I already have a standard wizard in Inferno, so this new wizard won't be a main focus, but this certainly sounds like a fun side project to keep an eye out for gear.
It's just a really fun play style, and it was so surprising to see some of the damage that I was doing. I definitely see what you mean about 18k being more than a standard wizard having 18k. I'm not in Inferno on my melee wizard, hell I'm not even in NM yet, but I often felt like I was doing way more damage then the rest of my group was even with lower damage values.
I am a little lost on this meteor thing though. Why is it necessary, is it for the AP return? Or for the LoH? I want to try and find a way to use only melee attacks. Something a bit closer to this, which is pretty close to one posted by someone on the first page I think:
That's pretty close to the build I'm using now. I would probably change to force armor after I got enough resistances to not need the boost. But anyway, why is the Meteor that important?
And what do you guys think of Arcane Orbit? It's what I'm using right now, kind of due to lack of options at my low level, the only thing I don't really like about it thouhg is the slow animation for activating it.
Sleet storm is good, the only issue is you cant move at all while using it, where the others (like meteor/explosive blast/blizzard) you can reposition while doing damage. (which you NEED vs molten/firechains) Arcane orbit in my opinion is horrible. the cast animation is kinda slow and the orbs explode when touching ANYTHING destructable, so you have to cast it VERY VERY often. also it is dependent on when each orb actually touches a monster, so you may have a bunch of them grouped infront of you, but lose a couple on a random few that come from the side or behind.
Also for explosive blast i prefer the short fuse rune. 2.5 seconds on time bomb is ALOT of time for stuff to move out of the way, if it be something that tries range kiting you, or a fast molten fire chains you need to keep moving for, it essentially makes that rune useless.
I actually tried that build and the damage output is alot more than 18k would suggest (im at about 17k myself) and your cooldowns come back like crazy when fighting groups. I think i will alter it more to my playstyle some later, possibly switch out frost nova for slow time with the extra damage. My question is why evocation? frost nova and diamond skin arent that bad with CDs, and with 42% crit i would think you would almost be able to chain cast them. (with only 17% crit and that build i could have 2 slow times up at once for a few seconds) I would think throwing either galvanized ward or either conflag or arcane dynamo would be better for the extra damage. (actually now that i think about it i think dynmo would be very good with this build since both meteor and explosive blast have such high damage already)
I'm working on getting gear to move onto act 2 inferno as a melee wizard. my skills are currently : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WROXQl!afY!cbcaaZ. It is essentially part of the blizz hydra build but tuned to melee, as venom hydra is amazing for melee since stuff is generally standing still infront of you, and the freeze on blizz helps you take less damage. You still have to kite somewhat, though once you gear gets better doing so doesnt happen near as much, and i have been noticing that i need to do it less and less on my butcher runs as i get more resist.
Im also working on a melee build for a wizard, currently going to SK on hell. my stats are as follows:
Wizard: Level 52
Stats
Strength: 226
Dexterity: 187
Intelligence: 796
Vitality: 853
Armor: 3474 [Energy Armor + Energy Tap Buff] (also have 166 Physical resist.)
DPS: 3046 [Magic Weapon + Force Weapon Buff] - 1.32 Attack Speed
HP: 28163 w/ 368.25 HP per second
AP: 120
Primary: Spectral Blades + Healing blades
Secondary: Ray of Frost + Sleet Storm
1 - Energy armor + Energy Tap
2 - Magic weapon + Force weapon
3 - Hydra + Arcane hydra
4 - Blizzard + Frozen Solid
Passives
Blur
Galvanizing Ward
Cold Blooded
In short, pretty much the build that you talked about possibly switching too. (minus cold blooded/glass cannon)
I use arcane hydra as extra AoE + range for monster that run. Also the arcane orbs can stagger some monsters meaning less hits. Blizzard + freezing is along the same lines if something is frozen, its not hitting me, and if i REALLY need to kite something, i can just use blizz and hydra to slow kill it or weaking it until i can get in close.
Spectral blades with healing is pretty amazing honestly, it might not seem like much at first, but it really adds up considering spectral blade actually does multiple hits and not just one strike (at least from what i can see) thus giving you more chances to crit. And I really think cold blooded works much better than glass cannon with this build. your main damage comes from sleet storm, with secondary damage from blizzard, and increasing both of those by 20% is a huge gain.
Also, I do not find much use for diamon skin atm, but it will most likely be switched it at some point im sure. Between healing blades, Life per hit, and damage % converted to life i dont find myself that low too often, and considering you are melee, most of the times your going to be standing on dropped life orbs regardless.
I would be suprised if that didn't change at somepoint, due to Bliz not wanting to make a huge difference between 1h and 2h. But atm the faster weapon wins just because of the orb.
Actually the DPS would be the same assuming the Dps on the weapons are the same. The faster weapon would just do it in a quicker burst to begin with. Look at it this way, starting off at 100 AP and adding in 10 seconds of regen would give a total of 200 Ap for use. An attack speed of 1 would give you constant damage every second for 10 seconds. An attack speed of 2 however would burn you out faster initially, but after regen you would still get the same amount of ticks. (none of this is factoring in runes obviously) So in essence the higher DPS weapon regardless of speed will always do more DPS, It is just a matter of if you want to do it in quick bursts or constantly.
Speed 1: 200 ap / 20 ap cost per second = 10 * 1 tick per second = 10
Speed 2: 200 AP / 40 ap cost per second = 5 * 2 ticks per second = 10
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Sleet storm is good, the only issue is you cant move at all while using it, where the others (like meteor/explosive blast/blizzard) you can reposition while doing damage. (which you NEED vs molten/firechains) Arcane orbit in my opinion is horrible. the cast animation is kinda slow and the orbs explode when touching ANYTHING destructable, so you have to cast it VERY VERY often. also it is dependent on when each orb actually touches a monster, so you may have a bunch of them grouped infront of you, but lose a couple on a random few that come from the side or behind.
Also for explosive blast i prefer the short fuse rune. 2.5 seconds on time bomb is ALOT of time for stuff to move out of the way, if it be something that tries range kiting you, or a fast molten fire chains you need to keep moving for, it essentially makes that rune useless.
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Wizard: Level 52
Stats
Strength: 226
Dexterity: 187
Intelligence: 796
Vitality: 853
Armor: 3474 [Energy Armor + Energy Tap Buff] (also have 166 Physical resist.)
DPS: 3046 [Magic Weapon + Force Weapon Buff] - 1.32 Attack Speed
HP: 28163 w/ 368.25 HP per second
AP: 120
Primary: Spectral Blades + Healing blades
Secondary: Ray of Frost + Sleet Storm
1 - Energy armor + Energy Tap
2 - Magic weapon + Force weapon
3 - Hydra + Arcane hydra
4 - Blizzard + Frozen Solid
Passives
Blur
Galvanizing Ward
Cold Blooded
In short, pretty much the build that you talked about possibly switching too. (minus cold blooded/glass cannon)
I use arcane hydra as extra AoE + range for monster that run. Also the arcane orbs can stagger some monsters meaning less hits. Blizzard + freezing is along the same lines if something is frozen, its not hitting me, and if i REALLY need to kite something, i can just use blizz and hydra to slow kill it or weaking it until i can get in close.
Spectral blades with healing is pretty amazing honestly, it might not seem like much at first, but it really adds up considering spectral blade actually does multiple hits and not just one strike (at least from what i can see) thus giving you more chances to crit. And I really think cold blooded works much better than glass cannon with this build. your main damage comes from sleet storm, with secondary damage from blizzard, and increasing both of those by 20% is a huge gain.
Also, I do not find much use for diamon skin atm, but it will most likely be switched it at some point im sure. Between healing blades, Life per hit, and damage % converted to life i dont find myself that low too often, and considering you are melee, most of the times your going to be standing on dropped life orbs regardless.
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Speed 1: 200 ap / 20 ap cost per second = 10 * 1 tick per second = 10
Speed 2: 200 AP / 40 ap cost per second = 5 * 2 ticks per second = 10
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Finally moving from site stalker to posting. Hope you guy's enjoy. All I could really think to come up with. >.>