I was a bit hesitant to post this at first, because it involves two very rare, game-changing items, but seeing many many wizards on my clan getting both of them now, it seems this might be interesting to a few people. I've been waiting to get a level 70 Wand of Woh since day one, but in the meantime I just go with whatever OP items the game throws at me - and these just happened to be the Moonlight Ward and Mirrorball. (Note, before you hate me for having both those items, I don't have any intelligence Ring of Royal Grandeur after 1300 bounties and just one item of each set, all just mediocre rolls - RNG was nice to me on legendaries, but hates me when it comes to sets, and I'm close to 180 hours since release.) After putting some time into theorycrafting and testing several skill combinations, this is what I'm currently running:
Magic Missile - Charged Blast just wins over any other arcane signature spell due to Mirrorball, although my source has relatively little average damage (I believe even less than 300). It is the #1 damage spell in this build unless we are surrounded by monsters. It also has a proc coefficient of 1.000, which means it works wonder with LoH.
Wave of Force - Arcane Attunement is the perfect complementary spell if many enemies are scattered around us. I've grown very fond of WoF since day 1 of the beta; I just like this spell. I also believe it is the best AP spender to pair with Moonlight Ward as its damage radius is similar.
Since we're always in melee range and in immediate danger of dying, Teleport is almost a must-have spell (I could go without it because I have Illusory Boots, but still prefer to have it). I chose Wormhole rune because we're running really fast on Torment 1, but I believe any choice is justifiable here. I don't think any of the runes are "bad" or "useless".
The only passive that is a given is Audacity. You don't want to not have this passive with this build. All the other passives are interchangeable; I run Astral Presence to have more Waves of Force ready if I want (and it complements my Reaper's Wraps), Glass Canon because I was running Torment 1 last time, and Unwavering Will because when I'm standing still for elite fights it gives more extra damage and toughness. But all those can be swapped, especially Blur for Glass Canon on higher difficulties.
Playstyle:
What I like about this build is that it requires zero cognitive effort in terms of maximizing DPS. There's no timing, no particular attention to be paid to anything, no skill involved. Just go ahead and melt faces. Many enemies around you => Wave of Force, single elite or rift guardian => Magic Missile. You can't do it "wrong" because MM is still good DPS even on enemies that are scattered, especially if you have some area damage, and you can't spam the lower single-target DPS spell WoF against single target mobs because you will run out of AP. Since this is a melee build, you want to be close to the monsters - start cuddling with all the bad guys such that they feel the full wrath of your raw arcane power.Therefore, it requires some attention on higher difficulties in order to Teleport out before things get too messy. However, on Torment 1 I never die with ~6-7m toughness (300k life, 10k armor, 1500 allres which I know is quite low) even when standing in explosions and stuff. If things get too messy, I Teleport out; this is about the only thing you need to focus your cognitive effort on
Gear:
The only two required items, as pointed out in the topic's title, are Moonlight Ward and Mirrorball. I actually sometimes curse my Mirrorball as the resulting Magic Missile damage is so overpowered that it locks me into certain builds. I'm a huge fan of Barrier Blades and would much rather use them, but it lowers my DPS by almost 70% (Ghom testing). Other things to look out for:
Obviously lots of arcane damage.
Magic Missile damage bonus on belt, orb, and pants, Wave of Force damage bonus on boots (I don't think it's worth it on helmet for this build and on a Mirrorball you simply want Magic Missile damage if possible).
Illusory Boots, as mentioned, because you will be surrounded by mobs and Teleport might be on cooldown (and there's no place for The Oculus in this build).
I'd recommend everyone to try the combination of Goldskin and Goldwrap. It is just insane. Molten explosion incoming? Well, enemies just died, which means you picked up their gold, which means you have plenty of mitigation, which means you can ignore the explosion. The highest I've had was 60k armor (23 million toughness), up from ~7. Goldskin helps to even bump up your armor mid-fight. My toughness constantly changes, but it's rarely the case that I have no buff from Goldwrap.
Have fun trying this build! I did some Ghom tests and had some 50m eDPS, so a multiplicator of roughly 40 (1.25m sheet DPS). Here's a snapshot of my current gear (note that DPS and toughness stats on D3up are still off and the average damage on Mirrorball is not displaying; I'm at 1.25m sheet DPS, ~7m toughness, 75% arcane damage, 43% elite damage). There are many other builds out there that are equally viable as this one, but I just like this playstyle most. Not a fan of Disintegrate or Arcane Torrent, which is what most wizards I meet are running. Just for a change, give it a try if you have the two items ;-)
I'm one of those wizards running arcane torrent, got my moonlight ward yesterday and immidiatly switched to audacity.
I run a triumvirate with 9% arcane and 4 APOC.
How do you feel that would compare vs mirrorball? At this time I rarely run out of AP, usually in 4player games where I'm the top dps'er or some elite packs.
