This build is going to have the unique ability to be able to completely immobilize a group of enemies for 8 seconds out of every 17. Instead of a Frost Nova for 3 seconds out of every 10.2 seconds, this is like an 8 second Frost Nova. Your spell sequence will be:
Teleport to middle of group --> Arcane Hydra --> Slow Time --> Reversal --> Disintegrate to heart's content
Reasoning: I teleport to place the Slow Time exactly where I want, place an Arcane Hydra, and then Reverse out. With temporal flux, the Arcane Hydra's AOE arcane and three heads will push the movement speed reduction to 110% for everything inside the Slow Time. Once inside of the Slow Time, ranged targets will have their projectiles speed reduced by 90% effectively immobilizing them completely.
This immobilization will cost 70 AP to cast. To offset this, I use Chain Lightning with Prodigy for some serious AP regen on top of Energy Armor with Energy Tap. Energy Tap also helps to off set the hits I'll take on the way in to drop off the Slow Time and Hydra. While inside of the Slow Time, Disintegrate with Volatility will do some ridiculous damage. When I am out of AP to cast Disintegrate, the hydras will keep up the 110% slow while I regen with Chain Lightning.
I use Chain Lightning in order to diversify my elements. Also, Disintegrate and Chain Lightning allow me to target and take out ranged enemies in groups or single target without worrying about melee getting in the way.
The last bit of logic here is against enemies where I am drawn in to them. I can still cast Slow Time and Hydra, but I can stay inside the bubble and use it as a barrier from things coming in. While inside, I can either use Disintegrate or Chain Lightning to AOE or single target.
Lastly, Evocation let's me use the combo as often as possible.
There is another way to put slow time exactly where you want. By just pushing the button. and its magically right where you want it, on top of you.
Why would you think slows stack?
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Interesting build; a lot of potential for CC and AOE, only a few points to make...
The slows won't stack; they'll be multiplicative... Effectively you'll be reducing their movement by 86% (But, in all honesty, that's still REALLY slow)
I think it'd be much more effective to Teleport in > Slow time > Teleport out > Arcane Hydra; As videos have shown before, Hydra can be placed at range (what that range is, I don't know) so it may be wiser to cast at range, rather than while your still in the pack of mobs (Especially in Inferno, where 2-3 hits is all a pack of mobs may need to kill a wizard)
My only other quarrel is that 10 yards on Slow Time isn't very far! If the character models were to scale, it might actually be good, but 10 yards in game doesn't translate like that; this distance might work better against a Boss or Champion mob, but not a large pack of fast, moving scavengers or anything else that may be spread out.
But that's what Skill Calculator's are for! Experimenting! Theory-Crafting! I love this idea and it's definately one I wouldn't have thought of.. Certainly going to try it out; well done
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Build Courage, when Courage seems to fail...
Regain Faith, when there is little reason for Faith...
Create Hope, when Hope is forlorn...
If ap is that important, I would favor Energy Tap plus Astral Presence for a total of 40 extra ap... but none of the spells are heavy ap users except Hydra which will be upstaged by Volatility at half the ap. Also Hydra has a nice duration of 15 seconds but with Death Blossom each hit does 670 % weapon damage, neither DB or Hydra can be targeted by you (though Hydra Will target something) and both are arcane, so why cast a spell that costs twice the ap, for less than 1/20 th the damage? Ignoring the explosions of hydra and the possible fire rate, if they get hit by DB they might not be alive after the first hit... sure it could take two casts but with the cost of DB you could do it.... without waiting for hydra to run out ? (which seems like it could be another advantage to DB, more shots). As long as you can cast only 1 hydra at a time it just doesn't seem to be worth using compared to other spells, meteor seems better...
Also DB could setup for volatility on a large group of monsters alot easier than hydra pecking away at 33% weapon damage, volatility will be doing all the work ! so your going to be standing still a lot more than you would using DB. You could do Death Blossom then 360 degree spin with disintegrate.. killing the weak, causing a few explosions then repeat: DB Volatility again.
I'm not saying hydra won't work, it is just the spell is eating with one chopstick right now and I think that if people could make two with a slightly lower ap per cast it would make it more desirable.
Also evocation will shave off what 2 seconds total, maybe 2.5 from the cooldown, why even use it? Slow Time is the only spell that even has a cooldown and you don't need it for teleport with reversal? Two spells I would personally consider using evocation for are Archon and Enduring Skin. For Archon with Pure Power the cooldown is 100 seconds so you could take off 15 seconds, which anyone would notice.
