Let me be more specific on why. Take a look on BNET app currently the PTR is version 2.1.99.25658 this is a clear indication they are preparing for 2.2 release not 2.1
Alternatively, the .99 patch designation is a "test" indicator to make sure things don't go live, because they'd never go 100 balance pacthes without a content patch.
Have been trying something similar on the PBE. Shocking Aspect got a huge buff, plus there's legendary gems, so a proc-focused wizard build can push a bit higher (I can run T5 pretty smoothly). Basically, your spam skills aren't important for your damage, they're for proc coefficients to apply Shocking Aspect/Wreath of Lightning/Mirinae/Shard of Hate/Sash of Knives, and there's one clear winner - Magic Missile with a +2 Mirrorball. Glacial Spike gives some CC, procs SoH, applies Cold, which is quite hard to get, and has a higher single-target proc rate than Conflagrate, but the Fire rune still has a 0.5 proc coefficient and hits an entire cone - much better for clearing large areas.
Personally, I prefer Magic Weapon - Ignite to Force Weapon, because it puts one EE debuff and one set of meteors on autopilot, plus you can run Conflagrate as a passive for 6% crit on every hit past the first. However, it doesn't play nice with Conflagrate (the MM rune) since you'll be proccing Fire all the time anyway - Force WEapon or Deflection is good here.
Finally, if you're doing the proc/EE build, there are some very interesting buffs and changes to Blizzard, letting it fill elemental holes over a wide area with no delay. Frozen Solid even guarantees your meteor will hit by applying CC! It's also one of the only non-cooldown Wizard spells with higher damage per cast than 3X Magic Missile.
Skywarden only gives the passive portion, so it'd be 8% IAS, 140 AR or 3.7k LPS, picked at random. These are okay, but the fact that you can't rely on one is... less than ideal.
Vigilance is really not that great because the IS doesn't block projectiles, only enemy movement.
BB and Ahavarion can be good, and I'd keep an eye out for Maximus (with Burning Locusts only), Skorn (for the extra DoT), and post-patch, The Grandfather (5 primaries). Maybe The Tormentor could be worth it for the CC and free damage from Charms. Overall, though, it might not be worth the loss of Rhen'ho Flayer's excellent passive.
Those notes you're talking about are the old notes and not updated. That information about the seasons has been in the notes since the PTR went live several weeks ago, but then at the end gave the note that seasons were not yet available, but hopefully, looking at some of the datamined stuff, they will be there in this patch.
They're including the stuff they need in order to turn on seasons, but I personally am a little doubtful it'll be live straight away. Instead, they could be planning to make the first test season sometime this patch, but after they've gotten some feedback and data on the 2H changes, leg gem changes, bug fixes (Mirinae and its 100% proc chance instead of 15%, I'm looking at you), balance changes and other level 70 content updates.
Quote from Felk Question : Someone can confirm than Simplicity is buffing MM ?
I believe one of the posters said in the other thread here that MM crits for 17M for him with that gem, so yeah. But, considering Blizzard's logic behind the Depth Diggers change, Simplicity looks like the 1st candidate for a nerf.
That DD nerf was bullshit. If MM was too strong, nerf MM. The DD nerf nerfed not one, but four items. Utter bullshit. And at least three of those items are exclusively Wizard,
I know Mirrorball, Ball of Hate and Rhen'ho Flayer. What's the fourth?
Zei's cap increases with rank (.5% per rank, 55% at 50) - it's just that the bonus scales up to 50 yards, rather than encouraging you to kill things from offscreen, or producing amusing and totally OP interactions with DoTs and Homing Pads allowing people to clear GR100.
They theoretically buffed channeling builds if you can channel for ~3 seconds or more - no initial cost, ramping damage boost over time, and an extra 0.5 AP/S on Astral Presence. So Moonlight Ward + Arcane Torrent and Moonlight + Slorak's Madness + Disintegrate might work.
Oh, and there was a compensation buff - the extra missiles now have the normal proc coefficients of that MM rune, rather than zero, so it can be a good option for proc-based setups. Rimeheart/Glacial Spike anyone?
Moonfire Ward can definitely beat a passive - 30% Arcane damage and a damage aura is a lot better than most wizard passives for Arcane builds, and if it respects the Arcane = Holy thing from resistances, it's also very useful on Monks and Crusaders. The absorb amulets are also solid options, and there may be new seasonals that can compete with a Hellfire Ammy. What HA does, though, is fill the gap between Sovereign Amulet crafting and pure RNG. If you're really struggling to get an amulet to drop, and you need the higher stat caps, in 2.1 you have an option - farm for a HA. In 2.0, there's only the absurdly inefficient plan of gambling for neck pieces (20 shards per roll, same chance of legendary as any other slot).
