Need some advice. It's been 50+ legendaries without a gear upgrade, and I'm stuck in T2. Currently I'm a +arcane dmg, +CDR archon build. I'm not sure if I:
Need better gear
Need to reroll some stats
Need to respec as fire
I feel like I have decent gear. I have some pieces for a fire set, like Magefist and a few other pieces of gear with +fire dmg. But, it would be costly to reroll all my stats to fire damage. I wouldn't mind changing up my play style to breathe more life into my character, especially if it meant I could handle T3/T4 efficiently.
You really think it's worth running a CDR archon build without Vyrs? The cooldown is quite long, you don't get the extra defense from time bubble and you have terrible mobility in it. ----> Actually i just noticed you're playing with the teleport rune, meaning you lose a big amount of damage.
Some other problems with your current setup are:
- Astral presence is wasted in archon
- You're using disintegrate without sloraks madness. I would advise arcane torrent (not to mention convergence is a terrible rune choice).
- No arcane armor thingy (pinpoint or pristmatic)
- No blur or evocation
(personal favourite is Dominance but not everyone likes it).
I'd advise you to drop the archon until you grab the vyr's set bonus. This frees up some spellslots and you can gain quite some DPS by dropping the CDR.
Lastly I'd like to mention that magic weapon - Force weapon is probably the only spell better than blackhole.
PS: Have you really not found something better than that 2000 dagger? High attackspeed weapons are generally bad for channel builds since you run out of arcane power faster.. Also the dps is a tat low.
You got a good start for t2-3 already I think but as others have mentioned you need to change up a few runes. The passives have been mentioned. I highly suggest you drop glass cannon and use blur or dominance.
I suggest if you want to keep Archon that you atleast use the damage rune and not teleport.
I looked at your gear and your weapon dps is quite low but shouldn't be holding you back for T2-3. I suggest you research wizard builds a little. I still do to this day because I like to change things up and try new things instead of the same old thing all the time.
Last but not least, I highly advice using arcane torrent. It's VERY good for mobs and it has served me well for a long time. That is if you continue to use arcane. Currently the best element is fire because of the extra fire gear you can get (magefists, cindercoat). Hope this helps.
Thanks for all the feedback, guys! I'm not in love with archon necessarily - last I really played was when D3 first launched, and that was the main wizard build. Plus, I had a lot of +arcane gear, so figured disintegrate + archon was the way to go. I will definitely check out an arcane torrent build.
And I agree that I definitely need more armor. Is the primary way to do that by upgrading gear? A damage reduction passive is necessary too. I use Astral Presence because of the speed of my weapon - I was burning through way too quickly. And yes Limdul, that's the best weapon I've found :/
A quick upgrade to this would be to replace your shoulders/bracers with Auglid's set if you find the plan. Auglid bracer can roll +elemental dmg and if will give you a huge boost against white mobs and the elite reduction/boost for 3 set can carry you well into end game.
Personally I would recommend getting a RoRG by just rinse/repeat Act 1 bounty. It's a great ring for those set bonuses like your cap crimson/auglid/vyrs/tal's etc. You have some good arcane gear i.e. Andariels, MLW.
I'm also surprise that you rerolled your Witching Hour IAS instead of your Shock Pulse dmg as the IAS is not rerollable... which is sadness to me
Also, a good jump on DPS would be your main hand. You don't really want anything less than 2200 dps on your main hand unless they start with Wand and end with Woh.
As suggested, your gears should be able to do t3/t4 with some minor tweak i.e. RoRG + Auglids.
I have a RoRG, but it's a slight downgrade from my current rings. And I crafted the Augild's shoulders, but again it's slightly worse than my current shoulder.
And Witching Hour didn't get great rolls either. What can I do about my mainhand other than playing and hoping to get an upgrade?
