I think you're getting ahead of yourself. If you aren't even lvl 60, you can't possibly make informed decisions based on your own play style.
You clearly don't know me. XD
I understand what you are saying, and I am very glad Blizzard has made the class so viable with most every spell. And yeah, I know that a majority of my Inferno play will come down to what I like. I didn't expect this forum post to give me the perfect cookie cutter build. I actually specified at the beginning the kinds of things I enjoy and the kinds of things I don't. What I was mostly hoping for in this thread was a new perspective. And so far it's achieved very good things for me. I learned about Archon and Dis. I learned about Celestial Orb. I learned to try to get Cold Blooded up, or even Temporal Flux. It's been very very helpful. And the build I specified above, though I'll probably go with the WD route with Time Warp and CM, is what I've managed to build accordingly.
And you, Zeyn, have been incredibly helpful. And I thank you very very much! <3
I know it's absurd that I'm planning so far ahead, but it's the way I work.
With GotD you can get 410% damage off, though, and with Blizzard only 210% without burning through your AP. I know you can only have one down at a time, but it seems the almost double damage could be really useful. Plus, if I used Time Warp, which slows enemy movement by 30% anyway, plus projectiles since we're ranged by 90%, and allows 20% additional damage... not entirely sure how snares stack, but it seems like anything in that little bubble would really be fucked. XD
I'm skeptical to put the idea of the slow in my hands, though, just because Wizards have a lot more "extra damage" utility with things like Cold Blooded and Slow Time. But I guess CB could work fine with Blizzard. And then my friend wouldn't need GotD.
Archon in 2 player is pretty bad, from what I gather. It's a wasted slot 80% of the time since it has a two minute cooldown. Whereas in 1 player you can burn through health pools really quick and you get a one second bonus every kill, in 2 player you only get about half the kills and drop out of Archon a lot faster. That being said, you also have no defenses when those +110% health co op mobs come after you and they usually tag you before you kill them.
In 4 player, when defenses mean nothing for a ranged, or in 1 player when health is horribly low, or on Farm mode for any Inferno acts, Archon is God. But for progression, not so much.
What I have right now, if I'm under the assumption of a WD companion, is high crit chance, high crit damage, high AP on crit, then:
Elec, Forked Lightning
Arcane Orb, Celestial
Hydra, Arcane
Slow Time, Warp
Energy Armor, Force
Teleport, Fracture
Temporal Flux
Critical Mass
Glass Cannon
^This build is currently in the works, and if you want any of my logic on why I chose those things, http://www.diablofan...p-wizard-build/ <check post 11
~Peachie
Also, unless you're using a kiting build, which I'm not, you should always have a signature just in case. Then again, if it turns out my AP on crit is Godly in the end, I'll probably change out of Forked Lightning.
Addition to the post above yours - GotD is more weapon damage than Blizzard as well, and two seconds longer. And I can accomplish the same damage in 6 seconds with a standard Secondary attack on Wizard (more so) than Blizzard can offer me for 45 AP.
Read the second post I made above and get back to me.
If my friend uses WD instead of Barb, I'll probably do something like this.
Just thought of something - if we combine Slow Time - Time Warp with Grasp of the Dead, we get the 20% damage boost of Cold Blooded and the damage and snare of Grasp of the Dead. This also frees up my Cold Blooded passive slot for something else, which could be nice. But this means no Blizzard damage. Though it would give me more AP since Slow Time lasts 8 seconds (vs. 6 on Blizzard) and uses no AP. Then I could use my spare passive for CM, allowing me to use Slow Time and Teleport more often?
~Peachie
EDIT: It has also been brought to light that Arcane Torrent Disruption is pretty damn good. XD So would that be a better secondary than Celestial Orb with high crits? Celestial can burn through mobs, though... but Disruption has the 15% bonus and epic damage. I'll have to try them out. Opinions welcome.
Just thought of something - if we combine Slow Time - Time Warp with Grasp of the Dead, we get the 20% damage boost of Cold Blooded and the damage and snare of Grasp of the Dead. This also frees up my Cold Blooded passive slot for something else, which could be nice. But this means no Blizzard damage. Though it would give me more AP since Slow Time lasts 8 seconds (vs. 6 on Blizzard) and uses no AP. Then I could use my spare passive for CM, allowing me to use Slow Time and Teleport more often?
