The short of it boils down to gear. If you have top tier gear you can pretty much roll any act with any decent build, and of course the higher the dmg the better and more effective you will be. Unfortunately, if you don't get the OP's luck, the road to getting to the face roll level is much longer and more expensive.
But the overall intent of the post I think is very good because it touches on what a lot of players do, and that's trying to "farm" area's that they really aren't geared for. This patch took me from 65k all the way down to 42k dmg. I can no longer "farm" act 3 because I too view the degree of efficiency like the OP. Act 3 now just takes much longer to get through than before. So I'm dropping back to Act 2, and have been considering going back to act 1 simply because I'll be able to fly through.
I'm trying to re-gear now, trying to move away from IAS and go towards the crit build, probably like every other wizard. Before the patch I was trying to achieve a balance of Intel and Vitality. I was at 65k dmg and 32k Hp. I could have reached more dmg but the more Int I could stack, I seemed to find the less Vitality I ended up with.
For Phrensta, you're sitting at 60k+ dmg and 60k+ Hp now? Maybe I need to learn and shop the AH better if so because those stats seem very expensive in what I've been looking at. I'm slowly putting together a crit and AP crit gear set, but it seems like it's going to be expensive, but I'll get there.
And I also use the exact same build. I'm really liking it!
I've been playing with this build lately and I really like it. Whimsy seemed much easier to me after going with this and I'm running act 3 now more comfortably then before. Right now I still don't have the gear to truly get the most from the orb crit build, but when I finally get there it'll be sweet.
I picked up a 1200'ish 2H the other day for cheap to play around with the 2H play and it worked fine. Right now my 1H combo gives me more Dmg and the source an additional 8.5 crit chance, so until I find a top end 2H and get the appropriate gear, I'm using the 1H combo with tap the source instead. I like the idea of building AP on crit, so I might try to put gear together for that and stick with a combo over a 1H but we'll see.
In any event, I'm glad I came across this thread, appreciate you Morphos for posting and taking the screens, and this has been a lot of fun. Piercing Orbs and Blizzard was really getting boring for me and I never liked the animation of orbs.
Thanks for taking the time to take the screenshots Morphos. I'm looking forward to seeing the gear screens so I can start searching for similar. There will always be debate of 2h vs. 1h + Oh, and personally each has it's place. For a while I went with a 2h myself because I couldn't afford the 1h combo that could give me more damage.
Your build and gearing for it sounds like a lot fun, who doesn't enjoy blowing things up with big numbers as icing on the cake! I'm definitely going to try and put a gear set together for this build to have fun with it. Honestly, as effective as the orbs, hydra, or blizz combo is, I'm rather bored with it. And I don't think shooting orbs looks as cool as launching missiles or big arcane orbs lol.
Here's a question for you and I think I might know the answer but want to here your experience. Just from the screenshots you have up, it looks as if you probably just have 12% run speed? I didn't notice something like lacuni's or hammer's. I'm assuming you can be comfortable with that because you can launch your orbs at good distance and either kill instantly or by the time they start closing they drop dead because of the high damage you put out with the crits?
Sounds fun for sure, I too enjoy seeing big yellow numbers pop up. I'm looking to move towards crit gear. If you were so inclined, would love to see a screen shot of your gear.
I think your frustration is shared by many people. I know I have been frustrated a lot myself. I considered taking a break until the upcoming patch when I heard the news about it, but I have decided to keep trying. I have steadily geared up and right now sitting at 30k HP and 64k Dmg which on paper should be just fine.
However, I don't even try act 2 anymore because it's just too much of a pain. I'm starting to be able to deal with act 3. There are plenty of players in my range who clear act 3/4 perfectly fine. For me I'm geared, I just need to work on my kiting a lot more and simple skills. Right now I guess I just suck lol.
I look forward to the patch, but I hope they don't go overboard with the nerf and make it easy mode. I still want the challenge, but a challenge that is a bit more practical to work with. I really grow tired of being one shot all the damn time, but I look at it as getting a lot of practice and improving my game play.
I am currently using the exact build right now. In some areas I switch out MM for shock/piercing orbs. I like the build a lot. It took me a while to be comfortable getting away from using diamond skin and blizzard, but I'm doing well now.
