I recently came back to D3 casually, I left at the end of july 2012, pre-paragon levels. When I was playing I remember how the melee wizard builds starting with spectral blades, meteor storm, frost nova, cm, etc were the cheap option. Eventually these migrated into CM/WW builds as patches continued and better understanding of proc rates by the community became common knowledge. At some point near perma archon builds became available and they were all expensive. Surviving in act3 inferno in Archon builds required better gear than I had available at the time.
Now I return 8 1/2 months later and find that a high uptime Archon build is in many ways cheaper to run than a CM/WW build. I got a Skorne for a few million that is a nice upgrade, a cheap Tyreal's Might chest and now am leveling on MP3-5 with a wrist friendly Archon build. (BTW, thank you Bagstone for the great gear guide and TheDemoKin for the Archon guide, very helpful). I am still experimenting and looking for good follower gear but I feel much happier about playing then when I left back in July 2012.
I also feel the AH isn't as bad as it was when I left. I found easy upgrades using buy it now on the AH and wasn't able to do that with the gold I had in July. I haven't spent even half of the 50M I had sitting on my wizard. Unfortunately since legend updates have occurred since I left all of my old gear is a mix of random rares and hard to sell.
I am looking forward to some paragon leveling and seeing what is next.
Absolutely. I switched to a version of this last night and put on my crappy wizard hat with 10ap on crit and no crit chance. It worked well and I am looking for an upgrade for my wizard hat. I really want i63 wizard hats, does Santa know where Blizzard developers live? I hope he can make my wish come true ;-)
Tank wizards have deceptively high dps due to the constant fluctuation of arcane power. Don't sell a tank build short, its expensive sure but with constant chain reactions of explosive blast echoing through mobs and amplified by frost nova + cold blooded is nothing short of impressive. Just my two cents but i think its a far superior build and beats kiting any day of the week. Though it is fun to see those huge numbers its almost as fun to see lots of mediocre numbers popping up
Exactly. Chain Reaction is 291% weapon damage, that is Archon territory and I am spamming it as fast as I can hit the keys. It takes my 35k paper dps way way up. When I go 80k Archon build I get disappointed at how long act3 elites can take the full beam. I keep thinking at this point the fight would be over if I were using my melee build.
I see the build chages a bit depending on the fight. Personally I need a bit more APoC to go without Spectral Blades. If I could go without Spectral Blades than I could fit TP in and would be happy to run this build again.
I killed Ghom last night for the first time as a melee CM wizard but to be honest I probably overgeared it for progression. 50+% crit, 300% crit_damage, 800+ LOH, 8k Armor, 27% block, 800ish resists buffed, 32k DPS. I wasn't progressing as a ranged wizard so switched last night back to a CM Melee spec. I basically slowly walked him forward (backward for me) to keep the cloud from destroying me. But I could stay in the cloud most of the time, there were just spikes that were a little hard. He went down on my first attempt.
I have since upped my block and lowered my dps while increasing my resists. Act3 still has some pain for me as I have issues when I deal with ranged mobs who have molten + arcane + frozen or jailer. Or a horde of big fat melee guys with molten and the champ with descrate on top.
FYI - I have 800ish resist, 800LOH, 8k armor, 32k dps, 51% crit (all buffed stats), 11 ap on crit, 34% block. I use a build without nova but better ranged capability due to teleport. (spectral blade-deep cuts/teleport (choice of rune)/diamond skin/explosive blast/twister-storm chaser, cm, arcane dynamo, prodigy).
I find difficulty with certain mixes of affixes and molten/arcane/freezing combos in naturally ranged mobs in late act3 (heart of sin and beyond). I plan on testing with safe passage on my TP to see if it helps with environmental damage deaths. I only die to arcane or invul minions with molten where the champion at the center also has descrate and frozen. I think increasing my defensive abilities will help.
When I am running a CM build I switch to my LOH/Crit damage/APoC Wand. When I run a kiting build I switch to my 3% lifesteal spear with 170% crit including socket.
I prefer my CM Melee setup for act3+, mostly because I just don't have enough resists unbuffed to run an 80k dps facemelting ranged build in act3.
Having done both the drops with 300+ MF in act1 are better than the drops with 75 MF (aka 0) in act3. I was stunned at the difference and how quickly it became apparent.
Derwiv33, Mana as a concept is not meant to be infinite. It's a lot closer to it in this game than in most. I am perfectly fine with someone who does not want to use any of the three potential pieces being limited in their offensive options. Even in that case, you still have SA/VQ/BR to support yourself.
