See that video basically demonstrates the problem with lightning....no big spender and basically just standing there buffing electrocutes damage and melting trash.....champ and elite packs always have multiple mobs to bounce off of but single target like rift guardians or when you melt a champs minions lightning suffers.
Also His crits with electrocute for being a BiS lightning wizard are between 2~4 mill (think I saw some 8~10 mills in there dunno where those were coming from, shard of hate proc maybe?) and though they are happening fast, the point of the matter is he is almost perfectly geared for it, My wiz is moderatley geared for fire now and I get crits like that from one MM, granted MM probably has higher damage coefficient since it isn't zapping constantly, still he should be doing WAY more damage than a crappy geared fire wizard with leftover lightning gear. All I switched really was my chest over to a cindercoat and boom same to greater dps than almost perfect geared lightning wizard ( all I'm missing is a camaral which i'm still looking for in case lightning does get some love, and maybe a decently rolled moru energy trap or whatever that ammy is that increases stun duration.)
offtopic @ Jaetch, I saw in another thread of yours you had mentioned something about max stun duration vyr's gloves? Can Vyr's roll with stun duration on them? I got an amazing rolled pair of Vyr's the other day they rolled 705 int, 10% crit, 44% crit damage, and 8% cooldown reduction i think but if they can roll with stun duration increase i might keep rolling to find another pair.
Lightning has the best or at least the most options given to it in terms of unique legendary effects I think, it's sad that the spec is so underwhelming and buffing lightning spenders is the only way to make it viable.
Arcane Orb {Spark} feels clunky with how it lobs into the air and it's damage is dismal compared to other specs version.
Lightning Hyrdas attack way to slow even with alot of IAS which most folks are gearing away from, even with the serpent striker and 2 of them up I don't think they would do alot of damage and you'd be losing Thunderfury, Odin's Son, or Fulminator to pull that off.
Lightning meteors are a good option but because of their dot effect and rooting do sub optimal damage even with arcane dynamo at 5 stacks.
Energy Twister is one of those spells that just needs buffed everywhere, has potential for a lightning build with a thunderstorm variant if blizz goes that route I'd like to see it. Currently nobody uses Energy Twister which is sad to see a whole skill not even touched.
Lightning Archon is one of those spells that some like, some don't. I shun away from it do to the fact that pre 2.0 every spec was archon based and I simply got tired of the minute or so of overpowerdness with the stacking on kill duration and then back to usual squishy self. Archon seems too arcane and not lightning enough....Lightning Archon should have a storm armor effect to it zapping random mobs for boat loads of damage. The archon lightning beam should also send off chain bolts to mobs like electrocute. not just a lightning laser.
Which brings me to storm armor, and honestly all armors in general....Every and i mean every spec for wizards uses an armor and unless your proccing tal meteors from ice armor it's always Energy Armor. Why do we have to have an armor spell to be viable for one and Storm armor being a strictly offensive armor kinda kills it as being viable. Has great potential for nuking T1~2 stuff quickly but after that the loss of survivability is to much.
Wave of Force is nice and pretty much every lightning wiz uses it for the +15% damage bonus but the duration is to short and i find myself spamming it after a black hole to make sure i've hit everything. Needs to have it's debuff increased to 6~8 seconds and maybe a bit more range, if it hit the whole screen and did no damage by itself but debuffed everything for 6-8 seconds that would be enough.
There simply isn't a WOW ouch that freakin hurt spender for lightning, all of your damage comes from "Buffing" Electrocute and slowly killing things with 3-5 mill crits.
Played lightning forever and loved it, Finally got a cindercoat and played with fire yesterday and loving it as well. I will say my undergeared fire wizard is doing so much more dps and has way more survivability than my almost perfect geared lightning wizard. Have Thunderfury, Myken's, Thundergod's, Wyrdword, Strongarm, +Lightning damage stormcrow...never found a camaral, lightning damage stone of jordan....had alot of fun but lightning definatley needs some major buffs. Even with near perfect gear it fails in comparison to fire even with the addition of archon as a viable lightning spender.
Honestly the biggest fix would be to make Myken's Chain back to the same target if there wasn't anymore to bounce off of, that alone would make lightning comparable to fire I think. I wish they would also make Myken's have an effect for the arc lightning rune. I hate the fact we have a source for one ability but one of the runes is made useless with it. Myken's should boost the damage and range of arc lightning or something. Magic Missile should have one of it's runes changed to lightning for those that want to play with a mirrorball as well giving a few more options. And Arcane Orb {Spark} needs a huge makeover....that thing is so damn useless lol.
