Spectral Blade > Deep Cuts
Meteor > Star Pact
Diamond Skin > Crystal Shell
Frost Nova > Cold Snap (+damage nova for coop)
Force / Prismatic Armor (pinpoint barrier for coop)
Time Warp, Mirror Image (for some hard-to-facetank bosses) or Venom Hydra
Stack Life per Hit (weapon, jewelry), add IAS if rich (more hits = more life regen).
SHIELD with at least +5% crit
Try to get some more +crit on jewelry, armor (15-20% bonus is probably enough)
Lots of +armor and resist all to boost effectiveness of diamond skin (vitality not as important)
Unstoppable; only die to some elite combos, completely immune to regular mobs due to frost nova spam. Strategy is to find as big of a pack of mofos as possible and leverage critical mass to cycle cooldowns. Elites are easier to kill when they are surrounded by regular mobs, etc due to the immense healing / diamond skin refreshes.
No force weapon or familiar, but time warp is perma-on so you get +20% DPS and the defensive factors. In co-op, everyone gets +35% DPS plus the benefit of your unbreakable tank.
Questions?
Disclaimer - build not created by me, saw it on a Bnet thread.
Venom Hydra does not crit nor trigger life on hit. It is still amazing damage output, but of course so is force weapon... Also, I for one am bored with the skill in general as it is on every other wizard build.
The trick with Meteor is that it not only has a high coefficient for life on hit, but the DoT component crits separately from the main attack, so each cast can generate multiple crits per target. This is actually the key that makes the build work at this point, and may be insurmountable if nerfed.
Venom Hydra does not crit nor trigger life on hit. It is still amazing damage output, but of course so is force weapon... Also, I for one am bored with the skill in general as it is on every other wizard build.
The trick with Meteor is that it not only has a high coefficient for life on hit, but the DoT component crits separately from the main attack, so each cast can generate multiple crits per target. This is actually the key that makes the build work at this point, and may be insurmountable if nerfed.
Oh I see, so the point is to survive for longer rather than killing things faster(as venom hydra would). How much critical% chance would you need to make diamond skin/frost nova spammable to kill rares/champions with comfort? Also I know the more resists/armor the better, but what would be a good starting point?
edit: Also why deep cuts? does it trigger more crits?
By the way, both timewarp and frost nova can be used to ease the big bosses by abusing their attack animations. Instead of spamming nova on cooldown, try to hit the beginning of an attack animation as the actual freeze is very short but the attack animation recovery is ~3 seconds. Timewarp makes this even easier to execute and further slows down the boss' damage output while nova is on cooldown (although I also like having mirror images to help tank / keep boss in place for meteor / critical mass hits).
Venom Hydra does not crit nor trigger life on hit. It is still amazing damage output, but of course so is force weapon... Also, I for one am bored with the skill in general as it is on every other wizard build.
The trick with Meteor is that it not only has a high coefficient for life on hit, but the DoT component crits separately from the main attack, so each cast can generate multiple crits per target. This is actually the key that makes the build work at this point, and may be insurmountable if nerfed.
Oh I see, so the point is to survive for longer rather than killing things faster(as venom hydra would). How much critical% chance would you need to make diamond skin/frost nova spammable to kill rares/champions with comfort? Also I know the more resists/armor the better, but what would be a good starting point?
edit: Also why deep cuts? does it trigger more crits?
Basically yes. I think that +15% crit is a good start, you can always run with poinpoint barrier if you are not getting enough critical mass procs to stay alive. A good judge would be to face 4 elites; it is better to fight 4 at one time than 3 due to more targets being hit. For elites, frost nova being spammable does not help a huge amount because of the shortened duration so you still have to play intelligently, stay out of fire, move for mortars and whatnot. I have +24% movement speed as part of my gear and could not conceive parting with it for any reason.
Deep cuts has a very high coefficient with life on hit, and I believe (not 100% sure) that the DoT crits as well.
Venom Hydra does not crit nor trigger life on hit. It is still amazing damage output, but of course so is force weapon... Also, I for one am bored with the skill in general as it is on every other wizard build.
The trick with Meteor is that it not only has a high coefficient for life on hit, but the DoT component crits separately from the main attack, so each cast can generate multiple crits per target. This is actually the key that makes the build work at this point, and may be insurmountable if nerfed.
Oh I see, so the point is to survive for longer rather than killing things faster(as venom hydra would). How much critical% chance would you need to make diamond skin/frost nova spammable to kill rares/champions with comfort? Also I know the more resists/armor the better, but what would be a good starting point?
edit: Also why deep cuts? does it trigger more crits?
