Hey guys, I recently leveled up a wizard to be my end game char. I have a barb that is getting close to MF cap, my farmer. I also have a DH but I'm not happy with the state of that class at the moment.
The wizard seems to be a heck of a lot of fun, I've linked my character below:
With my current gear I can do act 1 and 2 easily with archon build. Obviously I haven't spent a ton of money yet. I think maybe 6m total. One of my friends has a lowish roll Skorn (300 int, 130 crit and 3400 life after kill) that I'll be getting tonight. Act 3 is doable but rough, I have enough dps but not enough def.
The truth is that I don't know what I'm doing. I was using disintegrate but I found that I was flying through AP and I wasn't generating enough crits to the benefit of CM. I switched to AO and it seems to be helping but I still feel like I'm spending too much time waiting for AP to regenerate.
I can go through sections where I never drop archon, but if I die (it happens as my gear still needs work) or run through an area with low mob density I might spend 45 seconds outside of Archon which isn't awesome.
Ultimately I want to have a facerolling kind of build, I like the wizard because of the defensive abilities that allow me to take some hits without kiting like an idiot. I just don't know where to go from here.
Edit: I have about 25m to spend at the moment, for what its worth.
If you want to faceroll act 3 as Archon, I'd recommend you increase your dps to at least 80k buffed. You can try at lower levels but if you can't kill elites in a reasonable amount of time, Archon just won't stay up. Also I'd recommend dropping Arcane Orb for a sig spell, either Piercing Orb or Lightning Blast. That way while you're waiting for Archon to refresh, you can spam it and do decent damage. With your 24% movement speed you can even kill a lot of elite packs with just teleport and LB/Porb. I'd also recommend switching Calamity to Fracture, but that's more personal preference. Finally, check your EHP. If you're under 300k in Archon form, use Force Armor. If you're over 300k, Prismatic Armor might be ok but I'd personally wait til 400k EHP to switch to prismatic.
Short of 80k buffed dps, you can try a kiting build, and I'd recommend an Arcane Orb build like this one. You probably don't need a slow, aside from maybe scoundrel with cold bow, because of your 24% movement speed. The gearing for such a build is just lots of dps while keeping around 100-120k EHP or so. I'm guessing you have around 200k. Additional EHP over 120k is mostly wasted due to the nature of Force Armor but if you're working towards an Archon build, then I recommend keeping your current EHP if possible. The more EHP you have with Archon the easier it is to switch to Prismatic Armor and thus the easier it is to survive.
Now to get to 80k dps, you'll need some gear upgrades. I don't know how far the Skorn will go but without Life Steal you might find it tough to tank elites. It is possible to run Archon without Life Steal, but it's much easier to have Life Steal since you can skimp on some of your survival skills. I'm guessing it'll raise your dps by a decent amount though. Be sure to slap a 70 crit damage% gem in it, or higher if you have one laying around.
The biggest upgrade I can think of would be an Andriel's Visage because it'll have 1% more crit plus attack speed and about the same amount of int. You will lose either the vit or socket though and the socket makes the price around 10x more expensive. Without a socket you can find one for around 1 mil, depending on what other stat you're looking for. With socket it's more like 8-10 mil. All your other pieces seem like they might be a little pricey to upgrade because of the resists.
I'm very fond of the Zunimassa boots, and I think they're the highest dps boots on the market. They come with Vit standard and can also roll resists, though I'm not sure how expensive they get when they have AR. The price range for those boots is something like 15mil+ if you're patient. For 20 mil I was able to get a pair with 189 int and 67 vit. This also gives further upgrade options with the chest or ring for 2pc (130 int bonus) later down the road. The ring naturally spawn with resists so replacing one of your current rings with a zunimassa ring won't be too painful since you'll get a great dps upgrade via the set bonus.
Other than what Loroese said, you can check my profile as a guide to a long-term high DPS Archon build. It's a doable route without spending real money (other than selling gear in RMAH and using BNet balance to buy gold
;])
My glove slot is currently empty since I'm selling it in AH (waiting on an upgraded glove to come in).
Start mid-tier and upgrade multiple pieces and work your way up or upgrade a single piece of high-end value at a time.
