I will be satisfied with educated guesses on these but im sure that ive made a mistake somewhere and the answer will be plain to see.
spectral blade-
indigo (thrown blade)
says it reaches EVERYTHING within 20 yards
does it go behind you, to the sides, or is it like a 20 yard seismic slam?
does it hit for 72% 3 times?
Does this spell count as use of a melee weapon? much as effects from the runed magic weapon spell such as blood magic etc. Will effects from your melee weapon (and armor effecting your melee attacks) such as lifesteal and poison damage influence this spell?
arcane orb-
obsidian (arcane orbit)
says it creates >>4<< orbs that spin around you exploding for damage/10yards when enemies get near you. Is it jsut me or does this sound overpowered, assuming that it explodes with the same ease and space for triggering as the original spell.
any further info on how this spell might work will help. eg-slower cast speed with this rune, smaller trigger size etc...
familiar-
crimson (sparkflint)
is it safe to assume that the familiar has more than one spell and its increasing those by 40% or that its increasing all yours AND its own? And what exactly are attacks? does damage enemies take from your shield count?
FROST- etc
a long time ago i remember them (bliz) saying that crits from elemental spells have special effects, such as frost freezing (like a stun). does this mean that blizzard spell with alabaster rune has an increased chance of criting TO freeze and freeze from basic damage per tick?
1) Another thread was posted somewhere that said fire damage carried over from a weapon to spectral blade, and that magic weapon enhances damage as well. No information I have seen has been posted about poison, lifesteal, etc, but I would imagine these effects carry over as well. Check beta gameplay videos on youtube to see the area of effect, but it is in a 20 yard area in front of you. (more of a square or circle than a cone.)
2) This is an educated guess, but I read the ability description as the 3 turtle shells in mario kart. The total damage is a little double that of a Crimson runed Arcane Orb if you walk directly into a mob and all four explode, which I think to be of course great damage, but fair considering the risk you take going into melee range, especially on higher difficulties.
3) The familiar is widely accepted as to increasing all of YOUR attacks by 40% damage, since increasing his 5 damage by 40% is really quite negligible. There are threads as to if this increases base damage, total damage, etc, but it is all (melee and spell) of the ways you distribute damage points to the enemies.
4) Critical hits freeze targets for 2 seconds. The answer to your question then is yes, there are two ways to keep enemies frozen in an Alabaster Blizzard. (Thus the reason it is called frozen solid ) Damage is so low on this to compensate for the incredible utility. If damage was close at all to disintegrate, arcane orb, etc, noone would use those spells over blizzard.
Hope I helped. Disclaimer: No beta play experience, and my answers come from what I have read on forums or deciphered myself using logic!
1) Another thread was posted somewhere that said fire damage carried over from a weapon to spectral blade, and that magic weapon enhances damage as well. No information I have seen has been posted about poison, lifesteal, etc, but I would imagine these effects carry over as well. Check beta gameplay videos on youtube to see the area of effect, but it is in a 20 yard area in front of you. (more of a square or circle than a cone.)
2) This is an educated guess, but I read the ability description as the 3 turtle shells in mario kart. The total damage is a little double that of a Crimson runed Arcane Orb if you walk directly into a mob and all four explode, which I think to be of course great damage, but fair considering the risk you take going into melee range, especially on higher difficulties.
3) The familiar is widely accepted as to increasing all of YOUR attacks by 40% damage, since increasing his 5 damage by 40% is really quite negligible. There are threads as to if this increases base damage, total damage, etc, but it is all (melee and spell) of the ways you distribute damage points to the enemies.
4) Critical hits freeze targets for 2 seconds. The answer to your question then is yes, there are two ways to keep enemies frozen in an Alabaster Blizzard. (Thus the reason it is called frozen solid ) Damage is so low on this to compensate for the incredible utility. If damage was close at all to disintegrate, arcane orb, etc, noone would use those spells over blizzard.
Hope I helped. Disclaimer: No beta play experience, and my answers come from what I have read on forums or deciphered myself using logic!
awesome, was just what i was looking for. thanks <3
should i get teleport with reduced damage taken or familiar with 40% more dmg?
I really like where your build is going! I think all of the active skills you chose are the best ones, with only minor room for rearranging.
-Spectral Blade, check!
-Magic Weapon can be used with any rune other than Golden, since Spectral Blade will not require AP.
-Alabaster Frost Nova is great, but requires 5 enemies being around. If you use Crimson Frost Nova, your whole group benefits, and you will also do much more damage against groups 4 or fewer!
-Yes, Crimson Familiar is pretty much mandatory with any build that intends to maximize the damage it does.