So a wizard with best gear can "break the game" with infinate Archon but a BiS WD is now only as efficient as a mid-geared Wizard?
Mana is a problem. My main is a wizard and when I was a new 60 I could spam shoot 6 Arcane Orb/Tap the Source orbs before my pool was exhausted and I needed to go to a signature skill with 0 cost. Now with the AP on crit I have and my crit chance of 46% I can spam orbs straight up and never stop as long as I have targets to hit. I do the same with Arcane Torrent/Disruption which as a 35 AP cost and my pool is only 112 AP.
Splinters with a 1.5 attack speed almost completely uses my mana regen. This is not like Wizards Sig skills but instead like Ray of Frost/Cold Blooded. Yet RoF has a much higher damage rating %215 and slows the target. It ticks quickly and so will have the same effect the splinters has of punching through something after it is dead and hitting the next guy in line.
Doubling WDs base mana regen may be the simplest solution, buffing items with mana regen by +50% (x1.5) may also be a good idea.
Let's do a bit of math, shall we? Base regen at level 60 is 20/second, with 740 maximum mana. Bear-Spam is the most mana-intensive thing we can do, at 140 per cast, the other big one being Dire Bats at 122. Baseline, with a speed 1.4 weapon (typical build style), this means you get a total of 4 casts in a row (5 with Bats). VQ would bring this regen to 80/second, making 6 bears or 8 bats. I am going to simplify things a bit and only account for base mana and regen items, not going into cost-reduction abilities or Legendaries.
Typical equipment-based regen says +20 to perform, though. This happens to be equal to the first suggestion, doubling base regen, so it makes a good comparison. 40/second base, 740 max mana. Still 4 bears (though more spare mana after, giving a follow-up after another second), still 5 bats (again, quick follow-up). Under VQ now, though, things get interesting. 160/second now, so you can get 20 consecutive bears (if you can stand and shoot for 14.25 seconds). Bats become mana-positive while VQ is active.
If we only do the 50% increase to regen items, typical gear will give 50/second total regen with a 1.4-speed weapon (without VQ this means 5 bears or 6 bats consecutive), or 45 with a 1.0. (7 bears or 9 bats consecutive). Either way longevity is really no longer a problem as any significant amount of time spent not shooting (say, moving regularly to kite or casting a cheap/free spell every 5 seconds or so) means regen will catch up with itself. Anyone who activated VQ will go mana-positive even with Bears or top off in a matter of second while firing bats.
Doing both would be severe overkill, as it turns out. The advantage of doubling base is that it will help out the guys levelling up, the advantage to 50% item regen bonus is that it gets significantly smoother for 60s. I'm in favor of the latter, really, but either will work while still requiring some management.
EDIT: Almost forgot to account for Spiritual Attunement, bringing max mana to 864 and adding 8.6 regen per second base (scaling up as max mana increases with items). Long story short, it essentially adds 1-2 casts each in the first two categories, and makes the +50% regen category go significantly longer. Makes me lean toward that solution even more.
You assume no PtV which is like skipping Glass Cannon on a wizard. PtV turns 122 into 158 for bats. With my AS of 1.5 that is 238 mana/second which means I need 59.5 mana/second regen to be mana neutral. It isn't possible.
Additionally I am stuck with iLevel 62 items because of my limit to mana regen. Yet your idea ties improvements only to gear which means only the richest WDs will see a solution since Blizzard will make it apply to new gear only.
I used a similar build from my 40s onward.
Dire Bats, Grasping Hands, Hex/Jinx, Soul Harvest, Spirit Walk, BBV-Rain dance - for bosses I swapped out Hex for Fetish Army unless I expected adds like with Magda.
Admittedly I was using a 600+ dps dagger (+10 mana regen) with reduced level 11 from level 49 onward so everything went quickly.
I love Bats kiting builds. For progression I prefer Hex/Jinx and for farm kiting in open areas I prefer Horrify. Hex is great in areas with invisible mobs that ambush you. Horrify is great if you are fighting melee mobs that can 2 shot you.
*EDIT* BBV - slam dance turns bats into a nuke. If you need to burn something down fast and you have the mana regen BBV- Slam Dance turns bears/Bats into hot death.
Haloth's stream is great. The commentary is funny, on topic and helpful. He demonstrates the viability of MF gear and WD dps kiting. Obviously in Whimsy there is no real ranged mobs so a low HP dps kiter is in heaven. With his HP (19K) dealing with spear throwers in Act3 would be horribly painful.
