Nothing is certain yet, but let's just have some fun in case some of the changes carry over to the expansion as they are.
Archon will likely be used only for elites. Basically blast all nearby mobs and buff up to take out elites. Say there are 20 or so enemies in an area. That's 60% bonus damage to your sheet. Stack things like Cold Blooded, Improved Archon, Glass Cannon, etc. you can only imagine how high sheet DPS will be and how fast you can burn elites down. Critical Mass has no known potential changes yet, so let's assume nothing's changed.
Now what about skills against mobs?
Right now I can see a potential combo that I would LOVE to use...
Stack multipliers and then combine "Black Hole - Absolute Zero" and spam "Arcane Orb - Frozen Orb."
Yep, suck everything in and spam Orb to freeze and AOE DPS. Recast Black Hole whenever possible. With all the cooldown reductions items and skills, you can imagine this will be the new perma-stun type of build.
Critical Mass has no known potential changes yet, so let's assume nothing's changed.
Considering that the three biggest "abuse" builds in the game are wizard-archon, wizard-cm/ww, and barbarian-ww, and two of those are apparently being rendered completely obsolete, I strongly suspect the cm/ww build will be gone as well. Perhaps an internal cooldown to cm?
I've been playing cm/ww for quite awhile now, but am so excited that frozen orb is coming back, not to mention the pending awesomeness of black hole, that I really don't care what they do to the abuse builds.
That black hole -frozen orb set up sounds really fun. I like the proposed changes overall in terms of concept. Of course fine tuning will be needed.
We dont know any cm changes yet, yeah nor do we know the proc coefficient changes either so we wont know if CMWW will be nerfed or not. I do hope it is though.
It blows my mind that the Wizard didn't have a "Black Hole" sort of skill at release. Almost every caster in modern RPG games have one of those
That combo sounds really good... add Explosive Blast for extra awesomeness..
And as far as Archon is concerned, keeping the extra duration system with a hard cap (and add the current buff also with a cap) would be the more elegant solution imo.
I might actually start playing a Wizard, seeing some of these changes =)
The arcane orb runes (fire / lightning and ice) are fantastic changes, seems really fun. I like the removal of the CD for wave of force, and it seems there giving some nice tweaks such as giving your splits base damage. The big thing I'm noticing though is all the synergy as far as a skill increasing damage taken from a different school of magic. Should make for some awesome builds. Hell having a giant meteor cooldown alone looks sweet =D
1. Armors look they will last for 4 minutes which is double the duration (much needed).
2. Poison effects are being replaced by fire effects for wiz spells which sort of makes sense and now seems like the obvious thing to do, given that they want to prioritize elemental damage for wizards and fire spells were really lacking (See: Magic Weapon, Hydra). Also goodbye zuni boots as they will probably fix the adds to poison damage to work only with poison spells.
3. Illusionist passive will be great for farming with 30% run speed.
4. Power hungry changes seem nice, but conflag and galv ward passives are a bit meh, will have to play to see.
5. Wonder how disintegrate - intensify and Ray of Frost snowbound work. I am assuming the continued casting of either spell will cause the damage to increase by 30% and not the next spell. If so, is that better or worse than the previous incarnations?
6. Archon - Damn i was convinced they would nerf CM only so Archon's could not be quickly refreshed, but this will kill of the infinite archon. On the other hand if CM is not nerfed, with high enough crit gear we could still refresh archon really really fast. Will have to wait and see, (of course like Jaetch suggested lots of other possibilities open up).
7. Audacity seems a bit bland. 20% damage passive for enemies within 15 yards.
8. Elemental exposure passive should be fun for those who like using multiple forms of damages. However, even taken into account an elemental weapon, would there be many wizards who would take this as you would need 4 different elemental types to hit 20% damage and even then it is based on stacks.
Overall I think this looks very interesting but we obviously need to test these out.
6. Archon - Damn i was convinced they would nerf CM only so Archon's could not be quickly refreshed, but this will kill of the infinite archon. On the other hand if CM is not nerfed, with high enough crit gear we could still refresh archon really really fast. Will have to wait and see, (of course like Jaetch suggested lots of other possibilities open up).
I am pretty confident that CC and CD will both be nerfed too.
Agree @Archon to be an elite killer. To be honest, sounds like a reasonable move. They had to do something about it.
A little sad that there's no change to Blizzard, as I'd really love to go back to my D2-style Blizzard sorc. Really hope they re-design Blizzard to get a rune that weakens the spell significantly but allows for stacking.
Other than that... too many runes still in development or even just placeholders, too early to tell which specs could create some nice synergies. But soooo looking forward to the PTR...
I'm really excited about the new fire/lightning/frost damage options. I agree with Shad3slayer - Wizard does seem to be getting (so far) the coolest changes (apart from perhaps Weapon throw barb)
I think its safe to say as wizard players there is nothing more nostalgic then getting dat F Orb back :). Meanwhile I dont remmber exactly but there seems to be a bunch for fire damage skills now huh?
I love the Wizard changes, more than any other class so far (I can't believe that they're actually nerfing DH's further -.-). Pretty sure it'll stay my main in RoS. Love the addition of Glacial Spike, Frozen Orb, Fire Wall (kinda - the Arcane Orb rune that leaves a trail of fire), Black Hole and there seems to be a lot of potential for interesting combinations and builds. And I also find it kind of weird that CM isn't nerfed. My guess is they just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Nerfs? To one passive maybe. But they completely buffed a TON of DH skills. You should read through all of it.
