I played through the beta with DH, Monk, and Wizard. I actually found the Wizard to be the easiest and most powerful with the limited play throughs. I ended up usually using Shock Pulse (runed) for my main aoe, with Ray of Frost as my single target. Shock Pulse was doing ton of AoE damage, and easily outperformed any of the other classes when it came to multiple mobs. Ray of Frost seemed decent, while also slowing. Frost Nova and Wave of Force seemed really powerful as well. However, I didn't seem to do as well on single target as other classes all the time, but in anything w/ more than 3 or so mobs, the Wizard stood out.
Wizards seem to be good as long as you chose your spells wisely. I know I seemed very gimp if I wasn't using the right spells with each other.
Why are you talking about wave of force.. in a normal run you kill the skeleton king before you reach lvl 9 (usually 7 or 8).
It's obvious that after you outlvl the content u one shot stuff.
I killed the skeleton king on lvl 7-8 on all classes and I guess it was hardest to kill as Barb and Wizard. Or well I say hardest but what I mean is that it took longest because it isn't really hard.. just takes ages for a wizard to kill it. You need arcane orb to kill adds which leaves you with just a 143% wpn dmg single target spell. Barb was "ok" u can kinda tank boss and use rend to kill monsters around you for life orbs. Still it felt like it took rly long compared to monk, wd and dh.
My wife and I played through to the SK on new chars last night. We got to Level 9 before we beat the beta. One playthrough... we just cleared everything and took all 3 crypts to find the right one.
My wife is a complete noob to diablo and she figured out (after losing to the SK a few times sadly) that ray of frost is better dps than arcane orb for single target.
I actually felt like the Wizard was under powered at first too honestly. However, I didn't know that int increases skill damage and not a single wand dropped for me (had to craft one, boo hoo I know). My brother was a barb and my GF was a DH and they were both just ripping stuff apart. It would literally take me about 13-18 orbs to get something to half hp at the end; until I upgraded my gear of course, then it was constant massacres.
I actually felt like the Wizard was under powered at first too honestly. However, I didn't know that int increases skill damage and not a single wand dropped for me (had to craft one, boo hoo I know). My brother was a barb and my GF was a DH and they were both just ripping stuff apart. It would literally take me about 13-18 orbs to get something to half hp at the end; until I upgraded my gear of course, then it was constant massacres.
You don't HAVE to use a wand with a wizard you know?
Its pretty mandated to use a source yes... but a wand ... no. You can use whatever 1H weapon drops for you.
I actually felt like the Wizard was under powered at first too honestly. However, I didn't know that int increases skill damage and not a single wand dropped for me (had to craft one, boo hoo I know). My brother was a barb and my GF was a DH and they were both just ripping stuff apart. It would literally take me about 13-18 orbs to get something to half hp at the end; until I upgraded my gear of course, then it was constant massacres.
You don't HAVE to use a wand with a wizard you know?
Its pretty mandated to use a source yes... but a wand ... no. You can use whatever 1H weapon drops for you.
Orbs are not mandated.....You are wrong yet again....what else is new, right?
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Having beat the beta with a Wizard and switched to try a DH for a bit, the DH is garbage compared (at least for a while).
At no time did I have trouble killing things with my Wizard, and the only thing that took more than two hits to die were the big thorn monsters (forgot their name) and SK.
I actually felt like the Wizard was under powered at first too honestly. However, I didn't know that int increases skill damage and not a single wand dropped for me (had to craft one, boo hoo I know). My brother was a barb and my GF was a DH and they were both just ripping stuff apart. It would literally take me about 13-18 orbs to get something to half hp at the end; until I upgraded my gear of course, then it was constant massacres.
You don't HAVE to use a wand with a wizard you know?
Its pretty mandated to use a source yes... but a wand ... no. You can use whatever 1H weapon drops for you.
Orbs are not mandated.....You are wrong yet again....what else is new, right?
Not literally no. But the best wizards will be carrying either Staffs... or 1H + Source.
I dont think the classes need to be comparable to be honest.
One of the things I personally love about Diablo and D3 seems no different to me, is that each class (as well as looks) has a different play style to them.
If I want to charge in and just thump stuff and not worry about armour buffs I can play a Barbarian.
Alternatively, if I want to see keep my distance, throw cool spells and have diamond armour to keep me alive, then I'll play a Wizard.
If each class, when all's said and done, are more or less the same whats the point? The Wizard should be fragile and need to be played much more carefully than a straight melee class like the Barbarian.
THAT is the point. When you grow tired of just 'Runnin' & Gunnin' you can play a class that has a different style altogether to keep things fresh. Having to watch your resource, know when your armour spells run out, how long they last for etc is how you play this character. If you dont like it, then play another class.
Wizard was as good or even better then other classes when he had Sleet Storm.... Enemies just vanished before even attacking you, no matter how many came. Only Grotesques and Unburied survived until they reach you... But not if you used frost nova first.
I though i totally agree with the chess guy and mystic bird, about ignoring level 13 balance and focusing in the early levels, i think we can't just ignore opening new spells will make tremendous difference. Imo all this wizard UD talk is because magic missile is a shity skill, the worst skill in the game, and RoF is quite weak too (it's only good against SK).
