23 replies to this topic

[Bompibjornen]

Loroese, on 08 December 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

That's kind of the right idea. Specifically, spells either use an attack animation, like FN and WW, or they don't, like DS and EB.

If they don't use an attack animation you can cast it at any time it is available, along with any spell that doesn't use an attack, so DS and EB can both be cast at the same time. If a spell uses an attack animation, that means you can't use another spell like that for 1/APS seconds. That also means you can only cast either FN or WW for any given attack. Again, you can cast DS and/or EB at the same time as either FN or WW because they do not use an attack animation.

One reason for higher IAS is to have more WWs active. With 1 APS you can only have 6 up a time (6s duration), neglecting AP cost. With 2 APS you can have up to 12 active. Also, the CM procs and LoH returns for WW increase with attack speed, which makes the build work better. Also, with say 3 APS you can use one attack for Nova and 2 for WW, so you can still have several WW active and still be able to cast FN frequently, plus the extra tics from WW refresh FN faster. DS can be cast at any time and constantly spammed without interuption of WW/FN casts.

Allright thanks, that explained alot and will make it easier for me to play!<3

[gulc]

As a side note, i, personaly would get rid of strongarms, as knockback can make life miserable as a cm wiz:(

[DisposableHeero]

Psychatog, on 07 December 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

This part is also a fallacy. The fact things living longer give you more AP / fury is redundantly pointless, as things simply dying from 1 twister / WW pass through is still better than having to spend 20 seconds ramping up to kill trash. It doesn't matter what build your using, if your spending more time killing things its still wasting time, regardless of how effectively it wastes time.

The conclusion about CM not working well in MP0 is correct, even if the reason is wrong.  CM is extremely efficient at deploying damage, but has a significant ramp up time.  If things die to the first tick of your twister, you will be able to cast fewer twisters because they pay back their arcane power costs over the duration as they deal damage, and drop in exposure uptime essentially makes that spell cost more resources.

CM Doesn't reach maximum DPS until it reaches steady state, which generally takes a few seconds.  While you are correct that for most builds, MP0 act 3 is really the only viable farming run, because the number of kills per hour is the most efficient portion of the loot equation to optimize.  Thats true if you have a linear correlation of damage output to time.  CM does not.  So Critical Mass builds are optimal at higher monster power.  Very hard to say how much higher, but definitely higher than at one shotting everything levels.

While this means they are sub-optimal for XP farming and arguably below archons at gear farming, it does make them much better for Hellfire Ring farming, which is usually a phase in setting up your paragon farming.  Most of the time when I farm it is at MP4 with critical mass and at the MF cap.  I feel somewhere around this is optimal for CM wizards, and produces similar yields in terms of legendaries, and gold than farming MP0 as archon, because the loot is much higher quality even if you don't kill as fast.

Being able to solo MP7 Ubers, is not nearly as useless as you'd make it sound.

[Bagstone]

DisposableHeero, on 10 December 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

Being able to solo MP7 Ubers, is not nearly as useless as you'd make it sound.

It's not useless, but it's (sorry) stupid ;-) You're wasting portals. 3 of your friends would be happy to tag along to grab some organs. Never solo ubers, it's such a waste... unless you want to show off or see what you're capable of, of course.

Oh, completely agree to everything else you said, 100%.