Ahh I was wondering last night if the slows stacked pr multiplied. Either way, 86% is a metric ton of slow on movement. Thanks for clearing that up everyone.
There is another way to put slow time exactly where you want. By just pushing the button. and its magically right where you want it, on top of you.
What if I want to drop the slow time on a group of enemies on the other side of the screen? Teleport is so I don't have to walk into the middle of a pack of melee enemies/hard hitting boss to cast it. It's (very) roughly taking a cast on top of myself spell and making it a ranged cast. Like I said at the end, I can always use it as something I cast on top of my self and from the inside or even use it as a barrier between myself and my targets if they are too spread out. By running around the perimeter/cutting through the the Slow Time I should be able to lure melee into it who are chasing me.
I think it'd be much more effective to Teleport in > Slow time > Teleport out > Arcane Hydra; As videos have shown before, Hydra can be placed at range (what that range is, I don't know) so it may be wiser to cast at range, rather than while your still in the pack of mobs (Especially in Inferno, where 2-3 hits is all a pack of mobs may need to kill a wizard)
Good point. The reason I put that order in was to have as much time as possible after Reversal to do what I need in terms of damage. Maybe I can start off the encounter by casting Hydra on the location for the slow time and teleporting to it? This way I have a few seconds to naturally regen the 40 AP hit of the Hydra before using Disintegrate. In that vein, maybe it would benefit me to cast Chain Lightning once or twice before starting to Disintegrate so that I fill out my AP pool and get mobs as low on health as possible before trying to get Volatility to proc with Disintegrate.
My only other quarrel is that 10 yards on Slow Time isn't very far! If the character models were to scale, it might actually be good, but 10 yards in game doesn't translate like that; this distance might work better against a Boss or Champion mob, but not a large pack of fast, moving scavengers or anything else that may be spread out.
Quick question, are we talking about 10 yards radius, or 10 yards diameter? Either way, that is a concern. What I'm thinking is that for fast moving packs, I would likely cast it on myself and then "come at me bro" to all of the fast moving scavengers. This way the only route they can take to me is through the Slow Time regardless of melee or ranged. It may actually be better to cast this sequence on top of myself for larger groups (if I am surrounded), or place it as a big shield in front of me if the mobs are coming from one direction.
But that's what Skill Calculator's are for! Experimenting! Theory-Crafting! I love this idea and it's definately one I wouldn't have thought of.. Certainly going to try it out; well done
If ap is that important, I would favor Energy Tap plus Astral Presence for a total of 40 extra ap... but none of the spells are heavy ap users except Hydra which will be upstaged by Volatility at half the ap. Also Hydra has a nice duration of 15 seconds but with Death Blossom each hit does 670 % weapon damage, neither DB or Hydra can be targeted by you (though Hydra Will target something) and both are arcane, so why cast a spell that costs twice the ap, for less than 1/20 th the damage? Ignoring the explosions of hydra and the possible fire rate, if they get hit by DB they might not be alive after the first hit... sure it could take two casts but with the cost of DB you could do it.... without waiting for hydra to run out ? (which seems like it could be another advantage to DB, more shots). As long as you can cast only 1 hydra at a time it just doesn't seem to be worth using compared to other spells, meteor seems better...
I was going back and forth with how to put regen into this build. My first thought was simply a huge AP pool like you have, but I wanted more active control over regen for longer fights. By using Chain Lightning and Prodigy, I should actively be able to regen AP spent while diversifying the type of damage I am using for high resistance mobs. Without Prodigy, Chain Lightning more or less felt like an odd ball pick with no synergy to anything.
For Hydra, their job is solely to make sure that when anything touches that Slow Time, for as long as they are in it, they get slowed by 86%. I wanted the combination of Temporal Flux/Slow Time to be as close to a passive as I could when it was cast. The only way to guarantee that is to have a long duration AOE arcane type dot. While Hydra doesn't do a ton of damage and still costs 40 AP, it's major benefit is that it is cast instantly as a "fire and forget" arcane AOE damage source. Once it is cast, all I have to worry about it kiting new targets into the Slow Time, using Disintegrate, and keeping up my AP pool with Chain Lightning. The damage aspect of the cast is not something I took the spell for; I only took it for it's method of dealing arcane damage.