Honestly I would join a Normal Act I bounty run group for split farming rift key fragments, with the 2.0.5 changes most folks are doing T1~T2 split farms but some Normals still go on...get yourself a bunch of key fragments and then join one of the Rift farm communities such as Rift it Forward or Rift Runz, jump into a rift and get the loot/xp from the guardian, open the rift for the runner rinse and repeat.
Push Shift + O once in game and search for the Bounty Runz, Rift Runz, and Rift it Forward communities.
Bracers can roll with elemental + damage, good options are strongarm bracers if you have a knockback effect in your build. Ancient Parthan Defenders if you have some form of stun for some more survivability.
Stone of Jordan of course for both + elemental and + damage to elites.
There's an amulet that I think can roll with +lightning damage, not certain though. Moru Energy Trap or some such...I know it increases the duration of stuns by 25%~29%.
And of course a weapon...I've had all 3 on my wizard, Fulminator. Odyn's Son, and Thunderfury....finally got a TF off kadala so I'd start spending your shards on her for a weapon first.
Can always have someone carry you through T6 hellrifts, I've powerleveled a few of my friends to 70 over the last few days. Hellrifts are so easy a moderatley geared player can do them if you don't mind dieing a few times occasionally on the first level.
So I did some screwing around and I found a build that does work, If all you want to do is farm T6 hellrifts for XP, I'm not sure how viable it would be for anything else i.e. actually killing elites.
Keep in mind you do need the gear to support it so if you're deadset on having a lightning wizard you'll need to farm some pieces.
1. Weapon ~ Odyn's Son, Thunderfury, Shard of Hate, Fulminator. Either one of these is going to give you an extra lightning effect - more lightning = more stunning.
2. Wyrdword ~ the extra 15% chance to stun on top of the paralysis passive means you can keep things locked down fairly reasonably.
3. Myken's Ball of Hate ~ the extra chains = more AP generation and more stun potential.
(4.) Thundergod's Vigil ~ I would say this one is optional, It does have extra lightning effects but you have to get hit for them to go off and I never see that many proc anyway so you can sub this for a higher dps belt if you have one like a hellcat waistguard or a witching hour.
These things are a must in order for this to work efficiently otherwise stuff just breaks loose and kills you, since you'll mostly be out of melee range survivability isn't to big a deal.
Primary should be Electrocute (Surge of Power)
Wave of Force (Static Pulse) [ I still favor this one over Arcane Orb (Spark) I think it does more damage, is highly spamable for crowds coming at you and has a pretty high chance to stun, but if you want you can use Orb. playstyle preference there.]
Black Hole (Spellsteal) [The extra 3% damage per target is fantastic on higher torments, if you're having issues stunning things you can swap out to Supermassive, this ability is necessary I think in order to group things up and keep them locked down. No other skill can manage to get everything in a nice crowd of stunning death.]
Meteor (Lightning Bind) [This is your primary nuke, the stun coefficient on it is nuts and I can keep everything locked down 100% of the time as long as they're in the effect radius of the meteor. Wait until you have 5 stacks from Arcane Dynamo and let one fly, you'll be generating stacks very quick so you'll never have to worry about your stun dropping off.]
Energy Armor (Pinpoint Barrier) [More crit, more damage, more dead things quicker, more efficiency. Since survivability isn't a big deal you could try swapping this out for storm armor for even more lightning flying around]
Magic Weapon (Force Weapon) [More damage always a plus, you can try throwing in electrify for even more lightning flying around, I've tested both and honestly they seem like the same damage if you have high + lightning damage the extra lightning might even be better than force weapon though it's hard to tell.]
Passives should be:
Blur [just in case something gets on top of you.] You can swap this for Prodigy for insane AP generation if you like.
Arcane Dynamo [For stronger Meteor damage.]
Paralysis [Stun, self explanatory]
Unwaivering Will [You are standing still alot since things are stunned, not having this is just dumb for this spec. Bonus survivability and damage and all you have to do is something you'll be doing alot of anyway.]
Have at it, give it a whirl. See if you like it. Again I only thing it's viable for T6 hellrifts, I haven't tested it on anything else yet so maybe you can give it a got and provide some feedback on your own.
Just depends on what gear you find to support it. The diversity of builds in this expansion because of legendary effects is one thing I think blizzard got right.
Once you start finding some pieces that do something interesting, try to build around that.
I run a pretty similar build, I will tell you from my experience that you should be looking for pieces to put together a fire/cold/arcane set as lightning simply doesn't stand up on its own much after torment 3~4 even with the gear to support it.
Things I would take a look at:
1 your shoulders, not sure if you're in the middle of attempting to reforge or not but i would get rid of the bonus damage to familiar for something else. I don't remember what other skills can roll on shoulders I think black hole is one of them but try to shoot for something else there.
