How To Create a Controller Wizard

Controller Wizard Class Description

The Controller Wizard in the Neverwinter MMORPG is a character class focused on controlling and manipulating enemies. Controller Wizards can focus on damage, but a better path is a focus on hindering and weakening enemies to make them easier to defeat.

Controller Wizard Class Role Specifics

The Dungeons and Dragons 4e role that Controller Wizards fit into is Controller. Controllers deal with large numbers of enemies at the same time. They favor offense over defense, using powers that deal damage to multiple foes at once, as well as subtler powers that weaken, confuse, or delay their foes.

This means that your primary means to deal with enemies is through freezing them in place, stunning them, and tossing them around the battlefield. Each of these also has a damage component, but Controller Wizards primarily stop foes from doing what they normally would do while damaging them.

Creating a Controller Wizard

When you create a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter, keep in mind the primary abilities that make a good Controller Wizard:

1. Intelligence – Determines the effectiveness of your powers. This should be as high as possible so your powers achieve their maximum effect.
2. Constitution – I consider Constitution either primary or secondary for all characters. Constitution will determine your Hit Points. Hit Points reflect your characters survivability.

Picking a Race for your Controller Wizard

Next, you will need to select the race of the character you want to play. A couple of good choices for Controller Wizards in Neverwinter are Elves and Tieflings. These races may give you a slight advantage just starting out with their stat boosts. However, as you level, you can easily mitigate any advantage you may have had through assigning leveling points, feat points, and magic items. So don’t worry too much about what stats the race gives you.

Instead, choose a race that makes you happy, then look at the racial abilities they may offer as secondary, and lastly look to the ability bonuses the race may offer.

Rolling Dice for Ability Scores

You will roll virtual dice to determine starting ability scores. When you roll up your character you can roll all you want. So make sure you keep rolling until you get the best stats possible for your Controller Wizard. Intelligence should be maxed out, and Constitution should also be very high. Your other ability points will affect your character some, but not much, and not as importantly as your two primary abilities.

When you level up these abilities throughout your career as a Controller Wizard, you should put 1 point in Intelligence and 1 in Constitution every time.

Items and Gear for a Controller Wizard

The items and gear in the game definitely help fine tune your Controlling Wizard in Neverwinter. As a Controlling Wizard you are limited to the armor and protective gear you can equip, so do not put too much stock in this aspect of your gear. Rather, focus on increasing your power through items that grant Power bonuses. Also try to focus on items that grant Recovery. Recovery will allow your action points to regenerate faster allowing you to use your Daily Powers more often. This will become vital to your effectiveness as a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter.

To make up for the obvious lack of Hit Points and defensive capabilities, make sure to carry lots of healing potions. They are relatively cheap and easy to use in the heat of combat so use them liberally. With low defenses and hit points, one decent hit from a powerful attack will take you out. When you get to half your hit points, make sure to take a healing potion.

You can also get short term buffs through collectibles you will gather in each of the public areas. Make sure to use these collectibles and turn them into the Bounty Boards to get items to use for short term bonuses. These will always relate to the area you are in so use them while you are in the area.

Playing a Controller Wizard

When you are playing a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter, you will want to use caution at all times. Be careful as you move through dangerous areas to check out where enemies might be and how many there are.

The best strategy I found when playing a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter was to use my crowd control ability, such as the freeze ray, on the strongest enemy of the group. Then I’d use the Magic Missile on the nearest weak enemy, and teleport away to make the minions chase me while using the Ray of Frost on the toughest enemy again. Repeat until everything in the encounter is dead!

This strategy keeps the meanest enemy at bay to prevent the most damage, while also picking off the annoying minions. Teleporting away forces your enemies to stop their attacks and chase you down. This gives you a little bit of time to use your powers and slows down the damage. Be careful when you teleport that you don’t accidentally teleport into another group of enemies!

It is quite effective to start a challenging encounter by using the most damaging Encounter or Daily power that you have. This softens up your enemies and may even kill some. Then start the rotation of neutralizing the toughest enemy and eliminating the weakest enemy again.

The final piece of soloing which you will definitely need as a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter is healing potions. Make sure to have a good supply of these as you head into dungeons. You cannot wear good armor and you will take damage quickly, so heal potions are necessary for any well prepared Control Wizard.

