Build Guide
Video shows a run with a ZDH, but this is not ideal. Ideal is obviously zwizard (more survivability, more attack speed, etc). But those were the volunteers available at the time.
I changed the video out and it now shows what a run with a zwiz can be like. Link to old 95 video: https://youtu.be/yyeHQ_SlIA0
Okay so here's the deal. You can't ignite outside of archon like usual, but you also can't ignite inside of archon. It's a combination of the two.
Here's kind of how it goes:
- Put down Hydra
- Get to 20 chantodo stacks
- (if on first transformation) wait for Fire Cycle (if on second transformation with overlap, pray you have enough CDR to land on another fire cycle with overlap)
- Put down Hydra again right before you go into archon
- Archon! Use your laser on elites, and try to stand in those oculus stacks.
- Sit there and use arcane torrent, try to stand in oculus stacks, and hope that manald goes off. If it does, you're going to do a lot of damage
- Repeat.
If you're currently in archon and something new gets found, note that the only way to ignite it is to have your hydra hit it. So ideally your barb keeps dragging over to the same spot. Hydra lasts about 15 seconds, so you only have 5 seconds of downtime during archon where you can't ignite at all. This also goes for RG. If the RG spawns and you're in archon, try to let your group know that it needs to come over and get hit by the hydra. Yes, you're only possibly losing a little bit of time during the archon downtime but if you ignite right before archon goes off, manald can do a HUGE burst while you're waiting for it to come back up, those 16 seconds can be a big deal.
To be completely honest I'm not sure if this build does more damage than standard firebirds group spec, owing to the fact that it's kind of awkward to ignite. But it felt like it was doing way more damage to me. So I'm posting it as an alternative. It's very satisfying to be able to kill both in and out of archon. Note that in a zwiz party you might actually have enough survivability to drop Force Armor and use the third slot for another fire ability so you can ignite on demand. If someone wants to test this, please feel free. Not too many people on NS with a zwizard.
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Posted Jan 24, 2017I wont recommend have hydra as your 3rd fire skill since you cant control which mobs it attacks.
i've done similar builds with blizzard, wave of force and meteor, which all have big AoE.
probably you going hydra so that additional mobs pulled from the barb can also be ignited.
also nice is familiar with sparkflint instead of force armor (if you can survive)
you can ignite single elites all the time. not dependant on hydra or anything other than free movement to an elite
or what i do with my FB teleport archon build, I'm using spellsteal instead of force armor in grp.
it works. tho it's very rough to survive without esoteric if you're the only dps. but I haven't tried it with supp wiz, which obviously gives alot of survive
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Posted Jan 24, 2017Other options aren't really viable. Hydra is the only thing that gives you like 15 seconds worth of ignition during archon. The AOE on Mammoth is larger than you think and is plenty good enough. I've tried every other option and it just really doesn't compare.
As far as getting rid of Force Armor, the only thing I would consider as an alternative is actually Explosive Blast. Because as we recently learned, Manald isn't affected by Furnace. However, it is affected by the Orb. Much of this build's damage actually comes from Manald procs. Chantodo is just there to keep giving you stacks and finishing off mostly dead elites so you don't waste valuable paralysis procs on them. Using Orb of Infinite Depth would get rid of two problems at once. You don't really need force armor if you can just reduce 60% of the damage you take anyhow...