-Obsidian Storm Armor seems to be the strongest melee dps version of that skill, though Golden Ice Armor would give you greater survivability against melee and Crimson/Alabaster Energy Armor are good too.
-As your last skill Obsidian Arcane Orb is great, since you can cast it on your way into a fight and you can then just renew it whenever you see fit. If all four orbs explode, it seems to definitely be the strongest choice as your pre-battle setup spell. (Better than Hydra, Energy Twister, etc)
Blur is a mandatory passive to help with the frailty of the Wizard class, but I think your other two may need tweaking. Temporal flux will only slow people next to you through Arcane Orb, which does not help you that much. Also, only two of your spells require AP, so I'm not sure Power Hungry is needed either. Galvanizing Ward will definitely fit your build well, and so will either Arcane Dynamo or Unstable Anomaly. Arcane Dynamo will build up through Spectral Blade spam, boosting the damage of your following Arcane Orb cast, and Unstable Anomaly will give you a little protection if you get caught taking too much damage. Personally I would choose Arcane Dynamo, but the third passive is completely up to you and what you find most useful using this build as you progress through the higher difficulties. Enjoy!
Edit: If survivability becomes an issue, replacing Arcane Orb with Diamond Skin or Obsidian Teleport would greatly help, as well as changing your Armor spell to mitigate the greatest source of damage you are taking, (Crimson Energy Armor vs elemental damage, or Golden Ice Armor vs physical damage). Consider adding Evocation to your passives if you do select another active skill with a cooldown.
I believe Spectral Blade is unique in applying weapon effects such as lifesteal because it does Weapon Damage. Electrocute does Lightning damage, so it would not apply any lifesteal effects.
should i get teleport with reduced damage taken or familiar with 40% more dmg?
I really like where your build is going! I think all of the active skills you chose are the best ones, with only minor room for rearranging.
-Spectral Blade, check!
-Magic Weapon can be used with any rune other than Golden, since Spectral Blade will not require AP.
-Alabaster Frost Nova is great, but requires 5 enemies being around. If you use Crimson Frost Nova, your whole group benefits, and you will also do much more damage against groups 4 or fewer!
-Yes, Crimson Familiar is pretty much mandatory with any build that intends to maximize the damage it does.
-Obsidian Storm Armor seems to be the strongest melee dps version of that skill, though Golden Ice Armor would give you greater survivability against melee and Crimson/Alabaster Energy Armor are good too.
-As your last skill Obsidian Arcane Orb is great, since you can cast it on your way into a fight and you can then just renew it whenever you see fit. If all four orbs explode, it seems to definitely be the strongest choice as your pre-battle setup spell. (Better than Hydra, Energy Twister, etc)
Blur is a mandatory passive to help with the frailty of the Wizard class, but I think your other two may need tweaking. Temporal flux will only slow people next to you through Arcane Orb, which does not help you that much. Also, only two of your spells require AP, so I'm not sure Power Hungry is needed either. Galvanizing Ward will definitely fit your build well, and so will either Arcane Dynamo or Unstable Anomaly. Arcane Dynamo will build up through Spectral Blade spam, boosting the damage of your following Arcane Orb cast, and Unstable Anomaly will give you a little protection if you get caught taking too much damage. Personally I would choose Arcane Dynamo, but the third passive is completely up to you and what you find most useful using this build as you progress through the higher difficulties. Enjoy!
Edit: If survivability becomes an issue, replacing Arcane Orb with Diamond Skin or Obsidian Teleport would greatly help, as well as changing your Armor spell to mitigate the greatest source of damage you are taking, (Crimson Energy Armor vs elemental damage, or Golden Ice Armor vs physical damage). Consider adding Evocation to your passives if you do select another active skill with a cooldown.
all things considered, i expect that our opinions on whats best will change drastically when we see what numbers pump out in inferno. Diamond skin may be useless, and ice armor with golden may be the only way i can survive. I had the idea that the slow might help against special enemies such as exploding and lightning emitting ones. But i think your right; il go with teleport otherwise il get owned my ranged and my lifesteal will no doubt lack in compensation when it comes to being bashed by several monster spell casters. Dynamo will have to do as a replacement for my loss of familiar, and with my lack of defense, i may have to replace power hungry since it wont need to be spammed because dynamo only works every now and then. Galvanizing looks pretty crap when i think about the numbers it offers. 32 life per sec (other classes get 100-1000hp in comparison) is the only real buff it gives and replacing the shield every 240 instead of 120sec is nothing to me.
I believe Spectral Blade is unique in applying weapon effects such as lifesteal because it does Weapon Damage. Electrocute does Lightning damage, so it would not apply any lifesteal effects.
i see, well it should be nice in dealing crits for the shield lightning proc
should i get teleport with reduced damage taken or familiar with 40% more dmg?
