12 replies to this topic

[cameran]

I recently got back to playing D3 after a long break, and did a reasonable amount of reasarch to understand builds. I'm asking the question both in general and for my character in particular (us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Cameran-1184/hero/1571069). I'm currently using CM in a group of three to farm for hellfire rings, and was curious where the best spot to spend my money is (lots of small upgrades, one big one, etc.). I have something in the neighborhood of 15 M gold, so not dirt poor but by no means rich (also means no Witching Hour). I feel like I need a bit more crit and a bit more survivability.

Any advice with regards to my spec would be appreciated as well.

[Jaetch]

cameran, on 08 November 2012 - 08:11 PM, said:

I recently got back to playing D3 after a long break, and did a reasonable amount of reasarch to understand builds. I'm asking the question both in general and for my character in particular (us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Cameran-1184/hero/1571069). I'm currently using CM in a group of three to farm for hellfire rings, and was curious where the best spot to spend my money is (lots of small upgrades, one big one, etc.). I have something in the neighborhood of 15 M gold, so not dirt poor but by no means rich (also means no Witching Hour). I feel like I need a bit more crit and a bit more survivability.

Any advice with regards to my spec would be appreciated as well.

For easier access: http://us.battle.net...84/hero/1571069

You're in very good shape DPS-wise (thanks to your Tal Rasha's chest piece), but I've always considered the Zuni set (Marrow + Trail) to be better for EHP for CM-stunlock builds. Might want to save up more gold. Your EHP is really, really, really lacking, that's what I'd look at first.

Edited by Jaetch, 08 November 2012 - 08:27 PM.

[Zeyn]

Yeah... I agree. Your dps is really really high for a CM build, especially if you're in a group of 3. Your goal should be to survive and freeze lock enemies while your teammates do the killing. That isn't to say that your dps doesn't matter, but it is secondary to that goal.

Both rings and your amulet have a LOT of dps with that attack speed, but the actual crit on them is somewhat lacking. If you changed the rings out for some with 5% or 6% crit, and the amulet for 9%+, you can still get Resist, Vit, and/or Armor on those pieces without spending too much. The actual uptime for frost nova and diamond skin might not change too much with crit instead of attack speed (I'm not that good with math, but it SHOULD proc CM more) but your EHP will go through the roof when you don't have to spend money on that expensive attack speed stat.

Same with your bracer slot. I have a Lacuni's similar to yours, but I change it out for a crit, resist all, and armor bracer when I run CM. The run speed is nice, but if you're cranking up the MP to farm keys, you will spend more time killing each group rather than running to the next.

Those four "upgrades" might cost you 10m or less if you are smart with your purchases or play the bid game. (Your amulet has a lot of crit already, so it's probably the last one you need to worry about. Still, you can get vit or resist or armor in that slot instead of attack speed and it will help you stand toe to toe with seigebreaker.)

Your build is focused on dps, which might not be the best option. If you change glass cannon to blur, your survivability will go up tremendously. I run with Astral Presence instead of Cold Blooded, but that's because I chose to go with a head that has 6% crit and a socket and I only have 10 APoC. It works very well, but I had to get above 45% crit chance.

Just wanted to reiterate that the above advice is based on my own experience running with people that are heavily focused on dps, so my own dps was secondary to locking down the enemy and absorbing hits.

Edited by Zeyn, 08 November 2012 - 09:31 PM.

[cameran]

Thanks for the good advice. My aspd is so high because I was told the 2.51 a/s breakpoint was key; if I can drop down a breakpoint, I can pick up some easy survivability (I picked up a set of Strongarm's with int/crit/armor/life/AR for cheap a while back). Blur for glass cannon is probably a good idea as well.

Did you mean zuni's ring+chest or boots+ring? The two high survivability pieces are the ring and the chest, but the boots and ring are the two I see people running with most. I know in my current gear, one ring and the boots are well below par, so getting upgrades there might be my priority. Something like a crit Blackthorn's ammy, armor+ Zuni's boots, and a crit Zuni's ring are the three pieces I'll have to look out for.

