I'd just like to chime in here from a HC players point of view. I've mained wizard since the day of release and I tried to keep that going in ROS but I simply got tired of hitting survivability walls at higher torments.
Wizards will still not be a popular choice for Great Rifts and this is why:
1. In order to even survive these skills are pretty much mandatory:
Energy Armor - Prismatic
Passive - Blur
Passive - Unstable Anomoly
Teleport
and in many cases you can add either Dominance or Magic Weapon - Deflection to the list
This means that between 4 to 6 of our 10 skills are basically mandatory to survive at higher Torments and Grifts.
2. Due to the above mentioned reason, it leaves VERY little room for build variety. When 2 to 3 of your 4 passives need to be used just to keep you alive.
There are very few wizards who play above T4 on HC, because they either
A. Can't produce enough damage to be competitive in group play or to clear fast enough solo without dying
or
B. Have specced so much for damage to try and stay competitive that they get 1 shot, anomoly trigger, and 1 shot again in the blink of an eye. R.I.P.
Until there is a better balance of survivability and damage for the wizard class, then it will continue to be a dead class in HC.
And mandatory skills/passives aren't a problem if the few skills left can carry the class DPS-wise. At the moment, the real problem is damage, not survivability.
Unfortunately, he is right. Wizards take more damage but do the same DPS(or lower) as the other classes. Survivability is a major problem for the class, in addition to it's lack of damage.
That said, the recent wave of changes is much better then the first two abysmal PTR notes. They would have ended the class for sure.
It is a ranged class, thus able to deal damage while risking taking damage. At least less than a melee class. Wizards have the problems you mentioned but I don't think they will be bad for grifts.
And mandatory skills/passives aren't a problem if the few skills left can carry the class DPS-wise. At the moment, the real problem is damage, not survivability. The wizard doesn't have enough damage, so you have to sacrifice a lot of survivability to compensate that lack of DPS. It is a problem because the class can play with less skills, and it's not fair when you see other classes, but each class has its mandatory spells, be it for DPS or survivability (Akarat Champion Horse, Sentry Vault, Spirit Walk, etc...). It's not that bad.
Wizard main problem is everything. Damage output and toughness suck. Channeling spells with get you killed every time. We have one pet and it needs a lot of work to compete.
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Wizards will still not be a popular choice for Great Rifts and this is why:
1. In order to even survive these skills are pretty much mandatory:
Energy Armor - Prismatic
Passive - Blur
Passive - Unstable Anomoly
Teleport
and in many cases you can add either Dominance or Magic Weapon - Deflection to the list
This means that between 4 to 6 of our 10 skills are basically mandatory to survive at higher Torments and Grifts.
2. Due to the above mentioned reason, it leaves VERY little room for build variety. When 2 to 3 of your 4 passives need to be used just to keep you alive.
There are very few wizards who play above T4 on HC, because they either
A. Can't produce enough damage to be competitive in group play or to clear fast enough solo without dying
or
B. Have specced so much for damage to try and stay competitive that they get 1 shot, anomoly trigger, and 1 shot again in the blink of an eye. R.I.P.
Until there is a better balance of survivability and damage for the wizard class, then it will continue to be a dead class in HC.
That said, the recent wave of changes is much better then the first two abysmal PTR notes. They would have ended the class for sure.