So apparently I was gravely misinformed about the Cascade rune... Thank you Helycon for correcting me on that point. Now that I have a more... correct understanding of the rune, I've been using it for the previous 2 days to get a good feel for it. Overall, I find the single target damage between the 2 runes to be very very similar and of course Cascade wins out in AoE situations handily (just from my personal observations). That being said, I will be changing the guide to reflect my new preference on Cascade over Disruption and detail when you might consider taking Disruption (ie: party situations). Once again, thank you for pointing this out.
Sincerly,
A noob.
Beelzeuhb: that's the essence of many builds, you'll find many of them operate in this way, at least until you get some decent gear, then options open up such as builds without a signature spell. This particular build can easily operate without a sig spell, but it does take either some above average gearing, extra emphasis on AP generation in your skills or a slower weapon. This is of course if you're willing to drop AD, which is a fair hit in damage potential.
I would argue that Cascade is superior to Disruption mostly in pack clearing. Just because the proc'd missile cannot hit the target it was proc'd on. This makes Disruption the de facto superior option against single targets. Cascade will do better against Elite packs and generally for clearing. And as you mentioned, Disruption is very useful in group situations, so I consider it the more utility-orriented rune of the 2. The difference is not (in my experience) substantial between the two runes, so it really depends on what you're looking for out of your build. So I wouldn't call one rune superior to the other per say, they just have different uses.
One of my first variations I made was to include Blackhole - Spellsteal into my build. It's a great deal of fun, especially against massive packs of mobs. As I started running higher level torment with my clan I eventually shifted to BH - Event Horizon for the utility it provides. I think of the 2, Event Horizon is far superior when you're "progressing", but that may be personal preference speaking.
The problem I found after I made the shift to Arcane Dynamo is that I had to be very careful about when I cast my Blackhole. At first I was burning my AD charges on BH every few rotations, which kind of defeated the purpose running AD in the first place. This is why I now run with Frost Nova now. Doesn't steal your AD stacks and has the added benefit of not interupting your AT channeling. It also allows you to really get in mobs faces, which you'll want to once you get your MLW. Of course on T5 or 6, this is almost tantamount to suicide, so I keep it as a more defensive utility spell nowadays.
With good mitigation, you could ignore ground effects up to T3 at the least, maybe even T4, after that the damage gets to be too much, especially on Arcane Sentries. Hope that MLW drops for ya soon, it's a fantastic addition to the build.
Alright! After ignoring my guide for a bit while I finished exams I've finally gotten around to updating again! And it's a bit one this time.
Added an Acronyms section at the beginning of the guide for those who might not be as familiar with the ones I use in the guide.
Expanded on the use of Arcane Dynamo in a few sections of the guide.
Updated the weapon section to note the bug fix to the % damage affix and to properly reflect its new value in comparison to other affixes.
Made a few minor changes in regards to the 2.0.5 patch, nothing major has changed however.
FINALLY gave the build a NAME! Lemme know what you all think of it, it's not the catchiest name but it's a start.
Added more tips in the Tips and Tricks section.
Fixing more spelling errors and so on...
Annnnnnd that's all for now! As usual, feel free to comment/ask questions, I welcome the discussion!
It certainly could safka. The only real difference (beyond gearing Disintergrate Damage % instead of AT Damage %) if that Disintergrate has a higher AP cost. This will shift your priorities into a bit more AP Generation or aiming for a slightly slower weapon to compensate, but its perfectly viable!
Transitioning from one element to another can be rather troublesome, especially if you're well geared in the first place. I would suggest using rares first to see if you like the playstyle before you invest too heavily in it. If you like it, then gearing is mostly a question of time (and a little luck). Either way, hope your switch goes as smoothly as it can!
After reading up on it briefly and trying it out in game, I've already made the switch to using Arcane Dynamo. Still working out the kinks but I'm fairly happy with where I am now. My effective DPS on meaty targets (Rift guardians for example) has just shot right up, so long as I don't need to move often. Very very glad it was brought up, otherwise I might have been missing out for a rather long time before realizing my mistake.
Good suggestion blgns. Will write up a TL:DR soon.
I didn't realize the whole Arcane Dynamo thing was a bug, apparently I was not paying close enough attention when I read the patch 2.0.4 notes. /facepalm
After some testing, it does appear that Arcane Dynamo affects the entire duration of a single channel. I haven't seen anything on the forums indicating that this changed occurred, thus I just assumed the former to be true. Shot myself in the foot this time
So this does offer an alternate path towards "late-game" gearing. Instead of aiming for enough AP generation to drop your sig spell, you could use Arcane Dynamo and keep it, freeing up affixes such APoC and RCR on your gear since you can use a sig spell to regenerate AP when you run out. And with AD you'll want to pop off 5 sigs in between channels for that 60% buff anyway! Thanks for bringing this to my attention, will update the signature spell section accordingly.
I really appreciate your feedback wuffiliate, thank you!
Swordsman83, sorry I'm a noob >.> but I'm very glad you asked!
Arcane Dynamo does not work very well as a passive for ANY channeled spell. Reason for this is that the 60% damage bonus was changed a few months ago to apply on ONLY the FIRST tick of your channeled spell. This makes it an extremely underwhelming passive for this build (same would go for Ray of Frost or Disintegrate builds). Much better off taking just about anything else.
Core
Your points in core will be very strait-forward. Max out Movement speed first. This helps in clear speed which means more loot! Once maxed, it also frees up an affix on your boots. After that dump everything into Intelligence. Vitality could be considered if you're running very low on it on your gearset but I would advise against it. Max Arcane Power could have some niche applications, but overall, more DPS is preferred.
Offense
Critical Hit Damage <---> Critical Hit Chance > Attack Speed > Cooldown Reduction
I believe that in MOST cases, Crit Damage will provide a larger increase in damage than Crit Chance will, but this is highly dependent on your gear. Attack Speed comes 3rd because, despite us not wanting large amounts of it, it is still better than CDR (only skill with a Cooldown that we run is Teleport and Illusionist takes care of refreshing it during fights, this makes CDR nearly useless for this build unless you sub in another skill in one of the optional slots, then you could consider taking it 3rd).
Defense
Resist All <---> Armor > Life Regeneration > Life
This will depend a great deal on which affixes you rolled on your gear. Keep in mind that Armor is a % increase while the All Resist is a flat value. This means that if you have tons of armor rolls on your gear, Armor may provide a greater increase in survivability than Resist All. Life Regeneration is worth considering if you have a serious lack of sustain on your gear, but otherwise, max it 3rd. Life is last because we are not stacking Vitality, making returns on Life % meager at best.
Utility
Probably our most flexible points to allocate, thus I wont give a priority order here (though in most cases you'll want to max out Gold Find last). I usually run Resource Cost Reduction to help with AT channeling, but if you're fine on AP generation Life on Hit offers some nice sustain and Area Damage is nice for clearing out crowds of mobs (note: it will have no effect in single target situations, thus I would lean towards maxing it 3rd rather than 2nd).
Generally, you'll want to tailor your paragon point allocation based on what you're lacking most on your gear. This section in particular is based on personal preferences, but other factors will influence how you build here (ex: farming normal will have different priorities compared to progressing in Torment). Everything can easily be switched on the fly, so try out lots of different combinations till you find something that works for you!
TIPS AND TRICKS!
"Sweeping" (as I'm calling it): When running Temporal Flux and facing large packs of enemies, try sweeping your cursor across the front line (while casting AT of course, this kinda does nothing otherwise). This applies the slow to all mobs hit, turning an avalanche of mobs into a slowly crawling mudslide. By the time they reach you, they're all dead!
AT is a ground targeted ability. This presents a few technical limitations to the spell, namely, you cannot attack targets that are flying in "void" areas. Phantoms, bats and so on, often flying through chasms to reach your character. Other spells can target them (Electrocute) or be directed towards them (Frozen Orb), but with AT you can only wait till they reach walkable terrain to attack them. Not a major issue, but phantoms in particular are a pain sometimes because of this.
If you happen to be lucky enough to find them, Boots of Disregard syngergize rather well with our build. Their unique effect is as follows; "Gain 500 Life Regeneration per second for each second you stand still. This effect stacks up to 8 times". Drops from Act 3 Horadric Caches.
AT's missiles have a travel time. You can use this to your advantage once you get a good feel for the spell by leading a target (aiming where the target will be once your missiles reach that area). There are a few specific instances where doing this can be helpful.
Some monsters have charges or long windup attacks that displace your character. This will reset Unwavering Will. Whenever possible, try to move to avoid these attacks. You lose UW either way, but that split second where you have no control over your character can be very dangerous considering the attack itself usually does a large amount of damage. Just sidestep and keep on channeling!
This build (with Temporal Flux) is an amazing Goblin killer. The little suckers just can't get away as long as you're able to keep channeling AT on them. Goblin packs in rifts are another matter entirely however.
AT is not blocked by the waller affix, you can channel your missiles right over those pesky walls. This is a major advantage AT has over many of our other abilities, so make full advantage of it! When walls go up, teleport on the other side of them, thereby blocking incoming missles and making melee monsters have to walk around, giving you valuable time to channel with no incoming damage to worry about.
When running AD, sometimes charging the proc will take longer than it would to just channel an unbuffed AT into weak enemies. As you get familiar with your damage output, try to learn when to bother charging AD before casting AD and when it would make little to no difference (or even take longer). A good example of this is when facing scorpions in Act3 or the little Boggits in Act5.
-----------------------------------------------
Feel free to suggest other ideas!
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I do not claim that this build is "mine" in any way. I'm sure many others are running very similar or even identical builds out there. I just wanted to share what I've been using and explain my thoughts and ideas on how I got here. I did not model this build after anyone else's, it was of my own creation. I simply used various bits of information from a large amalgamation of different posts to create it. Jaetch's thread on how to create a build ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11882388578 ) and apo's thread on mechanics ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/8770117237 ) were both instrumental in this process, so major props to both of them for their fantastic work! Also would like to thank Hope for his/her thread ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11985118574 ). The list of different builds out there is great for those who want to find something fun to play, but mostly the section on Elemental Damage/Skill damage affixes was very helpful when I first hit 70. There's also a massive section on all the different Legendaries we can use and their unique effects. If you're curious, definitely go check it out!
If you've gotten this far, then thank you for reading! My hope is that you've either learned even a little bit about this build (or the Wizard class in general) and, hopefully, will find some enjoyment in trying out this build! I look forward to the discussion to follow and hope that you'll all feel welcome to join in or even ask questions. Remember, no question is a stupid question! Well, MOST questions aren't anyway... I guess all that's left is:
Build lots of mitigation (All Res, Armor, %dmg reduced etc...) with enough vitality to survive bursts of damage (not too much however, 200k health is plenty, could even get away with less in some situations). Some health/sec and Health on Kill is very nice too!
Focus on Crit/Crit Dmg/Int to increase your sheet damage and get Increased Arcane torrent Damage % on boots, helm and, if possible, source. Increased Arcane Damage on bracers and amulet.
Get some APoC and Resource Cost Reduced to help maintain long channeling times.
Sit in place and cast Arcane Torrent on large packs of mobs. AT will proc deflection stacks that are much stronger because of all that mitigation we built for, letting you "tank" a good deal of stuff, meaning you get to cast AT even longer before having to break the channel in order to move away. Don't facetank Arcane Sentries or Frozen bombs unless you're 120% sure you can handle it, and even then, avoiding the damage is a good habit to get into. The other ground effects are less dangerous, so use your own judgment.
Go out there, farm away and hopefully get a few epic drops! For more details on where to go from here, read the rest of the guide
0
Sincerly,
A noob.
Beelzeuhb: that's the essence of many builds, you'll find many of them operate in this way, at least until you get some decent gear, then options open up such as builds without a signature spell. This particular build can easily operate without a sig spell, but it does take either some above average gearing, extra emphasis on AP generation in your skills or a slower weapon. This is of course if you're willing to drop AD, which is a fair hit in damage potential.
0
0
The problem I found after I made the shift to Arcane Dynamo is that I had to be very careful about when I cast my Blackhole. At first I was burning my AD charges on BH every few rotations, which kind of defeated the purpose running AD in the first place. This is why I now run with Frost Nova now. Doesn't steal your AD stacks and has the added benefit of not interupting your AT channeling. It also allows you to really get in mobs faces, which you'll want to once you get your MLW. Of course on T5 or 6, this is almost tantamount to suicide, so I keep it as a more defensive utility spell nowadays.
With good mitigation, you could ignore ground effects up to T3 at the least, maybe even T4, after that the damage gets to be too much, especially on Arcane Sentries. Hope that MLW drops for ya soon, it's a fantastic addition to the build.
0
Added an Acronyms section at the beginning of the guide for those who might not be as familiar with the ones I use in the guide.
Expanded on the use of Arcane Dynamo in a few sections of the guide.
Updated the weapon section to note the bug fix to the % damage affix and to properly reflect its new value in comparison to other affixes.
Made a few minor changes in regards to the 2.0.5 patch, nothing major has changed however.
FINALLY gave the build a NAME! Lemme know what you all think of it, it's not the catchiest name but it's a start.
Added more tips in the Tips and Tricks section.
Fixing more spelling errors and so on...
Annnnnnd that's all for now! As usual, feel free to comment/ask questions, I welcome the discussion!
0
Transitioning from one element to another can be rather troublesome, especially if you're well geared in the first place. I would suggest using rares first to see if you like the playstyle before you invest too heavily in it. If you like it, then gearing is mostly a question of time (and a little luck). Either way, hope your switch goes as smoothly as it can!
0
0
0
I didn't realize the whole Arcane Dynamo thing was a bug, apparently I was not paying close enough attention when I read the patch 2.0.4 notes. /facepalm
0
So this does offer an alternate path towards "late-game" gearing. Instead of aiming for enough AP generation to drop your sig spell, you could use Arcane Dynamo and keep it, freeing up affixes such APoC and RCR on your gear since you can use a sig spell to regenerate AP when you run out. And with AD you'll want to pop off 5 sigs in between channels for that 60% buff anyway! Thanks for bringing this to my attention, will update the signature spell section accordingly.
I really appreciate your feedback wuffiliate, thank you!
Swordsman83, sorry I'm a noob >.> but I'm very glad you asked!
0
0
Seeing lots of views, would love it if you guys would share your thoughts/criticisms on the guide!
0
0
0
0
My thoughts on Paragon Point allocation.
Core
Your points in core will be very strait-forward. Max out Movement speed first. This helps in clear speed which means more loot! Once maxed, it also frees up an affix on your boots. After that dump everything into Intelligence. Vitality could be considered if you're running very low on it on your gearset but I would advise against it. Max Arcane Power could have some niche applications, but overall, more DPS is preferred.
Offense
Critical Hit Damage <---> Critical Hit Chance > Attack Speed > Cooldown Reduction
I believe that in MOST cases, Crit Damage will provide a larger increase in damage than Crit Chance will, but this is highly dependent on your gear. Attack Speed comes 3rd because, despite us not wanting large amounts of it, it is still better than CDR (only skill with a Cooldown that we run is Teleport and Illusionist takes care of refreshing it during fights, this makes CDR nearly useless for this build unless you sub in another skill in one of the optional slots, then you could consider taking it 3rd).
Defense
Resist All <---> Armor > Life Regeneration > Life
This will depend a great deal on which affixes you rolled on your gear. Keep in mind that Armor is a % increase while the All Resist is a flat value. This means that if you have tons of armor rolls on your gear, Armor may provide a greater increase in survivability than Resist All. Life Regeneration is worth considering if you have a serious lack of sustain on your gear, but otherwise, max it 3rd. Life is last because we are not stacking Vitality, making returns on Life % meager at best.
Utility
Probably our most flexible points to allocate, thus I wont give a priority order here (though in most cases you'll want to max out Gold Find last). I usually run Resource Cost Reduction to help with AT channeling, but if you're fine on AP generation Life on Hit offers some nice sustain and Area Damage is nice for clearing out crowds of mobs (note: it will have no effect in single target situations, thus I would lean towards maxing it 3rd rather than 2nd).
Generally, you'll want to tailor your paragon point allocation based on what you're lacking most on your gear. This section in particular is based on personal preferences, but other factors will influence how you build here (ex: farming normal will have different priorities compared to progressing in Torment). Everything can easily be switched on the fly, so try out lots of different combinations till you find something that works for you!
TIPS AND TRICKS!
- "Sweeping" (as I'm calling it): When running Temporal Flux and facing large packs of enemies, try sweeping your cursor across the front line (while casting AT of course, this kinda does nothing otherwise). This applies the slow to all mobs hit, turning an avalanche of mobs into a slowly crawling mudslide. By the time they reach you, they're all dead!