It's playing time - not real world time. Apparently they also have some means of insuring its not just "log in and stand around in town" while you go to work or whatever. I'd say its probably in the neighborhood of a 2 hr max - assuming you're playing. It could be some combo of play time over monsters killed ratio.
I seriously doubt they will ever tell us the exact mechanics behind the "safety net" as there are plenty of people who will immediately go looking for a way to abuse it.
They were kind of specific that the safety net is an *increased* chance of legendaries from 2 hours, scaling up to a guarantee after somewhere around 6 hours of active play.
My advice? Open chests and break objects, as well as killing mobs. I've got a lot of legendaries from objects as well as monsters. Don't spend too much time on it, but bring some splash damage or damaging mobility skills and break some barrels, and take the extra seconds to click on a chest.
Yeah, I'm running something similar, though I've got Overpower: Revel where you have Ground Stomp: Trembling Stomp, and Furious Charge: Merciless Assault for fury generation and mobility over Wrath of the Berserker. Also, I managed to pick up a Razor Strop (~400% weapon damage in a 20 yard AoE whenever you are healed by a health globe), and I've found Swords to Plowshares as good or better than Into the Fray.
Do you get fury issues? I find I run out on big targets or if multiple packs are close together. Or does the SoJ make a big difference? I don't have a Whirlwind one.
Paralysis STILL sucks, 8% chance to stun to a 10% chance >.< On the other hand, maybe a pure lightning build will be viable; with many spells stacking that chance to stun.
You could easily build a "Lightning" Wizard (http://us.battle.net....ikT!Vfh!a..Zcc) with something like Electrocute, "Lightning Orb", Lightning Hydra, "Lightning Black Hole", Shocking Armor and a Passive like Paralysis. Might be light defensively; so if Mirror Mimics count towards Paralysis, you have even more chance to Stun something while being a defensive skill. Or you might forego "Orb" and use "Electric Feels" (Which is a crappy name, really. Why not something like "Overcharge"? )
A "Fire" Wizard may use Conflagerate but opt for Meteor over "Fire" Orb. Or Opt to spend their Arcane power on "Heat Wave" The possibilities really are endless. I'm glad Blizzard is really trying to make "Elemental" builds viable; it was something really missing from the game.
A few thoughts: Looks like Energy Twister still sucks, Fire/Lightning really need thier "own" versions of Frost Nova, Black Hole will be in every build;
I can't wait till an updated skill calculator appears to really dig into the new expansion skills and how they will interact. I asked the mods if it was possible! ;-)
Nixing life steal and Blood Magic/Crystal Shell makes me wonder how on earth we'll survive though. Once damage starts being taken...you start dying and it's not going to be easy to recover health on boss fights.
Actually, with MW - Electrify, Storm Armor - Shocking Aspect, Living Lightning and ET - Storm Chaser, you have a surprisingly good chance to stun groups because of the huge numbers of Electrify & SA procs from alternating ET and LL. Throw in some Life on Hit to exploit this enormous amount of procs, and it's a functional, if not Archon-level, build. It all depends on what happens to proc coefficients in RoS, but from what we know, with Storm Chaser becoming Lightning damage and Paralysis getting a chance increase, it should get even better.
Now, I liked the wind-up-then-stun version better because it was both tactical (use the right spell at the right point in the cycle, etc) and avoided "lockdown" because there was no way you'd get the APS to perma-stun, whereas this version just needs 6.7 procs per second, not attacks. But it's not "useless" even now - just Tier 3 in an environment where everyone can choose Tier 1. With buffs and more useful spells, along with nerfs to the strongest builds, it's one to keep an eye on when we get our hands on it.
With the attack speed caps, that itself will semi nerf CMWW.
The stat caps in general hit a lot of the FotM builds hard. They're putting a hard cap on the amount of offense (other than raw +damage) you can get from gear. With offense and utility capped, the stats can really only go to sustain and EHP to try and free up another skill for offense.
That legendary that makes you deal 10x your Life per Sec to nearby enemies instead of healing from it seems fascinating, though - pair it with life regen skills for extra burst damage, and generally get around the offense cap by making a defensive stat offensive. A few effects like that could give the game some real legs.
I am no maths expert but if RoS hits and we all have say 3 Million DPS ... 4-5% life steal where our health pool is say 150k... its going to be even more ridiculous than it is now.