Also DB could setup for volatility on a large group of monsters alot easier than hydra pecking away at 33% weapon damage, volatility will be doing all the work ! so your going to be standing still a lot more than you would using DB. You could do Death Blossom then 360 degree spin with disintegrate.. killing the weak, causing a few explosions then repeat: DB Volatility again.
I was toying with the idea of DB as the AOE Arcane, but I didn't like that both of my main damage spells will cause me to stand still. I'll have to see how predictable/unpredictable death Blossom is. If it can be used reliably inside of a decent short range, casting Slow Time and death blossoming may be a good strategy. For the time being though, I like the Hydra simply because it is a passive AOE three headed source of arcane damage that is fire and forget.
Also evocation will shave off what 2 seconds total, maybe 2.5 from the cooldown, why even use it? Slow Time is the only spell that even has a cooldown and you don't need it for teleport with reversal? Two spells I would personally consider using evocation for are Archon and Enduring Skin. For Archon with Pure Power the cooldown is 100 seconds so you could take off 15 seconds, which anyone would notice.
The logic for Evocation was to shave 3 seconds off of Slow Time. 8 seconds every 20 seconds is 40.0% up time, while 8/17 bumps it up to 47.05% up time. For reference, Frost Nova runed for CD reduction is 3/7.65 for 39.2% up time. Without the evocation, Frost Nova's efficiency is nearly matching Slow Time. There are tertiary benefit to slow time in this build that Frost Nova doesn't have (projectile slow and ability to kite new targets), but bumping up Slow Time's up time efficiency to 47% seemed important. Also, with Teleport, I will be able to Teleport/Reversal every 6.8 seconds as opposed to every 8 on average. Small benefits, but I think that they are important.
They don't stack added or multiplicative as far as I Know. In just about every game I have ever played they strongest slow overwrites the others.
There is no point in tekeporting, slow, teleport. Thats 3 GCDs used to accomplish next to nothing. Even if slows stacked, its still a waste of 3 GCDs. You would be far better off to attack the mobs from a distance and used your defensive abilities when needed.
You should play a DH with caltrops. Its near impossible to slow all the enemies in an area with one 10 yard area slow.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
They don't stack added or multiplicative as far as I Know. In just about every game I have ever played they strongest slow overwrites the others.
There is no point in tekeporting, slow, teleport. Thats 3 GCDs used to accomplish next to nothing. Even if slows stacked, its still a waste of 3 GCDs. You would be far better off to attack the mobs from a distance and used your defensive abilities when needed.
You should play a DH with caltrops. Its near impossible to slow all the enemies in an area with one 10 yard area slow.
I have been thinking about this, and I came up with another iteration of this build to cover the chance that slows do not stack: http://d3db.com/tool...or/wizard/13688
I'm going to assume from now on that Prodigy with Chain Lightning only regens 4 AP instead of 24 because 24 just seems too good to be true. So I replaced Chain Lightning with Ray of Frost runed for damage, and I replaced Prodigy with Astral Presence for more AP. I got rid of Temporal Flux for Black Ice in order to increase my single target damage. This way I have single target RoF, Ranged AOE Disintegrate, and melee AOE/CC Wave of Force. I have very diversified elements, and I can still single target ranged mobs through the melee.
With this build, I will be casting slow time and staying inside the bubble if mobs are all around me, or I will cast it and use it as a barrier between me and the mobs if they are grouped in one direction. Teleport will be used more as a survivability cooldown as opposed to a placement technique. Instead of the high AP Arcane Hydra, I put in Wave of Force. This way, I can knock back enemies away from me at the center of the bubble as well as remove the projectiles from the Slow Time as an added benefit. When inside the Slow Time bubble, it will be very difficult for mobs to actually damage the wizard with an 80% slow, knock back, and 90% slow to projectiles. It will be alright to stand still inside the bubble here; maybe DB could be viable in this build instead of Wave of Force.
With all of that said, I kind of like this build a bit more than the original build at the top of this thread. It has higher damage potential with incredible crowd control ability. I do think that slows will stack in some fashion though; otherwise you are going to have a TON of useless overlap in the Wizard overall. Not stacking at all seems clunky. This build will have a 140 AP pool with only teleport and RoF/Disintegrate using it up. I should be able to cast either beam for a lengthy period of time while melee targets struggle to make it past the Slow Time.
