Today I want to theorycraft on Perma Archon, a very popular spec before it was made impossible - until recently. In this video I go over the gear requirements, CDR snapshotting, and show various setups yielding anywhere from 5 seconds of downtime to zero cooldown.
Technically it's impossible to always stay in Archon form because you have to recast it, but 1-2 seconds of cooldown is essentially full uptime. Enjoy and be on the lookout for a practical application of this setup in the future!
Need max CDR on:
-leorics
-amulet
-both rings (one has to be rorg)
-gloves (vyrs)
-borns chest/shoulders
-vigilante belt
-weapon
-source
You can use captain's with this, but then no vyr's so you're kind of gimped because you don't get the other in-archon skills like teleport/slow time.
The Archon's left click probably has a much higher proc rate than the beam and should be used to build up stacks faster when using a 1h weapon.
Too bad the Archon damage is very low compared to FB. I would probably get rid of 10% cdr on source and go for a 10% cdr furnace. Might actually make it somewhat viable. 2 Handed weapons work very well with the archon beam and blast (probably not good for left click attacks cuz of slow speed).
I'm not sure but one of the arcane orbs has to have a somewhat high proc rate which could be nice because you want something that can deal aoe damage when trying to build up gogok stacks (especially with a 2h weapon) just like fc barbs.
The Swami legendary affix sounds interesting but giving up on the potential 25% cdr from leoric's is just too huge.
Too bad we can't run fb + vyr... They should really consider adding bracers to all the 6p bonus sets imo but that's a different discussion.
In general though, this reminds me of my attempt at a hybrid monk which basically meant that i maintain max cdr while going for swk... Which obviously turned out that it just doesn't work because when you go for dw 2x 1h with 10% cdr each, your dps will be very low. So same thing here, you are going for all that cdr to get perma archon but then your archon deals half the damage it could have with a "normal" setup.
Thanks for the video though, i wanted to test something similar out but was too lazy and unmotivated... Mainly because of the wizard's current state.
The Archon's left click probably has a much higher proc rate than the beam and should be used to build up stacks faster when using a 1h weapon.
Too bad the Archon damage is very low compared to FB. I would probably get rid of 10% cdr on source and go for a 10% cdr furnace. Might actually make it somewhat viable. 2 Handed weapons work very well with the archon beam and blast (probably not good for left click attacks cuz of slow speed).
I'm not sure but one of the arcane orbs has to have a somewhat high proc rate which could be nice because you want something that can deal aoe damage when trying to build up gogok stacks (especially with a 2h weapon) just like fc barbs.
The Swami legendary affix sounds interesting but giving up on the potential 25% cdr from leoric's is just too huge.
Too bad we can't run fb + vyr... They should really consider adding bracers to all the 6p bonus sets imo but that's a different discussion.
In general though, this reminds me of my attempt at a hybrid monk which basically meant that i maintain max cdr while going for swk... Which obviously turned out that it just doesn't work because when you go for dw 2x 1h with 10% cdr each, your dps will be very low. So same thing here, you are going for all that cdr to get perma archon but then your archon deals half the damage it could have with a "normal" setup.
Thanks for the video though, i wanted to test something similar out but was too lazy and unmotivated... Mainly because of the wizard's current state.
I have no idea how it'll do in grifts (not as high as fb most likely), but it should still be viable. For t6 speed farming (my next stop), I'm almost completely certain that it'll be the fastest farming spec because of the near-instant teleport, and because for T6 archon has much better 'sustained-burst' than fb. Anyway, don't want to go into too much detail before I actually put this build together, but I do have the gear for it.
IMO Swami isn't worth it because like you mentioned you give up leorics AND it now has an internal cooldown, so it won't be up each time archon is down if you have high CDR.
I would still use 1h + source, it's higher sheet dps than 2h AND archon beam damage scales with attack speed (most channeled spells do as well), so you can go all dps and not worry about slow/2h.
