DiabloFans

Once per enemy I would think?

Why would you cast Haunt more than once per enemy when the ability does not stack?

This guy got a few off class items and now he's pissed and lies about his drops saying that basically every item he gets is off class. Nothing to see here.

DoTs do take advantage of crit damage, stop spreading misinformation.

DoT builds are not viable in higher torments until they fix their crit chance or until you get Jade Harvester.

Well, you said biggest troll in the game, not biggest troll for Witch Doctors.
Also, getting a legendary ring drop is always exciting but when you see that it's a Zodiac you just get sad.

No,http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/obsidian-ring-of-the-zodiac is the biggest troll in the game.

Quote from Shuko

Yeah, it's a bit silly that the chance to crit is not checked for every tick. However, having 15-20mil single target dps with Haunt without doing anything actively is nice.

Yes, it's nice being able to fish for a super damaging DoT but it's not fun, and you need to do stuff actively since you need to apply Haunt, check for the damage and then re apply it until you get crits.

Quote from Justusy

TY for the info, will be interested to see if I can get a crit-ing swarm applied.

I know this isn't WoW, but it would be so nice to have a stickied thread explaining all of this instead of "Hey here is a suggested build or two" as the stickied guide. Finding mechanics is like pulling teeth digging through threads on this forum. Oh well.

Ye, the DoT mechanic in this game is seriously flawed, it's even more flawed now with Creeping Death, 5 minute DoTs that either is super OP and every tick crits, or baseline useless DoTs that does not crit. Only way to be viable as a DoT WD is by fishing for crits, it's not fun at all.

Dot's do crit and it's easy to check. Sometimes your dots will tick for a low amount and sometime for a high amount, for example Locust Swarm on my newly dinged WD ticks for around 200k non-crit and 800k crit, haunt is around 500k non-crit and around 2.5 million crit.

The bad thing is that like others have said, the crits on dots is decided when the dot is applied not when the dot ticks, so either all ticks crit or non does.

If you think that dots can't crit then you have no idea what you are talking about.


Sheet damage doesn't mean anything, don't even try to use your sheet damage to calculate the damage of your ticks.

Quote from Shaelen141

They do crit. The way they are displayed can be confusing. I remember devs saying the dots tick every second but they add up the total and then display the dmg in 5 second intervals. I'm pretty sure within that each tick can crit. So there may not be a visual display of the dmg critting but the total number should include the ticks that crit. Unless things have changed, this was how I understood they functioned.

That's how channel effects work, or AoE effects that do damage over time such as Disintegrate or Grasp of the Dead, but DoTs like Locust Swarm, Haunt, Rend and others work differently.

He needs to contact support, there is a support feature on the siste.

I've heard that Life per Spirit spent is less weighted on the character sheet and thus it will look like your healing is worse than it was before, but nothing has been nerfed and you will not notice any difference other than a lower number in a sheet that doesn't really matter.

Quote from Kjalar

I mean, come on. Me and my friends got DC'd today and were in-game for like 3-4 minutes (!!!) after DC. Now tell me, what kind of fucking amateurs develop this game if they don't even know what timeouts are for in SOA? That's one of the basics when it comes to designing client-server systems and it's rather obvious that these guys know little of it. How can you trust your HC char to people that allow your char to stay in the game for 3-4 minutes after you've got disconnected because of their fault???

That's intended, at the start of D3 people who were about to die in HC usually cut their internet connection or alt+f4 to survive, Blizzard made it so that characters stay in game a while after being DC so that you can't do that.

Quote from ablib

Not trolling, it was a question. I just don't see much value in gold anymore.

I came back for 2.0. I spent some on the blacksmith to see he's still rng garbage. I haven't messed with the enchanter yet, because I don't understand her.

I do combine all my gems and have mostly flawless royal gems in my gear, which are pricy. However, the prices of those gems are extremely cheap compared to the amount of gold you bring in by just playing the game. And creating those gems are a one time expense.

So I still don't see where the gold sink is.

Cheap compared to the amount of gold you bring by just playing? Ye right.

A bounty gives anything from 30-100k gold, crafting one single Flawless Royal costs 9.8 million gold if you have 27 Imperial gems, it will cost a lot more if you do not have 27 Imperial gems.

Now, let's say every bounty you do gives you 100k gold and you do 1 bounty per minute that's 1.6 hours per Flawless Royal, but you won't do one bounty per minute and you won't get 100k per bounty, it's more like around 70k average gold per bounty and if you are fast it's around 2 minutes per bounty.