The only thing I have to say about Wizard. is that I was the least impressed with their skill selection in the beta.. Like every skill was just Meh... Except the Orb one.. Other than that it was just sort of lack luster I thought. Not damage wise just aesthetically.
This forum is only big enough for one FFT avatar... Plus Delita is a cocksucker.
Yeah right... Delita is a total boss... From commoner to the King... What a tale, he is an extinguisher of the un-just.
The Wiz felt fine in single player ... but hey, everything dies in one shot in single player beta. In multiplayer it started to feel that my damage was not enough, with 2-3 orbs needed to dispose of a single pack of mobs. Barbs and monks seemed to be able to do more damage than I could.
Someone said above his orbs were doing 100 damage / orb, I never got even close to that, so probably my gear, if you can talk about gear at that level, was crap.
PS:
I doubt this is relevant in any way, they probably never bothered to fine balance at such low levels.
Its all about gear. If you have bad gear, you will do bad damage. Good gear, and you will do good damage.
I think 3 orb to kill a peck is perfectly fair. A barbarian takes about the same amount of HotA and it has smaller area and is somewhat more limited resourc wise.
The wiz's true problem is shity signatures. Theres no reason for magic missile doing less then 140% damage since ALL single target primary attacks in the game have higher damage then that. Spectral Blade feels fine and Shock Pulse too, although it is horrible ST wise and have no compensation... Comparing Shock Pulse to Cleave, Deadly Reach, Plague of Toads and you see.
I dont think the classes need to be comparable to be honest.
One of the things I personally love about Diablo and D3 seems no different to me, is that each class (as well as looks) has a different play style to them.
If I want to charge in and just thump stuff and not worry about armour buffs I can play a Barbarian.
Alternatively, if I want to see keep my distance, throw cool spells and have diamond armour to keep me alive, then I'll play a Wizard.
If each class, when all's said and done, are more or less the same whats the point? The Wizard should be fragile and need to be played much more carefully than a straight melee class like the Barbarian.
THAT is the point. When you grow tired of just 'Runnin' & Gunnin' you can play a class that has a different style altogether to keep things fresh. Having to watch your resource, know when your armour spells run out, how long they last for etc is how you play this character. If you dont like it, then play another class.
I think the Wizard is just fine.
When you get to hell and beyond and find yourself to be useless, then I am pretty sure the pretty spell animations won't be enough to stop you from going on a nerd raging rampage on the forums.
I am not saying that is going to happen, just that pretty colors aint enough.
I think 3 orb to kill a peck is perfectly fair. A barbarian takes about the same amount of HotA and it has smaller area and is somewhat more limited resourc wise.
The wiz's true problem is shity signatures. Theres no reason for magic missile doing less then 140% damage since ALL single target primary attacks in the game have higher damage then that. Spectral Blade feels fine and Shock Pulse too, although it is horrible ST wise and have no compensation... Comparing Shock Pulse to Cleave, Deadly Reach, Plague of Toads and you see.
Wizard's primary attacks are way to weak.
But the barb has great generators...not so much for the wizard.
Its almost as if blizzard might be letting the early version of the wizard suck balls as they expect the +AP on crit to fix it later.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
I think 3 orb to kill a peck is perfectly fair. A barbarian takes about the same amount of HotA and it has smaller area and is somewhat more limited resourc wise.
The wiz's true problem is shity signatures. Theres no reason for magic missile doing less then 140% damage since ALL single target primary attacks in the game have higher damage then that. Spectral Blade feels fine and Shock Pulse too, although it is horrible ST wise and have no compensation... Comparing Shock Pulse to Cleave, Deadly Reach, Plague of Toads and you see.
Wizard's primary attacks are way to weak.
maybe it was intended so the wizz can compensate through secondary atacks, the high tiear secondary atacks seem devastating if you ask me..
Magic missile at a laughable 110% wpn dmg is devastating?
No, the signatures are equally as weak. This used to be fine because they were free and runed would generate a decent amount of AP, while the primaries were devastating. Together it was an effective combo, but the changes have left both categories rather weak.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
You get every skill in the game, and a good chunk of the runes by level 30.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Every class played and built well is going to be very strong if the skills, runes and passive balance that is currently in beta remains similar throughout the leveling curve to 60.
I killed sk with every class and while I liked certain classes more than others they all felt powerful and effective to me.
I do believe that the wizard from 1-13 is probably the least exciting class, but looking at builds I have come up with I think late game the wizard is going to be
I thought this post was about something else, going on the title I think in balancing the Wizard is fine, I had a lvl 13 Wizard in beta with nice gear, and it sliced through pretty much anything.
What I thought the post was about, and what I have been thinking for a while now, is that the Wizard abilities feel underpowered. It's not about the damage, but just about the feeling you get when casting spells. With a Barb, you smash through everything, things explode, it feels good. Same goes for Monk. But with the Wizard, your spells don't feel that powerful, Ray of Frost just kind of hits mobs, instead of splintering them to death. Anyone else know what I'm talking about, and hoping it will get better on higher levels?