Companions of your Controller Wizard

As you learn to play your Controller Wizard in Neverwinter you will learn what you like and what you don’t. You will get a feel for your character and what may be a good complement to your style. This is where your companion choices will come into play in Neverwinter.

I found that the best companion for my Controller Wizard in Neverwinter was a Defender. They worked well to get the attention of enemies. This way they would group on my companion making it easy to hit them with AOE attacks. This makes it a bit easier to manage combat since you only have to worry about one or two enemies at a time once your companion taunts them.

The other choice would be a DPS (Damage Per Second) or Striker companion. The extra damage this type of companion can offer will really speed things along. When you can afford two, this should be your second choice. Remember when using a Strike companion that they will not taunt so you will have to manage all of the enemies in an encounter, so have a plan!

Grouping as a Controller Wizard

When you are playing a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter, you will want to group with others for a lot of different reasons. Play your Controller Wizard well so you can be as beneficial to a group as possible. All classes can be played poorly but a well-played Controller Wizard can really help to make a group dominate the quest they are in.

When a Controller Wizard is in a group they will want to hang back and let the group engage the enemies first, for a few reasons:

1. The party’s enemies will group up, making them easy targets for your area of effect controlling powers.
2. The Controller Wizard will get a chance to pick out the toughest and strongest enemies for their best holding and stunning powers. One of the best uses of these is to interrupt powerful enemy’s most dangerous attacks.
3. Allows a better overall assessment of the battlefield.

It’s important to know that a well-played Controller Wizard in Neverwinter should never get the attention of the party’s enemies. This is called getting agro. If the Controller Wizard uses too many nukes or tries to handle creatures on their own instead of helping the main battle, they will likely die. This will also split the attention of the healers and other party members. This is a bad thing and can easily lead to the group getting wiped out.

The only time you should focus on something that the party is not focusing on is another powerful enemy that may be wreaking havoc with your healer or other party members. A Controller Wizard can use their crowd control powers to keep this other enemy at bay. Just a warning, this can be tricky and can get a Controller Wizard killed quickly, but if it works, it can be very helpful to the group.

Player Versus Player as a Controller Wizard

Disclaimer of Bias: First off let me say that Dungeons and Dragons has never been, nor ever should be, a game based on single player versus player battles. The whole point of Dungeons and Dragons is to bring players together in a group, not have them fight each other. To this end, each role in Dungeons and Dragons is meant to be part of a whole cohesive unit. Each piece cannot be balanced on its own, due to the unique role each fills. Being able to kill something is a very narrow view of what makes a character. That is just one thing in a long list of things that makes any Dungeons and Dragons game and group successful. Player versus player is a bit blasphemous, in my opinion, and goes against the true spirit of Dungeons and Dragons. However, group versus group battles are more reasonable and have a better chance of succeeding in balance. I will talk a little about both below.

Controller Wizards in player versus player combat are very difficult. Having low damage makes it very important to time your powers and their uses perfectly. If the power uses are timed correctly, a Controller Wizard may have a chance in single player versus player combat.

However, in group based player versus player combat, a Controller Wizard can be absolutely effective. Having offense and healing bolstered by your party, the powers of a Controller Wizard can smash apart another player versus player team in a hurry.

Player versus player or PVP can be very difficult for a Controller Wizard but it is also a great testing ground to master the powers in Neverwinter.

As a Controller Wizard, make sure to utilize your teleport power as often as possible when facing down another player as it can easily confuse and distract them. Use these short breaks of confusion to unleash your damaging powers and use your controlling powers to stop an enemy who would otherwise defeat you.

Overview of a Controller Wizard

All in all a Controller Wizard in Neverwinter can be a lot of fun to play. They can be challenging to solo and a boon to a group. If you like to think through each encounter and plan out your power usage throughout the battle, a Controller Wizard may be just want you want to play.

They don’t have the biggest damage in the game nor do they heal or take on enemies head on. They use their wit, guile and large array of powers to almost taunt and tease their enemies before finally defeating them. Through the use of feats and Paragon abilities, you will be able to tune your Controller Wizard into the specific kind of character you want for Neverwinter.