29 replies to this topic

[mattyswain]

Hey guys just thought i'd share this video with you guys of my take on the Sleet Storm build and how i use it to farm Demonic essence. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the build, my gear or my playstyle please comment on this thread and/or on the video. I only have a few mill to upgrade gear with but im happy to hear suggestions for things to save up for. Thanks in advance

[Bagstone]

For convenience, link to your char: http://eu.battle.net...88/hero/3677074 and build: http://eu.battle.net...YjSO!gXW!YcYacc (from your video caption)

Nice to see that not everyone doing a video is a badass with 500k DPS - at a certain number every build works. This is especially helpful for people who're gearing up their wizard.

I'm not entirely sure if CM is all that useful with your build. Why not use Blur and then switch Prismatic to Pinpoint Barrier? Or Glass Canon instead of CM?

You should also get your Scoundrel a Buriza to make Cold Blooded even more powerful, or get one of the more tanky followers (Templar or Enchantress with Maximus). Followers can be more than a buff bot ;-)

Edited by Bagstone, 24 February 2013 - 02:04 PM.

[mattyswain]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah i was thinking about CM not being useful but i wasnt sure what to switch it for, blur sounds like a good option tbh i shall have to try it out

[Azutael]

It's nice with an alternative build to CM and archon, though I don't like sleet storm. It's a very annoying spell, needing to give chase to casters without being able to really control them when you do catch up to them. Also you need to stop/start casting it if you want to proc certain things, like storm crow fireball, hellfire ring fireball, familiar attack and so on.
Other spells also cancels sleet storms animation don't they ?

Think you could swap frost nova for something else, you barely used frost nova in your video so to me it felt like a wasted skill slot.

*edited because i am silly.

Edited by Azutael, 24 February 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[Bagstone]

Azutael, on 24 February 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

And as Bagstone said, with that kind of DPS you can use almost whatever build you want effectively

His DPS is actually *not* that high (80k), so it's more difficult to get a build to work. ;-)

[mattyswain]

Azutael, on 24 February 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

Also you need to stop/start casting it if you want to proc certain things, like storm crow fireball, hellfire ring fireball, familiar attack and so on.
Other spells also cancels sleet storms animation don't they ?

Familiar periodically attacks while channeling and yes certain other spells do cancel sleet storm (blizzard) but others (magic weapon) to my knowledge dont

[Azutael]

Quote

His DPS is actually *not* that high (80k), so it's more difficult to get a build to work. ;-)

My brain malfunctioned apparently, I just saw a statement and didn't bother to check myself *sigh*. call it selective reading or whatever.
Looked like it did a lot more dmg than that though, but sleet storm does quite a lot of dmg so

Quote

Familiar periodically attacks while channeling and yes certain other spells do cancel sleet storm (blizzard) but others (magic weapon) to my knowledge dont

Good to know.

[mattyswain]

Azutael, on 24 February 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

Looked like it did a lot more dmg than that though, but sleet storm does quite a lot of dmg so

Well Sleet Storm does 280% weapon damage and Blizzard does 680% and thats before you factor in cold blooded and my frostburn gauntlets so 80k dps is very deceptive as the actual dps output is a lot higher

[maka]

Are the gauntlets really worth it?

[Bagstone]

maka, on 24 February 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

Are the gauntlets really worth it?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: the gauntlets, if they have +30% frost damage, give a 25% damage increase on all damage dealt with this build (not 30% because Cold Blooded + FB damage is additive and not multiplicative). Then you need to add the other stats on the gauntlets: 5-6% cold damage, which will give you 5-6% more damage if using a black weapon, obviously a bit less if you have lots of bonus damage items (Zuni boots, Tal amulet, Triumvirate) - but still worth it. So Frostburn Gauntlets will always give you something between 25% and 30% flat damage increase. Load your char into d3up.com, look at your gloves' DPS percentage - for most people it's 10%. If you have super trifecta gloves it might be a bit higher. For my chars it's even only 7-8%, so there's no question about the value of FB gloves. Jaetch said for him FB didn't make sense, but then his gear is also out of this world.

[mattyswain]

maka, on 24 February 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

Are the gauntlets really worth it?

