Build Guide
Prioritization of stats:1) Cooldown reduction on paragon, shoulders, offhand are mandatory; if possible, also on gloves (more important than attack speed). CDR on weapons/rings is up to you; don't get it on amulet.
2) Attack speed is not important, but also doesn't hurt in this build, and will be useful in 2.1.
3) While the best stats on amulet/rings are CHD, fire damage, intelligence, and CHC (in this order), you should also look out for jewelry pieces with at least two of these stats and a socket - for legendary gems in 2.1.
4) Do avoid high life, focus on mitigation. 300-400k life is perfectly fine; get high armor rolls (550+) on Tal's chest and Vyr's legs.
5) For a detailed stats breakdown per slot, check this cheat sheet.
Mirrorball is the absolute requirement, without it the first skill choice is obsolete. A full Vyr set (or 3 pieces plus RoRG) are also almost required for maximum efficiency - only put it as "recommended" because it *can* work without Vyr's as well, just not good.
Tal's chest is the best option because of the fifth primary; you don't need resource cost reduction at all which renders Cindercoat a sub-optimal choice. For amulet, Tal's is just the best, but any other will do - as long as it has decent stats. For belt, String of Ears is the defensive option, Witching Hour the offensive option, and Tal's just to complete the set bonus.
It depends on your playstyle and CDR - how often are you in Archon? I'm in Archon form about 50% of the time, pop it whenever possible, so BH doesn't make much sense for me (tested it yesterday). If you, however, prefer to stay out of Archon for some reason and save it for some occasions, BH+Strongarms are an option, especially in group with Jade WDs. As for BH rune, Blazaar or Spellsteal are probably best, but you can also use a different one to trigger another Tal's Meteor.
However, I absolutely always play with Teleport, can't live without it. I'd rather switch Sparkflint to BH.
Yesh, not necessary on T4. Well, many options, again depends on playstyle. Are you often close to mobs? Then Audacity. Do mobs die instantly and you have too much toughness? Try Glass Canon. Is it the opposite, killing takes some time? Then Conflagration may pay off. None of those appealing? Try Elemental Exposure (esp. useful with cold damage weapon).
Depends on the other rolls. Are we looking at a 500 int, 6% CHC, 50% CHD, 30% elite damage SoJ? Yeah, of course. But in general probably not. The elemental damage is the big reason why the SoJ is so great (if you *only* want elite damage, a well-rolled Unity isn't bad either).
The reason why Thunderfury is the "best in slot" weapon for most wizards is 1) because the lightning proc procs the Tal's meteor and Elemental Exposure; 2) the proc gives some extra damage without taking up a primary affix as on Burning Axe, Sun Keeper, Gesture of Orpheus and so on, therefore it can roll close to 2500 DPS (see Jaetch's TF; 3) the proc is not only good for DPS, but even more important for survivability. 30% movement speed reduction and 30% attack speed reduction is GREAT on higher Torment levels. Every little bit of defense helps as it opens up more options for gearing in general.
1) Cooldown reduction on paragon, shoulders, offhand are mandatory; if possible, also on gloves (more important than attack speed). CDR on weapons/rings is up to you; don't get it on amulet.
If you want a number try to get to 50% (including Evocation and paragon, of course). More than 60% are probably not healthy as you sacrifice too much; less than 30-40% are not a good idea because it makes Archon less effective. But just run whatever works for you.
For what exactly is it good? Why not use an andariels? (considering you dont have a thunderfury)
Of course you could take that tal rasha armor. but why not vyr + magefist?
with the current gear there is no big difference to an arcane archon wizard , - elemental dps wise.
You dont make any use of the extra fire damage you can get on some item slots.
I understand that cindercoat is supbar , so i also kept the tal rasha, because my vyr sucks. but i will swap for vyr+ magefist, remove tal helm for andariels and use an amulet of free choice.
With your recommendet items you can achieve 3 tal meteors but you dont use elemental exposure? why is that?