Honestly I think your EHP is fine. I'm at just under 187k EHP outside of Archon, with Force Armor, and it works well. More only really makes reflect damage hurt less, but with 5.8% life steal I break even against those mobs. The higher your dps the less you need extra EHP beyond the breakeven point with reflect damage mobs since you can heal faster than elites can hurt you, or even kill them before they get to you.
If my calculations are correct, I think your EHP with Energy Armor is around 216k, so if you can maintain that EHP while upgrading your gear, or even raise it, you'll be in good position when you try Archon.
The wizard seems to be a heck of a lot of fun, I've linked my character below:
http://us.battle.net...17/hero/1382891
With my current gear I can do act 1 and 2 easily with archon build. Obviously I haven't spent a ton of money yet. I think maybe 6m total. One of my friends has a lowish roll Skorn (300 int, 130 crit and 3400 life after kill) that I'll be getting tonight. Act 3 is doable but rough, I have enough dps but not enough def.
The truth is that I don't know what I'm doing. I was using disintegrate but I found that I was flying through AP and I wasn't generating enough crits to the benefit of CM. I switched to AO and it seems to be helping but I still feel like I'm spending too much time waiting for AP to regenerate.
I can go through sections where I never drop archon, but if I die (it happens as my gear still needs work) or run through an area with low mob density I might spend 45 seconds outside of Archon which isn't awesome.
Ultimately I want to have a facerolling kind of build, I like the wizard because of the defensive abilities that allow me to take some hits without kiting like an idiot. I just don't know where to go from here.
Edit: I have about 25m to spend at the moment, for what its worth.
Short of 80k buffed dps, you can try a kiting build, and I'd recommend an Arcane Orb build like this one. You probably don't need a slow, aside from maybe scoundrel with cold bow, because of your 24% movement speed. The gearing for such a build is just lots of dps while keeping around 100-120k EHP or so. I'm guessing you have around 200k. Additional EHP over 120k is mostly wasted due to the nature of Force Armor but if you're working towards an Archon build, then I recommend keeping your current EHP if possible. The more EHP you have with Archon the easier it is to switch to Prismatic Armor and thus the easier it is to survive.
Now to get to 80k dps, you'll need some gear upgrades. I don't know how far the Skorn will go but without Life Steal you might find it tough to tank elites. It is possible to run Archon without Life Steal, but it's much easier to have Life Steal since you can skimp on some of your survival skills. I'm guessing it'll raise your dps by a decent amount though. Be sure to slap a 70 crit damage% gem in it, or higher if you have one laying around.
The biggest upgrade I can think of would be an Andriel's Visage because it'll have 1% more crit plus attack speed and about the same amount of int. You will lose either the vit or socket though and the socket makes the price around 10x more expensive. Without a socket you can find one for around 1 mil, depending on what other stat you're looking for. With socket it's more like 8-10 mil. All your other pieces seem like they might be a little pricey to upgrade because of the resists.
I'm very fond of the Zunimassa boots, and I think they're the highest dps boots on the market. They come with Vit standard and can also roll resists, though I'm not sure how expensive they get when they have AR. The price range for those boots is something like 15mil+ if you're patient. For 20 mil I was able to get a pair with 189 int and 67 vit. This also gives further upgrade options with the chest or ring for 2pc (130 int bonus) later down the road. The ring naturally spawn with resists so replacing one of your current rings with a zunimassa ring won't be too painful since you'll get a great dps upgrade via the set bonus.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Its painful, I'm very very close to being able to do a3 but the dps isn't there yet and I'm sure my EHP is on the lowish side.
Zuni might be a good way for me to start, I'm going to upgrade all of my gems tonight which is another cheap way to squeeze out a few thousand dps.
;])
My glove slot is currently empty since I'm selling it in AH (waiting on an upgraded glove to come in).
Start mid-tier and upgrade multiple pieces and work your way up or upgrade a single piece of high-end value at a time.
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If my calculations are correct, I think your EHP with Energy Armor is around 216k, so if you can maintain that EHP while upgrading your gear, or even raise it, you'll be in good position when you try Archon.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard