My biggest concern with the original build is the lack of any defensive abilities, which is probably also why italofoca suggested Grasp of the Dead, and I plan on using it in my Vision Quest build as well (though mine is petless). If you are going to be playing solo, I'm not sure the pets alone will be sufficient to keep monsters off you, especially in later difficulties (provided they are smarter, faster, etc.).
You mentioned Fetish Army being sort of awkward in this, what about switching it for something like Mass Confusion w/ Mass Hysteria? It still fills the role of a long-ish cooldown ability for triggering Vision Quest, plus it would provide a bit of control as well.
If you're looking for another option, here's my current petless build that I plan on trying. High-cost damage spells, but the potential of at least 80 mana/sec regeneration during "burst" times when I would want to be spamming them.
In the case of your original build, I would suggest swapping Grave Injustice for Spiritual Attunement. The life regeneration from Blood Ritual alone will be enough to offset the life you'll be spending to cast spells (after a certain gear/character level), and the mana regeneration provided by Spiritual Attunement is "always on" instead of just when you kill something, so you can benefit from it even during downtime such as in between monster packs.
Admittedly we can't be 100% certain without using it ourselves, but you can tell from the video that the act of summoning the Wall of Zombies instantly alters the pathing behavior of the incoming monsters. This is before the WD player changes position, so it's proof enough for me. It's also interesting to note that the first monster seems to actually get stuck on the wall, as the damage does not appear to begin immediately after cast (the zombies rise from the ground, first).
The first build definitely would have required me to constantly be cycling through my cooldowns, which as you mentioned does kind of suck (ie. I just want to spam Zombie Bears right now, but Spirit Walk is off cooldown again so I have to do that instead). I've since decided that I'll probably trade Spirit Walk for Mass Confusion with the Mass Hysteria rune, as it's a much longer cooldown and it should provide a lot of control. The only time Vision Quest needs to be active is while I'm in damage spam mode, and I don't foresee any problems getting to that point with this trade.
Here's my napkin math from earlier; I didn't want to over-bloat the first post: (Acronyms in use: mana per second [mps]; Pierce the Veil [PtV], Spiritual Attunement [SA], Vision Quest [VQ])
For the following numbers I had to rely on what I observed in the current beta (patch 13), since this is the first patch I've had access for.
Max unbuffed mana pool at level 60: 740 mana Base mana regeneration rate: 25 mps
Max mana pool at level 60 w/ SA: 888 mana Mana regeration rate at level 60 w/ SA: 33.88 mps
Mana regeneration rate w/ VQ: 100 mps Mana regeneration rate w/ SA and VQ: 135.52 mps (This assumes SA affects base regeneration rate and VQ is truly multiplicative; ie. mps = (base + (max mana * 0.01)) * 4)
So using these numbers, if accurate, would result in a net mana gain even when spamming Spirit Barrage, and a slight (21 mps) loss while spamming Zombie Charger. Even though it's not completely net neutral (you have to spend mana to activate VQ), it still feels like a lot of mana, especially considering the fact that these two abilities are on the higher end of the scale when it comes to mana costs. I almost think that if there were a stronger, higher-mana cost, single-target ability I would gladly swap Spirit Barrage out for it.
I do agree that the 3% life leech rune for Spirit Barrage may end up being negligible, but it's the only rune that really makes sense because all of the others either gain mana back (seems unnecessary after this), or assist with area of effect damage, but if I've got a pack of monsters you better believe I'm going to be spamming bear cavalry at them instead.
As far as SA is concerned, I'm starting to consider replacing it with Blood Ritual. Thinking about it in terms of "mana saved per second", it's actually better than SA's regeneration, plus the health usage for casting Zombie Charger w/ PtV (23.478 health per second) is negated once you get to 2348 max health, which seems like it will be easy to do even very early on (A2 of Normal, if not earlier). And with so much mana regeneration, the extra 20% mana pool bonus from SA seems irrelevant, so trading it for the passive 1% health regeneration might be a better choice.