You are reinventing bicycles here. Wizards most viable spec(if not Zee Only One viable) is fb. If you want instant teleport for your t6 speed rifts, just pick up Aether Walker seasonal wand. Yes dps will drop compared to other variants, but people beet 40+ grifts with furnace, walker will be enough for t6. From personal experience, my poor seasonal wiz, whom I dropped after I got bored of fb(currently not in fb set), clears t6 splits faster then my pretty decent crusader with this wand. Even in "kill 100 + unique" quests. This will beat cdr gimped archon by far.
If you want something else then fb, though, I suggest you take a look at Woh lightning build, or frosty with rhymeheart. Gonna have bad time with last one, though, unless you have great to perfect gear. And still Woh variants and fb(of course) will beat it.
Reread my post. Don't want it so sound arrogant, if you will find some some good alternative to fb, for at least 35 grifts, then you have my appreciation at least for this content patch to go. But as much as I know about archon, it's a no go, if cdr stacked.
I commonly get these types of responses to theorycrafting videos, despite the theorycrafting label. Yes you are right, every class has 1 spec that is the best for the highest tiers of grifts consistently. However, do you grift all day every day? This is rhetorical. You also spend time doing bounties and T6, arguably just as much (and usually more) than you grift. With that in mind, the most efficient grift build is (often) NOT the most efficient T6 build, because in grifts you're not limited by mobility.
I'm aware of the seasonal wand and with VERY good FB optimization it may compete in clear speed for T6. Stay tuned, I will be showing a speed T6 version of this build, which I believe will be faster than FB FOR T6. It's just like sentry DH claiming to be 'king of all', when there are plenty of classes/specs that clear T6 faster by virtue of not having a ramp-up time on their damage.
tbh, using the swami and keeping your stacks for 10-15sec and then pop into archon again will yeild better dps then instantly recasting archon. and it will also let you drop cdr on a fiew items opeing up for more dps stats.
Thou, even a perfect archon build with both vyr and talrasha 4set will still be ALOT weaker then any of the popular firebird specs. Id be suprised if you get over gr32 even with unity.
here i can save you some theorycrafting time, dont try this build. i have a top geared wiz and have placed hiiiiigh on seasonal eu rankings (had second place for a whiiiiile) and i regularly play with another wizard bro who is just crazy in the head, because he has been playing archon spec sins d3 launched (4000+++ hours played as archon) and he is still playing archon and is pretty much topp geared with primaries and secondary affixes for it (we gearshare the fuck out of eachother) and he dies, and he dies, and he dies and he dies, and he struggle hard in grift 30++. the spec cant keep up in mobility while also doing damage, and basicly cant keep up with damage at all, unless has massive stacks, and then again its stationary damage and allways fall behind rest of party trying to kill things that the party kill quicker. he curse blizzard every day for ''ruining'' the playstyle he loves so much. accept that archon is now a 'cute niche build' that is -not even close- to top game competitive (yes, not competitive on t6 is also what i am saying!!) unless your looking for self-inflicted slow pain this build is not for ''you''.. archon can in no way compete with firebird.
There, saved you a shitload of theorycrafting time.
At a quick glance, with this kind of investment in CDR (~75%+?) you could emulate vanilla CM wizard methinks?
I think some people have played around with a CM variation a bit, but it doesn't lock down like it used to, still plenty of cooldown, although I may give it a shot for kicks.
tbh, using the swami and keeping your stacks for 10-15sec and then pop into archon again will yeild better dps then instantly recasting archon. and it will also let you drop cdr on a fiew items opeing up for more dps stats.
Thou, even a perfect archon build with both vyr and talrasha 4set will still be ALOT weaker then any of the popular firebird specs. Id be suprised if you get over gr32 even with unity.