I have a question about your crit chance. 35% is awesome, I'm trying to re-gear for high crit chance and higher crit Dmg. When you have time I'd love to see a screen shot of gear if you put it up. Outside of that what pieces of gear do you have with the + to crit chance and how much on each. What I've been looking through on the AH, I haven't seen anything that would add up that much. Probably items that are outside my range of gold I guess.
With that amount of damage I too am not sure why you are having problems killing the goblin.
Anyway, my suggestion to you is to use the group method which I assume you know. If not, basically each group member creates their own game, whoever finds a goblin the others quit their game and join yours, rinse, repeat. I don't bother with goblin farming unless I have a group cause it's just not as efficient solo or consistent enough for my taste with the number of goblins you are able to find.
In our group, we have a DH that can actually lock the goblin in place with whatever skill they have for doing that. I just use archon and blast away. I have magic missile with seeker as back up because I hate having to stop dps'ing if he happens to move away to far. With seekers I can just keep firing. In any event, archon and seekers are best in my opinion.
What is your YouTube channel so we can check it out. I guess cause these vids are embedded you can't double click on them to go view them on YouTube, or I'm just a goof. But good vids, would like to check out more from you.
Never mind, looked up your forum username on YT and think I found your vids.
By no means am I a pro or great wizard, but I know where you're coming from. Right now I can pretty much handle Act 1 inferno, having to skip certain types of packs. In act 2 I can't even get out of the gate to reach the desert lol.
I think that the AH plays a big part in progressing. If you're not using it to upgrade and only relying on drops, that is probably a large part of your problem. Personally, nothing that I'm wearing now to be able to do act 1 came from a drop. Everything has been bought from the AH. So I've just been farming as much as I can to steadily do upgrades.
My suggestion would be to do the same, farm as best you can to buy as many upgrades as you can. Then get with friends or join some pubs to maybe do butcher runs and hope for some upgrade drops or stuff you can sell on the AH yourself.
I am now at 40k HP and 26k'ish damage. I think I need to work on a lot of stuff to raise my Dmg much higher. I get the whole don't get hit thing everyone likes to say, but for me that has proven easier said than done so I'm still working on that part too.
I just recently raised my Dmg by 5k to put me at the 26k mark(buffed). What I had to end up doing was switching to a 2H to do it. Although I would prefer a 1H + Oh, I just can't afford the items I need to increase my damage. With the 2H I'm now using, it was much cheaper and I also got it with Int and Vit stats that significantly raised my HP and Dmg, which again was much better than what I had with my 1H + Oh.
So for increased Dmg, maybe this is something that could help you for now. I searched for a high Dmg 2H with int and Vit stats.
Anyway, hope this helps a little bit and good luck!
Obviously the more GF you have the better it will be, but does anyone have an opinion on what the minimum GF would be to make it more worthwhile than doing say butcher runs. I have about 150% GF right now and it looks to be a bit expensive to try and up that.
Oh ok gotcha, thank you. Will try it again tonight. Boring Indeed I'm sure, but I'd rather take a few hours to level up to at least upper 40's or 50 than just go thru every act all over again.
Wouldn't mind doing this for another character, but is this still good? I got in just for a few minutes to see it work and I never saw the meteor drop when I tried it. Maybe I'm goofing it up though lol. I'll have to go back and try tonite when I have time to play.
But the overall intent of the post I think is very good because it touches on what a lot of players do, and that's trying to "farm" area's that they really aren't geared for. This patch took me from 65k all the way down to 42k dmg. I can no longer "farm" act 3 because I too view the degree of efficiency like the OP. Act 3 now just takes much longer to get through than before. So I'm dropping back to Act 2, and have been considering going back to act 1 simply because I'll be able to fly through.
I'm trying to re-gear now, trying to move away from IAS and go towards the crit build, probably like every other wizard. Before the patch I was trying to achieve a balance of Intel and Vitality. I was at 65k dmg and 32k Hp. I could have reached more dmg but the more Int I could stack, I seemed to find the less Vitality I ended up with.
For Phrensta, you're sitting at 60k+ dmg and 60k+ Hp now? Maybe I need to learn and shop the AH better if so because those stats seem very expensive in what I've been looking at. I'm slowly putting together a crit and AP crit gear set, but it seems like it's going to be expensive, but I'll get there.