2. As Syldra said, drop glass cannon, either pick up unwaiviering will, audacity, or elemental exposure. With arc lightning your going to be in range constantly so audacity will be a good stand in, unwaivering will as well since you'll be standing still alot with your main skill. Elemental exposure is still good even with only 2 elemental types but audacity or unwaivering will should be your first picks.
3. Not sure how arcane orb is working out for you, i personally tried it out and didn't like it much. You can sub in wave of force static pulse and see if you like it, the 15% extra damage to lightning is nice.
Other than that, like I said I would continue looking for pieces to build a better set. Lightning just doesn't work well on higher torments from what i've tinkered with. Unlike cold it's main CC ~ paralysis is pretty unreliable. I have a wyrdword ring and a ton of +lightning damage, and I can lock mobs down pretty good but the second they break free I'm as good as dead. Even with constant hits coming in from my belt, stormcrow, the proc from my weapon, firewalkers fire trail, and moonlight ward being in melee range on higher torments is just a bad idea even with great survivability and lightning unfortunatley requires being in melee range.
I only have 2 pieces of a cold set, an azurewrath that rolled with 20% cold and a mirrorball for glacial spike. And just those 2 pieces alone I can tell Cold is going to be a much more survivable spec due to the constant freezes and slows.
**profile is in sig if you want to take a look, ignore the gems i threw topazes back in there but it hasn't updated. Was toying around doing T6 hellrifts.
So I recently came into a pretty decently rolled Wyrdword 447 int, 5.5 cc, 44% cd with 39% crowd control reduction. rolled with loh that I'll probably re-roll for either ias or damage.
My question is; does the stun effect of this ring stack with paralysis giving you a 30% chance to stun or does it simply act as a replacement freeing up a passive slot for something else.
Reason I'm wondering is I also have the Ancient Parthon Defenders and I'm assuming lots of stunning will translate into lots of damage reduction for higher torments. But if they don't stack, freeing up a passive slot is nice as well.
does exactly what it says it does, except right now it's bugged for any +elemental damage and is only working on black weapon damage.
basically take the weapons min damage and max damage and add 10% then average them together take that result and multiply it by attacks per second to get its new dps.
so a weapon that is normally 1000~1200 damage with +10% damage and 1.5 attacks per second would normally be 1650 dps. With 10% damage that would increase to 1100~1440 at 1.5 attacks per second 1905 dps.
Well if you got a wand of woh, explosive blast would be the obvious choice there heh, explosive blast does hit hard. I've found wave of force to be a nice filler, has the same radius and is highly spammable plus it doesn't interupt your main skill much. You'll just have to screw around with skills and see what works best for you. It's all trial and error really. The build I use was just a combination of skills i ended up liking best.
Blackhole is always a good spender to have, it bunches mobs up making it easy to nuke them all down plus it frees you up from taking melee damage from them for 2 seconds which is huge with alot of life on hit. I run with supermassive because i'm running a lightning build plus it has bigger range and bunches a bunch more mobs up. Can also go with Event Horizon to get rid of annoying walls/bad stuff. Pretty much all the runes for blackhole are useful.
Not sure if your profile just hasn't updated or I just missed it but I only see Moonlight Ward for + arcane damage. Until you get enough pieces to make a full set of arcane gear I'd just stick with what you're playing now. Moonlight Ward is a great ammy even without a bunch of extra + arcane damage, It's basically a free damage sheild that hits like a truck. The thing procs all the time too, you'll have close to 100% uptime with it if you play a melee/tank build.
That being said, most arcane wizards are going for vyr's sets for archon, or you can just go for the disintegrate{entropy} build. with entropy your playstyle would be similar to a wizard using electrocute{arc lightning} the damage cone and radius are very similar as far as range goes, the big difference being that electrocute is free to cast and entropy requires some arcane power management.
Honestly I think the best solution would be to put them on Kadala maybe at 50 bloodshards a pop. I forsee her outliving her usefulness at some point once you've obtained everything you're shooting for that isn't torment only. Meaning you'd eventually have an abundance of unspendable shards unless you're gearing an alt or something.