[Jaetch]

cameran, on 08 November 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

Thanks for the good advice. My aspd is so high because I was told the 2.51 a/s breakpoint was key; if I can drop down a breakpoint, I can pick up some easy survivability (I picked up a set of Strongarm's with int/crit/armor/life/AR for cheap a while back). Blur for glass cannon is probably a good idea as well.

Did you mean zuni's ring+chest or boots+ring? The two high survivability pieces are the ring and the chest, but the boots and ring are the two I see people running with most. I know in my current gear, one ring and the boots are well below par, so getting upgrades there might be my priority. Something like a crit Blackthorn's ammy, armor+ Zuni's boots, and a crit Zuni's ring are the three pieces I'll have to look out for.

Wizards run Zuni boots+ring for the DPS advantage because they can't ignore Tal's chest. But since you're focused on a melee CM-stunlock build, you'll want to prioritize survivability. The Zuni chest+boots combo works best here for the high vitality that can roll on both pieces as well as armor and all resistance combinations.

If you really insist on going DPS, I recommend changing exclusively to Archon until you can get your EHP up to respectability.

[Loroese]

cameran, on 08 November 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

Thanks for the good advice. My aspd is so high because I was told the 2.51 a/s breakpoint was key; if I can drop down a breakpoint, I can pick up some easy survivability (I picked up a set of Strongarm's with int/crit/armor/life/AR for cheap a while back). Blur for glass cannon is probably a good idea as well.

IMO, you don't need blur, since most of the damage I seem to take is from effects and not so much melee attacks. I'd grab Evocation for higher DS and nova uptime.

Regarding the attack speed, the posters on the offical forums are really enthusiastic about attack speed for whatever reason. IMO the way to start gearing a CM wizard is to start with 40% crit, 16-20 APoC, 800 LoH or so, and then build up EHP to the level you need to survive (300k-400k buffed is a good initial goal for MP5-7 or so). I would only recommend raising IAS once you have those base stats. From then, you can raise dps and IAS as much as you want but they are not needed as much as the other stats for initial builds. I started with 1.6 APS or so and it worked fine. Now that I have decent EHP and other stats, i'm starting to raise it over 2 but the difference is hardly noticable so far.

[cameran]

Jaetch, on 08 November 2012 - 09:55 PM, said:

cameran, on 08 November 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

Thanks for the good advice. My aspd is so high because I was told the 2.51 a/s breakpoint was key; if I can drop down a breakpoint, I can pick up some easy survivability (I picked up a set of Strongarm's with int/crit/armor/life/AR for cheap a while back). Blur for glass cannon is probably a good idea as well.

Did you mean zuni's ring+chest or boots+ring? The two high survivability pieces are the ring and the chest, but the boots and ring are the two I see people running with most. I know in my current gear, one ring and the boots are well below par, so getting upgrades there might be my priority. Something like a crit Blackthorn's ammy, armor+ Zuni's boots, and a crit Zuni's ring are the three pieces I'll have to look out for.

Wizards run Zuni boots+ring for the DPS advantage because they can't ignore Tal's chest. But since you're focused on a melee CM-stunlock build, you'll want to prioritize survivability. The Zuni chest+boots combo works best here for the high vitality that can roll on both pieces as well as armor and all resistance combinations.

If you really insist on going DPS, I recommend changing exclusively to Archon until you can get your EHP up to respectability.

Yeah, I'll be going Archon in A3 on MP1 to farm when I'm solo. At this point, I may just try to pick up "cheap" Zuni chest+ring+boots as the AR set bonus is nothing to sneeze at and I'll likely need the ring/boots anyway, and the chest appears to be the best itemized EHP barring a well rolled rare.

