So like many of you i have been playing around with the ptr, and like many of you I have a loley wizard. MM is now much more powerful although to make it really nice and exciting it should have had its attack speed buffed internally. I say this because Diablo is a very fast paced game and I dont see how MM will scale beyond rifts 25+. It s nice buffed skill and of course with the pants-whose-name-shall-remain-nameless you could be getting a nice boost.
There are some issues at play here that I think need to be addressed and it had to do with the concept of trade-offs. MM is great as a main, and while it can do nice damage, most of use wizards will be using a powerful secondary, like meteor, or blizzard. Now I say these two specifically because they are expensive to cast, but do solid damage. Coupled with a freebie like MM and you are back to using a one-two punch just like the days of yore.
Now the issue with this is it quite simply crams everyone into using the same build again. The reason being is the casting cost of the channeling skills. I know this has been hashed out on the forums before, but it needs to be repeated over and over again. This is a garbage metric and seriously needs to be removed. Lets say I want my secondary to be a channeling skill. My effective DPS with that channeling skill is significantly reduced if the following happens:
I accidentally double click
I need to move to avoid damage or...
I need to move to avoid damage or...
I need to move to avoid damage or...
I dont plant myself right in the middle of a pack and swirl around in circles so I can get the most out of my 3 seconds of pleasure.
Now free spenders like MM are nice, and potentially you could stack every piece of armor you have with MM damage buffs, but I do not see how past Greater rifts of 25 using MM only while you recover from the above events. In order to survive and move on you also would need a third spell, whether a crowd control or damage dealer (hydra?) to supplant the relatively low damage output of MM when compared to spender class spells.
I agree MM will be a fine weapon of choice, but making my channeling skills that expensive inevitably puts me in a positions where I rely on MM too heavily and using my channeling skill becomes 1-3 seconds of MM.....channeling skill..move...channeling skill for 1 second...MM...move....and so on.
This play style will hit a ceiling quick. So the best alternative is going to be a spender that does not come with the additional cost of casting(blizzard, meteor) and even then their damage is too low to rely on for quick clears.
There are many many points to be made and I really dont feel like hashing them out, but the trade-off here is that even at higher paragons we arent given many options. Some serious theorycrafting will need to be had before the community comes up with some nice post 2.1 builds but right now Im seeing nothing spectacular on wizards side. so many skills remain underpowered (spectral blade anyone? maybe good with that wand with +30% SB dmg and depth digger pants), but all you are really doing is saving up for the channeling skills. Nobody will use SB without the shield rune anyways.
I dont know the answers and in many cases I probably stand to be corrected, but too many skills remain static and dont scale well with higher paragons levels. Procs from weapons / armor dont seem to affect the game in a meaningful way so skill synergies are off or require massive sacrifices in one stat to attain another.
This patch will not bode well in its current state for wizards. Im hoping blizz can hear the community on this one, it really is disappointing to see this character sidelined until another patch is released. So far my PTR play in wizard has been somewhat frustrating and it lacks fluidity which is something my character is starting to get as of now at paragon 370+. I feel like a lot of my progress has been taken away.
I'm not on the PTR myself,but from other's comments I understand that high level rifts revert back to the to the pre-nerf inferno kiting.. Bringing back the viability of hydra, which still deals damage while moving.
As we revert back to kiting we'll also revert back to channeling spells being pretty shite.
I don't see how anyone could doubt MM.At the moment it's probably our most effective DPS spell.. 2.1 will just double the damaing using Depth Diggers. How can any spender compete with 1200+% (obviously with +2 mirror ball) direct penetrating damage with our infinite stacking dot? I don't think any other class has a dot that can stack up to 100 million DPS
PS: Time to bring back the force armor and unstable anomaly.
Update looks like Blizz listened to the community and removed the channeling cost upfront!!
This still leaves some to be desired but a great move on their [art. They also said they will be rewarding channeling skills for duration with DoT improvements. really nice change of tone from Blizz. TY!!!
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There are some issues at play here that I think need to be addressed and it had to do with the concept of trade-offs. MM is great as a main, and while it can do nice damage, most of use wizards will be using a powerful secondary, like meteor, or blizzard. Now I say these two specifically because they are expensive to cast, but do solid damage. Coupled with a freebie like MM and you are back to using a one-two punch just like the days of yore.
Now the issue with this is it quite simply crams everyone into using the same build again. The reason being is the casting cost of the channeling skills. I know this has been hashed out on the forums before, but it needs to be repeated over and over again. This is a garbage metric and seriously needs to be removed. Lets say I want my secondary to be a channeling skill. My effective DPS with that channeling skill is significantly reduced if the following happens:
I accidentally double click
I need to move to avoid damage or...
I need to move to avoid damage or...
I need to move to avoid damage or...
I dont plant myself right in the middle of a pack and swirl around in circles so I can get the most out of my 3 seconds of pleasure.
Now free spenders like MM are nice, and potentially you could stack every piece of armor you have with MM damage buffs, but I do not see how past Greater rifts of 25 using MM only while you recover from the above events. In order to survive and move on you also would need a third spell, whether a crowd control or damage dealer (hydra?) to supplant the relatively low damage output of MM when compared to spender class spells.
I agree MM will be a fine weapon of choice, but making my channeling skills that expensive inevitably puts me in a positions where I rely on MM too heavily and using my channeling skill becomes 1-3 seconds of MM.....channeling skill..move...channeling skill for 1 second...MM...move....and so on.
This play style will hit a ceiling quick. So the best alternative is going to be a spender that does not come with the additional cost of casting(blizzard, meteor) and even then their damage is too low to rely on for quick clears.
There are many many points to be made and I really dont feel like hashing them out, but the trade-off here is that even at higher paragons we arent given many options. Some serious theorycrafting will need to be had before the community comes up with some nice post 2.1 builds but right now Im seeing nothing spectacular on wizards side. so many skills remain underpowered (spectral blade anyone? maybe good with that wand with +30% SB dmg and depth digger pants), but all you are really doing is saving up for the channeling skills. Nobody will use SB without the shield rune anyways.
I dont know the answers and in many cases I probably stand to be corrected, but too many skills remain static and dont scale well with higher paragons levels. Procs from weapons / armor dont seem to affect the game in a meaningful way so skill synergies are off or require massive sacrifices in one stat to attain another.
This patch will not bode well in its current state for wizards. Im hoping blizz can hear the community on this one, it really is disappointing to see this character sidelined until another patch is released. So far my PTR play in wizard has been somewhat frustrating and it lacks fluidity which is something my character is starting to get as of now at paragon 370+. I feel like a lot of my progress has been taken away.
As we revert back to kiting we'll also revert back to channeling spells being pretty shite.
I don't see how anyone could doubt MM.At the moment it's probably our most effective DPS spell.. 2.1 will just double the damaing using Depth Diggers. How can any spender compete with 1200+% (obviously with +2 mirror ball) direct penetrating damage with our infinite stacking dot? I don't think any other class has a dot that can stack up to 100 million DPS
PS: Time to bring back the force armor and unstable anomaly.
This still leaves some to be desired but a great move on their [art. They also said they will be rewarding channeling skills for duration with DoT improvements. really nice change of tone from Blizz. TY!!!