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http://d3db.com/tool/calculator/wizard/13667
This build is going to have the unique ability to be able to completely immobilize a group of enemies for 8 seconds out of every 17. Instead of a Frost Nova for 3 seconds out of every 10.2 seconds, this is like an 8 second Frost Nova. Your spell sequence will be:
Teleport to middle of group --> Arcane Hydra --> Slow Time --> Reversal --> Disintegrate to heart's content
Reasoning: I teleport to place the Slow Time exactly where I want, place an Arcane Hydra, and then Reverse out. With temporal flux, the Arcane Hydra's AOE arcane and three heads will push the movement speed reduction to 110% for everything inside the Slow Time. Once inside of the Slow Time, ranged targets will have their projectiles speed reduced by 90% effectively immobilizing them completely.
This immobilization will cost 70 AP to cast. To offset this, I use Chain Lightning with Prodigy for some serious AP regen on top of Energy Armor with Energy Tap. Energy Tap also helps to off set the hits I'll take on the way in to drop off the Slow Time and Hydra. While inside of the Slow Time, Disintegrate with Volatility will do some ridiculous damage. When I am out of AP to cast Disintegrate, the hydras will keep up the 110% slow while I regen with Chain Lightning.
I use Chain Lightning in order to diversify my elements. Also, Disintegrate and Chain Lightning allow me to target and take out ranged enemies in groups or single target without worrying about melee getting in the way.
The last bit of logic here is against enemies where I am drawn in to them. I can still cast Slow Time and Hydra, but I can stay inside the bubble and use it as a barrier from things coming in. While inside, I can either use Disintegrate or Chain Lightning to AOE or single target.
Lastly, Evocation let's me use the combo as often as possible.
Why would you think slows stack?
Epicurus
The slows won't stack; they'll be multiplicative... Effectively you'll be reducing their movement by 86% (But, in all honesty, that's still REALLY slow)
I think it'd be much more effective to Teleport in > Slow time > Teleport out > Arcane Hydra; As videos have shown before, Hydra can be placed at range (what that range is, I don't know) so it may be wiser to cast at range, rather than while your still in the pack of mobs (Especially in Inferno, where 2-3 hits is all a pack of mobs may need to kill a wizard)
My only other quarrel is that 10 yards on Slow Time isn't very far! If the character models were to scale, it might actually be good, but 10 yards in game doesn't translate like that; this distance might work better against a Boss or Champion mob, but not a large pack of fast, moving scavengers or anything else that may be spread out.
But that's what Skill Calculator's are for! Experimenting! Theory-Crafting! I love this idea and it's definately one I wouldn't have thought of.. Certainly going to try it out; well done
Regain Faith, when there is little reason for Faith...
Create Hope, when Hope is forlorn...
Also DB could setup for volatility on a large group of monsters alot easier than hydra pecking away at 33% weapon damage, volatility will be doing all the work ! so your going to be standing still a lot more than you would using DB. You could do Death Blossom then 360 degree spin with disintegrate.. killing the weak, causing a few explosions then repeat: DB Volatility again.
I'm not saying hydra won't work, it is just the spell is eating with one chopstick right now and I think that if people could make two with a slightly lower ap per cast it would make it more desirable.
Also evocation will shave off what 2 seconds total, maybe 2.5 from the cooldown, why even use it? Slow Time is the only spell that even has a cooldown and you don't need it for teleport with reversal? Two spells I would personally consider using evocation for are Archon and Enduring Skin. For Archon with Pure Power the cooldown is 100 seconds so you could take off 15 seconds, which anyone would notice.
What if I want to drop the slow time on a group of enemies on the other side of the screen? Teleport is so I don't have to walk into the middle of a pack of melee enemies/hard hitting boss to cast it. It's (very) roughly taking a cast on top of myself spell and making it a ranged cast. Like I said at the end, I can always use it as something I cast on top of my self and from the inside or even use it as a barrier between myself and my targets if they are too spread out. By running around the perimeter/cutting through the the Slow Time I should be able to lure melee into it who are chasing me.
Good point. The reason I put that order in was to have as much time as possible after Reversal to do what I need in terms of damage. Maybe I can start off the encounter by casting Hydra on the location for the slow time and teleporting to it? This way I have a few seconds to naturally regen the 40 AP hit of the Hydra before using Disintegrate. In that vein, maybe it would benefit me to cast Chain Lightning once or twice before starting to Disintegrate so that I fill out my AP pool and get mobs as low on health as possible before trying to get Volatility to proc with Disintegrate.