The idea here is max archon uptime, not swami supplementation, which makes you a lot weaker outside of archon. As I mentioned not everything is about grifts, and I believe this can be faster than firebirds for speed t6 (with 1 possible exception - EXTREMELY well geared FB set using Aether Walker). We'll see once I put it together.
here i can save you some theorycrafting time, dont try this build. i have a top geared wiz and have placed hiiiiigh on seasonal eu rankings (had second place for a whiiiiile) and i regularly play with another wizard bro who is just crazy in the head, because he has been playing archon spec sins d3 launched (4000+++ hours played as archon) and he is still playing archon and is pretty much topp geared with primaries and secondary affixes for it (we gearshare the fuck out of eachother) and he dies, and he dies, and he dies and he dies, and he struggle hard in grift 30++. the spec cant keep up in mobility while also doing damage, and basicly cant keep up with damage at all, unless has massive stacks, and then again its stationary damage and allways fall behind rest of party trying to kill things that the party kill quicker. he curse blizzard every day for ''ruining'' the playstyle he loves so much. accept that archon is now a 'cute niche build' that is -not even close- to top game competitive (yes, not competitive on t6 is also what i am saying!!) unless your looking for self-inflicted slow pain this build is not for ''you''.. archon can in no way compete with firebird.
There, saved you a shitload of theorycrafting time.
You didn't save anything, other than giving a story about your friend who can't stay alive in Archon.
Archon doesnt seem to do much damage and you have to stand still. I was messing with it before i completed my set and was very underwhelmed.
As far as the old cm lock down, you cant do it. They can only be frozen for 7.5 secs out of 10 (i think), i expect the zdps wd will receive a similar nerf since they dont suffer from diminishing returns currently.
The Archon's left click probably has a much higher proc rate than the beam and should be used to build up stacks faster when using a 1h weapon.
Too bad the Archon damage is very low compared to FB. I would probably get rid of 10% cdr on source and go for a 10% cdr furnace. Might actually make it somewhat viable. 2 Handed weapons work very well with the archon beam and blast (probably not good for left click attacks cuz of slow speed).
I thought the left click was affected by CDR, or am I thinking of the Q explosion?
Archon doesnt seem to do much damage and you have to stand still. I was messing with it before i completed my set and was very underwhelmed.
As far as the old cm lock down, you cant do it. They can only be frozen for 7.5 secs out of 10 (i think), i expect the zdps wd will receive a similar nerf since they dont suffer from diminishing returns currently.
That much freeze uptime with a good proc coefficient skill mixed in and Rimeheart? I really want Cold to work for some reason, but still probably half the damage as Furnace FB.
I got bored with running the standard cookie-cutter and mixed it up with 50% nearly perfectly-rolled TnT + Serpent Sparker + Blazing Hydra to replace Mammoth. It actually did surprisingly well most of the time - ramps up FB very fast, very good single-target for RG. Even so, highest I could manage was 39 because Blazing's AOE is so small there would be some enemies and RGs (those that spawn minions especially) where the Hydras wouldn't be at full effect on the desired target(s) and would have to get re-cast in a different position.
I still use it for T6 clear because a) it's fun/different and I can leapfrog Blizzard + Hydra without pulling down my old Hydra so I can just keep running and always have a Hydra behind me to wipe up.
The Archon's left click probably has a much higher proc rate than the beam and should be used to build up stacks faster when using a 1h weapon.
Too bad the Archon damage is very low compared to FB. I would probably get rid of 10% cdr on source and go for a 10% cdr furnace. Might actually make it somewhat viable. 2 Handed weapons work very well with the archon beam and blast (probably not good for left click attacks cuz of slow speed).
I thought the left click was affected by CDR, or am I thinking of the Q explosion?
Archon doesnt seem to do much damage and you have to stand still. I was messing with it before i completed my set and was very underwhelmed.
As far as the old cm lock down, you cant do it. They can only be frozen for 7.5 secs out of 10 (i think), i expect the zdps wd will receive a similar nerf since they dont suffer from diminishing returns currently.
That much freeze uptime with a good proc coefficient skill mixed in and Rimeheart? I really want Cold to work for some reason, but still probably half the damage as Furnace FB.
I got bored with running the standard cookie-cutter and mixed it up with 50% nearly perfectly-rolled TnT + Serpent Sparker + Blazing Hydra to replace Mammoth. It actually did surprisingly well most of the time - ramps up FB very fast, very good single-target for RG. Even so, highest I could manage was 39 because Blazing's AOE is so small there would be some enemies and RGs (those that spawn minions especially) where the Hydras wouldn't be at full effect on the desired target(s) and would have to get re-cast in a different position.