I have learned a number of tricks and found it quite entertaining. Haloth also has videos of all of his streams hosted. That means you can go back and look at the progression. Live streams is great.
Mana is a problem. My main is a wizard and when I was a new 60 I could spam shoot 6 Arcane Orb/Tap the Source orbs before my pool was exhausted and I needed to go to a signature skill with 0 cost. Now with the AP on crit I have and my crit chance of 46% I can spam orbs straight up and never stop as long as I have targets to hit. I do the same with Arcane Torrent/Disruption which as a 35 AP cost and my pool is only 112 AP.
Splinters with a 1.5 attack speed almost completely uses my mana regen. This is not like Wizards Sig skills but instead like Ray of Frost/Cold Blooded. Yet RoF has a much higher damage rating %215 and slows the target. It ticks quickly and so will have the same effect the splinters has of punching through something after it is dead and hitting the next guy in line.
Doubling WDs base mana regen may be the simplest solution, buffing items with mana regen by +50% (x1.5) may also be a good idea.
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Now I return 8 1/2 months later and find that a high uptime Archon build is in many ways cheaper to run than a CM/WW build. I got a Skorne for a few million that is a nice upgrade, a cheap Tyreal's Might chest and now am leveling on MP3-5 with a wrist friendly Archon build. (BTW, thank you Bagstone for the great gear guide and TheDemoKin for the Archon guide, very helpful). I am still experimenting and looking for good follower gear but I feel much happier about playing then when I left back in July 2012.
I also feel the AH isn't as bad as it was when I left. I found easy upgrades using buy it now on the AH and wasn't able to do that with the gold I had in July. I haven't spent even half of the 50M I had sitting on my wizard. Unfortunately since legend updates have occurred since I left all of my old gear is a mix of random rares and hard to sell.
I am looking forward to some paragon leveling and seeing what is next.
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The standard Melee Wizard build has shaped up to be:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VQXYhO!gbW!YZaZcc
Change TP -Wormhole to whatever rune you like.
Evocate is optional and can be changed to nearly anything you like. Blur is common.
The standard Melee Wizard build needs 40% Crit and 15AP on crit to work.
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I have since upped my block and lowered my dps while increasing my resists. Act3 still has some pain for me as I have issues when I deal with ranged mobs who have molten + arcane + frozen or jailer. Or a horde of big fat melee guys with molten and the champ with descrate on top.
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I find difficulty with certain mixes of affixes and molten/arcane/freezing combos in naturally ranged mobs in late act3 (heart of sin and beyond). I plan on testing with safe passage on my TP to see if it helps with environmental damage deaths. I only die to arcane or invul minions with molten where the champion at the center also has descrate and frozen. I think increasing my defensive abilities will help.
Hope this helps
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I prefer my CM Melee setup for act3+, mostly because I just don't have enough resists unbuffed to run an 80k dps facemelting ranged build in act3.
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Additionally I am stuck with iLevel 62 items because of my limit to mana regen. Yet your idea ties improvements only to gear which means only the richest WDs will see a solution since Blizzard will make it apply to new gear only.
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Dire Bats, Grasping Hands, Hex/Jinx, Soul Harvest, Spirit Walk, BBV-Rain dance - for bosses I swapped out Hex for Fetish Army unless I expected adds like with Magda.
Admittedly I was using a 600+ dps dagger (+10 mana regen) with reduced level 11 from level 49 onward so everything went quickly.
I love Bats kiting builds. For progression I prefer Hex/Jinx and for farm kiting in open areas I prefer Horrify. Hex is great in areas with invisible mobs that ambush you. Horrify is great if you are fighting melee mobs that can 2 shot you.
*EDIT* BBV - slam dance turns bats into a nuke. If you need to burn something down fast and you have the mana regen BBV- Slam Dance turns bears/Bats into hot death.
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I have learned a number of tricks and found it quite entertaining. Haloth also has videos of all of his streams hosted. That means you can go back and look at the progression. Live streams is great.
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Splinters with a 1.5 attack speed almost completely uses my mana regen. This is not like Wizards Sig skills but instead like Ray of Frost/Cold Blooded. Yet RoF has a much higher damage rating %215 and slows the target. It ticks quickly and so will have the same effect the splinters has of punching through something after it is dead and hitting the next guy in line.
Doubling WDs base mana regen may be the simplest solution, buffing items with mana regen by +50% (x1.5) may also be a good idea.