Either they remove life steal on skills (like we have seen) and possibly on items... or they dilute the life steal % on items(2.5% becomes 0.25%..).. or they change the dps/health pool calculations
I reiterate I am no maths expect..
I've got a maths degree, and I approve this statement. Put simply, lifesteal at the percentages we're used to, especially lifesteal with 100% uptime, is always going to scale well with damage, and will encourage "glass cannon" builds with just enough EHP to survive a big spike, then LS it back. Our characters deal dozens of times more damage than their HP total in seconds, and RoS isn't really going to change this. The only way to stop life steal from allowing characters to constantly ping-pong from near death to full HP is to nerf it into the ground at lower gear levels, unless you're using the Rest in Pieces gimmick. I would not be surprised to see no new items with Life Steal, meaning players faced a choice - give up 10 item levels, or give up life steal. Now, some legacy LS items might be worth using - lots of DH's used legacy Nat's 4pc for ages - but on the whole, they want players to be moving to the new paradigm, where damage sticks, tanks do something meaningful, and CHC/CHD give great damage, but poor sustain, attack speed strikes a balance via LoH and life per resource, Life Regen favours very tanky setups and Life on Kill give options for a build around bigger, slower hits that can one-shot weak enemies.
Storm Chaser going Lightning. Spectral Blades actually getting to leverage its elemental types carry-over - Chant Force + Storm Crow + arcane Tal's Alliegance + cold SoJ = full stacks of elemental-damage passive in one sig spell. Wave of Force as a DPS spell with optional knockback. Paralysis being reliable and game-able (yes, I will charge up my stun before TP + WoF/Lightning into that elite pack) without being broken (lowish uptime even with 3.0 APS). Pulsar and Black Hole giving some real battlefield control instead of kiting and PBAoE knockbacks. Actually useful Fire spells that aren't Meteor!
So much to love about this. So many possibilities. Can't wait.
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Curse PremiumPersonally, I prefer Magic Weapon - Ignite to Force Weapon, because it puts one EE debuff and one set of meteors on autopilot, plus you can run Conflagrate as a passive for 6% crit on every hit past the first. However, it doesn't play nice with Conflagrate (the MM rune) since you'll be proccing Fire all the time anyway - Force WEapon or Deflection is good here.
Finally, if you're doing the proc/EE build, there are some very interesting buffs and changes to Blizzard, letting it fill elemental holes over a wide area with no delay. Frozen Solid even guarantees your meteor will hit by applying CC! It's also one of the only non-cooldown Wizard spells with higher damage per cast than 3X Magic Missile.
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Curse PremiumVigilance is really not that great because the IS doesn't block projectiles, only enemy movement.
BB and Ahavarion can be good, and I'd keep an eye out for Maximus (with Burning Locusts only), Skorn (for the extra DoT), and post-patch, The Grandfather (5 primaries). Maybe The Tormentor could be worth it for the CC and free damage from Charms. Overall, though, it might not be worth the loss of Rhen'ho Flayer's excellent passive.
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Curse PremiumOh, and there was a compensation buff - the extra missiles now have the normal proc coefficients of that MM rune, rather than zero, so it can be a good option for proc-based setups. Rimeheart/Glacial Spike anyone?
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Curse PremiumMy advice? Open chests and break objects, as well as killing mobs. I've got a lot of legendaries from objects as well as monsters. Don't spend too much time on it, but bring some splash damage or damaging mobility skills and break some barrels, and take the extra seconds to click on a chest.
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Curse PremiumDo you get fury issues? I find I run out on big targets or if multiple packs are close together. Or does the SoJ make a big difference? I don't have a Whirlwind one.
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Curse PremiumAuth servers: 1 hour
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Seems legit. Could just be closing the PTR and making sure we can't get in, but... fingers crossed.
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Curse PremiumNow, I liked the wind-up-then-stun version better because it was both tactical (use the right spell at the right point in the cycle, etc) and avoided "lockdown" because there was no way you'd get the APS to perma-stun, whereas this version just needs 6.7 procs per second, not attacks. But it's not "useless" even now - just Tier 3 in an environment where everyone can choose Tier 1. With buffs and more useful spells, along with nerfs to the strongest builds, it's one to keep an eye on when we get our hands on it.
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Curse PremiumThat legendary that makes you deal 10x your Life per Sec to nearby enemies instead of healing from it seems fascinating, though - pair it with life regen skills for extra burst damage, and generally get around the offense cap by making a defensive stat offensive. A few effects like that could give the game some real legs.
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Curse PremiumSo much to love about this. So many possibilities. Can't wait.