After the super long patch notes, there's quite a few things that are worthy noting for wizards in particular. There is a sticky here with a few good builds, but all of those builds are focused on solo, with 1.0.4 it is more beneficial to play in a party due to much lower scaling of HP of mobs, so if you have a half decent bunch of people in with you - it should be a cakewalk thru the entire A3.
My question is - what are the better more party oriented builds? Anyone using any? I wasn't able to find anything really decent on the net.
I think in a party it's quite important to not only focus on your own super nukes, but perhaps some good utility as well? Stuff like 10% extra damage from conflagration, 20% extra from slow time, just these 2 alone can provide a 30% damage bonus to your entire party...
Yet, from my party playing experience - you can't focus purely on being a glass cannon and having someone tank - stuff like phase beasts, etc are still going to get you, so you still gotta have escape / survival skills available.
Any thoughts?
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
For group play you can focus alot on offensive skills, but you're right in that you can't totally forget about defense.
With the build I linked there it focuses on 1-shotting any non-elites and quickly killing any elites that do exist, by using a high dmg slow swing 2-hand mace and lots of crit and WAY more crit hit dmg. Frost hydra for chilling effect, would use another type of hydra if my partner/teammates have a frost weapon that can chill.
I grabbed the recipe for the 6 prop ilvl 62 2handed mace that I plan on crafting the hell out of to get a nice socket+crit hit dmg roll on it. On live I was already around 36.5 crit and ~300 crit hit dmg, so if I could score a weapon with more of that on there I'd be golden.
Meteor also procs CM alot so blast wave becomes both an effective dmg dealer and defensive skill.
To give you some perspective on how hard you can really hit, with celestial orb+tap the source I was landing 370k crits (%175 wmp dmg). Now if I got even more crit hit dmg and a higher base dmg weapon, imagine what kind of destruction I would wreak with a move that does %390 wmp dmg.
One of my friends asked me to tailor him a build made especialy for play in group with tank, since he was always playing with tank. Its important to note that he is playing softcore and its not much viable in HC.
Here is my SC group with tank build called "The Beamer":
This build is propably the simplest out there is and made for extremely lazy and comfy people who just wanna stay back and roast everything without giving it a thought while boosting entire party (just like my friend).
High single target dmg, high mass dmg, wide area (especialy after patch) snare and perma 10-20% more dmg taken by all monsters. With this you dont have to have single AP on crit piece of gear, since you are not going to run low, and if you do, poping prism is usualy eneugh.
edit: its true my friend was using strong and slow 2H weapon even before the patch, so it consumed his AP pretty slowly, if you are using fast 1H weapon and your AP is running low too fast, adjust build a little by taking astral presence passive (feel free to choose which one to sacrifice) and take storm armor - power of the storm instead of diamond skin - prism)
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Rencol - Diablo fan since 1996 and walking encyclopedia of Diablo lore.
For group play you can focus alot on offensive skills, but you're right in that you can't totally forget about defense.
With the build I linked there it focuses on 1-shotting any non-elites and quickly killing any elites that do exist, by using a high dmg slow swing 2-hand mace and lots of crit and WAY more crit hit dmg. Frost hydra for chilling effect, would use another type of hydra if my partner/teammates have a frost weapon that can chill.
I grabbed the recipe for the 6 prop ilvl 62 2handed mace that I plan on crafting the hell out of to get a nice socket+crit hit dmg roll on it. On live I was already around 36.5 crit and ~300 crit hit dmg, so if I could score a weapon with more of that on there I'd be golden.
Meteor also procs CM alot so blast wave becomes both an effective dmg dealer and defensive skill.
To give you some perspective on how hard you can really hit, with celestial orb+tap the source I was landing 370k crits (%175 wmp dmg). Now if I got even more crit hit dmg and a higher base dmg weapon, imagine what kind of destruction I would wreak with a move that does %390 wmp dmg.