Quick question, are we talking about 10 yards radius, or 10 yards diameter? Either way, that is a concern. What I'm thinking is that for fast moving packs, I would likely cast it on myself and then "come at me bro" to all of the fast moving scavengers. This way the only route they can take to me is through the Slow Time regardless of melee or ranged. It may actually be better to cast this sequence on top of myself for larger groups (if I am surrounded), or place it as a big shield in front of me if the mobs are coming from one direction.
Thanks!
I was going back and forth with how to put regen into this build. My first thought was simply a huge AP pool like you have, but I wanted more active control over regen for longer fights. By using Chain Lightning and Prodigy, I should actively be able to regen AP spent while diversifying the type of damage I am using for high resistance mobs. Without Prodigy, Chain Lightning more or less felt like an odd ball pick with no synergy to anything.
For Hydra, their job is solely to make sure that when anything touches that Slow Time, for as long as they are in it, they get slowed by 86%. I wanted the combination of Temporal Flux/Slow Time to be as close to a passive as I could when it was cast. The only way to guarantee that is to have a long duration AOE arcane type dot. While Hydra doesn't do a ton of damage and still costs 40 AP, it's major benefit is that it is cast instantly as a "fire and forget" arcane AOE damage source. Once it is cast, all I have to worry about it kiting new targets into the Slow Time, using Disintegrate, and keeping up my AP pool with Chain Lightning. The damage aspect of the cast is not something I took the spell for; I only took it for it's method of dealing arcane damage.
I was toying with the idea of DB as the AOE Arcane, but I didn't like that both of my main damage spells will cause me to stand still. I'll have to see how predictable/unpredictable death Blossom is. If it can be used reliably inside of a decent short range, casting Slow Time and death blossoming may be a good strategy. For the time being though, I like the Hydra simply because it is a passive AOE three headed source of arcane damage that is fire and forget.
The logic for Evocation was to shave 3 seconds off of Slow Time. 8 seconds every 20 seconds is 40.0% up time, while 8/17 bumps it up to 47.05% up time. For reference, Frost Nova runed for CD reduction is 3/7.65 for 39.2% up time. Without the evocation, Frost Nova's efficiency is nearly matching Slow Time. There are tertiary benefit to slow time in this build that Frost Nova doesn't have (projectile slow and ability to kite new targets), but bumping up Slow Time's up time efficiency to 47% seemed important. Also, with Teleport, I will be able to Teleport/Reversal every 6.8 seconds as opposed to every 8 on average. Small benefits, but I think that they are important.
There is no point in tekeporting, slow, teleport. Thats 3 GCDs used to accomplish next to nothing. Even if slows stacked, its still a waste of 3 GCDs. You would be far better off to attack the mobs from a distance and used your defensive abilities when needed.
You should play a DH with caltrops. Its near impossible to slow all the enemies in an area with one 10 yard area slow.
Epicurus
http://d3db.com/tool...or/wizard/13688
I'm going to assume from now on that Prodigy with Chain Lightning only regens 4 AP instead of 24 because 24 just seems too good to be true. So I replaced Chain Lightning with Ray of Frost runed for damage, and I replaced Prodigy with Astral Presence for more AP. I got rid of Temporal Flux for Black Ice in order to increase my single target damage. This way I have single target RoF, Ranged AOE Disintegrate, and melee AOE/CC Wave of Force. I have very diversified elements, and I can still single target ranged mobs through the melee.
With this build, I will be casting slow time and staying inside the bubble if mobs are all around me, or I will cast it and use it as a barrier between me and the mobs if they are grouped in one direction. Teleport will be used more as a survivability cooldown as opposed to a placement technique. Instead of the high AP Arcane Hydra, I put in Wave of Force. This way, I can knock back enemies away from me at the center of the bubble as well as remove the projectiles from the Slow Time as an added benefit. When inside the Slow Time bubble, it will be very difficult for mobs to actually damage the wizard with an 80% slow, knock back, and 90% slow to projectiles. It will be alright to stand still inside the bubble here; maybe DB could be viable in this build instead of Wave of Force.
With all of that said, I kind of like this build a bit more than the original build at the top of this thread. It has higher damage potential with incredible crowd control ability. I do think that slows will stack in some fashion though; otherwise you are going to have a TON of useless overlap in the Wizard overall. Not stacking at all seems clunky. This build will have a 140 AP pool with only teleport and RoF/Disintegrate using it up. I should be able to cast either beam for a lengthy period of time while melee targets struggle to make it past the Slow Time.