Just rambling.
Actually gonna post this in my Wizard thread too. XD
That's very very helpful! Thank you. Out of curiosity, I'd like to specify that my friend uses Grasp of the Dead for the slow. But as a Wizard I have Blizzard and Cold Blooded. So since you've used Wizard and Witch Doctor, which one of us do you think should keep that snare up? GotD is way better than Blizzard, IMO, but Cold Blooded makes Blizzard pretty awesome.
Hey. My friend has two characters - one is a Barb and one is a Witch Doctor. And while I have chosen to use my Wizard over my Demon Hunter, she hasn't decided yet.
So my question to you is this:
We know a Barb and a Wizard are a good team... but with the recent buffs to health pools on WD pets, is WD and Wizard a viable Inferno team?
Okay - I've been thinking a bit. This is just what I've been playing over and over in my head, and it's what I've come up with. If at any point my math is wrong or I misinterpreted something, someone please tell me. Also, this is a template. Criticism welcome.
I think I should build crit chance way up. 40%ish range. And I think this should be the first thing I do. The second thing I should do is get an AP on Crit helm (or whatever the hell that comes on). That way, my AP regen is golden.
This'll be interesting, though, because I'm going to do a crit build without CM.
My signature - and yes, I'll have a signature - would be Electrocute, Forked Lightning. The only reason I'd have this is my "just in case". I'm not going to be kiting a lot, which means I /will/ run out of AP at some point. And Elec, FL is based on crit chance. Not only would it hit three enemies, but with a high crit chance you are pretty much guaranteed 200% additional weapon damage (with luck).
My secondary I am still debating, but if I can get over the huge AP and slowness of Arcane Orb, Celestial Orb, I will probably use that. It has the same benefits of Dis without the channelling. And with the AP regen, it should be fine. Still, I'll experiment.
Other spells:
Arcane Hydra - I love it. I'm not ever getting rid of it because I love it and he's cute and yes.
Blizzard - This is only if my friend plays Barbarian. The way I see it, if she is on WD, she'd already have her Hands snare, and they don't stack. But Blizzard will give me the Cold Blooded boost, which I'll get to in passives. (I've never used Blizzard so I don't know glyphs, but I was thinking just the one that increases radius.)
Teleport, Fracture - Oh shit button. I figure even without the CM or Illusionist passives, I will still be okay. If my friend plays her Barb, she'll have most of the aggro. And Fracture will be 8 seconds of saving, which I can use to try to either get away or kill the mobs. I know this is chance, but it doesn't seem necessary enough to waste a passive on.
Energy Armor, Focus Armor - To not die. It'll probably change to Prismatic once I'm actually strong.
Passives:
Cold Blooded - The party buff would be pretty awesome. I would only have Blizzard, but with the big radius I don't see it as a very big problem. Question, though. What if someone else used a chilling or frozen attack - maybe another wizard? Would the buff still apply to everyone or would that wizard need Cold Blooded?
Temporal Flux - With Arcane Orb and Arcane Hydra, I don't see why not.
Glass Cannon - I have a moral objection to this, but since I won't be using Magic Weapon and Sparkflint in my rotation, I should probably have /some/ damage boosting thingy. That being said, I could fill this slot with anything. (Btw, my moral objection is that Wizards have to sacrifice armor for their damage boosting passive whereas every other class doesn't. Lame, right?)
So yeah. Critique.
~Peachie
P.S. If my friend plays her WD instead of Barb, I'll probably switch Blizzard and Cold Blooded out for more survivability/defensive things. Probably Diamond Skin or Frost Nova for the move and I don't know with the passive yet.
Rencol - Dis is Arcane, not fire. But I still see your point. I'll try to incorporate those "% damage" bonuses in my build.
wyllder - I like that CM build a lot more than what other people are doing, but I'm still not entirely sure what my plan is with CM. Thing is, I find CM a little useless unless you're using Archon or a ton of those low cooldown things. But the fact of the matter is, with Wizard, you'll likely spend 2-3 of your slots simply on passives or things without cooldowns. Hydra has no cooldown, and you'll probably have an armor active at all times. Teleport is the only thing I could think it very useful for (or Frost Nova or Diamond Skin) but you usually only use one of those and Illusionist really fixes the teleport issue. And Frost Nova, I believe.