As an aside, is Nats boots+ring worthwhile? The 2pc crit bonus is nice, and the EHP on the boots is absurd...but the int on Zuni's may be too good to pass up.

Either way, thanks again.

[Jaetch]

cameran, on 08 November 2012 - 10:37 PM, said:

Yeah, I'll be going Archon in A3 on MP1 to farm when I'm solo. At this point, I may just try to pick up "cheap" Zuni chest+ring+boots as the AR set bonus is nothing to sneeze at and I'll likely need the ring/boots anyway, and the chest appears to be the best itemized EHP barring a well rolled rare.

As an aside, is Nats boots+ring worthwhile? The 2pc crit bonus is nice, and the EHP on the boots is absurd...but the int on Zuni's may be too good to pass up.

Either way, thanks again.

I'm starting to notice that a lot recently (Nat's two-piece set) and I really don't get it. The 7% crit chance may be nice, but you'll have to find a Nat's Reflection with crit chance already on it to make the bonus truly worthwhile (double crit chance). By using Nat's Bloody Footprints, you're also giving up the 7-8% bonus poison damage that comes with Zuni's Trail. Also, there's no guarantee that any Nat's piece will roll intelligence, while Zuni always come with int, making hunting for the two-piece Nat's to be a huge hassle.

I guess it's an option, though I have yet to see the items in action. I do have one wizard on my friends list who uses Nat's Reflection + Nat's Sight, but I think he's really just messing with item builds given that I notice him changing gear literally every other day.

Nat's Bloody Footprints always comes with dex, armor, and all resist. You only have one opportunity to roll intelligence. If that's the case, you will never roll vitality.

Zuni's Trail always comes with intelligence, vitality, and bonus poison damage. You also have two opportunities to roll double int, double vit, and/or all resist/armor.

Nat's Reflection comes with dex, attack speed, and HP regen. You have three opportunities to roll crit damage, crit chance, intelligence, and average damage. Good luck.

Zuni's Pox comes with intelligence, all resist, and crit damage. You have three opportunities to roll crit chance, attack speed, and average damage.

[Loroese]

Nats vs Zuni is an interesting choice, and depends partly on what you're trying to achieve. If you just want to raise DPS, I think zuni wins, moreso with an all physical (i.e., black) weapon. If you want EHP, nats is a decent choice, though I've seen many use firewalkers or ice climbers, but I don't know the prices on any. Still, the zuni boots come with vit standard, so for a little extra you can snag a pair with around 100 vit, which might not be as high EHP as nats, but it's decent.

Nats set is a decent way to get higher crit, especially if you have enough to buy a ring with crit, but if you have a black weapon (all physical damage) you should get more dps from the zuni boots and ring. Once you have enough gold to start adding dps stats, nats looks more appealing because it has IAS standard, so you can more easily get a crit+IAS nats than a crit+IAS zuni since it would have to be a trifecta. At those levels, the dps starts to blur a bit, moreso if you use something besides a black weapon.

I think part of the reason a lot of CM wizards are trying to switch to nat's is because they use the Chanto wand, so they don't get as much dps gain from the zuni boots, so they don't lose as much dps from switching. Also the 7 crit set bonus, with enough crit damage, can be more dps than the bonus damage from the zuni boots anyway. Also, the EHP boost can make running the full SNS spec more viable, resulting in a large dps gain over a more defensive build that might have to be used if you use zuni boots, which further complicates things.

I hope that all makes sense. I think I wrote those paragraphs in reverse order for whatever reason so I apologize for any ramblings contained therein.

[Zeyn]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a good Attack Speed breakpoint at 1.7 . Since the OP already has a chantoto's, that should be really easy to obtain.

That's what I'm currently trying to hit. Anyone happen to know the next breakpoint, and if it's even worth trying to get?

[Bagstone]

Zeyn, on 09 November 2012 - 12:14 AM, said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a good Attack Speed breakpoint at 1.7 . Since the OP already has a chantoto's, that should be really easy to obtain.