I tested unstable anomaly on t6 and its often a lifesaver, but you could probalby switchit for elemental exposure in a group with a WD or other meatshields
Anways i upvoted the build because it helped me realize that runing vyr+ cdr+ 100% fire elemental damage is more effective than 140% elemental damage and less cdr and no vyr.
@Jalatiphra: The Tal's set is simply there because the other options are not worth it, and even if you can just trigger 2 Meteors (assumed you have a Thunderfury) it helps. If you don't have a TF it's a different story, but then again there are also alternatives for the Tal's slots mentioned as well.
Magefist aren't really worth it because your fire damage is already quite high just from other items which makes every additional item with fire damage worth a bit less. There was even a bluepost stating that recently, see front page ;-) The additional primary affix on Tal's chest, however, does not come with diminishing returns, especially not something like 11% reduced elite damage which is great.
Andariel's is just a really really bad glass canon helmet. Again, you seem to think that "more fire damage is better" but quite the contrary is true. Sure, go for it and stack 140% - Andy's, amulet, bracers, Magefist, Cindercoat, Firebird's source, Burning Sankis - but at this point adding the fire damage does not add a lot of overall DPS. You sacrifice a lot of primary stats, however. Plus, the Andariel's is just an ill-designed item: the fire damage debuff actually makes your defense even worse, and the Poison Nova effect is very ineffective since you're not running a poison build, nor is it really worth it by itself, anyways. I only see Andariel's on glass canons. The helmet is one of the best toughness slots as it rolls above average vitality (or armor, for that matter) and as such it's not a good idea to go for DPS here. Unless you like glass canon, play lower Torments, or want to top the Diabloprogress DPS rankings. But those item setups should not be recommended in a guide as they'll guide players into the wrong diretion.
Elemental Exposure is an option, but I'm not recommending this here as - again - I don't like to promote glass canon builds and my passives are focused on survivability. Furthermore, if you kill things fast you rarely trigger 1-2 of the EE procs on a given target which makes EE sub-optimal (rather take Audacity first). EE will be very useful in Greater Rifts or if you kill things really slow on T6 - but from what you write it sounds like you're not a slow-killing toughness beast but rather a player who enjoys Glass Canon builds and "kill stuff before it kills me". Those playstyles do not really benefit much from EE.
I just hate dying (hate losing XP pool stacks), hence my preference for Unstable Anomaly. It's not for everyone though.
Thanks for your comments though, and the upvote... I'm really surprised about the amount of downvotes. Would be great if those who downvoted this would explain what they didn't like (and post a link to their improved build/gearset instead). I see a lot of defensive/support builds downvoted, and too many glass canon builds upvoted. Blizzard has an eye on those and all the changes hint that they don't like squishy players (LoH/life regen changes). It'd be great if people understood why sometimes defense is the best offense ;-) Especially for wizards.
I actually tend to swap for tal rasha bonus now, thanks , ill give it a try today.
Because in your build my MM only hits for about 4-6 millions.
But in my "pure glass canon build'" with all that fire ele damage it hits for about double that, 10-12 mil
Of course with your guide i have a better archon uptime, but archon is also weaker,
but i have more toughness, about double.
So my guess is that your build is kinda "save MM for T6" but not the quickest -as you mentioned.
What iam now interested in : were is the sweet spot between toughness and damage tradeoff.
ATM iam already doing pretty good with <300 k hp on t6 -with andariels. but iam dieing to damage spikes , which i could prevent with going for tal rasha.
what i want to say: ITS DIFFICULT FU
Still aiming to get this build together. Got really lucky Sunday night and picked up my Mirrorball, Vyr's Grasping Gauntlets & SoJ. Going for the weapon, pants, boots & belt now. The belt I'm going to get though is Tal Rasha's Brace. Want to keep my Countess Julia's Cameo. What I have now on my character is letting me farm Torment 2 bounties and rift's no problem. One thing I really need to do though is remake my Aughild's Power. It just rolled really terribly when I crafted it.
CHD, CHC, RDR?
I get CDR (Cool down reduction)...
wonderful fantastic i just do not know what to say!!!!! 8)