Hey. My friend has two characters - one is a Barb and one is a Witch Doctor. And while I have chosen to use my Wizard over my Demon Hunter, she hasn't decided yet.
So my question to you is this:
We know a Barb and a Wizard are a good team... but with the recent buffs to health pools on WD pets, is WD and Wizard a viable Inferno team?
Dumped my wizard for WD after 1.0.4 My pets are tanking acts 3-4 inferno without dying. No need to kite as a WD. And with pets tanking having a ranged companion is better - less chances for him to get aggro.
That's very very helpful! Thank you. Out of curiosity, I'd like to specify that my friend uses Grasp of the Dead for the slow. But as a Wizard I have Blizzard and Cold Blooded. So since you've used Wizard and Witch Doctor, which one of us do you think should keep that snare up? GotD is way better than Blizzard, IMO, but Cold Blooded makes Blizzard pretty awesome.
Just thought of something - if we combine Slow Time - Time Warp with Grasp of the Dead, we get the 20% damage boost of Cold Blooded and the damage and snare of Grasp of the Dead. This also frees up my Cold Blooded passive slot for something else, which could be nice. But this means no Blizzard damage. Though it would give me more AP since Slow Time lasts 8 seconds (vs. 6 on Blizzard) and uses no AP. Then I could use my spare passive for CM, allowing me to use Slow Time and Teleport more often?
Just rambling.
Actually gonna post this in my Wizard thread too. XD
Don't think you'll need a slow at all ) But cause of Cold blooded you'll still need Blizzard so it's more logical choice.
As for why i don't use slow as a WD - 4 dogs+garga+enchantress (in a single player) is a small army and great meat shield. They're automatically tank everything in sight. So melee mobs are just attacking them in place untill you kill them ) Ranged mobs are more annoying but it's the same with or without slow And if you got some unwanted attention - just run half a screen back. Pets will teleport to you and redirect attention.
Well don't forget it's possible cause of life regeneration+resists. Well i'm running with a little too much of them in my opinion but it's more comfortable for me this way cause a) i'm more durable - don't have to dodge every singe lance or arrow don't need to watch pets The only reasons they can die are a) bugged charge/smash attack of some mobs. Hope they'll fix it kamikaze Fallen Lunatics c) Staying in act 3-4 in a Desecrator's pool for a while.
Addition to the post above yours - GotD is more weapon damage than Blizzard as well, and two seconds longer. And I can accomplish the same damage in 6 seconds with a standard Secondary attack on Wizard (more so) than Blizzard can offer me for 45 AP.
Read the second post I made above and get back to me.
As a co-op wizard i would go for Improved Archon, Force Weapon, Force/Prismatic Armor (depending on gear), Teleport+Fracture for defence. And with enough AP on crit i would go for a signatureless build with Arcane Torrent+Disruption. The last slot then goes to Arcane Hydra.
Passives are Glass cannon, Astral presence and Critical Mass/Evocation/anything else to your liking. Well, it's not mandatory. Completly my choice )
Archon in 2 player is pretty bad, from what I gather. It's a wasted slot 80% of the time since it has a two minute cooldown. Whereas in 1 player you can burn through health pools really quick and you get a one second bonus every kill, in 2 player you only get about half the kills and drop out of Archon a lot faster. That being said, you also have no defenses when those +110% health co op mobs come after you and they usually tag you before you kill them.
In 4 player, when defenses mean nothing for a ranged, or in 1 player when health is horribly low, or on Farm mode for any Inferno acts, Archon is God. But for progression, not so much.
What I have right now, if I'm under the assumption of a WD companion, is high crit chance, high crit damage, high AP on crit, then:
Elec, Forked Lightning
Arcane Orb, Celestial
Hydra, Arcane
Slow Time, Warp
Energy Armor, Force
Teleport, Fracture
Temporal Flux
Critical Mass
Glass Cannon
^This build is currently in the works, and if you want any of my logic on why I chose those things, http://www.diablofan...p-wizard-build/ <check post 11
~Peachie
Also, unless you're using a kiting build, which I'm not, you should always have a signature just in case. Then again, if it turns out my AP on crit is Godly in the end, I'll probably change out of Forked Lightning.
Well i always used 20 AP Blizzard rune variant to spam it. And you can't spam GotD. I was running a co-op with a WW barb yesterday. Everything that stood together and could be slowed got instantly crushed by us. Most of the time we were cleaning up lonely mobs running from us in every direction ) No point to try to slow them one by one )
I'm skeptical to put the idea of the slow in my hands, though, just because Wizards have a lot more "extra damage" utility with things like Cold Blooded and Slow Time. But I guess CB could work fine with Blizzard. And then my friend wouldn't need GotD.