That's what I'm currently trying to hit. Anyone happen to know the next breakpoint, and if it's even worth trying to get?

Not sure if I get this. 1.7 is not a breakpoint (1.68 and 1.77 are), and Chantodo's is just a weapon, don't forget about IAS on other slots as well. (Weapon attackspeed * (the sum of all IAS on items) = final APS).

Regarding the breakpoints, you can find the ones for WW here:
http://us.battle.net...94871641?page=1

I feel that I lose too many stats when I get 3 instead of 2 APoC pieces, and crit only varies from 40 to 55% anyways. But attack speed can vary a lot, and I recently just for fun pushed it to 3.0 while "gimping" my DPS to 60k - oh boy! Uber boss fights ezmode, Ghom didn't fart a single poison cloud, permastunlock.

Edited by Bagstone, 09 November 2012 - 12:31 AM.

[Zeyn]

Bagstone, on 09 November 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

Not sure if I get this. 1.7 is not a breakpoint (1.68 and 1.77 are), and Chantodo's is just a weapon, don't forget about IAS on other slots as well. (Weapon attackspeed * (the sum of all IAS on items) = final APS).

Thank you for the link to WW tick rates. I probably should bookmark that.
The thing with Chantodo's is that it comes with significant attack speed. You can't find another weapon that is nearly as fast with the same kind of stats. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the .25 attacks per second was directly added to the speed of the weapon. The following travesty of math is based on that.

2.51 attack speed (The OP's) : 33 ticks/cast
2.029 attack speed (Chantodo's + 23% IAS) : 26 ticks/cast

33 ticks @ 38% crit chance = 12.5 crits/cast
26 ticks @ 51% crit chance = 13.26 crits/cast

So with a little napkin math, if the OP traded out amulet, both rings, and bracers for pure crit chance (actually 1.5% crit less than max rolls) he would gain significantly more procs per cast. This should be an easy decision, considering the survivability and money saved from those expensive IAS+CC rings & amulet.
This is assuming he keeps the source, the gloves, and the Tal Rasha's chest with their IAS.

Of course, higher attack speed might be better for LoH and there is always the fact that casting faster means you can have more tornados out at once. But if we're only talking breakpoints here, I'm sure someone will come along to correct my math because I always end up screwing something up.

Edited by Zeyn, 09 November 2012 - 01:33 AM.

[Loroese]

If you need the APoC, you can't beat the Chanto wand in terms of attack speed. If you don't need the APoC, you can get a dagger with 11% IAS for an attack speed of 1.66, which is faster than any Chant wand that doesn't have IAS (and to get one with IAS you can't get a socket, which reduces dps). I'm currently using a dagger and it's working just fine.

@ Zeyn, at first glance your math looks right. For further clarification of the bonus attack speed on the wand (and echoing fury), it adds the flat amount to your weapon attack speed after the IAS on weapon is added. Thus the fastest wand you can get is Chant with 10% IAS and 0.25 attacks per second. The math is 1.4*1.1 = 1.54 + 0.25 = 1.79 APS. The chantress acts the same as that bonus speed and adds 0.03 APS to your final weapon APS, so with chantress you'd effectively have a 1.82 APS weapon. However, the buff is only up while she's alive. Only her armor buff lasts while she's dead.

Regarding the breakpoints for attack speed, it's worth noting that at relatively low APS there is very little change in WW tics as you raise APS. It's not until you get around 2.7+ that you gain more than a couple tics for reaching the next breakpoint. That's why I recommend mostly ignoring attack speed when first gearing because you'll likely get far more out of a bit more APoC, Crit%, and you need to get a sufficient EHP to survive. In short, I'd say don't worry about breakpoints until you get past 2 or 2.2 APS. Otherwise the best breakpoints until then seem to be 1.683 for 22 tics, 2.0007 for 26 tics, and then the 2.5080 and pretty much every breakpoint after that.