice easier for the reader.

3.1.1 Weapon Enchantments

As far as Weapon Enchantments go,  there are 3 good choices for DpS. The Bilethorn, the Lightning and the Vorpal. Bilethorn is roughly a 10% increase across a long period of time on single target.

Vorpal, increases your damage depending on your Critical Severity. Assuming you have 110% Critical Severity without Vorpal, it is a 6.4% damage increase, compared to the 10% that is Bilethorn. Lightning is a ~15% damage increase against 3 or more enemies, but drops off to a 5% increase against a single enemy.

I know that this does not explain the maths behind proc enchantments, but, to explain at a very basic level how most of them work however, is that they add an extra hit to your powers, for X magnitude damage. Take for example a R12 Lightning Enchantment, which adds an additional hit for 40 Magnitude damage. If you trigger it with Ray of Frost and there is only 1 enemy, it will deal an extra hit for 40% of your weapon damage. This damage then scales with whatever buffs are present on that At-Will and any debuffs on the enemy scale it further. In short, the damage increase for the weapon enchantment is dependant on what skills you use to trigger it and how many times those skills trigger it. At a very basic level, the damage increase is equal to:

This does not factor in things like Critical Severity or Combat Advantage, which is necessary when doing comparisons with Vorpal, or variables such as debuffs, which is necessary when comparing with Bronzewood. If explanations for further enchantments are desired, I may in future write a document on them. With this being said, it is important to note that Bilethorn has some weird quirks and the second hit doesn’t crit when triggered off of some power activations. The list of how many times the first and second hit triggers off each power and whether it crits or not is as follows:

3.1.2 Armour Enchantments

When it comes to Armour Enchantments, there are 2 real choices, the Soulforged and the Barkshield. Soulforged is good for bringing you back if you make a mistake, however it doesn’t really do anything to prevent you from making mistakes in the first place. I prefer Barkshield as a result of this, which prevents you from dying in the first place by mitigating incoming damage.

Really though, Armour Enchantments play a minor role in the development of your character and it isn’t your highest priority to obtain one as a Wizard.

4 Gear Bonuses

As these bonuses are no longer unique to individual pieces of gear and have been named, I won’t be covering the gear pieces but rather the bonuses themselves. Here is a list of the bonuses I find to be interesting for the Wizard, as well as what they modify.

• Sniper’s Perk – Ranged Powers deal 3% more damage. It stacks twice, but no more. Hag’s Rags have this bonus.
• Brute’s Fury – Your Powers deal 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% more damage to targets within 25’. Stacks at different ranks. Shadowstalker rings have this bonus.
• At-Will Perk – Your At Wills deal 3% more damage. Does not stack. Boots of the Willed have this bonus.
• Encounter Perk – Your Encounters deal 3% more damage. Does not stack. Jawripper’s Grips have this bonus.
• Charged Fury – Deal 3% more damage when over 75% stamina. Does not stack. Enduring Boots have this bonus.
• Critical Charge – 10% chance to gain 25 AP on Critical Hit once every 5 seconds. It does not contribute much AP gain at all. Protege’s Ward Trousers have this bonus.
• Executioner’s Zeal – Gain 3% Action Points back on kill. Probably the best boots bonus for trash monsters. Primal Boots have this bonus.
• Butcher’s Might – When you damage or heal a target for more than 15% of your Hitpoints, you gain 1% power for 10 seconds (max 5%). If you hit multiple targets with a single power, it only triggers once. Only increases power from the Items and Features categories, not the Buffs category, with the exception of the stronghold power boon. Primal Gloves have this bonus. This bonus does stack across multiple items that have it.
• Tit for Tat – Your At Will and Encounter powers deal 3% more damage, your Daily powers deal 30% less damage. Probably not a good choice for Thaumaturge, but optional for Arcanist. Fearbringers have this bonus. It does not stack at all.
• Encounter’s Reprieve – 10% chance to reduce your CDs by 1 second on Critical Hits. The Protege’s Shirt has this bonus.
• Undermountain Hunter – 5% increased damage in Undermountain. Does not stack. Protege’s Charmed Hat has this bonus.
• Gluttonous Might – Increases damage dealt by 5%. Decreases incoming healing by 25%. Rusted Iron Leggings have this bonus.
• Challenger’s Might – Increases power by 5000 when fighting against only 1 enemy. Fancy Duelist Mask of Cormyr has this bonus.
• Escalating Might – Gain 250 power when you strike an enemy, lose a stack when you are struck. Stacks 20 times. Lion Guard’s Raid Armlets has this bonus.