As a comment on your build: I wouldn't use force weapon because of its chance to knockback, as I'd want all enemies close to me - do you notice any issues with that?
I did Ghom tests with Arcane Torrent and it was definitely slower than Magic Missile (~14s with MM only, ~17s with AT only, both on T3; short kills are better for sole DPS measurements as AP is not an issue). However, I talked to another wizard yesterday who said that for him AT performed better than MM, but he also had AT bonus damage. I'd say it comes down to preference, but in my opinion MM and AT are very very similar in its mechanics and I'm not too keen on either of them, only using MM because if I wouldn't it would decrease my DPS considerably.
About the knockback - never even noticed it. Not an issue at all. However, I rarely play solo, usually with 1-2 Demon Hunters and they would kill everything that gets knocked back. And since I mostly run T1, 99% of the mobs die from 1-2 waves anyways.
Cool build! I've been running something similar-ish but use Arcane Orbit instead of Wave of Force, do you know how they compare? ATM T1 is autopilot for me to the point where I find I'm not even casting MM that much (everything just blows up) and have been playing around with the idea of crafting a Cosmic Strand and running Teleport - Calamity instead.
Are you playing solo? Then Arcane Orbit might actually be better, yes. Arcane Orbit was (after Archon and Explosive Blast of course) the best DPS improvement in my Ghom tests. However, since I play in group on low difficulty were everything gets killed instantly, monsters barely get close enough to me to trigger Arcane Orbit. But if that's not the case - the monsters live long enough and run towards you, and not a tank - Arcane Orbit certainly is an option. It's my least favorite rune of Arcane Orb, though, which is why I'm always keen on making it look bad
I love how the wizard in RoS is all about preference... so many different builds, even with constraints by gear there are still many different options. Thansk for the Arcane Orbit hint, should've mentioned that as alternative actually.
Oh and yeah, T1 is absolutely auto-pilot. For bounties I switch to Storm Armor or Ice Armor and mobs kill themselves as soon as they get hit by the armor spell (and then by the MLW wave afterwards). MM really just is for mobs that don't die instantly, such as elites or more resistant trash mobs such as trees or Tremors.
For a Teleport-based build, I'd prefer The Oculus over Cosmic Strand. But again, just preference ;-)
Yeah, totally agree with everything you're saying. I highlighted that in my post though - I'm running T1, but all the skills you recommended should be switched to for higher difficulties. It's all in the fine print ;-)
I'm not sure though that this build would ever work on T6. It's too melee heavy, you'd need INSANE amounts of mitigation to be able to survive T6 with this build.
As far as I know, the Moonlight Ward proc (just as any other item proc like Thunderfury, Pox Faulds, Shard of Hate) cannot be increased by elemental damage. It reads "elemental skill damage increased" on the items anyways, and this is elemental item's damage.
Yeah, I love the melee concept in RoS, but I'm afraid it requires lots of assistance from the RNG gods. Well, I'm doing my part and playing as much as possible to get there.
With this build, LoH works wonder because both WoF and especially MM are pretty good in terms of proc coefficient (MM definitely, and WoF because it hits so many targets). So add high LoH (over high LPS) as a necessity, for sure. Paragon 600... yeah, probably never. I'm not even paragon 400 yet ;-)
I have been wanting to get a moonlight ward and mirrorball to go with my wand of woh and switch from fire to arcane. My original intention was to run a hybrid explosive blast/arcane torrent build, but seeing how much damage MM does with mirrorball I might forgo the arcane torrent and just wave of force to quickly dump AP and then MM + EB for sustained, should be huge edps even over longer fights.
Nice write-up. However, if you have a MLW and some +arcane gear, you don't need any other specific legendaries to melt lower torments. Just get any yellow boots and a source with +disintegrate damage and go Disintegrate/Entropy + Audacity + Cannoneer build. It doesn't care what you hit - white trash melts in less than a second and elites rarely live longer than 5 seconds (I mostly do T3 speed runs), since Disintegrate/Entropy hits like a truck and doesn't have any delays. Also, you can go even further and go completely signature-less with this build if you want (with Arcanot, PotS, Astral Presence and templar's passive).
One button to rule them all, One button to find them, One button to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
@jonlin0515: Not sure what exactly it will look like; just switching WoF to EB might be an option. Yes. Probably not go fire, I love arcane.
@Kjalar: To be honest, I could probably go any spec and melt T1 with my current gear. But I just like to mess around and choose builds/skills that I like. I'm just not a huge fan of Disintegrate - tried it for a fair bit but didn't appeal to me that much. Oh and I mostly play in group (so no Templar), and have no APoC on my items, therefore I've always had AP problems with AT/Disintegrate builds.
Nice write-up. However, if you have a MLW and some +arcane gear, you don't need any other specific legendaries to melt lower torments. Just get any yellow boots and a source with +disintegrate damage and go Disintegrate/Entropy + Audacity + Cannoneer build. It doesn't care what you hit - white trash melts in less than a second and elites rarely live longer than 5 seconds (I mostly do T3 speed runs), since Disintegrate/Entropy hits like a truck and doesn't have any delays. Also, you can go even further and go completely signature-less with this build if you want (with Arcanot, PotS, Astral Presence and templar's passive).