If you believe that spectral blade counts as a melee hit (3 melee hits?), then I would think you'd want to use Crimson instead of Indigo in Magic Weapon to do more damage. Even if you think that the 70% damage is over 3 seconds instead of per second, that's 23% more damage instead of 18%.
I also think you need to worry a bit more about staying alive. Obviously, we will need to wait until the game comes out to see how this build works in the later difficulties, but I'd imagine that staying alive will be the name of the game. I would consider energy armor over storm armor and maybe Alabaster for for magic weapon to recover health quickly.
should i get teleport with reduced damage taken or familiar with 40% more dmg?
If you believe that spectral blade counts as a melee hit (3 melee hits?), then I would think you'd want to use Crimson instead of Indigo in Magic Weapon to do more damage. Even if you think that the 70% damage is over 3 seconds instead of per second, that's 23% more damage instead of 18%.
I also think you need to worry a bit more about staying alive. Obviously, we will need to wait until the game comes out to see how this build works in the later difficulties, but I'd imagine that staying alive will be the name of the game. I would consider energy armor over storm armor and maybe Alabaster for for magic weapon to recover health quickly.
I took Obsidian Magic Weapon, in my build listed above, because we know for a fact that it affects Spectral Blade. Increasing the physical damage boost has a definite increase in Spectral Blade damage. There is no wording there about that extra boost needing a melee attack. If we are sure that Spectral Blade counts as melee attacks, I am still not sure that we would want a Crimson runestone in there, because not only will knockback keep the enemies from attacking us, but also that 70% bonus damage dealt will be Fire damage, thus subject to different defensive mitigation than the weapon damage that Spectral Blade deals. Can the Fire damage crit? Will we be stacking lifesteal on gear, which will only benefit from that melee damage done? I think the latter question is the most important, in which we could substitute any physical boosting stat for 'lifesteal'.
1. It seems like poison damage, for instance, will carry over to SB. Tho not as poison damage, but included into the hit damage of SB.
If elemental damage carries over, but not on hit effect such as life steal or % chance to cast a spell (as there was in D2), it seems the strongest runestone for Magic Weapon will be Crimson for max damage or Alabaster if it will heal. Spectral Blade could also be runed Alabaster for healing or Indigo for max damage and better area of effect. Is this the direction the build is going towards?
1. It seems like poison damage, for instance, will carry over to SB. Tho not as poison damage, but included into the hit damage of SB.
If elemental damage carries over, but not on hit effect such as life steal or % chance to cast a spell (as there was in D2), it seems the strongest runestone for Magic Weapon will be Crimson for max damage or Alabaster if it will heal. Spectral Blade could also be runed Alabaster for healing or Indigo for max damage and better area of effect. Is this the direction the build is going towards?
We still dont know for certain how SB and MW interacts. I think most people using MW will be using SB aswell, and ignoring the effects of MW then seems like bad design to me ( aka MW adding burn or lifesteal, but these effects will never happen with SB). The only time MW could be better would be vs single bosses.
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spectral blade-
indigo (thrown blade)
says it reaches EVERYTHING within 20 yards
does it go behind you, to the sides, or is it like a 20 yard seismic slam?
does it hit for 72% 3 times?
Does this spell count as use of a melee weapon? much as effects from the runed magic weapon spell such as blood magic etc. Will effects from your melee weapon (and armor effecting your melee attacks) such as lifesteal and poison damage influence this spell?
arcane orb-
obsidian (arcane orbit)
says it creates >>4<< orbs that spin around you exploding for damage/10yards when enemies get near you. Is it jsut me or does this sound overpowered, assuming that it explodes with the same ease and space for triggering as the original spell.
any further info on how this spell might work will help. eg-slower cast speed with this rune, smaller trigger size etc...
familiar-
crimson (sparkflint)
is it safe to assume that the familiar has more than one spell and its increasing those by 40% or that its increasing all yours AND its own? And what exactly are attacks? does damage enemies take from your shield count?
FROST- etc
a long time ago i remember them (bliz) saying that crits from elemental spells have special effects, such as frost freezing (like a stun). does this mean that blizzard spell with alabaster rune has an increased chance of criting TO freeze and freeze from basic damage per tick?
2) This is an educated guess, but I read the ability description as the 3 turtle shells in mario kart. The total damage is a little double that of a Crimson runed Arcane Orb if you walk directly into a mob and all four explode, which I think to be of course great damage, but fair considering the risk you take going into melee range, especially on higher difficulties.
3) The familiar is widely accepted as to increasing all of YOUR attacks by 40% damage, since increasing his 5 damage by 40% is really quite negligible. There are threads as to if this increases base damage, total damage, etc, but it is all (melee and spell) of the ways you distribute damage points to the enemies.