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Also His crits with electrocute for being a BiS lightning wizard are between 2~4 mill (think I saw some 8~10 mills in there dunno where those were coming from, shard of hate proc maybe?) and though they are happening fast, the point of the matter is he is almost perfectly geared for it, My wiz is moderatley geared for fire now and I get crits like that from one MM, granted MM probably has higher damage coefficient since it isn't zapping constantly, still he should be doing WAY more damage than a crappy geared fire wizard with leftover lightning gear. All I switched really was my chest over to a cindercoat and boom same to greater dps than almost perfect geared lightning wizard ( all I'm missing is a camaral which i'm still looking for in case lightning does get some love, and maybe a decently rolled moru energy trap or whatever that ammy is that increases stun duration.)
offtopic @ Jaetch, I saw in another thread of yours you had mentioned something about max stun duration vyr's gloves? Can Vyr's roll with stun duration on them? I got an amazing rolled pair of Vyr's the other day they rolled 705 int, 10% crit, 44% crit damage, and 8% cooldown reduction i think but if they can roll with stun duration increase i might keep rolling to find another pair.
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Arcane Orb {Spark} feels clunky with how it lobs into the air and it's damage is dismal compared to other specs version.
Lightning Hyrdas attack way to slow even with alot of IAS which most folks are gearing away from, even with the serpent striker and 2 of them up I don't think they would do alot of damage and you'd be losing Thunderfury, Odin's Son, or Fulminator to pull that off.
Lightning meteors are a good option but because of their dot effect and rooting do sub optimal damage even with arcane dynamo at 5 stacks.
Energy Twister is one of those spells that just needs buffed everywhere, has potential for a lightning build with a thunderstorm variant if blizz goes that route I'd like to see it. Currently nobody uses Energy Twister which is sad to see a whole skill not even touched.
Lightning Archon is one of those spells that some like, some don't. I shun away from it do to the fact that pre 2.0 every spec was archon based and I simply got tired of the minute or so of overpowerdness with the stacking on kill duration and then back to usual squishy self. Archon seems too arcane and not lightning enough....Lightning Archon should have a storm armor effect to it zapping random mobs for boat loads of damage. The archon lightning beam should also send off chain bolts to mobs like electrocute. not just a lightning laser.
Which brings me to storm armor, and honestly all armors in general....Every and i mean every spec for wizards uses an armor and unless your proccing tal meteors from ice armor it's always Energy Armor. Why do we have to have an armor spell to be viable for one and Storm armor being a strictly offensive armor kinda kills it as being viable. Has great potential for nuking T1~2 stuff quickly but after that the loss of survivability is to much.
Wave of Force is nice and pretty much every lightning wiz uses it for the +15% damage bonus but the duration is to short and i find myself spamming it after a black hole to make sure i've hit everything. Needs to have it's debuff increased to 6~8 seconds and maybe a bit more range, if it hit the whole screen and did no damage by itself but debuffed everything for 6-8 seconds that would be enough.
There simply isn't a WOW ouch that freakin hurt spender for lightning, all of your damage comes from "Buffing" Electrocute and slowly killing things with 3-5 mill crits.
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Honestly the biggest fix would be to make Myken's Chain back to the same target if there wasn't anymore to bounce off of, that alone would make lightning comparable to fire I think. I wish they would also make Myken's have an effect for the arc lightning rune. I hate the fact we have a source for one ability but one of the runes is made useless with it. Myken's should boost the damage and range of arc lightning or something. Magic Missile should have one of it's runes changed to lightning for those that want to play with a mirrorball as well giving a few more options. And Arcane Orb {Spark} needs a huge makeover....that thing is so damn useless lol.
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Push Shift + O once in game and search for the Bounty Runz, Rift Runz, and Rift it Forward communities.
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Stone of Jordan of course for both + elemental and + damage to elites.
There's an amulet that I think can roll with +lightning damage, not certain though. Moru Energy Trap or some such...I know it increases the duration of stuns by 25%~29%.
And of course a weapon...I've had all 3 on my wizard, Fulminator. Odyn's Son, and Thunderfury....finally got a TF off kadala so I'd start spending your shards on her for a weapon first.
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Keep in mind you do need the gear to support it so if you're deadset on having a lightning wizard you'll need to farm some pieces.
1. Weapon ~ Odyn's Son, Thunderfury, Shard of Hate, Fulminator. Either one of these is going to give you an extra lightning effect - more lightning = more stunning.
2. Wyrdword ~ the extra 15% chance to stun on top of the paralysis passive means you can keep things locked down fairly reasonably.
3. Myken's Ball of Hate ~ the extra chains = more AP generation and more stun potential.
(4.) Thundergod's Vigil ~ I would say this one is optional, It does have extra lightning effects but you have to get hit for them to go off and I never see that many proc anyway so you can sub this for a higher dps belt if you have one like a hellcat waistguard or a witching hour.
These things are a must in order for this to work efficiently otherwise stuff just breaks loose and kills you, since you'll mostly be out of melee range survivability isn't to big a deal.