One button to rule them all, One button to find them,One button to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
T3's yellow elites only have 150M solo. To be able to deal more than 10-15M effective DPS isn't hard if you farm enough.
That was kinda my point.
As for your skill comparison and Disintegrate uptime discussion - it's unrelated, but I don't think you have an idea of how fast Disintegrate + Cannoneer + MLW melt stuff at lower difficulties, like T3. I don't use Arcanot or PotS, yet still AP is not an issue in most cases, since stuff dies before I run out of AP. And I think my gear is actually weaker than Bagstone's, so I guess you really underestimate Disintegrate or overestimate mirrored Charged Blast.
Anyway, I'm not saying this build is bad or anything like that, just wanted to point out that the same result (T1-3 fast & easy stomping) can be achieved without any fancy legendaries, just by relying on some harder hitting AOE abilities.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#adOSjQ!XYiS!abZZaZ
Build explanation:
What I like about this build is that it requires zero cognitive effort in terms of maximizing DPS. There's no timing, no particular attention to be paid to anything, no skill involved. Just go ahead and melt faces. Many enemies around you => Wave of Force, single elite or rift guardian => Magic Missile. You can't do it "wrong" because MM is still good DPS even on enemies that are scattered, especially if you have some area damage, and you can't spam the lower single-target DPS spell WoF against single target mobs because you will run out of AP. Since this is a melee build, you want to be close to the monsters - start cuddling with all the bad guys such that they feel the full wrath of your raw arcane power.Therefore, it requires some attention on higher difficulties in order to Teleport out before things get too messy. However, on Torment 1 I never die with ~6-7m toughness (300k life, 10k armor, 1500 allres which I know is quite low) even when standing in explosions and stuff. If things get too messy, I Teleport out; this is about the only thing you need to focus your cognitive effort on
Gear:
The only two required items, as pointed out in the topic's title, are Moonlight Ward and Mirrorball. I actually sometimes curse my Mirrorball as the resulting Magic Missile damage is so overpowered that it locks me into certain builds. I'm a huge fan of Barrier Blades and would much rather use them, but it lowers my DPS by almost 70% (Ghom testing). Other things to look out for:
About the knockback - never even noticed it. Not an issue at all. However, I rarely play solo, usually with 1-2 Demon Hunters and they would kill everything that gets knocked back. And since I mostly run T1, 99% of the mobs die from 1-2 waves anyways.
I love how the wizard in RoS is all about preference... so many different builds, even with constraints by gear there are still many different options. Thansk for the Arcane Orbit hint, should've mentioned that as alternative actually.
Oh and yeah, T1 is absolutely auto-pilot. For bounties I switch to Storm Armor or Ice Armor and mobs kill themselves as soon as they get hit by the armor spell (and then by the MLW wave afterwards). MM really just is for mobs that don't die instantly, such as elites or more resistant trash mobs such as trees or Tremors.
For a Teleport-based build, I'd prefer The Oculus over Cosmic Strand. But again, just preference ;-)
I'm not sure though that this build would ever work on T6. It's too melee heavy, you'd need INSANE amounts of mitigation to be able to survive T6 with this build.
As far as I know, the Moonlight Ward proc (just as any other item proc like Thunderfury, Pox Faulds, Shard of Hate) cannot be increased by elemental damage. It reads "elemental skill damage increased" on the items anyways, and this is elemental item's damage.
With this build, LoH works wonder because both WoF and especially MM are pretty good in terms of proc coefficient (MM definitely, and WoF because it hits so many targets). So add high LoH (over high LPS) as a necessity, for sure. Paragon 600... yeah, probably never. I'm not even paragon 400 yet ;-)
One button to rule them all, One button to find them,
One button to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
@Kjalar: To be honest, I could probably go any spec and melt T1 with my current gear. But I just like to mess around and choose builds/skills that I like. I'm just not a huge fan of Disintegrate - tried it for a fair bit but didn't appeal to me that much. Oh and I mostly play in group (so no Templar), and have no APoC on my items, therefore I've always had AP problems with AT/Disintegrate builds.
As for your skill comparison and Disintegrate uptime discussion - it's unrelated, but I don't think you have an idea of how fast Disintegrate + Cannoneer + MLW melt stuff at lower difficulties, like T3. I don't use Arcanot or PotS, yet still AP is not an issue in most cases, since stuff dies before I run out of AP. And I think my gear is actually weaker than Bagstone's, so I guess you really underestimate Disintegrate or overestimate mirrored Charged Blast.
Anyway, I'm not saying this build is bad or anything like that, just wanted to point out that the same result (T1-3 fast & easy stomping) can be achieved without any fancy legendaries, just by relying on some harder hitting AOE abilities.