The Executioner’s Black Garbs bonus, “Executioner’s Blade” is a 3% damage buff. Although the tooltip states it is 5%, this is not the case and it is a worse option than the Ebony Stained Robes.

The following list of power constitutes as “Ranged” for the purposes of Sniper’s Perk:

• Conduit of Ice.
• Disintegrate.
• Ray of Enfeeblement.
• Chill Strike.
• Repel.
• Icy Rays.
• Fireball.
• Entangling Force.
• Ray of Frost.
• Magic Missiles.
• Chilling Cloud.
• Ice Knife.
• Arcane Bolt.

Storm Spell, Smoulder and Rimefire Smoulder do not benefit from Sniper’s Perk. All Wizard Encounters benefit from Encounter Perk, but once again Smoulder and Rimefire do not. Brute’s Fury and Charged Fury boost all your damage sources, including Smoulder. Tit for Tat boosts all Encounters and At-Wills and reduces all Dailies, but doesn’t modify Smoulder.

5 Artifact Equipment Set

For your neck and belt, there are 3 possible choices when building a Wizard. The first is the Mad Mage set, the second is the Arcturia set and the third is the Dark Remnants set . The Arcturia set on Daily Power use, hits for 15% of every power that occurs from the moment the daily is cast until 10 seconds later to every enemy within 80′. It does not trigger off of Smoulder either and only triggers off the first hit of many DoTs (for example Conduit of Ice), although it triggers off every hit of Icy Terrain. The Mad Mage set buffs your damage by 5% after standing still for 3 seconds. Note that dodging once does not count as movement, but dodging twice does. In some situations where it is possible to stand still for large periods of time (for example, Tower of the Mad Mage), this set is optimal, however these scenarios do not occur often. Finally, the Dark Remnants set. This set is ideal for Avernus and likely for all upcoming content in module 19, being very good against demons.

6 Insignias and Pets

Insignia Bonuses are provided by sticking the correct combination of insignias into mounts, in the stable on the mounts tab. The bonuses do stack if you include more than 1 at the same time, but they provide a diminishing bonus for every one you stack, with 5 of the same bonuses only providing an extra 75% over and above the amount provided by a single one. For wizard, I find the following to be useful:

• Artificer’s Persuasion – Reduces your cooldowns by 2 seconds after using an Artifact.
• Assassin’s Covenant – Reduces your Defense, Deflect, Critical Strike Avoidance and Awareness by 1,000, but increases your Accuracy, Armour Penetration, Critical Strike and Combat Advantage by the same amount.
• Gladiator’s Guile – Increases your movement speed by 10% while your stamina is above 75%.
• Champion’s Return – When you are reduced below 50% hitpoints you heal 10% of your HP and stamina over 10 seconds. It only occurs once every 60 seconds.
• Combatant’s Maneuver – Gain 2,500 Combat Advantage after controlling an enemy. Ray of Frost is the easiest way to trigger this, although there are many other Wizard powers which work.

When it comes to pets, there are quite a few important aspects. Firstly the summoned pet, the best of which is the Bulette Pup, which has increased Combat Advantage, Defense and Power. Whilst the Yojimbo does still have a 10% debuff, it is likely a bug and even due to it, it is not recommended you use one due to the sheer quantity of ratings you will lose. Xuna is another bugged pet, which is doing significant;y more DpS than a player but I do not recommend investing into broken items. The next important choice is the Enhancement power, the ideal choice of which is Potent Precision increases Critical Severity, you can find out which pets provide this on Rainer’s Pocket Wiki.