- AT is a ground targeted ability. This presents a few technical limitations to the spell, namely, you cannot attack targets that are flying in "void" areas. Phantoms, bats and so on, often flying through chasms to reach your character. Other spells can target them (Electrocute) or be directed towards them (Frozen Orb), but with AT you can only wait till they reach walkable terrain to attack them. Not a major issue, but phantoms in particular are a pain sometimes because of this.
- If you happen to be lucky enough to find them, Boots of Disregard syngergize rather well with our build. Their unique effect is as follows; "Gain 500 Life Regeneration per second for each second you stand still. This effect stacks up to 8 times". Drops from Act 3 Horadric Caches.
- AT's missiles have a travel time. You can use this to your advantage once you get a good feel for the spell by leading a target (aiming where the target will be once your missiles reach that area). There are a few specific instances where doing this can be helpful.
- Some monsters have charges or long windup attacks that displace your character. This will reset Unwavering Will. Whenever possible, try to move to avoid these attacks. You lose UW either way, but that split second where you have no control over your character can be very dangerous considering the attack itself usually does a large amount of damage. Just sidestep and keep on channeling!
- This build (with Temporal Flux) is an amazing Goblin killer. The little suckers just can't get away as long as you're able to keep channeling AT on them. Goblin packs in rifts are another matter entirely however.
- AT is not blocked by the waller affix, you can channel your missiles right over those pesky walls. This is a major advantage AT has over many of our other abilities, so make full advantage of it! When walls go up, teleport on the other side of them, thereby blocking incoming missles and making melee monsters have to walk around, giving you valuable time to channel with no incoming damage to worry about.
- When running AD, sometimes charging the proc will take longer than it would to just channel an unbuffed AT into weak enemies. As you get familiar with your damage output, try to learn when to bother charging AD before casting AD and when it would make little to no difference (or even take longer). A good example of this is when facing scorpions in Act3 or the little Boggits in Act5.
-----------------------------------------------Feel free to suggest other ideas!
CLOSING THOUGHTS
I do not claim that this build is "mine" in any way. I'm sure many others are running very similar or even identical builds out there. I just wanted to share what I've been using and explain my thoughts and ideas on how I got here. I did not model this build after anyone else's, it was of my own creation. I simply used various bits of information from a large amalgamation of different posts to create it. Jaetch's thread on how to create a build ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11882388578 ) and apo's thread on mechanics ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/8770117237 ) were both instrumental in this process, so major props to both of them for their fantastic work! Also would like to thank Hope for his/her thread ( http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11985118574 ). The list of different builds out there is great for those who want to find something fun to play, but mostly the section on Elemental Damage/Skill damage affixes was very helpful when I first hit 70. There's also a massive section on all the different Legendaries we can use and their unique effects. If you're curious, definitely go check it out!
If you've gotten this far, then thank you for reading! My hope is that you've either learned even a little bit about this build (or the Wizard class in general) and, hopefully, will find some enjoyment in trying out this build! I look forward to the discussion to follow and hope that you'll all feel welcome to join in or even ask questions. Remember, no question is a stupid question! Well, MOST questions aren't anyway... I guess all that's left is:
Happy loot hunting everyone!
TL:DR
Use the following build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WeQjSO!ZdST!ZcaYcc
Build lots of mitigation (All Res, Armor, %dmg reduced etc...) with enough vitality to survive bursts of damage (not too much however, 200k health is plenty, could even get away with less in some situations). Some health/sec and Health on Kill is very nice too!
Focus on Crit/Crit Dmg/Int to increase your sheet damage and get Increased Arcane torrent Damage % on boots, helm and, if possible, source. Increased Arcane Damage on bracers and amulet.
Get some APoC and Resource Cost Reduced to help maintain long channeling times.
Sit in place and cast Arcane Torrent on large packs of mobs. AT will proc deflection stacks that are much stronger because of all that mitigation we built for, letting you "tank" a good deal of stuff, meaning you get to cast AT even longer before having to break the channel in order to move away. Don't facetank Arcane Sentries or Frozen bombs unless you're 120% sure you can handle it, and even then, avoiding the damage is a good habit to get into. The other ground effects are less dangerous, so use your own judgment.
Go out there, farm away and hopefully get a few epic drops! For more details on where to go from here, read the rest of the guide