Black Hole + arcane mines could be fun too. It's a little too bad they're changing Arcane Dynamo though. I understand why, but it makes the ability much less useful overall, imo. You can still use electrocute - lightning blast to power it in half the time as other sig spells, but that's still like 3s to get 5 stacks at almost 2 APS.
Sleet Storm seems like it's getting a buff with the increased aoe. That should be pretty neat, and you can combine that with Black hole also. Basically you can just replace a cyclone strike monk with Black Hole for solo play It's also great with the 15 yard 20% damage passive. The passive might not be fun, but it seems pretty useful.
So far I'm more interested in the passives than the other skill changes. It looks like we'll finally get dps buffs on par with other classes.
Casting black hole on your location and then using sleet storm would be awesome like you say lorose. Plus adding wave of force in there somehow. Love the animation of wave of force
I have always loved frozen orb in d2. By far my favourite. Hope they change/ enhance the current frozen orb on look/width that's on one of the current legendary items..
My build in the future will revolve around this skill none the less.
Blood magic is being changed to not have life steal effect.. Wonder if blizzard are doing something with that stat....
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Archon will likely be used only for elites. Basically blast all nearby mobs and buff up to take out elites. Say there are 20 or so enemies in an area. That's 60% bonus damage to your sheet. Stack things like Cold Blooded, Improved Archon, Glass Cannon, etc. you can only imagine how high sheet DPS will be and how fast you can burn elites down. Critical Mass has no known potential changes yet, so let's assume nothing's changed.
Now what about skills against mobs?
Right now I can see a potential combo that I would LOVE to use...
Stack multipliers and then combine "Black Hole - Absolute Zero" and spam "Arcane Orb - Frozen Orb."
Yep, suck everything in and spam Orb to freeze and AOE DPS. Recast Black Hole whenever possible. With all the cooldown reductions items and skills, you can imagine this will be the new perma-stun type of build.
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Considering that the three biggest "abuse" builds in the game are wizard-archon, wizard-cm/ww, and barbarian-ww, and two of those are apparently being rendered completely obsolete, I strongly suspect the cm/ww build will be gone as well. Perhaps an internal cooldown to cm?
I've been playing cm/ww for quite awhile now, but am so excited that frozen orb is coming back, not to mention the pending awesomeness of black hole, that I really don't care what they do to the abuse builds.
We dont know any cm changes yet, yeah nor do we know the proc coefficient changes either so we wont know if CMWW will be nerfed or not. I do hope it is though.
That combo sounds really good... add Explosive Blast for extra awesomeness..
And as far as Archon is concerned, keeping the extra duration system with a hard cap (and add the current buff also with a cap) would be the more elegant solution imo.
The arcane orb runes (fire / lightning and ice) are fantastic changes, seems really fun. I like the removal of the CD for wave of force, and it seems there giving some nice tweaks such as giving your splits base damage. The big thing I'm noticing though is all the synergy as far as a skill increasing damage taken from a different school of magic. Should make for some awesome builds. Hell having a giant meteor cooldown alone looks sweet =D
cause giving current stat allocation crit Chance and arcane power reg would go completly of Charts
so that might reduce the potential use of this playstyle.
1. Armors look they will last for 4 minutes which is double the duration (much needed).
2. Poison effects are being replaced by fire effects for wiz spells which sort of makes sense and now seems like the obvious thing to do, given that they want to prioritize elemental damage for wizards and fire spells were really lacking (See: Magic Weapon, Hydra). Also goodbye zuni boots as they will probably fix the adds to poison damage to work only with poison spells.
3. Illusionist passive will be great for farming with 30% run speed.
4. Power hungry changes seem nice, but conflag and galv ward passives are a bit meh, will have to play to see.
5. Wonder how disintegrate - intensify and Ray of Frost snowbound work. I am assuming the continued casting of either spell will cause the damage to increase by 30% and not the next spell. If so, is that better or worse than the previous incarnations?
6. Archon - Damn i was convinced they would nerf CM only so Archon's could not be quickly refreshed, but this will kill of the infinite archon. On the other hand if CM is not nerfed, with high enough crit gear we could still refresh archon really really fast. Will have to wait and see, (of course like Jaetch suggested lots of other possibilities open up).
7. Audacity seems a bit bland. 20% damage passive for enemies within 15 yards.
8. Elemental exposure passive should be fun for those who like using multiple forms of damages. However, even taken into account an elemental weapon, would there be many wizards who would take this as you would need 4 different elemental types to hit 20% damage and even then it is based on stacks.
Overall I think this looks very interesting but we obviously need to test these out.
I am pretty confident that CC and CD will both be nerfed too.
A little sad that there's no change to Blizzard, as I'd really love to go back to my D2-style Blizzard sorc. Really hope they re-design Blizzard to get a rune that weakens the spell significantly but allows for stacking.
Other than that... too many runes still in development or even just placeholders, too early to tell which specs could create some nice synergies. But soooo looking forward to the PTR...
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Nerfs? To one passive maybe. But they completely buffed a TON of DH skills. You should read through all of it.
Sleet Storm seems like it's getting a buff with the increased aoe. That should be pretty neat, and you can combine that with Black hole also. Basically you can just replace a cyclone strike monk with Black Hole for solo play It's also great with the 15 yard 20% damage passive. The passive might not be fun, but it seems pretty useful.
So far I'm more interested in the passives than the other skill changes. It looks like we'll finally get dps buffs on par with other classes.
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I have always loved frozen orb in d2. By far my favourite. Hope they change/ enhance the current frozen orb on look/width that's on one of the current legendary items..
My build in the future will revolve around this skill none the less.
Blood magic is being changed to not have life steal effect.. Wonder if blizzard are doing something with that stat....