Coming from someone who can easily farm tier 38, I use cinder coat over magefist because on the resource reduction. I also have a very good maximus. When testing a good maximus vs. An average sunkeeper, I found that sunkeeper is so much better. Maximus is a lot more fun, though. For solo play use unity and SoJ when you get them. For group play use SoJ and RROG. If you don't have the rings I mentioned then use whichever are the best dps.
I'm using Sunkeeper + Firebird Off Hand + Cindercoat, I got a really good Magefist but the Cost reduction seens to help a lot.
I also enjoy using Maximus, the chains are great damage. The 20% Fire damage help more agains't trash, but the Elite damage will be A LOT better than the more 20% fire on Elites, because 20% more fire on top of 80%+ isn't much, and 20~30% elite damage on top of 45%(SOJ+Unity) will be a lot more damage. Also Elite and Fire are multiplicative.
Well I'm still waiting for a furnace drop, while that doesn't happen I stick with my Sunkeeper.
I did some testing the last couple days. I tested both weapon setups in Trial, Greater Rift, Rift clears and Ghom kills. I found Trials, Rifts and Greater rifts to have inconsistent results due to the random type of mobs spawning. Both weapon setups were equal here. When killing Ghom I removed my Zei's stone and looked only at firebird dot tick. Both weapon setups were nearly identical. I then timed myself with a stopwatch on my phone and with both weapon setups without zei's stone Ghom takes 30 seconds to die. I tested with my stop watch several times. I can't find any conclusive evidence that one weapon is better than the other.
I also did not notice any improvement in damage with Cindercoat vs magefist. Cindercoat clearly has more mana regen but using magefist allows an extra stat on chest like Blizzard damage.
I went with Sunkeeper, Firebird OH and Magefist. I am using an SOJ and CC/CHD ring. I chose Sunkeeper setup only for the increased toughness. I chose Magefist over cindercoat.
Or maybe you could just listen to N.A. sub 100 ranked wizard and use Sunkeeper, which is superior to everything except Furnace. Also Cindercoat > Magefists if your playing the spec properly. Its something like 15ap/sec regeneration. It makes stacking Firebirds on different packs a breeze.
Just dont try to use Sunkeeper or unity in trials. Serpent Sparker really shines here.
I just made the switch from a 3800 Maximus to a 2300 SK + firebirds offhand + cindercoat. My overall damage dropped but my elite damage jumped from 2.2mill to 2.8mill, every single point of elite damage has been a larger upgrade than fire damage since I'm already running 90%+. Since I'm constantly clearing 38/39 I can tell you now, the fire chains gets harder and harder to position correctly and given most of my time during a grift is spent at the end killing a RG, that is where the extra elite damage shines. It is also hard to proc the chain on RG's that don't summon additional monsters so it's pointless most of the time. I also dropped toxin gem to run zweis, trapped and powerful so being able to spam more blizzards to cover alot more areas is an awesome benefit of cindercoat (Even though I have perfect 5 stat magefists, the only thing you get out of using magefists over cindercoat is the IAS which is pointless for the build). Not an option to run RoRG in solo rifts because of SoJ and Unity to good.
Given your aim as a wizard is to kill an elite pack and move on to the next ASAP while only stopping to kill LARGE packs of easily killable trash mobs elite damage > *.
1. Maximus, Royal Ring, Cindercoat
2. Maximus, Royal Ring, Magefist
3. Maximus, Firebird chest, Firebirds Gloves, CC/CHD rings
4. Sunkeeper, Cindercoat, CC/CHD rings
5. Sunkeeper, Magefist, CC/CHD rings
What are you guys running? Thanks.
just my 2 cents
Coming from someone who can easily farm tier 38, I use cinder coat over magefist because on the resource reduction. I also have a very good maximus. When testing a good maximus vs. An average sunkeeper, I found that sunkeeper is so much better. Maximus is a lot more fun, though. For solo play use unity and SoJ when you get them. For group play use SoJ and RROG. If you don't have the rings I mentioned then use whichever are the best dps.
you can go rorg in multiplayergames of course, though i would say unity still is better because if elite damage.
I also enjoy using Maximus, the chains are great damage. The 20% Fire damage help more agains't trash, but the Elite damage will be A LOT better than the more 20% fire on Elites, because 20% more fire on top of 80%+ isn't much, and 20~30% elite damage on top of 45%(SOJ+Unity) will be a lot more damage. Also Elite and Fire are multiplicative.
Well I'm still waiting for a furnace drop, while that doesn't happen I stick with my Sunkeeper.
I also did not notice any improvement in damage with Cindercoat vs magefist. Cindercoat clearly has more mana regen but using magefist allows an extra stat on chest like Blizzard damage.
I went with Sunkeeper, Firebird OH and Magefist. I am using an SOJ and CC/CHD ring. I chose Sunkeeper setup only for the increased toughness. I chose Magefist over cindercoat.
Just dont try to use Sunkeeper or unity in trials. Serpent Sparker really shines here.
Given your aim as a wizard is to kill an elite pack and move on to the next ASAP while only stopping to kill LARGE packs of easily killable trash mobs elite damage > *.