I still use it for T6 clear because a) it's fun/different and I can leapfrog Blizzard + Hydra without pulling down my old Hydra so I can just keep running and always have a Hydra behind me to wipe up.
There are a few builds you can do revolving around cold, but a lot of the 'useful' wizard cold spells now already freeze - not chill - so frosties are 'meh'. They still work great in some cases though. Back in 2.0. I showed off a 'permafreeze' wiz - which is even more effective now, where you can stack some interesting freeze/chill interactions. Fun fact - frost hydra (when I tested it then) seemed to proc frostburns with 100% coefficient, meaning with 45% frosties a frost hydra 'chill breath' would freeze 45% of the time. Not sure if that's changed, but you can see some interesting lockdown combos here (keep in mind again this is an older video):
Hydra's proc coefficient has been nerfed with the 2.1 PTR because of the electrified bug with the Hydra spec. People complained Hydra wasn't viable in parties because they procced a lot of electrified. And the top hydra wizards on the PTR played with a Xephirian amulet to compensate that problem.
This problem doesn't happen in the live version because they nerfed Hydra's proc coefficient. And with that bye bye Frostburn + Frost Hydra. It doesn't freeze anything anymore. I haven't tested since they put an internal cooldown on Electrified, but I doubt Blizzard thought about Hydra when they put this nerf to Electrified.
Have you tested it with frost hydra/frosties? Because hydra was never supposed to have a proc coefficient to begin with, and the frost hydra/frostburn interaction was 'outside' of any sort of coefficients.
25% from Leoric's 100 sec - 25% = 75 sec
20% from passive 75 sec - 20% = 60 sec
10% from paragons 60 sec - 10% = 54 sec
10% from Born's set 54 sec - 10% = 48.6 sec
8% from shoulders 48.6 sec - 8% = 44.7 sec
8% from ring#1 44.7 sec - 8% = 41.1 sec
8% from ring#2 41.1 sec - 8% = 37.8 sec
8% from Vigilante 37.8 sec - 8% = 34.8 sec
10% from Weapon 34.8 - 10% = 31.3 sec
31.3 seccd - 20 secduration = 11.3 sec downtime
I didn't include amulet because I'm not willing to trade 100% crit damage, 20% elemental damage, 10% crit, a socket or 750 int for 8% cdr.
You can change Vigilante to Capt. crimson if you use Born's weapon. You can use the 15% cdr gem and you can get 8% cdr from your amulet and you'll get this:
25% from Leoric's 100 sec - 25% = 75 sec
20% from passive 75 sec - 20% = 60 sec
10% from paragons 60 sec - 10% = 54 sec
10% from Born's set 54 sec - 10% = 48.6 sec
8% from shoulders 48.6 sec - 8% = 44.7 sec
8% from ring#1 44.7 sec - 8% = 41.1 sec
8% from ring#2 41.1 sec - 8% = 37.8 sec
10% from Cpt Crimson 37.8 sec - 10% = 34 sec
10% from Weapon 34 sec - 10% = 30.6 sec
15% from gem 30.6 sec - 15% = 26 sec
8% from amulet 26 sec - 8% = 23.9 sec
23.9 seccd - 20 secduration = 3.9 sec downtime
With 8% CDR on source you can get down to 2 seconds downtime. I don't think it's worth it to trade obscene ammounts of damage from amulet and gem to take a few scrap seconds off the cd. CDR is such a bad stat, when it's stacked.
For T6 it is worth it. Once I put this together with the correct gear, you'll be clearing (arguably) faster than firebirds on t6 due to perma-teleport without having to swap to aether walker. In grifts you wouldn't be using this build.
25% from Leoric's 100 sec - 25% = 75 sec
20% from passive 75 sec - 20% = 60 sec
10% from paragons 60 sec - 10% = 54 sec
10% from Born's set 54 sec - 10% = 48.6 sec
8% from shoulders 48.6 sec - 8% = 44.7 sec
8% from ring#1 44.7 sec - 8% = 41.1 sec
8% from ring#2 41.1 sec - 8% = 37.8 sec
8% from Vigilante 37.8 sec - 8% = 34.8 sec
10% from Weapon 34.8 - 10% = 31.3 sec
31.3 seccd - 20 secduration = 11.3 sec downtime
I didn't include amulet because I'm not willing to trade 100% crit damage, 20% elemental damage, 10% crit, a socket or 750 int for 8% cdr.