Ever since the WD stole my heart away from Wizard I've been toying with my own version of a no-pet build. I prefer to have a very active strategy, and I think my starting build reflects that: Build1.
The two high-damage abilities -- Spirit Barrage for single-target, Zombie Charger (Bears) for groups -- are supported by a variety of slowing effects via Grasp of the Dead (runed to 80%), Soul Harvest (Languish), and Wall of Zombies (Barricade). Finally, Spirit Walk with the healing rune offers additional utility and health, as well as being the 4th cooldown for Vision Quest.
The passives were selected with only two goals in mind: buff damage output, and provide enough mana regeneration to actually be able to pull off a build that will be pressing buttons as often as possible. Pierce the Veil was the obvious choice for damage, and Vision Quest along with Spiritual Attunement generate boatloads of mana to play with.
Everything felt good on the surface, but I've slowly started to collect some concerns:
My two main abilities that I intended on chain-casting both cost a lot of mana, and initially I wasn't sure if I'd have enough mana. After mathing out some numbers, I'm now confident that I'll be OK on mana, provided casting costs don't change much before release... Though I'm beginning to shift to the "maybe I have too much mana regeneration" mindset.
The primary goal was to spam Spirit Barrage/Zombie Bears, and the mana regeneration potential of this loadout can definitely support it. However, three of my cooldown abilities are 15 seconds or less, meaning I will have to refresh them very often in order to keep Vision Quest active, which at that point might not even be necessary since I'm using 3-4 lower-cost casts regularly to keep the regeneration up.
My options here seem to be: drop Vision Quest for another regeneration-related passive that isn't dependent on cooldown usage (Blood Ritual, perhaps); or, swap Spirit Walk -- maybe even Soul Harvest, but I want to keep it as much as possible -- for an ability with a longer cooldown that doesn't need to be refreshed as often for Vision Quest.
Will two slowing effects and an obstacle be enough to outmaneuver "smarter" monsters in higher difficulties? This seems very difficult to answer right now, and as much as I want the answer to be "yes", there's just no way to know for sure yet.
Also, is Wall of Zombies really an obstacle (ie. does it block pathing)? This also seems to be up in the air, as I've read both yes and no responses, and after watching the only footage of it that I could find (Blizzard's own introduction of the WD), it was hard to tell because the wall just one-shot everything that came up to it. I could see this going either way, so I won't wrack my brain too much thinking about it, but if for some reason it doesn't block pathing I may have to trade in a couple abilities for pets to assist with monster positioning (also addresses the issue above with too many short cooldown abilities, but I'm trying to avoid pets if possible), as such: Build2.
Regardless, this is definitely something I'd like to pursue once we have our hands on the full game, especially with so many unknown factors at the moment.
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You mentioned Fetish Army being sort of awkward in this, what about switching it for something like Mass Confusion w/ Mass Hysteria? It still fills the role of a long-ish cooldown ability for triggering Vision Quest, plus it would provide a bit of control as well.
In the case of your original build, I would suggest swapping Grave Injustice for Spiritual Attunement. The life regeneration from Blood Ritual alone will be enough to offset the life you'll be spending to cast spells (after a certain gear/character level), and the mana regeneration provided by Spiritual Attunement is "always on" instead of just when you kill something, so you can benefit from it even during downtime such as in between monster packs.
(Acronyms in use: mana per second [mps]; Pierce the Veil [PtV], Spiritual Attunement [SA], Vision Quest [VQ])
Mana costs
- Spirit Barrage: 66 (base), 85.8 (w/ PtV)
- Zombie Charger: 86 (base), 111.8 (w/ PtV)
Mana usage (w/ PtV; assuming 1.4 cast speed, consecutive casts)
- Spirit Barrage: 120.12 mps
- Zombie Charger: 156.52 mps
For the following numbers I had to rely on what I observed in the current beta (patch 13), since this is the first patch I've had access for.