You can have 10 sockets, that's 98 million or 46 hours to craft.

If you have full flawless royal in your gear it is because you had a lot of gold over from before AH got removed.

Quote from realadry

The shield from spectral Blades only absords very little damage. Every mob on lvl 70 hits harder than that, hence the shield never has more than a stack for me. Why you don't use the most important passive for a build like this? DOMINANCE, this shit has saved my ass a thounsand times and except for bosses this will always have many stacks. Galvanizing Wards is of very little use anyways because it will only activate in the time you run from one pack to the next.
Imho a melee build only works well with abilities that can stun.

That's why you stack damage reduction, on Torment 1 the mobs can never destroy my shields, Dominance only works when you kill mobs all the time, but when you face an elite pack or a boss it's useless. I only have 8.7million toughness atm, 6586 armor and 1500-1700 resist, that's very little, I can get more but right now my gear doesn't allow it.

The only time my Galvanizing Ward drops is against strong elite packs like molten+fire chains at the same time or if I stand inside an arcane beam.

You get 16k absorb shield everytime you attack, and with enough damage reduction that absorb shield is enough.

Since Dominance only works when you kill white mobs it's shitty because those white mobs will NEVER destroy the 16k shield from Deflection and Barrier Blades.

Quote from Minon

Have you thought of using explosive blast instead of familiar or archon? It shall give nice aoe boost.

Yes, it's nice but I prefer Archon for the burst damage and I like familiar because of the 10% damage and familiar crits 1.5 million for me so familiar does nice single target dmg as well.
But Familiar and Archon are free to change, they are not vital for the build to work so just go with what you like

Well, Spectral Blade damage and Arcane damage is vital, then like everything else in this game you need as much CHD and CHC you can get, Attack Speed will help you restore your shields faster and of course the more damage reduction you have the stronger your shields will get, all resist is great.

If you can't find Arcane or Spectral Blade damage gear, just aim for simple CHC,CHD,Int and All resist. But you will deal less damage because Spectral Blades have a low damage modifier.

TL;DR http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WcmSjO!ZTif!YZccac <- Build

So, since I dinged 70 on my Wizard I decided to make a melee build since I always liked melee wizards. It took some tries but I think this might the most viable melee wizard build because of the simple fact that you do not require any healing with all the shields.

You play this build by facetanking everything and attack them with Spectral Blade, when you have 5 stacks of Arcane Dynamo use Arcane Orbit for extra damage and that's basically it. No need to get Apoc or anything because you will never run out of Arcane Power.

You should build your character around Spectral Blade damage, the items that can have Spectral Blade damage is:
Belt
Pants
Source
Fragment of Destiny (Legendary wand)

The highest +dmg you can have on Spectral Blade is 75%, plus the extra arcane damage increase from neck, bracers and Stone of Jordan which raises the total highest +dmg on Spectral Blade to 135%.

Basic stats you should aim for:
All resist
Armor
Critical Hit Damage
Critical Hit Chance
Arcane Damage
Spectral Blade Damage

Primary Spells:

Spectral Blade: Barrier Blades
This is going to be your main damage ability, with enough armor and resist the shield from Barrier Blades and Deflection will negate almost all damage you take, your HP won't move at all unless you face strong elite packs.

Arcane Orb: Arcane Orbit
Use this everytime you have 5 stacks of Arcane Dynamo, nice extra damage and since you will be in melee range it will alwaysexplode on enemies.

Other vital spells:
Magic Weapon: Deflection
This will help your Barrier Blades a lot, every attack you do will give you a shield.

Energy Armor: Prismatic Armor
Since this build relies on absorbs you will need the damage reduction, the more damage reduction you have the stronger your shields will be.

Free to change spells:
Archon: Improved Archon
I use this because the damage is sick, I can easily burn down 3 elite packs at once.
Feel free to change this to whatever you like, Black Hole is just as viable as this is.
A good replacement could be Diamond Skin, especially if you lack damage reduction.

Familiar: Sparkflint
I use this because of the extra damage, but once again take whatever floats your boat.


Passives:
Arcane Dynamo
Vital because of the damage increase on Arcane Orbit, 60% extra damage is HUGE.

Blur
Vital because of the damage reduction, no melee wizard can play without it.

Galvanizing Ward
Not vital but highly recommended, the shield is huge and it will definitely help you against the stronger elite packs.

Audacity
Not vital but highly recommended, damage boosts are always nice and this is the only damage boost that doesn't rely on using different elements or remove a lot of damage reduction.