Even when slightly worse than your current rings, RoRG will with your current gear already give you the crimson setbonus. Once you've got the ring equipped 2 aughilds will most likely become an upgrade due to the set bonus (unless they are really badly rolled)
As for the weapon, It shouldn't be that hard to find a weapon with decent intel but some higher dps should it? Don't get confused by the tooltip damage since then new drops will obviously not have a gem in it yet. But yeah just keep playing and hope for the best, considering you need other upgrades to i wouldn't try to get a weapon from kadala yet, seeing how they're quite expensive
The removal of legendary crafting materials should make it relatively easy to craft some sets to now. Just be sure to not waste to many arcane dusts on the way to expensive bracers.
As for the build:
Arcane torrent - cascade is probably more powerfull unless you're in a group with 3-4 arcane mages.
Glass cannon provides a big damage boost but wouldn't really go for it unless you're feeling really comfortable toughness wise
I have a RoRG, but it's a slight downgrade from my current rings. And I crafted the Augild's shoulders, but again it's slightly worse than my current shoulder.
And Witching Hour didn't get great rolls either. What can I do about my mainhand other than playing and hoping to get an upgrade?
Thanks!
RoRG strength is not on the ring itself but what it's set bonus gives. Having a good set bonus often outweights the slight loss of DPS. Remember sheet DPS is not in and all about how well your character deals overall damage. If survivalbility is an issue then all the DPS you do is for naught as 0hp = 0dps. As I recommended, Auglid is a great end game set item and the +15 elite reduction / bonus damage is really great. It will not show up on your character sheet or sheet DPS but it does affect it greatly. The same applies to why SoJ is such a great ring and a decent Sun Keeper as well. Don't sneeze at the +% dmg to elite and also +% elemental dmg. They means the difference between T5 and T6 in most cases.
Looking at your most recent setup, I would swap the leoric ring for RoRG, swap your gloves and pants to Cain's set (if you can craft them) and switch your belt to captain crimson. The Captain Crimson pants that you have is not optimal as regen is not as good as armor/all resist. This change will effectively give you +15% reduction/increase dmg against elite, +8% ias, +50% bonus exp/MF, +50 AR, +10% reduce all resource cost which is way better setup than what you have on now.
Best way to test a setup is to play, play, play a lot after each change. Theory is all nice and good but ultimately you know best as each person's play style is different but experiment and try it. That's what makes Diablo fun. Good luck.
Thanks im2kul, that makes sense. I can indeed craft the Cain's set. However, unless I'm mistaken, shouldn't I be avoiding attack speed for channeling spells? I thought higher attack speed depletes resources more quickly.
Thanks im2kul, that makes sense. I can indeed craft the Cain's set. However, unless I'm mistaken, shouldn't I be avoiding attack speed for channeling spells? I thought higher attack speed depletes resources more quickly.
Yes, if you are going pure channelling spells, IAS will deplete your resources quickly but IAS does add a lot to your sheet dps. You are using MM so IAS is important there to help you regen more resources.
If you are going pure channeling, then you want to prioritize RCR, APoC, resource regen etc. A good example of this for item is Cindercoat for fire, good offhands with APoC and regen, Captain Crimson set for RCR. Another set which I have come to use for survivability is Asheara. The set bonuses does add a lot of toughness which is important for higher torment.
The strength of the wizard is that they are flexible and can be changed to play differently. However, with that being said, their end-game is a bit underpowered as compare to the other big classes like WD, DH, Barb, Crusader and now Monk. I hope that the new revamp Firebird set will be worth the wait...
Need some advice. It's been 50+ legendaries without a gear upgrade, and I'm stuck in T2. Currently I'm a +arcane dmg, +CDR archon build. I'm not sure if I:
Here is my profile:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/BigC-1674/hero/38513348
What do you guys think? Thanks!
Some other problems with your current setup are:
- Astral presence is wasted in archon
- You're using disintegrate without sloraks madness. I would advise arcane torrent (not to mention convergence is a terrible rune choice).
- No arcane armor thingy (pinpoint or pristmatic)
- No blur or evocation
(personal favourite is Dominance but not everyone likes it).
I'd advise you to drop the archon until you grab the vyr's set bonus. This frees up some spellslots and you can gain quite some DPS by dropping the CDR.