I'm thinking of trying out the meteor builds with the group play after the patch, my question is - how's the AP management going to be like? Especially with 3 skills all of which cost AP you'll need some decent recovery for it. APOC gear is quite possibly going to cover the expenses with the meteor / molten fire procs, but that wouldn't work out too nicely in situations where you miss with the meteor because it's not uncommon to have mobs that move a fair bit even with the tank standing there, which would leave gaps where you have no AP left and sitting around with just hydra doing a bit of damage
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Another question, when using a meteor:
1) slow 2 hander with high dmg and high crit dmg
2) 1 hander + OH both with APOC
Any math savvy people can do some napkin math? While the bigger crits with 2 handers look really cool, the extra 20 APOC from wand + OH as well as extra 8%ish crit chance might actually come up with a higher overall output
One of my friends asked me to tailor him a build made especialy for play in group with tank, since he was always playing with tank. Its important to note that he is playing softcore and its not much viable in HC.
Here is my SC group with tank build called "The Beamer":
This build is propably the simplest out there is and made for extremely lazy and comfy people who just wanna stay back and roast everything without giving it a thought while boosting entire party (just like my friend).
High single target dmg, high mass dmg, wide area (especialy after patch) snare and perma 10-20% more dmg taken by all monsters. With this you dont have to have single AP on crit piece of gear, since you are not going to run low, and if you do, poping prism is usualy eneugh.
edit: its true my friend was using strong and slow 2H weapon even before the patch, so it consumed his AP pretty slowly, if you are using fast 1H weapon and your AP is running low too fast, adjust build a little by taking astral presence passive (feel free to choose which one to sacrifice) and take storm armor - power of the storm instead of diamond skin - prism)
...And pray tell what can proc Conflagration? I see NOTHING in that build that can proc it.
PS: Disintegrate is Arcane damage, not Fire.
Another question, when using a meteor:
1) slow 2 hander with high dmg and high crit dmg
2) 1 hander + OH both with APOC
Any math savvy people can do some napkin math? While the bigger crits with 2 handers look really cool, the extra 20 APOC from wand + OH as well as extra 8%ish crit chance might actually come up with a higher overall output
With this kind of a setup i think it might be quite possible to see 600+++k crits from meteors...
If you're going to use Meteor with a one-hander+source, Prodigy is mandatory. Along with a signature spell with a rune that grants AP on hit. If you don't want that kind of setup, two-handers are better. That is, unless you get a high crit chance, APoC gear and use a signature spell that nets a lot of procs.
Didn't do any real math on that, it's just what I could establish from my own experimenting with Meteor.
Another question, when using a meteor:
1) slow 2 hander with high dmg and high crit dmg
2) 1 hander + OH both with APOC
Any math savvy people can do some napkin math? While the bigger crits with 2 handers look really cool, the extra 20 APOC from wand + OH as well as extra 8%ish crit chance might actually come up with a higher overall output
With this kind of a setup i think it might be quite possible to see 600+++k crits from meteors...
If you're going to use Meteor with a one-hander+source, Prodigy is mandatory. Along with a signature spell with a rune that grants AP on hit. If you don't want that kind of setup, two-handers are better. That is, unless you get a high crit chance, APoC gear and use a signature spell that nets a lot of procs.
Didn't do any real math on that, it's just what I could establish from my own experimenting with Meteor.
I just curious as to the actual damage throughput for a 2 hander meteor vs 1 hander meteor with high APoC resulting in a number of additional casts. Alternatively as you mentioned, i think it can be a third setup completely now (after they buffed the AP gain from skills as well as prodigy) the AP can be recovered very fast with high attack speed and with even 0 APoC.
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
But the thing is, CM barely procs with spectral blades... the only thing that I saw proccing CM was WW, Meteor. None of the Signature Spells, Arcane Obs... nothing triggers it.
I got 40%crit, 1.5AS and 17APOC, and I really don't know what to do... I really don't want to play CM just to make archon up faster...
But the thing is, CM barely procs with spectral blades... the only thing that I saw proccing CM was WW, Meteor. None of the Signature Spells, Arcane Obs... nothing triggers it.