Primary should be Electrocute (Surge of Power)
Wave of Force (Static Pulse) [ I still favor this one over Arcane Orb (Spark) I think it does more damage, is highly spamable for crowds coming at you and has a pretty high chance to stun, but if you want you can use Orb. playstyle preference there.]
Black Hole (Spellsteal) [The extra 3% damage per target is fantastic on higher torments, if you're having issues stunning things you can swap out to Supermassive, this ability is necessary I think in order to group things up and keep them locked down. No other skill can manage to get everything in a nice crowd of stunning death.]
Meteor (Lightning Bind) [This is your primary nuke, the stun coefficient on it is nuts and I can keep everything locked down 100% of the time as long as they're in the effect radius of the meteor. Wait until you have 5 stacks from Arcane Dynamo and let one fly, you'll be generating stacks very quick so you'll never have to worry about your stun dropping off.]
Energy Armor (Pinpoint Barrier) [More crit, more damage, more dead things quicker, more efficiency. Since survivability isn't a big deal you could try swapping this out for storm armor for even more lightning flying around]
Magic Weapon (Force Weapon) [More damage always a plus, you can try throwing in electrify for even more lightning flying around, I've tested both and honestly they seem like the same damage if you have high + lightning damage the extra lightning might even be better than force weapon though it's hard to tell.]
Passives should be:
Blur [just in case something gets on top of you.] You can swap this for Prodigy for insane AP generation if you like.
Arcane Dynamo [For stronger Meteor damage.]
Paralysis [Stun, self explanatory]
Unwaivering Will [You are standing still alot since things are stunned, not having this is just dumb for this spec. Bonus survivability and damage and all you have to do is something you'll be doing alot of anyway.]
Have at it, give it a whirl. See if you like it. Again I only thing it's viable for T6 hellrifts, I haven't tested it on anything else yet so maybe you can give it a got and provide some feedback on your own.
Happy Hunting.
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Once you start finding some pieces that do something interesting, try to build around that.
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Things I would take a look at:
1 your shoulders, not sure if you're in the middle of attempting to reforge or not but i would get rid of the bonus damage to familiar for something else. I don't remember what other skills can roll on shoulders I think black hole is one of them but try to shoot for something else there.
2. As Syldra said, drop glass cannon, either pick up unwaiviering will, audacity, or elemental exposure. With arc lightning your going to be in range constantly so audacity will be a good stand in, unwaivering will as well since you'll be standing still alot with your main skill. Elemental exposure is still good even with only 2 elemental types but audacity or unwaivering will should be your first picks.
3. Not sure how arcane orb is working out for you, i personally tried it out and didn't like it much. You can sub in wave of force static pulse and see if you like it, the 15% extra damage to lightning is nice.
Other than that, like I said I would continue looking for pieces to build a better set. Lightning just doesn't work well on higher torments from what i've tinkered with. Unlike cold it's main CC ~ paralysis is pretty unreliable. I have a wyrdword ring and a ton of +lightning damage, and I can lock mobs down pretty good but the second they break free I'm as good as dead. Even with constant hits coming in from my belt, stormcrow, the proc from my weapon, firewalkers fire trail, and moonlight ward being in melee range on higher torments is just a bad idea even with great survivability and lightning unfortunatley requires being in melee range.
I only have 2 pieces of a cold set, an azurewrath that rolled with 20% cold and a mirrorball for glacial spike. And just those 2 pieces alone I can tell Cold is going to be a much more survivable spec due to the constant freezes and slows.
**profile is in sig if you want to take a look, ignore the gems i threw topazes back in there but it hasn't updated. Was toying around doing T6 hellrifts.
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My question is; does the stun effect of this ring stack with paralysis giving you a 30% chance to stun or does it simply act as a replacement freeing up a passive slot for something else.
Reason I'm wondering is I also have the Ancient Parthon Defenders and I'm assuming lots of stunning will translate into lots of damage reduction for higher torments. But if they don't stack, freeing up a passive slot is nice as well.
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basically take the weapons min damage and max damage and add 10% then average them together take that result and multiply it by attacks per second to get its new dps.
so a weapon that is normally 1000~1200 damage with +10% damage and 1.5 attacks per second would normally be 1650 dps. With 10% damage that would increase to 1100~1440 at 1.5 attacks per second 1905 dps.
I think that's how it works anyway.
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That being said, most arcane wizards are going for vyr's sets for archon, or you can just go for the disintegrate{entropy} build. with entropy your playstyle would be similar to a wizard using electrocute{arc lightning} the damage cone and radius are very similar as far as range goes, the big difference being that electrocute is free to cast and entropy requires some arcane power management.
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