Zeyn -
You make very valid points on Archon. I actually find myself on bosses in Hell and thinking "Oh damn, no Diamond Skin..." which usually results in my impending death. And with the earlier points made in regard to Archon, I think I probably /will/ drop it from my list. Until I can go into farm mode, anyway. But I see the relevance in how it would sort of suck in 2 player.
Your Dis argument is also very valid, which bothers me tremendously. ;_; You use Arcane Orb, but I find it /sooooo/ slow. It burns through your AP like gasoline, it fires slowly, and it /moves/ slowly. And while I'm sure it's very strong, it seems so very lackluster to me. Like I'm waiting instead of killing. Beyond that, I take into account what you say about knowing my environment and I wonder if maybe volatility would be better than Chaos Nexus in that situation. Or whatever that rune is that makes your beam do more damage. I'm not against switching my Secondary, I'm not! I just haven't found anything beyond Dis in the secondary slot that feels nice. But I'll give anything a shot.
I relayed what you said about WD and Barb to my friend. She thanks you. She'll likely just pick whatever class she finds more fun, though.
So, without CM, the idea of stacking crit chance is bad? Seems to me, CM or not, that crit chance would be where you get a lot of your damage either way... but I might be reading into that too much. I'm not sure how much of you other stats you'd have to give up to get 40% crit.
Not specified to a single person -
What I've learned mostly from the above posts is that I might be wanting to think about something other than Arcane. My original intent was to grab as many decent arcane moves as possible, add Temporal Flux, and that's that. But with Blizzard and Cold Blooded, I'm wondering if that's a better route. Though ray of Frost is pretty lackluster. Or is there a proper way to combine the two worthy of giving up two passive spots?
Archon isn't a requirement for me. It's just one of the spells I like a lot. If I can implement things I like in my rotation, all the better.
That being said, I don't want a basic kiting rotation like Blizzard/Hydra. I will probably use Arcane Hydra regardless because I love it, but my kiting will be very minimal when I'm in co op. And as long as I can keep the mobs at bay long enough for aggro to go away on me, I'd be fine. Hence Fracture.
I've used Forked Lightning a lot, and I really really like it. My only worry is that it doesn't give the slow from Temporal Flux. Though I guess I /do/ have my Hydra for that.
Keep the ideas coming, guys. Everything is helpful.
(Gear level is crap, btw. Still finishing up Hell atm. But I want a rotation I can stick with for a while.)
Just noticed things were clickable. @_@ Wow, Peachie. Smart girl...
Only question on the Archon/Arcane Slow one is Dis. Is Volatility really the route to go over Chaos Nexus? I only ask because Chaos Nexus has saved my butt in situations where an enemy is coming up from behind. Then again, I suppose that's my own carelessness and I should be focusing forward... >.<
I guess one other question. Improved Archon was always my way to go. But after the huge buff to Arcane Destruction, it makes a great oh shit button. And even a suicide bombing button against yellows and blues. XD Opinions?
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You clearly don't know me. XD
I understand what you are saying, and I am very glad Blizzard has made the class so viable with most every spell. And yeah, I know that a majority of my Inferno play will come down to what I like. I didn't expect this forum post to give me the perfect cookie cutter build. I actually specified at the beginning the kinds of things I enjoy and the kinds of things I don't. What I was mostly hoping for in this thread was a new perspective. And so far it's achieved very good things for me. I learned about Archon and Dis. I learned about Celestial Orb. I learned to try to get Cold Blooded up, or even Temporal Flux. It's been very very helpful. And the build I specified above, though I'll probably go with the WD route with Time Warp and CM, is what I've managed to build accordingly.
And you, Zeyn, have been incredibly helpful. And I thank you very very much! <3
I know it's absurd that I'm planning so far ahead, but it's the way I work.