I got 40%crit, 1.5AS and 17APOC, and I really don't know what to do... I really don't want to play CM just to make archon up faster...
Deep Cuts is the best rune for CM proccing with spectral blades. It has a 88.9% coefficient while the other runes, like the one you have in that spec, only have a 66.6% coefficient. Arcane Orb coefficients range from 25% to 33% so it is barely noticable and not a good passive for AO builds.
But the thing is, CM barely procs with spectral blades... the only thing that I saw proccing CM was WW, Meteor. None of the Signature Spells, Arcane Obs... nothing triggers it.
I got 40%crit, 1.5AS and 17APOC, and I really don't know what to do... I really don't want to play CM just to make archon up faster...
Deep Cuts is the best rune for CM proccing with spectral blades. It has a 88.9% coefficient while the other runes, like the one you have in that spec, only have a 66.6% coefficient. Arcane Orb coefficients range from 25% to 33% so it is barely noticable and not a good passive for AO builds.
But the thing is, CM barely procs with spectral blades... the only thing that I saw proccing CM was WW, Meteor. None of the Signature Spells, Arcane Obs... nothing triggers it.
I got 40%crit, 1.5AS and 17APOC, and I really don't know what to do... I really don't want to play CM just to make archon up faster...
I use Shock Pulse - Living Lightning and find it procs CM pretty nicely. I haven't tried to do a comparison to WW or meteor, though.
That's the main source I use, though I am not sure if it's been updated for the new patch yet, but the only change was WW, as far as I know. I also have the link and a copied version of the coefficients in my DPS/EHP spreadsheet for quick reference.
While I think the new wizardspike bears testing given the history of Venom Weapon and Critical Mass I would doubt something with a coefficient based proc will be allowed to again proc critical mass.
I think my feedback is going to have to be that current wizard skills do not nearly proc things enough since the nerf because as far as I can tell wicked wind is STILL the best way to proc critical mass after the nerf. I would be fine with that if those stupid coefficients weren't the deciding factor in fucking everything. Arcane Power on Crit, Critical Mass, Life on Hit, Legendary Procs, Venom Weapon, just about fucking everything good that can be done in inferno boils down to this single blasted number on skills and we don't even have one thats any good for it anymore. That number that isn't even in the tooltip is infinitely more important than the damage the skill does in determining how a wizard plays.
I've spent a couple hours last night trying out some other builds in team play,
Meteor oriented build:
1) AP is an issue, you can't rely on purely spamming meteor and AP regen from APoC or arcanot + astral presence, it just isn't enough to make it really worthy
2) The biggest issue by far with meteor is the aiming and the delay, surely the damage is worth it, with high damage build and even a 1 hander, the meteor crits one shot all the white mobs in 2 player game even, however, unless you are going with another CM perma-freeze wizard - nearly every champion in act III moves around, making hitting them with meteor a real pain, it might be plausible to argue that after hours of practice you would become significantly better at it, but overall there are over 5 types of mobs that will continuously move, thus making it really hard to kill them with meteors.
3) You must go for an AP generator skills with prodigy to sustain more meteor casts in general, i personally do not really enjoy that kind of play style, it might work for you.
Arcane orb build:
1) the burst is definitely very strong, you can easily solo take out bunches of white fluff mobs in party games
2) when it comes to fast moving champions, it is a bit of a pain but manageable, the orb moves relatively slow, a lot of running / ranged mobs move way faster than the orb, you will inevitably have a whole lot of wasted casts that hit just about nothing
CM builds:
After the WW nerf, i personally can see the difference - the abilities do not refresh as fast as they used to, however it made no difference to my ability to perma-freeze and kill stuff with absolute ridiculous ease. I do have high crit and 24 APoC (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Nieth-1149/hero/18485873), no issues with AP management whatsoever, no issues with skills not being refreshed fast enough.