4) Critical hits freeze targets for 2 seconds. The answer to your question then is yes, there are two ways to keep enemies frozen in an Alabaster Blizzard. (Thus the reason it is called frozen solid ) Damage is so low on this to compensate for the incredible utility. If damage was close at all to disintegrate, arcane orb, etc, noone would use those spells over blizzard.
Hope I helped. Disclaimer: No beta play experience, and my answers come from what I have read on forums or deciphered myself using logic!
awesome, was just what i was looking for. thanks <3
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#X....W!!a....Y
questions relate to this spec http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#XOgaeW!eZa!aZaacY
should i get teleport with reduced damage taken or familiar with 40% more dmg?
I really like where your build is going! I think all of the active skills you chose are the best ones, with only minor room for rearranging.
-Spectral Blade, check!
-Magic Weapon can be used with any rune other than Golden, since Spectral Blade will not require AP.
-Alabaster Frost Nova is great, but requires 5 enemies being around. If you use Crimson Frost Nova, your whole group benefits, and you will also do much more damage against groups 4 or fewer!
-Yes, Crimson Familiar is pretty much mandatory with any build that intends to maximize the damage it does.
-Obsidian Storm Armor seems to be the strongest melee dps version of that skill, though Golden Ice Armor would give you greater survivability against melee and Crimson/Alabaster Energy Armor are good too.
-As your last skill Obsidian Arcane Orb is great, since you can cast it on your way into a fight and you can then just renew it whenever you see fit. If all four orbs explode, it seems to definitely be the strongest choice as your pre-battle setup spell. (Better than Hydra, Energy Twister, etc)
Blur is a mandatory passive to help with the frailty of the Wizard class, but I think your other two may need tweaking. Temporal flux will only slow people next to you through Arcane Orb, which does not help you that much. Also, only two of your spells require AP, so I'm not sure Power Hungry is needed either. Galvanizing Ward will definitely fit your build well, and so will either Arcane Dynamo or Unstable Anomaly. Arcane Dynamo will build up through Spectral Blade spam, boosting the damage of your following Arcane Orb cast, and Unstable Anomaly will give you a little protection if you get caught taking too much damage. Personally I would choose Arcane Dynamo, but the third passive is completely up to you and what you find most useful using this build as you progress through the higher difficulties. Enjoy!
Edit: If survivability becomes an issue, replacing Arcane Orb with Diamond Skin or Obsidian Teleport would greatly help, as well as changing your Armor spell to mitigate the greatest source of damage you are taking, (Crimson Energy Armor vs elemental damage, or Golden Ice Armor vs physical damage). Consider adding Evocation to your passives if you do select another active skill with a cooldown.
Edit 2: My first attempt at this build would be something like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#XWQOaV!eWV!YcZZZZ The toss-ups would be which rune to put in Diamond Skin, and which Armor spell to take.
I believe Spectral Blade is unique in applying weapon effects such as lifesteal because it does Weapon Damage. Electrocute does Lightning damage, so it would not apply any lifesteal effects.
all things considered, i expect that our opinions on whats best will change drastically when we see what numbers pump out in inferno. Diamond skin may be useless, and ice armor with golden may be the only way i can survive. I had the idea that the slow might help against special enemies such as exploding and lightning emitting ones. But i think your right; il go with teleport otherwise il get owned my ranged and my lifesteal will no doubt lack in compensation when it comes to being bashed by several monster spell casters. Dynamo will have to do as a replacement for my loss of familiar, and with my lack of defense, i may have to replace power hungry since it wont need to be spammed because dynamo only works every now and then. Galvanizing looks pretty crap when i think about the numbers it offers. 32 life per sec (other classes get 100-1000hp in comparison) is the only real buff it gives and replacing the shield every 240 instead of 120sec is nothing to me.
If you believe that spectral blade counts as a melee hit (3 melee hits?), then I would think you'd want to use Crimson instead of Indigo in Magic Weapon to do more damage. Even if you think that the 70% damage is over 3 seconds instead of per second, that's 23% more damage instead of 18%.
I also think you need to worry a bit more about staying alive. Obviously, we will need to wait until the game comes out to see how this build works in the later difficulties, but I'd imagine that staying alive will be the name of the game. I would consider energy armor over storm armor and maybe Alabaster for for magic weapon to recover health quickly.
We still dont know for certain how SB and MW interacts. I think most people using MW will be using SB aswell, and ignoring the effects of MW then seems like bad design to me ( aka MW adding burn or lifesteal, but these effects will never happen with SB). The only time MW could be better would be vs single bosses.