~Peachie
Thank you for all the info! If you come up with anything else, just post it in here - I'll check back every few hours.
~Peachie
You've been amazingly helpful.
I'm skeptical to put the idea of the slow in my hands, though, just because Wizards have a lot more "extra damage" utility with things like Cold Blooded and Slow Time. But I guess CB could work fine with Blizzard. And then my friend wouldn't need GotD.
In 4 player, when defenses mean nothing for a ranged, or in 1 player when health is horribly low, or on Farm mode for any Inferno acts, Archon is God. But for progression, not so much.
What I have right now, if I'm under the assumption of a WD companion, is high crit chance, high crit damage, high AP on crit, then:
Elec, Forked Lightning
Arcane Orb, Celestial
Hydra, Arcane
Slow Time, Warp
Energy Armor, Force
Teleport, Fracture
Temporal Flux
Critical Mass
Glass Cannon
^This build is currently in the works, and if you want any of my logic on why I chose those things, http://www.diablofan...p-wizard-build/ <check post 11
~Peachie
Also, unless you're using a kiting build, which I'm not, you should always have a signature just in case. Then again, if it turns out my AP on crit is Godly in the end, I'll probably change out of Forked Lightning.
Read the second post I made above and get back to me.
~Peachie
Just thought of something - if we combine Slow Time - Time Warp with Grasp of the Dead, we get the 20% damage boost of Cold Blooded and the damage and snare of Grasp of the Dead. This also frees up my Cold Blooded passive slot for something else, which could be nice. But this means no Blizzard damage. Though it would give me more AP since Slow Time lasts 8 seconds (vs. 6 on Blizzard) and uses no AP. Then I could use my spare passive for CM, allowing me to use Slow Time and Teleport more often?
~Peachie
EDIT: It has also been brought to light that Arcane Torrent Disruption is pretty damn good. XD So would that be a better secondary than Celestial Orb with high crits? Celestial can burn through mobs, though... but Disruption has the 15% bonus and epic damage. I'll have to try them out. Opinions welcome.
Just rambling.
Actually gonna post this in my Wizard thread too. XD
~Peachie
~Peachie
So my question to you is this:
We know a Barb and a Wizard are a good team... but with the recent buffs to health pools on WD pets, is WD and Wizard a viable Inferno team?
Thanks in advance.
~Peachie
I think I should build crit chance way up. 40%ish range. And I think this should be the first thing I do. The second thing I should do is get an AP on Crit helm (or whatever the hell that comes on). That way, my AP regen is golden.
This'll be interesting, though, because I'm going to do a crit build without CM.
My signature - and yes, I'll have a signature - would be Electrocute, Forked Lightning. The only reason I'd have this is my "just in case". I'm not going to be kiting a lot, which means I /will/ run out of AP at some point. And Elec, FL is based on crit chance. Not only would it hit three enemies, but with a high crit chance you are pretty much guaranteed 200% additional weapon damage (with luck).
My secondary I am still debating, but if I can get over the huge AP and slowness of Arcane Orb, Celestial Orb, I will probably use that. It has the same benefits of Dis without the channelling. And with the AP regen, it should be fine. Still, I'll experiment.
Other spells:
Arcane Hydra - I love it. I'm not ever getting rid of it because I love it and he's cute and yes.
Blizzard - This is only if my friend plays Barbarian. The way I see it, if she is on WD, she'd already have her Hands snare, and they don't stack. But Blizzard will give me the Cold Blooded boost, which I'll get to in passives. (I've never used Blizzard so I don't know glyphs, but I was thinking just the one that increases radius.)
Teleport, Fracture - Oh shit button. I figure even without the CM or Illusionist passives, I will still be okay. If my friend plays her Barb, she'll have most of the aggro. And Fracture will be 8 seconds of saving, which I can use to try to either get away or kill the mobs. I know this is chance, but it doesn't seem necessary enough to waste a passive on.
Energy Armor, Focus Armor - To not die. It'll probably change to Prismatic once I'm actually strong.
Passives:
Cold Blooded - The party buff would be pretty awesome. I would only have Blizzard, but with the big radius I don't see it as a very big problem. Question, though. What if someone else used a chilling or frozen attack - maybe another wizard? Would the buff still apply to everyone or would that wizard need Cold Blooded?