Quite frankly, after trying a lot of builds in my short time on the wizard - this is, by a country mile, my most preferred build, i have no LoH and i have no LS, yet i rarely have to put simply because all the damage is absorbed by the diamond skin, and whatever damage i do take is generally healed by the health globes that drop right on top of my head all the time anyway.
Archon builds:
Archon with a decent DPS (around 60k+) melts stuff in party games easy, the biggest issue is that in party you are not very likely to have a really high archon uptime. Your teammates might run in different direction, kill stuff before you get there, etc, thus making it really hard to keep buffing your archon's duration continuously. With evocation you still need to heavily rely on CM procs to get your achon back up. Which would be decent if archon builds had skills that actually are at least useful to sustain some sort of functionality while archon is on CD, most archon builds however, have nothing but WW on them to only proc CM and get your achon up again, running into situations where your party is facing a champion and your archon has a good 40-50 seconds CD left is not uncommon, and during those periods you are... useless other than sitting behind avoiding damage and spamming WW on mobs that tend to run out of it 2 seconds after you placed it there.
All of these are relatively old-fashioned builds by now, has anyone come across anything new / effective since the patch or just effective in party play that doesn't fit into those 4 categories?
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
There seems to be a new alternative to the CM build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6398490038
I tried it for about 30 minutes and it seems decent, need more testing but at first glance the damage throughput seems lower than the EB variant.
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Because storm chaser has the higher coef like it says it's about as good or better than 1.0.3 WW builds but the single target damage was really low so I took diamond shards rune for the extra dps vs elites. It procs on DS refresh so you can almost spam it and it's easier to use now because mob damage is lower than before.
Because storm chaser has the higher coef like it says it's about as good or better than 1.0.3 WW builds but the single target damage was really low so I took diamond shards rune for the extra dps vs elites. It procs on DS refresh so you can almost spam it and it's easier to use now because mob damage is lower than before.
I saw this thread too, no one has tested Gale Force of Raging Storm runes for their procs yet it looks like. I'd be inclined if Gale Force has the same proc rate as Stormchaser to dump the signature spell and essentially build WW/CM over again with Gale Force, much as I hate Twister pathing.
I'll definitely be trying diamond shards though if it will proc on refresh.
Before the patch I was farming act2 with a hydra/blizzard/crystall shell/prismatic armor setup, 30k hp, 1k AR, 6k def, 1k regen and 40k dps. I always play with MF on every slot.
Act3 was always really hard with that build because I wasn't gaining life fast enough.
Now that I dont share my MF I can play in team and if I play solo and die the elites doesn't regen, yay !
So here's my new magic find build for 1.04. Doing really well in act3 and I've found 2 lvl 63 uniques weapons from white mobs.
My question is - what are the better more party oriented builds? Anyone using any? I wasn't able to find anything really decent on the net.
I think in a party it's quite important to not only focus on your own super nukes, but perhaps some good utility as well? Stuff like 10% extra damage from conflagration, 20% extra from slow time, just these 2 alone can provide a 30% damage bonus to your entire party...
Yet, from my party playing experience - you can't focus purely on being a glass cannon and having someone tank - stuff like phase beasts, etc are still going to get you, so you still gotta have escape / survival skills available.
Any thoughts?
For group play you can focus alot on offensive skills, but you're right in that you can't totally forget about defense.
With the build I linked there it focuses on 1-shotting any non-elites and quickly killing any elites that do exist, by using a high dmg slow swing 2-hand mace and lots of crit and WAY more crit hit dmg. Frost hydra for chilling effect, would use another type of hydra if my partner/teammates have a frost weapon that can chill.
I grabbed the recipe for the 6 prop ilvl 62 2handed mace that I plan on crafting the hell out of to get a nice socket+crit hit dmg roll on it. On live I was already around 36.5 crit and ~300 crit hit dmg, so if I could score a weapon with more of that on there I'd be golden.
Meteor also procs CM alot so blast wave becomes both an effective dmg dealer and defensive skill.