I understood what you mean I hope Meteor will do that enourmous animations!
Is it just me or does the wizard seem pretty underpowered? granted its beta, 1/4th of act 1 and you didnt get any good gear, but compared to the other characters the wizard felt..... lacking. 3 arcane orbs and youre out of arcane power and forced to use signature spells which really dont do that much damage, and also dont work well in large packs. Say when youre against a tomb guardian and hes summoning more skeles. If youre initial spells dont clear a straight path to the tomb guardian, you might be in a longer fight than you bargained for. Hell, in a full game a full Ray of Frost wasnt enough to kill a single normal harvester.
i know the resource is suppost to be small and regen fast but it just didnt play well for the beta. maybe itwas my setup, i dont know. just really felt like most of the time i was spamming magic missile
And while it is true that my Witch Doctor ended up having higher DPS than my Wizard, I've chosen the Wizard to be my primary at release on May 15th, simply because of her power and some great crowd control skills.
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Wizards seem to be good as long as you chose your spells wisely. I know I seemed very gimp if I wasn't using the right spells with each other.
My wife and I played through to the SK on new chars last night. We got to Level 9 before we beat the beta. One playthrough... we just cleared everything and took all 3 crypts to find the right one.
My wife is a complete noob to diablo and she figured out (after losing to the SK a few times sadly) that ray of frost is better dps than arcane orb for single target.
You don't HAVE to use a wand with a wizard you know?
Its pretty mandated to use a source yes... but a wand ... no. You can use whatever 1H weapon drops for you.
Epicurus
At no time did I have trouble killing things with my Wizard, and the only thing that took more than two hits to die were the big thorn monsters (forgot their name) and SK.
Not literally no. But the best wizards will be carrying either Staffs... or 1H + Source.
One of the things I personally love about Diablo and D3 seems no different to me, is that each class (as well as looks) has a different play style to them.
If I want to charge in and just thump stuff and not worry about armour buffs I can play a Barbarian.
Alternatively, if I want to see keep my distance, throw cool spells and have diamond armour to keep me alive, then I'll play a Wizard.
If each class, when all's said and done, are more or less the same whats the point? The Wizard should be fragile and need to be played much more carefully than a straight melee class like the Barbarian.
THAT is the point. When you grow tired of just 'Runnin' & Gunnin' you can play a class that has a different style altogether to keep things fresh. Having to watch your resource, know when your armour spells run out, how long they last for etc is how you play this character. If you dont like it, then play another class.
I think the Wizard is just fine.
I though i totally agree with the chess guy and mystic bird, about ignoring level 13 balance and focusing in the early levels, i think we can't just ignore opening new spells will make tremendous difference. Imo all this wizard UD talk is because magic missile is a shity skill, the worst skill in the game, and RoF is quite weak too (it's only good against SK).
Yeah right... Delita is a total boss... From commoner to the King... What a tale, he is an extinguisher of the un-just.
Its all about gear. If you have bad gear, you will do bad damage. Good gear, and you will do good damage.
Regardless of class.
The wiz's true problem is shity signatures. Theres no reason for magic missile doing less then 140% damage since ALL single target primary attacks in the game have higher damage then that. Spectral Blade feels fine and Shock Pulse too, although it is horrible ST wise and have no compensation... Comparing Shock Pulse to Cleave, Deadly Reach, Plague of Toads and you see.
Wizard's primary attacks are way to weak.
When you get to hell and beyond and find yourself to be useless, then I am pretty sure the pretty spell animations won't be enough to stop you from going on a nerd raging rampage on the forums.
I am not saying that is going to happen, just that pretty colors aint enough.
But the barb has great generators...not so much for the wizard.
Its almost as if blizzard might be letting the early version of the wizard suck balls as they expect the +AP on crit to fix it later.
Epicurus
Magic missile at a laughable 110% wpn dmg is devastating?
No, the signatures are equally as weak. This used to be fine because they were free and runed would generate a decent amount of AP, while the primaries were devastating. Together it was an effective combo, but the changes have left both categories rather weak.
Epicurus
Epicurus
True. All skills are unlocked by 30, but there's a whopping 85 Runes yet to unlock after 30 which is 70% of the total Runes available.
Only 37 runes are unlocked up to 30 so.. 'a good chunk of the runes' are YET to be unlocked at 30.
Just saying.
I killed sk with every class and while I liked certain classes more than others they all felt powerful and effective to me.
I do believe that the wizard from 1-13 is probably the least exciting class, but looking at builds I have come up with I think late game the wizard is going to be
EPIC WINNING.
I understood what you mean I hope Meteor will do that enourmous animations!
This. Relax people it's only beta we have seen so far
You kidding, right?
If you read a post I made on another topic (http://www.diablofans.com/topic/39649-beta-my-thoughts-on-classes/page__p__840497#entry840497) you'll know that I played Barbarian, Wizard and Witch Doctor on the Open Beta, in that order.
And while it is true that my Witch Doctor ended up having higher DPS than my Wizard, I've chosen the Wizard to be my primary at release on May 15th, simply because of her power and some great crowd control skills.