Finally, here are some of the more interesting pets to us as a DpS:

• Tamed Velociraptor (Offense) – 2,000 power for everyone who is using it.
• Green Slime (Defense) – 8,000 Defense. This is great if you need to cap your defense.
• Staldorf (Offense) – 8,000 Combat Advantage.
• Deepcrow Hatchling (Offense) – 8,000 Power.
• Alpha Compy (Utility) – 5% more power. If you are in Chult, you gain 10% instead. If you use consumables while in chult, they take the 10% rather than the 5%.
• Zhentarim Warlock (Utility) – 4,000 more Combat Advantage, 16,000 more Hitpoints.
• Phase Spider (Defense) – 2,000 Critical Strike, 4,000 Combat Advantage.
• Batiri (Offense) – 4% damage buff against bosses.
• Broom (Defense) – 4% Critical Severity. The best defensive option.
• Portal Hound (offense) – Increased damage against Kabal’s minions. It is currently bugged and provides damage against all types of minions. I don’t recommend investing into this bug because it is useless if it is fixed.

The Hunting Hawk sounds good in theory, but the damage buff only applies to At-Wills and does not modify the damage of your procs. Due to this in practice it is not better than an Alpha Compy. The Netherese Arcanist is an additional hit and also does not trigger off of procs, it is pretty bad and should not be used either. Death Slaad is also poor, contributing only ~1% to your DpS at legendary.

7 Consumables

This section was written by skullelf and formatted by Sacramentum, full credit to them. Consumables play a pivotal role in character optimization and are often overlooked by many players. During a dungeon run, you will most likely want as much power as you can get from any non-gear related items.In this section I will recommend on some of the Consumables which I consider best for a CW. There are 8 categories of Consumables. Within a category, consumables do not stack and you can use 1 consumable from each category at a time.

Immediate effect consumables:

1. Stone of Health – fills your Hit Points.

2. Potion of Power (Legacy) – fills 25% of your Action Points.

Additional useful items:

1. Doohickey – deals AoE damage. Very useful for when you need to hit something fast but your encounters have cooldowns. This can be obtained in the Wonders of Gond event. 30 seconds cooldown and cannot be used from your inventory. You must slot it on your belt.

2. Greater Corrupt Black Ice Enchantment – When dealing damage you have a 25% chance to empower yourself with Corrupt Black Ice, granting 800 power/ armor penetration/ critical strike for 8 seconds. Additionally, you generate 1.25% of your Action Points each second while affected by this buff. Can trigger only once every 70 seconds.

It’s not an ideal option but there are not many overload enchantments which we can consider good on the current content.

3. Mark of the <Mob Type> Slayer, rank 2 – Increases your damage against mobs by 10%. This Overload Enchantment procs from initial hits only (won’t proc from every tic of smoulder) and will hit the target with an additional hit equal to 10% of the damage of the hit that procced it. It is important to mention that in the new content (LoMM and ToMM) there are no mobs which can proc this enchantment.

4. Rage of Flames overloads. Although they state they only boost physical damage the tooltip is incorrect and all overload types are modified.

5. Alliance Champion Horn – +4000 power and +30 Action Points per second for 21 seconds, for a total of 63% Action Points. This bonus scales with APG.

8 Character Statistics

In order to build a good character, you need to optimize your character’s statistics in such a way so that you meet certain caps. The best tool to help you do this is on Janne’s Site, on the optimization page. These are the stats you will need to be able to contribute in various pieces of endgame content:

Lair of the Mad Mage

• 68,000 Armour Penetration.
• 68,000 Critical Strike.
• 68,000 Accuracy.
• The rest into power.

Tower of the Mad Mage

This trial is no joke, it is the hardest content this game has ever had and you had best be prepared going into it. Ignore the item level requirement, the most important factor is having the right gear.

Straight off the bat, you Need to be able to survive hits for over 1 million damage. How you do this is up to you, the way to do it purely off gear is the following:

1. 400,000 Hitpoints.
2. 80,000 Defense.
3. Griffon Mount.

