I tried Jaetch's build yesterday with a couple of variations, one of them Blizzard (because of the Frozen rune). Blizzard's damage is sooo weak, the spell is completely useless in my opinion.
I mostly just use blizzard(not the company) as a filler spell to get Apoc.
Do not do this. Not only does Blizzard have a terrible proc coefficient (on live: Blizzard 1.3%, all other spells between 8% and 100%); it's also way too expensive and you'll never get the AP back you invested with Blizzard. Blizzard is an AP spender, there's no way to gain AP by using Blizzard.
I've been mainly using (on live) Blizzard: Stark Winter to mass proc cold blooded before cleaning up with Disintegrate: Volatility. Although admittedly my Wiz is a bit of a glass cannon and gets 1-shot a lot on MP1+.
Frost Hydra is an option. I even have the Frost Hydra legendary (The Magistrate, procs Frost Nova from Frost Hydra) but it proc rates seems to be a joke.
I don't think there are other spells that offer what you want, at least can't think of anything off the top of my head. I tried both Frost Hydra and Blizzard yesterday and it didn't really improve my game play... so I discarded Blizzard. I really want to use it, but at first it needs some love by Blizzard... you're just wasting 40 AP. The damage is a joke, a meteor will yield much better damage/AP ratio, so you're wasting a click and AP here that'll reduce your real DPS.
Not to mention the slow is barely noticeable in the moments where it really matters: against elites.
I would be ok if certain elites (a new Resistant one, Fast, Teleporter, Horde) were stronger against CC, but the fact that slows in general barely work against them is really bad for any class that relies on that to mitigate dmg.
I also don't like their approach with skills so far: "just always buff damage, until it's OP". It's a lazy approach to skill balance. Instead of actually looking "what is the player trying to achieve with this skill" and "why isn't it working?", they simply either remove a mechanic or overbuff the skill. That's kinda amateurish -.-
How good of damage do Frost Hydras do? I might have to switch it out and try that. Either that or its back to comet. I guess I could change it up with a different school of magic, but I was going for an all frost kind of wizard
It's not that great, but I was never a huge fan of Hydras. I can see why they don't want these "passive" damage skills like Hydra and Blizzard to be too overpowered, but right now they're underpowered. It seems like Meteor is the absolutely best damage/AP spell right now, hope it gets a second look at balancing...
I also don't like their approach with skills so far: "just always buff damage, until it's OP". It's a lazy approach to skill balance. Instead of actually looking "what is the player trying to achieve with this skill" and "why isn't it working?", they simply either remove a mechanic or overbuff the skill. That's kinda amateurish -.-
With all due respect, Zero, especially when it came to the Wizard, just buffing damage is about the last thing they did.
They did it with a lot of the Witch Doctor's DoT skills, because most of the WD's lure is huge amounts of Damage over Time, and most of the existing DoT build options for the WD were pretty pitiful. Now, at least, not only does the WD have a strong amount of powerful spell build options (my WD on the PTR can FINALLY hang with an all Spirit build, with no Primary spell, very happy about that), the WD can also have elemental synergies as well, which makes them great pairings with Wizards, but hardly OP.
So yes, they did "remove a mechanic" in Critical Mass, but they ended up adding so many better options in terms of mitigation...Dominance and Galvanizing Ward now producing shields (something the Monk is also great at doing...keeping up my PTR Monk's Mantra of Healing shield is a great way to restore life without having to depend on Breath of Heaven or Serenity), changing Blur to a flat damage reduction instead of just "melee damage," and I'm pretty sure some of the Primary spells have shields attached as well.
I'm not sure if the major components of the Demon Hunter or Barbarian have changed as drastically, but those classes at least have become WAY more diverse as a result of their skill rebalancing for the patch.
It's not that great, but I was never a huge fan of Hydras. I can see why they don't want these "passive" damage skills like Hydra and Blizzard to be too overpowered, but right now they're underpowered. It seems like Meteor is the absolutely best damage/AP spell right now, hope it gets a second look at balancing...
How good of damage do Frost Hydras do? I might have to switch it out and try that. Either that or its back to comet. I guess I could change it up with a different school of magic, but I was going for an all frost kind of wizard
My Wizard on the live game used Hydras a lot, mainly for elemental damage stacking. Not a deep or complex method, but somewhat effective.
I've found their main lure, though, to be that they have a very low casting cost (so they can essentially be moved around to where they're needed), and they stay up for, like, 15 seconds per cast. So while they don't do massive burst damage, like most Meteor options, if a Wizard wants to save Arcane Power for other spells, while still doing elemental damage of a particular type, a Hydra can be a smart way to go.
I will say, though, that as people start gaining more Paragon Levels in Reaper of Souls, and putting points into Maximum Resource and Reduced Resource Cost, Wizards are going to be casting insane amounts of Meteors.