To give you some perspective on how hard you can really hit, with celestial orb+tap the source I was landing 370k crits (%175 wmp dmg). Now if I got even more crit hit dmg and a higher base dmg weapon, imagine what kind of destruction I would wreak with a move that does %390 wmp dmg.
Here is my SC group with tank build called "The Beamer":
http://eu.battle.net...iXjS!YeW!ZcYZYb
This build is propably the simplest out there is and made for extremely lazy and comfy people who just wanna stay back and roast everything without giving it a thought while boosting entire party (just like my friend).
High single target dmg, high mass dmg, wide area (especialy after patch) snare and perma 10-20% more dmg taken by all monsters. With this you dont have to have single AP on crit piece of gear, since you are not going to run low, and if you do, poping prism is usualy eneugh.
edit: its true my friend was using strong and slow 2H weapon even before the patch, so it consumed his AP pretty slowly, if you are using fast 1H weapon and your AP is running low too fast, adjust build a little by taking astral presence passive (feel free to choose which one to sacrifice) and take storm armor - power of the storm instead of diamond skin - prism)
I'm thinking of trying out the meteor builds with the group play after the patch, my question is - how's the AP management going to be like? Especially with 3 skills all of which cost AP you'll need some decent recovery for it. APOC gear is quite possibly going to cover the expenses with the meteor / molten fire procs, but that wouldn't work out too nicely in situations where you miss with the meteor because it's not uncommon to have mobs that move a fair bit even with the tank standing there, which would leave gaps where you have no AP left and sitting around with just hydra doing a bit of damage
1) slow 2 hander with high dmg and high crit dmg
2) 1 hander + OH both with APOC
Any math savvy people can do some napkin math? While the bigger crits with 2 handers look really cool, the extra 20 APOC from wand + OH as well as extra 8%ish crit chance might actually come up with a higher overall output
For using meteor:
http://us.battle.net...en/item/maximus +25% fire skills dmg
http://us.battle.net...n/item/magefist +20% fire skills dmg
(SoJ x2 = 12% fire skills damage, but that would be a trade-off for a lot of crit + crit dmg)
With this kind of a setup i think it might be quite possible to see 600+++k crits from meteors...
...And pray tell what can proc Conflagration? I see NOTHING in that build that can proc it.
PS: Disintegrate is Arcane damage, not Fire.
Didn't do any real math on that, it's just what I could establish from my own experimenting with Meteor.
I just curious as to the actual damage throughput for a 2 hander meteor vs 1 hander meteor with high APoC resulting in a number of additional casts. Alternatively as you mentioned, i think it can be a third setup completely now (after they buffed the AP gain from skills as well as prodigy) the AP can be recovered very fast with high attack speed and with even 0 APoC.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VQXYmO!gYf!YZaccc
This is my actual build, as I am farming with some friends and not playing solo.
I have tried this one: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WQXYPO!gYc!bZacac
But the thing is, CM barely procs with spectral blades... the only thing that I saw proccing CM was WW, Meteor. None of the Signature Spells, Arcane Obs... nothing triggers it.
I got 40%crit, 1.5AS and 17APOC, and I really don't know what to do... I really don't want to play CM just to make archon up faster...
Deep Cuts is the best rune for CM proccing with spectral blades. It has a 88.9% coefficient while the other runes, like the one you have in that spec, only have a 66.6% coefficient. Arcane Orb coefficients range from 25% to 33% so it is barely noticable and not a good passive for AO builds.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Where could I find thies coeficients Loroese?
I use Shock Pulse - Living Lightning and find it procs CM pretty nicely. I haven't tried to do a comparison to WW or meteor, though.
Wyll
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149154265
That's the main source I use, though I am not sure if it's been updated for the new patch yet, but the only change was WW, as far as I know. I also have the link and a copied version of the coefficients in my DPS/EHP spreadsheet for quick reference.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
I think my feedback is going to have to be that current wizard skills do not nearly proc things enough since the nerf because as far as I can tell wicked wind is STILL the best way to proc critical mass after the nerf. I would be fine with that if those stupid coefficients weren't the deciding factor in fucking everything. Arcane Power on Crit, Critical Mass, Life on Hit, Legendary Procs, Venom Weapon, just about fucking everything good that can be done in inferno boils down to this single blasted number on skills and we don't even have one thats any good for it anymore. That number that isn't even in the tooltip is infinitely more important than the damage the skill does in determining how a wizard plays.