Chek out Arcane Torrent - Disruption. After the patch it's really good. As for Archon - i would use it only to burst down elites in 2 players. And one more thing - after 1.0.4 health pools are increased by 75% in all difficulties ) So with 2 player coop you'll have now 175% instead of 210% HP )
With GotD you can get 410% damage off, though, and with Blizzard only 210% without burning through your AP. I know you can only have one down at a time, but it seems the almost double damage could be really useful. Plus, if I used Time Warp, which slows enemy movement by 30% anyway, plus projectiles since we're ranged by 90%, and allows 20% additional damage... not entirely sure how snares stack, but it seems like anything in that little bubble would really be fucked. XD
http://www.twitch.tv...rus/b/330666473
Uploaded 1 round of act 3 farm There's some problem with video (didn't have it till new version ov XSplit... Oh well, quality is @#$%! either way ) It's by no means any guide. Just a bit of demonstration of pet tanking with my stats. If only i had decent dps...
I'll be focusing on keeping this amount of defence with increasing crit/crit dmg/int. It should give me my ideal style of farming - without much running and so on. I'm not aiming for fast/effective farming or paragon leveling.
With GotD you can get 410% damage off, though, and with Blizzard only 210% without burning through your AP. I know you can only have one down at a time, but it seems the almost double damage could be really useful. Plus, if I used Time Warp, which slows enemy movement by 30% anyway, plus projectiles since we're ranged by 90%, and allows 20% additional damage... not entirely sure how snares stack, but it seems like anything in that little bubble would really be fucked. XD
you forgot "~peachie" here.
Wizards are great only with permafreeze spec, that holds mobs (and elites) 95% jf time in control. Otherway WD with bears+cloud is faster.
So my question to you is this:
We know a Barb and a Wizard are a good team... but with the recent buffs to health pools on WD pets, is WD and Wizard a viable Inferno team?
Thanks in advance.
~Peachie
Gear is far from perfect but it's enough to farm act 3 without dying
~Peachie
Just rambling.
Actually gonna post this in my Wizard thread too. XD
~Peachie
As for why i don't use slow as a WD - 4 dogs+garga+enchantress (in a single player) is a small army and great meat shield. They're automatically tank everything in sight. So melee mobs are just attacking them in place untill you kill them ) Ranged mobs are more annoying but it's the same with or without slow And if you got some unwanted attention - just run half a screen back. Pets will teleport to you and redirect attention.
Well don't forget it's possible cause of life regeneration+resists. Well i'm running with a little too much of them in my opinion but it's more comfortable for me this way cause a) i'm more durable - don't have to dodge every singe lance or arrow don't need to watch pets The only reasons they can die are a) bugged charge/smash attack of some mobs. Hope they'll fix it kamikaze Fallen Lunatics c) Staying in act 3-4 in a Desecrator's pool for a while.
Read the second post I made above and get back to me.
~Peachie
Passives are Glass cannon, Astral presence and Critical Mass/Evocation/anything else to your liking. Well, it's not mandatory. Completly my choice )
In 4 player, when defenses mean nothing for a ranged, or in 1 player when health is horribly low, or on Farm mode for any Inferno acts, Archon is God. But for progression, not so much.
What I have right now, if I'm under the assumption of a WD companion, is high crit chance, high crit damage, high AP on crit, then:
Elec, Forked Lightning
Arcane Orb, Celestial
Hydra, Arcane
Slow Time, Warp
Energy Armor, Force
Teleport, Fracture
Temporal Flux
Critical Mass
Glass Cannon
^This build is currently in the works, and if you want any of my logic on why I chose those things, http://www.diablofan...p-wizard-build/ <check post 11
~Peachie
Also, unless you're using a kiting build, which I'm not, you should always have a signature just in case. Then again, if it turns out my AP on crit is Godly in the end, I'll probably change out of Forked Lightning.
I'm skeptical to put the idea of the slow in my hands, though, just because Wizards have a lot more "extra damage" utility with things like Cold Blooded and Slow Time. But I guess CB could work fine with Blizzard. And then my friend wouldn't need GotD.
You've been amazingly helpful.
Thank you for all the info! If you come up with anything else, just post it in here - I'll check back every few hours.
~Peachie
Uploaded 1 round of act 3 farm There's some problem with video (didn't have it till new version ov XSplit... Oh well, quality is @#$%! either way ) It's by no means any guide. Just a bit of demonstration of pet tanking with my stats. If only i had decent dps...
I'll be focusing on keeping this amount of defence with increasing crit/crit dmg/int. It should give me my ideal style of farming - without much running and so on. I'm not aiming for fast/effective farming or paragon leveling.
Wiz and WD are should be good with each other, stand behind pets and mop everything down.
you forgot "~peachie" here.
Wizards are great only with permafreeze spec, that holds mobs (and elites) 95% jf time in control. Otherway WD with bears+cloud is faster.
My poor WD.