Here is what I always wanted to say: Blizzards damage should stack, period. Many people will disagree, thats fine but this spell is an AP spender with weak dmg. It would be more fun to "spam" this spell more, if it costs 40 arcane power every time, then it should stack every time. In diablo 2 we spammed, firewall, meteor, frozen orb, blizzard and what not. It always stacked if I remember correctly.
Here is what I always wanted to say: Blizzards damage should stack, period. Many people will disagree, thats fine but this spell is an AP spender with weak dmg. It would be more fun to "spam" this spell more, if it costs 40 arcane power every time, then it should stack every time. In diablo 2 we spammed, firewall, meteor, frozen orb, blizzard and what not. It always stacked if I remember correctly.
I would have no problem if Blizzard stacked...to bring it back to the topic at hand, :-) Mainly because it's a DoT kind of spell that hits a lot to cause damage, and since it stands still and costs a ton of AP, I agree that it should stack.
However, wildminz...one of the reasons people could spam spells in D2 was because of mana potions, which weren't a bad mechanic back in the day, but they were clearly pretty easy to abuse to, well...stack more damage than one should be putting out. In D3, if a person strengthens their character enough that they can spam spells a little bit, it's much different than in D2, when people could spam spells almost infinitely if they have enough potions.
Though, like I said, I do agree that Blizzards in D3 should stack. I can support that.
I should've expressed myself bettter. I meant their skill balancing on vanilla in general, Cardinal. Also, you guys are absolutely free to disagree with me, I'll never take it personally
But the "mechanics" part of my comment stands for some RoS balancing (and I didn't mean just things like Critical Mass).It feels like they simply don't stop and analyse it properly "is this skill achieving what the player expects of it", and specially "how it compares with other similar skills".
Somedefensive skills[/b] were never even useable in vanilla (like Mirror Image). Its damage was buffed, but the core of the issue is that it simply doesn't mitigate damage effectivelly (that is particlarly bad against elites). Teleport has a very clear cooldown issue to me, because rellocating yourself in a fight will only mitigate damage for 1, maybe 2 seconds tops (since teleport doesn't properly work over cliffs), and even less against[b]Fast[/b] mobs.
Blizzard was compared with Meteor. The differences between these 2 shouldn't be damage imo, it should be "Blizz has the downside of X, but the upside of Y"; and right now its "pros" are barely noticeable (slow, damage over time, bigger area). A lot of the Signature spells have this problem too imo, with some runes being infinitely superior to others and never being revisited by the balance team.
Signature spells were conceived as a mostly "single target" (or multi-target with big disadvantages) alternatives for when you can't spam the big spells, but since every single skill got a 600% wpn dmg base damage, those have to be buffed in numbers (the big useless inflation Blizz loves) just to compete. That is the wrong approach imo, Signature spells should add utility to a combo/build (like the Ice Magic Missile).
Sorry for the long post. This is a big issue imo =/ skill balance is a synonym of gameplay variety on the end-game.
I switched out blizzard for frost hydra and it seems so much nicer than blizzard. On torment 1 it was killing mobs before I got close to them. Next thing I know, a legendary drops. I ID it and its a Monster hunter with a ton of fire damage. I switched to a fire spec which does insane dps.
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Has anyone noticed Blizzard with snowbound is doing no damage? I'm not sure if it is and I'm not seeing it or what, but I just noticed tonight.
I tried Jaetch's build yesterday with a couple of variations, one of them Blizzard (because of the Frozen rune). Blizzard's damage is sooo weak, the spell is completely useless in my opinion.
Do not do this. Not only does Blizzard have a terrible proc coefficient (on live: Blizzard 1.3%, all other spells between 8% and 100%); it's also way too expensive and you'll never get the AP back you invested with Blizzard. Blizzard is an AP spender, there's no way to gain AP by using Blizzard.
I've been mainly using (on live) Blizzard: Stark Winter to mass proc cold blooded before cleaning up with Disintegrate: Volatility. Although admittedly my Wiz is a bit of a glass cannon and gets 1-shot a lot on MP1+.
Frost Hydra is an option. I even have the Frost Hydra legendary (The Magistrate, procs Frost Nova from Frost Hydra) but it proc rates seems to be a joke.
I don't think there are other spells that offer what you want, at least can't think of anything off the top of my head. I tried both Frost Hydra and Blizzard yesterday and it didn't really improve my game play... so I discarded Blizzard. I really want to use it, but at first it needs some love by Blizzard... you're just wasting 40 AP. The damage is a joke, a meteor will yield much better damage/AP ratio, so you're wasting a click and AP here that'll reduce your real DPS.
Not to mention the slow is barely noticeable in the moments where it really matters: against elites.
I would be ok if certain elites (a new Resistant one, Fast, Teleporter, Horde) were stronger against CC, but the fact that slows in general barely work against them is really bad for any class that relies on that to mitigate dmg.
