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I think Force got one ammy in one of his latest videos, I think it was the Wizard one but I may be wrong.

@sunturion
I prefer Mass Confusion because it has a shorter cooldown and should have higher chance to spawn Zombie Dogs than Big Bad Voodoo (78% vs 60% in the example).
Also there is a chance that some enemy will fight for me, killing the ones weakened by Sacrifice (or being killed themselves) or buying me time at the very least.
If I where to play in a party I'll probably pick up Big Bad Voodoo since it will give a nice boost to my allies.

@italofoca
I think we took different paths to the same goal, your main damage sinergy is GotD + Spirit Walk + sacrifice , mine is soul harvest + haunt + sacrifice. You are a bit more on the offensive (Flaming Dart) while I'm a bit more on the defensive side (gargantuan)

Quote from GladHeHasBeta

your missing the most important ability for trying to spam sacrifice. circle of life passive

It's a valid alternative and I thought about it but...Circle of life gives 5% chance to spawn Zombie dog from killed enemies in a set radius...I think it could be a better choice in a party, where if you are not so lucky with chances your companions can buy you some time. Also they'll increase your "killing ratio" thus increasing your chances to summon pets.

Maybe I should have pointed out I'm going to play mostly single player, so I prefer to not rely too much on chances.

I took Grave injustice because I'd like to reduce cooldowns (4 out of 6 are skills with CD).
I should be able to cast skills more often, that should give me more tactical handling and allow me to summon pets quickly, be it by chance (alabaster on Mass Confusion has higher chance to spawn ZDs, on sacrifice gives me 55% chance per pet even if no enemy dies) or simply by reducing CD on Summon Zombie Dogs.

I just think it will suit me better.

edit: If I had sufficient mana regen I'd swap Vision Quest with Circle of life, but I've a feeling late in game resource management will be vital.

I was playing with the skill calc and got up with this solution:


Alabaster on Sacrifice (and Mass Confusion) should help regenerate pets quickly, Soul harvest should boost damage and obsidian is for CC (also Mass confusion for CC).

Gargantuan should act as a moving shield (with additional damage) while Haunt is for picking up single targets (Sacrifice is kinda AoE and we can't choose which target they attack)

Passives:
Zombie Handler increase number of zombie dogs thus more damage, also it increase pets healt so Gargantuan should last longer when used as a shield.

I picked up Vision Quest as a mana regen since 4 skill out of 6 have CD.

Grave Injustice should reduce cooldowns and so help me deal damage faster.

Dunno if this will work since I can't predict how fast monster will be killed and how often zombie dogs will spawn due to runestones effects.

I think I'll try something like that, if impending changes to skills and runestones does not change it all.

Your thoughts?

edit: the last passive is Grave Injustice, dunno why it shows Vermin. Time to bother Molster once more, he's gonna hate me.

Great!

@TheDFO

I think it's a skill that doesn't suit your style, not a bad skill itself.

About damage I think Kickin_It explained it better than I can, about mana and healt regen we don't know how it will work end game so we can just use our immagination.

Also you say a WD shouldn't be upfront...why?
I'm going to play mostly single player so I'll be up front and if I do a build with no pets or a pet exploding build that would be even more true.

About CC, Grasp of the death is AoE with CD with a duration of 8 sec, Haunt is single target with no CD lasting 15sec.
Grasp of the death is good against mobs, Haunt allows you to select which target you want slowed and which not, a good thing if you want to isolate and attack a single target.

I cannot appreciate fully Lingering spirit usage either, maybe it's the worst in the game or maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised. Honestly dunno.

Rush of Essence seems a good passive for builds mostly based on Spirit Realm skills and maybe it would be a waste for just one single skill.

We also have to consider:

- what gear we will find: if I need a lot of mana regen and I'm uber lucky and got a Tribal Mask of Infinite mana which replenish 100% max mana each sec I will not need any mana regen skill/rune or passive; while if I got a Stone Knife of Sudden Death which deals 10000000000000 damage to Everything in Sight, I don't need a boost to damage or a powerful skill but a spammable one which allows me a good mana regen ratio.

- Gamestyle: are you a brawler? mid range? long range? with pets?


And this:

Quote from Obliteratus

But, this is beta, what do i know, right? It could be the most amazing spell endgame after launch. Plus, each is his own. Some people like it, let them get it.. Diablo is a game about fun afterall.

Thanks Molster & ScyberDragon!

My profession is to find a profession!

I'm unemployed since summer 2009.

In 2011 I did 12 (twelve) different jobs, mostly 1 to 3 days long up to 1 month max.

And I've to consider myself lucky.......

Resentful Spirit is damage oriented, in the example raise damage to 103% per second. Not so bad.

Consuming Spirit allow us to recover healt while dealing damage, should work well with multiple targets.

Draining Spirit allow us to recover mana while dealing damage, should work well with multiple targets.

Lingering Spirit may be useful as a mana saving tactical skill, if a monster dies and the spirit linger we can lure a new enemy close to the lingering spirit and save a cast (or cast something else)

Grasping Spirit is a good tactical choice if you need CC, it slows down monsters while dealing damage.

Also having Rush of Essence as a passive could help us managing mana.

All in all it seems a good skill to me.

LoL!
Here nothing works as it should!

I'll use the us skill calc to make things like this:


Thanks again!

no kidding, in the post above I used eu (italian to be accurate) skill calc and noticed golden/indigo swapped place.
Maybe our skill calc is not updated or blizz messed up the letters/runes association.

I think they made this choice to increase the difficulty of the game and, at the same time, give us the chance to diversify our attacks.
If a skill is too effective (read as overpowered) it wil become a MUST HAVE and thus reduce the number of buids.

its a fire and forgot, low cost hi range skill which you can use for resources management or crowd control.
Also with an Alabaster rune the damage is not so bad, either.
And sinergies with passives could help setting up nice builds.

Quote from Corpsie

On top of what people have said so far, I want to equip because, well I want to?

My Diablo experiences have always been more fun playing builds that people think wouldn't work, not that a melee wizard is any kind of stretch of imagination.

great minds think alike!

Sorry to be bothering you Molster...seems golden and indaco are inverted ...should be http://eu.battle.net...XPSj!Scg!Ybcbcc (golden, indaco, obsidian, indaco, obsidian, obsidian)....or I did something wrong?

edit: my fault, seems eu skill calc works in a different way.
Here is the correct one.