You can change Vigilante to Capt. crimson if you use Born's weapon. You can use the 15% cdr gem and you can get 8% cdr from your amulet and you'll get this:
25% from Leoric's 100 sec - 25% = 75 sec
20% from passive 75 sec - 20% = 60 sec
10% from paragons 60 sec - 10% = 54 sec
10% from Born's set 54 sec - 10% = 48.6 sec
8% from shoulders 48.6 sec - 8% = 44.7 sec
8% from ring#1 44.7 sec - 8% = 41.1 sec
8% from ring#2 41.1 sec - 8% = 37.8 sec
10% from Cpt Crimson 37.8 sec - 10% = 34 sec
10% from Weapon 34 sec - 10% = 30.6 sec
15% from gem 30.6 sec - 15% = 26 sec
8% from amulet 26 sec - 8% = 23.9 sec
23.9 seccd - 20 secduration = 3.9 sec downtime
With 8% CDR on source you can get down to 2 seconds downtime. I don't think it's worth it to trade obscene ammounts of damage from amulet and gem to take a few scrap seconds off the cd. CDR is such a bad stat, when it's stacked.
For T6 it is worth it. Once I put this together with the correct gear, you'll be clearing (arguably) faster than firebirds on t6 due to perma-teleport without having to swap to aether walker. In grifts you wouldn't be using this build.
For T6 it is worth it. Once I put this together with the correct gear, you'll be clearing (arguably) faster than firebirds on t6 due to perma-teleport without having to swap to aether walker. In grifts you wouldn't be using this build.
Not sure that's true, but have at it. Personally, I think Archon's beam attack needs to be WAY buffed. It's Ironic all the channelled spells are now stronger then Archon.
Ignoring CDR, in terms of damage output, a 2-hander like Scourge or Furnace would beat a 1H+OH combo, right?
I'm thinking of building a perma-Archon wiz for T6 speedrifting. I am extremely bored of the passive playstyle of the Firebird, and while a Wand of Woh setup is extremely good for T6, the spam is annoying and I refuse to use a third party program to put EB "on auto-spam".
edit: After trying it out myself, it doesn't seem better than Woh for T6.
Damage with various setups is generally like this:
From what I've seen 1h + source is about 5% higher sheet dps than 2h, but (as stated above) with a lower damage range, which has implications for attacks that don't scale with attack speed. For archon it doesn't matter (much), as the attack speed is rolled into the damage of the beam.
So how is this build coming along? I'm kinda interested since I simply cannot imagine how you'd beat firebird apocalypse ability to melt down mobs in just a few seconds while you just keep moving forward, especially if you only pick up orange.
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Technically it's impossible to always stay in Archon form because you have to recast it, but 1-2 seconds of cooldown is essentially full uptime. Enjoy and be on the lookout for a practical application of this setup in the future!
Need max CDR on:
-leorics
-amulet
-both rings (one has to be rorg)
-gloves (vyrs)
-borns chest/shoulders
-vigilante belt
-weapon
-source
You can use captain's with this, but then no vyr's so you're kind of gimped because you don't get the other in-archon skills like teleport/slow time.
http://youtu.be/ZUnrYfyoruc
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
Too bad the Archon damage is very low compared to FB. I would probably get rid of 10% cdr on source and go for a 10% cdr furnace. Might actually make it somewhat viable. 2 Handed weapons work very well with the archon beam and blast (probably not good for left click attacks cuz of slow speed).
I'm not sure but one of the arcane orbs has to have a somewhat high proc rate which could be nice because you want something that can deal aoe damage when trying to build up gogok stacks (especially with a 2h weapon) just like fc barbs.
The Swami legendary affix sounds interesting but giving up on the potential 25% cdr from leoric's is just too huge.