Meteor oriented build:
1) AP is an issue, you can't rely on purely spamming meteor and AP regen from APoC or arcanot + astral presence, it just isn't enough to make it really worthy
2) The biggest issue by far with meteor is the aiming and the delay, surely the damage is worth it, with high damage build and even a 1 hander, the meteor crits one shot all the white mobs in 2 player game even, however, unless you are going with another CM perma-freeze wizard - nearly every champion in act III moves around, making hitting them with meteor a real pain, it might be plausible to argue that after hours of practice you would become significantly better at it, but overall there are over 5 types of mobs that will continuously move, thus making it really hard to kill them with meteors.
3) You must go for an AP generator skills with prodigy to sustain more meteor casts in general, i personally do not really enjoy that kind of play style, it might work for you.
Arcane orb build:
1) the burst is definitely very strong, you can easily solo take out bunches of white fluff mobs in party games
2) when it comes to fast moving champions, it is a bit of a pain but manageable, the orb moves relatively slow, a lot of running / ranged mobs move way faster than the orb, you will inevitably have a whole lot of wasted casts that hit just about nothing
CM builds:
After the WW nerf, i personally can see the difference - the abilities do not refresh as fast as they used to, however it made no difference to my ability to perma-freeze and kill stuff with absolute ridiculous ease. I do have high crit and 24 APoC (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Nieth-1149/hero/18485873), no issues with AP management whatsoever, no issues with skills not being refreshed fast enough.
Quite frankly, after trying a lot of builds in my short time on the wizard - this is, by a country mile, my most preferred build, i have no LoH and i have no LS, yet i rarely have to put simply because all the damage is absorbed by the diamond skin, and whatever damage i do take is generally healed by the health globes that drop right on top of my head all the time anyway.
Archon builds:
Archon with a decent DPS (around 60k+) melts stuff in party games easy, the biggest issue is that in party you are not very likely to have a really high archon uptime. Your teammates might run in different direction, kill stuff before you get there, etc, thus making it really hard to keep buffing your archon's duration continuously. With evocation you still need to heavily rely on CM procs to get your achon back up. Which would be decent if archon builds had skills that actually are at least useful to sustain some sort of functionality while archon is on CD, most archon builds however, have nothing but WW on them to only proc CM and get your achon up again, running into situations where your party is facing a champion and your archon has a good 40-50 seconds CD left is not uncommon, and during those periods you are... useless other than sitting behind avoiding damage and spamming WW on mobs that tend to run out of it 2 seconds after you placed it there.
All of these are relatively old-fashioned builds by now, has anyone come across anything new / effective since the patch or just effective in party play that doesn't fit into those 4 categories?
I tried it for about 30 minutes and it seems decent, need more testing but at first glance the damage throughput seems lower than the EB variant.
Because storm chaser has the higher coef like it says it's about as good or better than 1.0.3 WW builds but the single target damage was really low so I took diamond shards rune for the extra dps vs elites. It procs on DS refresh so you can almost spam it and it's easier to use now because mob damage is lower than before.
I'll definitely be trying diamond shards though if it will proc on refresh.
Act3 was always really hard with that build because I wasn't gaining life fast enough.
Now that I dont share my MF I can play in team and if I play solo and die the elites doesn't regen, yay !
So here's my new magic find build for 1.04. Doing really well in act3 and I've found 2 lvl 63 uniques weapons from white mobs.
http://us.battle.net...99/hero/3487750
Reflect damage is annoying but I usually go slow on them or put a couple of pieces of my old prismatic setup.
What I hate with the force armor build is that if I wanna join friends in act2 or act1 it's just as hard to survive as act3, they just die faster.