And I also use the exact same build. I'm really liking it!
I picked up a 1200'ish 2H the other day for cheap to play around with the 2H play and it worked fine. Right now my 1H combo gives me more Dmg and the source an additional 8.5 crit chance, so until I find a top end 2H and get the appropriate gear, I'm using the 1H combo with tap the source instead. I like the idea of building AP on crit, so I might try to put gear together for that and stick with a combo over a 1H but we'll see.
In any event, I'm glad I came across this thread, appreciate you Morphos for posting and taking the screens, and this has been a lot of fun. Piercing Orbs and Blizzard was really getting boring for me and I never liked the animation of orbs.
Your build and gearing for it sounds like a lot fun, who doesn't enjoy blowing things up with big numbers as icing on the cake! I'm definitely going to try and put a gear set together for this build to have fun with it. Honestly, as effective as the orbs, hydra, or blizz combo is, I'm rather bored with it. And I don't think shooting orbs looks as cool as launching missiles or big arcane orbs lol.
Here's a question for you and I think I might know the answer but want to here your experience. Just from the screenshots you have up, it looks as if you probably just have 12% run speed? I didn't notice something like lacuni's or hammer's. I'm assuming you can be comfortable with that because you can launch your orbs at good distance and either kill instantly or by the time they start closing they drop dead because of the high damage you put out with the crits?
Anyway, thanks again.
However, I don't even try act 2 anymore because it's just too much of a pain. I'm starting to be able to deal with act 3. There are plenty of players in my range who clear act 3/4 perfectly fine. For me I'm geared, I just need to work on my kiting a lot more and simple skills. Right now I guess I just suck lol.
I look forward to the patch, but I hope they don't go overboard with the nerf and make it easy mode. I still want the challenge, but a challenge that is a bit more practical to work with. I really grow tired of being one shot all the damn time, but I look at it as getting a lot of practice and improving my game play.
I have a question about your crit chance. 35% is awesome, I'm trying to re-gear for high crit chance and higher crit Dmg. When you have time I'd love to see a screen shot of gear if you put it up. Outside of that what pieces of gear do you have with the + to crit chance and how much on each. What I've been looking through on the AH, I haven't seen anything that would add up that much. Probably items that are outside my range of gold I guess.
Anyway, my suggestion to you is to use the group method which I assume you know. If not, basically each group member creates their own game, whoever finds a goblin the others quit their game and join yours, rinse, repeat. I don't bother with goblin farming unless I have a group cause it's just not as efficient solo or consistent enough for my taste with the number of goblins you are able to find.
In our group, we have a DH that can actually lock the goblin in place with whatever skill they have for doing that. I just use archon and blast away. I have magic missile with seeker as back up because I hate having to stop dps'ing if he happens to move away to far. With seekers I can just keep firing. In any event, archon and seekers are best in my opinion.
Never mind, looked up your forum username on YT and think I found your vids.
I think that the AH plays a big part in progressing. If you're not using it to upgrade and only relying on drops, that is probably a large part of your problem. Personally, nothing that I'm wearing now to be able to do act 1 came from a drop. Everything has been bought from the AH. So I've just been farming as much as I can to steadily do upgrades.
My suggestion would be to do the same, farm as best you can to buy as many upgrades as you can. Then get with friends or join some pubs to maybe do butcher runs and hope for some upgrade drops or stuff you can sell on the AH yourself.
I am now at 40k HP and 26k'ish damage. I think I need to work on a lot of stuff to raise my Dmg much higher. I get the whole don't get hit thing everyone likes to say, but for me that has proven easier said than done so I'm still working on that part too.
I just recently raised my Dmg by 5k to put me at the 26k mark(buffed). What I had to end up doing was switching to a 2H to do it. Although I would prefer a 1H + Oh, I just can't afford the items I need to increase my damage. With the 2H I'm now using, it was much cheaper and I also got it with Int and Vit stats that significantly raised my HP and Dmg, which again was much better than what I had with my 1H + Oh.
So for increased Dmg, maybe this is something that could help you for now. I searched for a high Dmg 2H with int and Vit stats.
Anyway, hope this helps a little bit and good luck!