Bagstones comment really explains the answer to this but i thought id just give my personal opinion. I really feel like the gloves are all but mandatory as you can really feel the power increase when you use blizzard and Sleet Storm

[maka]

Cool, thanks guys. I *think* I have one of those; gotta check it out, since I've always liked Blizzard (the spell ); patch 1.0.7 only increased that.
Unfortunately, I'm in the boonies and my laptop doesn't run D3, so that'll have to wait.

[Jaetch]

Frostburn Gauntlets are worth it if you don't have a monster trifecta glove.

I have a 6% cold damage, 30% bonus to cold spells Frostburn, but the final DPS output for my Sleet Storm is lower compared to my trifecta gloves. ...But then again, trifecta gloves kill my AP faster, decisions decisions.

[maka]

Jaetch, you're not an example to anyone.

[Jaetch]

Okay, I actually didn't fully read Bagstone's response and failed to see he already mentioned the trifecta gloves vs. Frostburn situation.

But yes, I'm reiterating the point in this case. Frostburn Gauntlets in this case would be an incredible bargain deal for AHers that want to run this build. And with adequate weapon damage, the cold spells' damage will be comparable to the DPS provided by rare trifecta gloves. A perfectly rolled Frostburn is also ridiculously cheap because no one really uses these gloves other than Ray of Frost/Blizzard-focused builds at the moment.

maka, on 25 February 2013 - 01:47 AM, said:

Jaetch, you're not an example to anyone.

Think about it this way. No one said you need some kind of quality gear to do MP-X. The concept is the same. I play with different builds on high MPs to show anyone with "less-than-godly" gear can do the same on lower MPs. If I play on MP1 and barely get by with a certain build, I'm not going to go around spreading it as viable. But if I can do it on MP7-10, then people can more than likely run it on MP0-4, for example. So my point here is that if I use Frostburn at my level and it's only slightly inferior DPS-wise to my "godly" gloves, by all means use Frostburn.

Edited by Jaetch, 25 February 2013 - 03:08 AM.

[Resilga]

Frostburn Gaunts are great and do give you a huge dmg boost but %dmg increase doesn't make you crit more, just everything hits harder... make sure if you're switching out to FBGs that you have sufficient crit on other things...

(i know many builds involving FBGs do not require crit but I just felt like it was worth noting, same goes for atkspd).

Cool build, i'm still looking for the best 1.0.7 has to offer myself.

[ProzaicMuze]

I have a Sleet Storm Guide if you're looking for advice on your build. I noticed you made a video about Hand of Ytar, which I have a guide for as well. I won't link it, since this is the Wizard forum, but you might find either useful. I recognize your name from one of my other guide threads (WD I think?) so I believe you've seen some of them already.

[theecheshirekat]

I'm playing around with the build w/ Frostburns....so far it doesn't seem worth it.

[mattyswain]

ProzaicMuze, on 25 February 2013 - 04:27 AM, said:

I have a Sleet Storm Guide if you're looking for advice on your build. I noticed you made a video about Hand of Ytar, which I have a guide for as well. I won't link it, since this is the Wizard forum, but you might find either useful. I recognize your name from one of my other guide threads (WD I think?) so I believe you've seen some of them already.

I just checked out your sleet storm guide, is slow time a lot better than for instance frost nova for survivability?

*edited as i meant to quote muze not Jaetch :L

Edited by mattyswain, 25 February 2013 - 04:01 PM.

[Jaetch]

mattyswain, on 25 February 2013 - 07:26 AM, said:

Jaetch, on 25 February 2013 - 12:29 AM, said:

Frostburn Gauntlets are worth it if you don't have a monster trifecta glove.

I have a 6% cold damage, 30% bonus to cold spells Frostburn, but the final DPS output for my Sleet Storm is lower compared to my trifecta gloves. ...But then again, trifecta gloves kill my AP faster, decisions decisions.

I just checked out your sleet storm guide, is slow time a lot better than for instance frost nova for survivability?

It's a mere variation. My EHP is quite high, so I simply chose not to focus so much on crowd control, though with Bone Chill (+15% bonus damage) I can see it working as well as Time Warp (+20% bonus damage). I"m considering swapping my Tal Rasha's helm for a Storm Crow and change to Tal Rasha's Brace to retain the 4-piece bonus.