Too bad we can't run fb + vyr... They should really consider adding bracers to all the 6p bonus sets imo but that's a different discussion.
In general though, this reminds me of my attempt at a hybrid monk which basically meant that i maintain max cdr while going for swk... Which obviously turned out that it just doesn't work because when you go for dw 2x 1h with 10% cdr each, your dps will be very low. So same thing here, you are going for all that cdr to get perma archon but then your archon deals half the damage it could have with a "normal" setup.
Thanks for the video though, i wanted to test something similar out but was too lazy and unmotivated... Mainly because of the wizard's current state.
IMO Swami isn't worth it because like you mentioned you give up leorics AND it now has an internal cooldown, so it won't be up each time archon is down if you have high CDR.
I would still use 1h + source, it's higher sheet dps than 2h AND archon beam damage scales with attack speed (most channeled spells do as well), so you can go all dps and not worry about slow/2h.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
I'm aware of the seasonal wand and with VERY good FB optimization it may compete in clear speed for T6. Stay tuned, I will be showing a speed T6 version of this build, which I believe will be faster than FB FOR T6. It's just like sentry DH claiming to be 'king of all', when there are plenty of classes/specs that clear T6 faster by virtue of not having a ramp-up time on their damage.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
Thou, even a perfect archon build with both vyr and talrasha 4set will still be ALOT weaker then any of the popular firebird specs. Id be suprised if you get over gr32 even with unity.
There, saved you a shitload of theorycrafting time.
The idea here is max archon uptime, not swami supplementation, which makes you a lot weaker outside of archon. As I mentioned not everything is about grifts, and I believe this can be faster than firebirds for speed t6 (with 1 possible exception - EXTREMELY well geared FB set using Aether Walker). We'll see once I put it together.
You didn't save anything, other than giving a story about your friend who can't stay alive in Archon.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
As far as the old cm lock down, you cant do it. They can only be frozen for 7.5 secs out of 10 (i think), i expect the zdps wd will receive a similar nerf since they dont suffer from diminishing returns currently.
I got bored with running the standard cookie-cutter and mixed it up with 50% nearly perfectly-rolled TnT + Serpent Sparker + Blazing Hydra to replace Mammoth. It actually did surprisingly well most of the time - ramps up FB very fast, very good single-target for RG. Even so, highest I could manage was 39 because Blazing's AOE is so small there would be some enemies and RGs (those that spawn minions especially) where the Hydras wouldn't be at full effect on the desired target(s) and would have to get re-cast in a different position.
I still use it for T6 clear because a) it's fun/different and I can leapfrog Blizzard + Hydra without pulling down my old Hydra so I can just keep running and always have a Hydra behind me to wipe up.
Proc coefficients for archon skills at the bottom. The beam is only 10%. Damage on it is fine, and the ticks scale with your attack speed.
There are a few builds you can do revolving around cold, but a lot of the 'useful' wizard cold spells now already freeze - not chill - so frosties are 'meh'. They still work great in some cases though. Back in 2.0. I showed off a 'permafreeze' wiz - which is even more effective now, where you can stack some interesting freeze/chill interactions. Fun fact - frost hydra (when I tested it then) seemed to proc frostburns with 100% coefficient, meaning with 45% frosties a frost hydra 'chill breath' would freeze 45% of the time. Not sure if that's changed, but you can see some interesting lockdown combos here (keep in mind again this is an older video):
http://youtu.be/4m3QnZiTs-I
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
Have you tried this combo? I found the helm and oh while looking for firebird but never gave it much though.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
Not sure that's true, but have at it. Personally, I think Archon's beam attack needs to be WAY buffed. It's Ironic all the channelled spells are now stronger then Archon.
dual wield - lowest sheet dps, highest attack speed, fastest resource generation/expenditure
2h - middle sheet dps, lowest attack speed, highest damage range
1h + source/mojo - highest sheet dps, middle attack speed and damage range
From what I've seen 1h + source is about 5% higher sheet dps than 2h, but (as stated above) with a lower damage range, which has implications for attacks that don't scale with attack speed. For archon it doesn't matter (much), as the attack speed is rolled into the damage of the beam.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web