Max unbuffed mana pool at level 60: 740 mana
Base mana regeneration rate: 25 mps
Max mana pool at level 60 w/ SA: 888 mana
Mana regeration rate at level 60 w/ SA: 33.88 mps
Mana regeneration rate w/ VQ: 100 mps
Mana regeneration rate w/ SA and VQ: 135.52 mps
(This assumes SA affects base regeneration rate and VQ is truly multiplicative; ie. mps = (base + (max mana * 0.01)) * 4)
So using these numbers, if accurate, would result in a net mana gain even when spamming Spirit Barrage, and a slight (21 mps) loss while spamming Zombie Charger. Even though it's not completely net neutral (you have to spend mana to activate VQ), it still feels like a lot of mana, especially considering the fact that these two abilities are on the higher end of the scale when it comes to mana costs. I almost think that if there were a stronger, higher-mana cost, single-target ability I would gladly swap Spirit Barrage out for it.
I do agree that the 3% life leech rune for Spirit Barrage may end up being negligible, but it's the only rune that really makes sense because all of the others either gain mana back (seems unnecessary after this), or assist with area of effect damage, but if I've got a pack of monsters you better believe I'm going to be spamming bear cavalry at them instead.
As far as SA is concerned, I'm starting to consider replacing it with Blood Ritual. Thinking about it in terms of "mana saved per second", it's actually better than SA's regeneration, plus the health usage for casting Zombie Charger w/ PtV (23.478 health per second) is negated once you get to 2348 max health, which seems like it will be easy to do even very early on (A2 of Normal, if not earlier). And with so much mana regeneration, the extra 20% mana pool bonus from SA seems irrelevant, so trading it for the passive 1% health regeneration might be a better choice.
The two high-damage abilities -- Spirit Barrage for single-target, Zombie Charger (Bears) for groups -- are supported by a variety of slowing effects via Grasp of the Dead (runed to 80%), Soul Harvest (Languish), and Wall of Zombies (Barricade). Finally, Spirit Walk with the healing rune offers additional utility and health, as well as being the 4th cooldown for Vision Quest.
The passives were selected with only two goals in mind: buff damage output, and provide enough mana regeneration to actually be able to pull off a build that will be pressing buttons as often as possible. Pierce the Veil was the obvious choice for damage, and Vision Quest along with Spiritual Attunement generate boatloads of mana to play with.
Everything felt good on the surface, but I've slowly started to collect some concerns:
- My two main abilities that I intended on chain-casting both cost a lot of mana, and initially I wasn't sure if I'd have enough mana. After mathing out some numbers, I'm now confident that I'll be OK on mana, provided casting costs don't change much before release... Though I'm beginning to shift to the "maybe I have too much mana regeneration" mindset.
The primary goal was to spam Spirit Barrage/Zombie Bears, and the mana regeneration potential of this loadout can definitely support it. However, three of my cooldown abilities are 15 seconds or less, meaning I will have to refresh them very often in order to keep Vision Quest active, which at that point might not even be necessary since I'm using 3-4 lower-cost casts regularly to keep the regeneration up.
- Will two slowing effects and an obstacle be enough to outmaneuver "smarter" monsters in higher difficulties? This seems very difficult to answer right now, and as much as I want the answer to be "yes", there's just no way to know for sure yet.
- Also, is Wall of Zombies really an obstacle (ie. does it block pathing)? This also seems to be up in the air, as I've read both yes and no responses, and after watching the only footage of it that I could find (Blizzard's own introduction of the WD), it was hard to tell because the wall just one-shot everything that came up to it. I could see this going either way, so I won't wrack my brain too much thinking about it, but if for some reason it doesn't block pathing I may have to trade in a couple abilities for pets to assist with monster positioning (also addresses the issue above with too many short cooldown abilities, but I'm trying to avoid pets if possible), as such: Build2.
Regardless, this is definitely something I'd like to pursue once we have our hands on the full game, especially with so many unknown factors at the moment.My options here seem to be: drop Vision Quest for another regeneration-related passive that isn't dependent on cooldown usage (Blood Ritual, perhaps); or, swap Spirit Walk -- maybe even Soul Harvest, but I want to keep it as much as possible -- for an ability with a longer cooldown that doesn't need to be refreshed as often for Vision Quest.