I also don't like their approach with skills so far: "just always buff damage, until it's OP". It's a lazy approach to skill balance. Instead of actually looking "what is the player trying to achieve with this skill" and "why isn't it working?", they simply either remove a mechanic or overbuff the skill. That's kinda amateurish -.-
How good of damage do Frost Hydras do? I might have to switch it out and try that. Either that or its back to comet. I guess I could change it up with a different school of magic, but I was going for an all frost kind of wizard
It's not that great, but I was never a huge fan of Hydras. I can see why they don't want these "passive" damage skills like Hydra and Blizzard to be too overpowered, but right now they're underpowered. It seems like Meteor is the absolutely best damage/AP spell right now, hope it gets a second look at balancing...
With all due respect, Zero, especially when it came to the Wizard, just buffing damage is about the last thing they did.
They did it with a lot of the Witch Doctor's DoT skills, because most of the WD's lure is huge amounts of Damage over Time, and most of the existing DoT build options for the WD were pretty pitiful. Now, at least, not only does the WD have a strong amount of powerful spell build options (my WD on the PTR can FINALLY hang with an all Spirit build, with no Primary spell, very happy about that), the WD can also have elemental synergies as well, which makes them great pairings with Wizards, but hardly OP.
So yes, they did "remove a mechanic" in Critical Mass, but they ended up adding so many better options in terms of mitigation...Dominance and Galvanizing Ward now producing shields (something the Monk is also great at doing...keeping up my PTR Monk's Mantra of Healing shield is a great way to restore life without having to depend on Breath of Heaven or Serenity), changing Blur to a flat damage reduction instead of just "melee damage," and I'm pretty sure some of the Primary spells have shields attached as well.
I'm not sure if the major components of the Demon Hunter or Barbarian have changed as drastically, but those classes at least have become WAY more diverse as a result of their skill rebalancing for the patch.
My Wizard on the live game used Hydras a lot, mainly for elemental damage stacking. Not a deep or complex method, but somewhat effective.
I've found their main lure, though, to be that they have a very low casting cost (so they can essentially be moved around to where they're needed), and they stay up for, like, 15 seconds per cast. So while they don't do massive burst damage, like most Meteor options, if a Wizard wants to save Arcane Power for other spells, while still doing elemental damage of a particular type, a Hydra can be a smart way to go.
I will say, though, that as people start gaining more Paragon Levels in Reaper of Souls, and putting points into Maximum Resource and Reduced Resource Cost, Wizards are going to be casting insane amounts of Meteors.
Yeah, Blizzard should stack. I think I wrote this already like a 1000 times. Giev me my D2 Blizz sorc back ;-)
No one
shouldwill disagree to this...I would have no problem if Blizzard stacked...to bring it back to the topic at hand, :-) Mainly because it's a DoT kind of spell that hits a lot to cause damage, and since it stands still and costs a ton of AP, I agree that it should stack.
However, wildminz...one of the reasons people could spam spells in D2 was because of mana potions, which weren't a bad mechanic back in the day, but they were clearly pretty easy to abuse to, well...stack more damage than one should be putting out. In D3, if a person strengthens their character enough that they can spam spells a little bit, it's much different than in D2, when people could spam spells almost infinitely if they have enough potions.
Though, like I said, I do agree that Blizzards in D3 should stack. I can support that.
I should've expressed myself bettter. I meant their skill balancing on vanilla in general, Cardinal. Also, you guys are absolutely free to disagree with me, I'll never take it personally
But the "mechanics" part of my comment stands for some RoS balancing (and I didn't mean just things like Critical Mass).It feels like they simply don't stop and analyse it properly "is this skill achieving what the player expects of it", and specially "how it compares with other similar skills".
Somedefensive skills[/b] were never even useable in vanilla (like Mirror Image). Its damage was buffed, but the core of the issue is that it simply doesn't mitigate damage effectivelly (that is particlarly bad against elites). Teleport has a very clear cooldown issue to me, because rellocating yourself in a fight will only mitigate damage for 1, maybe 2 seconds tops (since teleport doesn't properly work over cliffs), and even less against[b]Fast[/b] mobs.
Blizzard was compared with Meteor. The differences between these 2 shouldn't be damage imo, it should be "Blizz has the downside of X, but the upside of Y"; and right now its "pros" are barely noticeable (slow, damage over time, bigger area). A lot of the Signature spells have this problem too imo, with some runes being infinitely superior to others and never being revisited by the balance team.
Signature spells were conceived as a mostly "single target" (or multi-target with big disadvantages) alternatives for when you can't spam the big spells, but since every single skill got a 600% wpn dmg base damage, those have to be buffed in numbers (the big useless inflation Blizz loves) just to compete. That is the wrong approach imo, Signature spells should add utility to a combo/build (like the Ice Magic Missile).
Sorry for the long post. This is a big issue imo =/ skill balance is a synonym of gameplay variety on the end-game.
I switched out blizzard for frost hydra and it seems so much nicer than blizzard. On torment 1 it was killing mobs before I got close to them. Next thing I know, a legendary drops. I ID it and its a Monster hunter with a ton of fire damage. I switched to a fire spec which does insane dps.