Temporal Flux - With Arcane Orb and Arcane Hydra, I don't see why not.
Glass Cannon - I have a moral objection to this, but since I won't be using Magic Weapon and Sparkflint in my rotation, I should probably have /some/ damage boosting thingy. That being said, I could fill this slot with anything. (Btw, my moral objection is that Wizards have to sacrifice armor for their damage boosting passive whereas every other class doesn't. Lame, right?)
So yeah. Critique.
~Peachie
P.S. If my friend plays her WD instead of Barb, I'll probably switch Blizzard and Cold Blooded out for more survivability/defensive things. Probably Diamond Skin or Frost Nova for the move and I don't know with the passive yet.
wyllder - I like that CM build a lot more than what other people are doing, but I'm still not entirely sure what my plan is with CM. Thing is, I find CM a little useless unless you're using Archon or a ton of those low cooldown things. But the fact of the matter is, with Wizard, you'll likely spend 2-3 of your slots simply on passives or things without cooldowns. Hydra has no cooldown, and you'll probably have an armor active at all times. Teleport is the only thing I could think it very useful for (or Frost Nova or Diamond Skin) but you usually only use one of those and Illusionist really fixes the teleport issue. And Frost Nova, I believe.
Zeyn -
You make very valid points on Archon. I actually find myself on bosses in Hell and thinking "Oh damn, no Diamond Skin..." which usually results in my impending death. And with the earlier points made in regard to Archon, I think I probably /will/ drop it from my list. Until I can go into farm mode, anyway. But I see the relevance in how it would sort of suck in 2 player.
Your Dis argument is also very valid, which bothers me tremendously. ;_; You use Arcane Orb, but I find it /sooooo/ slow. It burns through your AP like gasoline, it fires slowly, and it /moves/ slowly. And while I'm sure it's very strong, it seems so very lackluster to me. Like I'm waiting instead of killing. Beyond that, I take into account what you say about knowing my environment and I wonder if maybe volatility would be better than Chaos Nexus in that situation. Or whatever that rune is that makes your beam do more damage. I'm not against switching my Secondary, I'm not! I just haven't found anything beyond Dis in the secondary slot that feels nice. But I'll give anything a shot.
I relayed what you said about WD and Barb to my friend. She thanks you. She'll likely just pick whatever class she finds more fun, though.
So, without CM, the idea of stacking crit chance is bad? Seems to me, CM or not, that crit chance would be where you get a lot of your damage either way... but I might be reading into that too much. I'm not sure how much of you other stats you'd have to give up to get 40% crit.
Not specified to a single person -
What I've learned mostly from the above posts is that I might be wanting to think about something other than Arcane. My original intent was to grab as many decent arcane moves as possible, add Temporal Flux, and that's that. But with Blizzard and Cold Blooded, I'm wondering if that's a better route. Though ray of Frost is pretty lackluster. Or is there a proper way to combine the two worthy of giving up two passive spots?
Interesting stuff.
Also, Archon is probably gone from my list.
~Peachie
That being said, I don't want a basic kiting rotation like Blizzard/Hydra. I will probably use Arcane Hydra regardless because I love it, but my kiting will be very minimal when I'm in co op. And as long as I can keep the mobs at bay long enough for aggro to go away on me, I'd be fine. Hence Fracture.
I've used Forked Lightning a lot, and I really really like it. My only worry is that it doesn't give the slow from Temporal Flux. Though I guess I /do/ have my Hydra for that.
Keep the ideas coming, guys.
(Gear level is crap, btw. Still finishing up Hell atm. But I want a rotation I can stick with for a while.)
~Peachie
Only question on the Archon/Arcane Slow one is Dis. Is Volatility really the route to go over Chaos Nexus? I only ask because Chaos Nexus has saved my butt in situations where an enemy is coming up from behind. Then again, I suppose that's my own carelessness and I should be focusing forward... >.<
I guess one other question. Improved Archon was always my way to go. But after the huge buff to Arcane Destruction, it makes a great oh shit button. And even a suicide bombing button against yellows and blues. XD Opinions?