This leaves you with 26,000 HP after mitigation. Alternatively, if you want to forego using a DpS artifact and use a Forgehammer, you can have anything over 250,000 HP. Starting out I would recommend going in with 400,000 HP and 80,000 defense, then gradually lower the HP until you find an amount that is comfortable for you. Aside from the HP, you will want 5 Tactical Enchantments in utility slots and for a mount power you will either want a Griffon or a Tyrannosaur. Either way, a bullet list of all the stats that are required are as follows:

• The ability to survive a premitigated hit of >1,000,000 damage.
• 80,000 Defense.
• 80,000 Armour Penetration.
• 80,000 Critical Strike.
• 70,000-80,000 Accuracy.
• The rest into Power and Combat Advantage, with a maximum amount of 130,000 Combat Advantage.
• I consider tacticals the best choice for utility slot for this trial, netting 6% increased incoming healing per stack.

Here is an example of my Character Statistics, before buffs have been applied, for the early preview trial runs:

Whilst I was running with 289,000 Hitpoints at the time, I do not recommend running with this much unless you know absolutely every mechanic and are certain you can dodge everything and react correctly to everything. If I made a single mistake with this HP value, I would die. My statistics were not entirely optimized at the time either, these were what I had from early runs on preview and they were much improved once I had access to the gear I wanted, but this should serve as a decent base line. Note, that whilst you can use shield to mitigate the big hits, it will cost you roughly 15% of your DpS and it should be considered a last resort. Losing statistics is almost always less of a damage loss.

My Build

Although I do not like sharing my build, numerous people have requested I do so. Please note: This is probably not useful for you in any way. I have a lot of capital and can afford to build characters which are not within most players budgets. Unless you have 100’s of millions of AD, this is not a good guideline to follow. Also worth noting, this is only the setup I run for ToMM, there are better setups for lower level content. Note, I have not changed my gear since module 17 as I am not playing very actively at the moment, but at the bottom of these pictures I will list what I would consider for module 18.

Artifact I switch between Envenomed Storyteller’s Journal/Soul Sight/Decanter/Debuff Artifact depending on the situation. Weapon Enchantment is Bilethorn, Armour Enchantment is Barkshield. Offensive and Defensive slots are Radiants, with the exception of a single Defensive Slot which is Draconic. Utility Enchantments are Tacticals except for a single Dark.

Mod 18 Changes

• Boots – Change Tempter of the Twilight’s Gaiters with Rusted Iron Leggings. I would keep the Gaiters set aside however for groups where the healer struggles to heal me.
• Artifact Set – Change Demogorgon with Dark Remnants for The Infernal Citadel or Arcturia for everything else. The Mad Mage set may be good for Tower of the Mad Mage, but the difference is so small between it and Arcturia that I can’t be bothered to switch for 1 piece of content. The only reason I am considering Dark Remnants is because I expect it to be ideal for the module 19 trial.
• Gloves – In some cases, the new Lion’s Guard Gloves may be better than the Vivified Gloves.
• Helmet – Fancy Duelist Mask of Cormyr for all non Undermountain content.

I am not bothering to cap stats for Citadel, even though it is possible. The dungeon is too easy to justify the headache. I will wait for the module 19 Zariel trial and then cap stats there.

Ability Scores

The bonuses provided by each ability score is either equal to the ability score divided by 400, or the ability score divided by 200. Say for example Intelligence, grants a 0.25% damage bonus per point. The best ability scores for Wizards depends on the circumstances, with Intelligence always been the primary choice and then Charisma or Dexterity being the secondary choice. With Module 17 onwards, the best choice is always Dexterity, making the choice easy.

Closing Words

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read through my guide and especially thanks to those who find the time to verify what I have written and point out any mistakes to me. The most important part of learning and improving is looking for the mistakes you make, admitting you have made them and then making an active effort to fix where you have gone wrong. When writing these guides I strive to be correct above anything else and so if I made any mistakes, please do take the time to tell me, I really do appreciate it. Also a big thank you to those who took the time to proofread and add suggestions, your additions are invaluable.