Lastly I'd like to mention that magic weapon - Force weapon is probably the only spell better than blackhole.
PS: Have you really not found something better than that 2000 dagger? High attackspeed weapons are generally bad for channel builds since you run out of arcane power faster.. Also the dps is a tat low.
You got a good start for t2-3 already I think but as others have mentioned you need to change up a few runes. The passives have been mentioned. I highly suggest you drop glass cannon and use blur or dominance.
I suggest if you want to keep Archon that you atleast use the damage rune and not teleport.
I looked at your gear and your weapon dps is quite low but shouldn't be holding you back for T2-3. I suggest you research wizard builds a little. I still do to this day because I like to change things up and try new things instead of the same old thing all the time.
Last but not least, I highly advice using arcane torrent. It's VERY good for mobs and it has served me well for a long time. That is if you continue to use arcane. Currently the best element is fire because of the extra fire gear you can get (magefists, cindercoat). Hope this helps.
And I agree that I definitely need more armor. Is the primary way to do that by upgrading gear? A damage reduction passive is necessary too. I use Astral Presence because of the speed of my weapon - I was burning through way too quickly. And yes Limdul, that's the best weapon I've found :/
Could you take a look now? I rejiggered some skills. Also, what gear do you think I should go for? What pieces would net me the best DPS increase?
http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/bigc-1674/Osmi/38513348
Thanks!
Personally I would recommend getting a RoRG by just rinse/repeat Act 1 bounty. It's a great ring for those set bonuses like your cap crimson/auglid/vyrs/tal's etc. You have some good arcane gear i.e. Andariels, MLW.
I'm also surprise that you rerolled your Witching Hour IAS instead of your Shock Pulse dmg as the IAS is not rerollable... which is sadness to me
Also, a good jump on DPS would be your main hand. You don't really want anything less than 2200 dps on your main hand unless they start with Wand and end with Woh.
As suggested, your gears should be able to do t3/t4 with some minor tweak i.e. RoRG + Auglids.
Check out my arcane build.http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/im2kul-1814/hero/9605564
Good luck
And Witching Hour didn't get great rolls either. What can I do about my mainhand other than playing and hoping to get an upgrade?
Thanks!
As for the weapon, It shouldn't be that hard to find a weapon with decent intel but some higher dps should it? Don't get confused by the tooltip damage since then new drops will obviously not have a gem in it yet. But yeah just keep playing and hope for the best, considering you need other upgrades to i wouldn't try to get a weapon from kadala yet, seeing how they're quite expensive
The removal of legendary crafting materials should make it relatively easy to craft some sets to now. Just be sure to not waste to many arcane dusts on the way to expensive bracers.
As for the build:
Arcane torrent - cascade is probably more powerfull unless you're in a group with 3-4 arcane mages.
Glass cannon provides a big damage boost but wouldn't really go for it unless you're feeling really comfortable toughness wise
Looking at your most recent setup, I would swap the leoric ring for RoRG, swap your gloves and pants to Cain's set (if you can craft them) and switch your belt to captain crimson. The Captain Crimson pants that you have is not optimal as regen is not as good as armor/all resist. This change will effectively give you +15% reduction/increase dmg against elite, +8% ias, +50% bonus exp/MF, +50 AR, +10% reduce all resource cost which is way better setup than what you have on now.
Best way to test a setup is to play, play, play a lot after each change. Theory is all nice and good but ultimately you know best as each person's play style is different but experiment and try it. That's what makes Diablo fun. Good luck.
If you are going pure channeling, then you want to prioritize RCR, APoC, resource regen etc. A good example of this for item is Cindercoat for fire, good offhands with APoC and regen, Captain Crimson set for RCR. Another set which I have come to use for survivability is Asheara. The set bonuses does add a lot of toughness which is important for higher torment.
The strength of the wizard is that they are flexible and can be changed to play differently. However, with that being said, their end-game is a bit underpowered as compare to the other big classes like WD, DH, Barb, Crusader and now Monk. I hope that the new revamp Firebird set will be worth the wait...