Basically yes. I think that +15% crit is a good start, you can always run with poinpoint barrier if you are not getting enough critical mass procs to stay alive. A good judge would be to face 4 elites; it is better to fight 4 at one time than 3 due to more targets being hit. For elites, frost nova being spammable does not help a huge amount because of the shortened duration so you still have to play intelligently, stay out of fire, move for mortars and whatnot. I have +24% movement speed as part of my gear and could not conceive parting with it for any reason.
Deep cuts has a very high coefficient with life on hit, and I believe (not 100% sure) that the DoT crits as well.
wouldnt it be better to have healing blades since youll already have high crit chance?
Just wondering about this build. Firstly I assume this relies soooo much on gear considering it must be like barbs just with more dmg I guess. But more important how much does the "never die" aspect rely on having diamond skin up most of the time over actually tanking stuff and not just being cd reliant
Diamond skin is essential, but it is only one part of the equation. The big picture is that you are doing a lot of things to stay alive. You are:
1) Perma-freezing white mobs, slowing down number of incoming attacks from champions with frost nova.
2) Recovering life for every target hit by each attack.
3) Slowing down attack speed / movement / missile speed of your enemies.
Diamond skin is essentially 40k life on demand that benefits from your armor and resistances. While it is up, you should be able to keep your actual life full with healing. When it is not up, you need to be finding more targets to crit
The gear is honestly not a huge issue, as not a lot of people are buying int shields with crit, etc. The one big problem that I have with the build is that treasure critters are fairly hard to kill in a timely manner (solved by grouping or changing spec, as you don't really have any auto-targeting skills so you can choose when to engage the critter).
Venom Hydra does not crit nor trigger life on hit. It is still amazing damage output, but of course so is force weapon... Also, I for one am bored with the skill in general as it is on every other wizard build.
The trick with Meteor is that it not only has a high coefficient for life on hit, but the DoT component crits separately from the main attack, so each cast can generate multiple crits per target. This is actually the key that makes the build work at this point, and may be insurmountable if nerfed.
Oh I see, so the point is to survive for longer rather than killing things faster(as venom hydra would). How much critical% chance would you need to make diamond skin/frost nova spammable to kill rares/champions with comfort? Also I know the more resists/armor the better, but what would be a good starting point?
edit: Also why deep cuts? does it trigger more crits?
Basically yes. I think that +15% crit is a good start, you can always run with poinpoint barrier if you are not getting enough critical mass procs to stay alive. A good judge would be to face 4 elites; it is better to fight 4 at one time than 3 due to more targets being hit. For elites, frost nova being spammable does not help a huge amount because of the shortened duration so you still have to play intelligently, stay out of fire, move for mortars and whatnot. I have +24% movement speed as part of my gear and could not conceive parting with it for any reason.
Deep cuts has a very high coefficient with life on hit, and I believe (not 100% sure) that the DoT crits as well.
wouldnt it be better to have healing blades since youll already have high crit chance?
Healing Blades is garbage; it has a lower Life on Hit coefficient and the lifesteal does not even bridge the gap with current gear levels; not to mention that you lose the extra damage output. Considering that current gear levels are already sufficient to farm the game; it does seem like Bliz has significantly dropped the ball when it comes to "leech" skills (which have their effectiveness further divided by 5 in Inferno, by the way).
Blur
Evocation
Spectral Blade > Deep Cuts
Meteor > Star Pact
Diamond Skin > Crystal Shell
Frost Nova > Cold Snap (+damage nova for coop)
Force / Prismatic Armor (pinpoint barrier for coop)
Time Warp, Mirror Image (for some hard-to-facetank bosses) or Venom Hydra
Stack Life per Hit (weapon, jewelry), add IAS if rich (more hits = more life regen).
SHIELD with at least +5% crit
Try to get some more +crit on jewelry, armor (15-20% bonus is probably enough)
Lots of +armor and resist all to boost effectiveness of diamond skin (vitality not as important)
Unstoppable; only die to some elite combos, completely immune to regular mobs due to frost nova spam. Strategy is to find as big of a pack of mofos as possible and leverage critical mass to cycle cooldowns. Elites are easier to kill when they are surrounded by regular mobs, etc due to the immense healing / diamond skin refreshes.
No force weapon or familiar, but time warp is perma-on so you get +20% DPS and the defensive factors. In co-op, everyone gets +35% DPS plus the benefit of your unbreakable tank.
Questions?
Disclaimer - build not created by me, saw it on a Bnet thread.
PS - facetanking is fun!
The trick with Meteor is that it not only has a high coefficient for life on hit, but the DoT component crits separately from the main attack, so each cast can generate multiple crits per target. This is actually the key that makes the build work at this point, and may be insurmountable if nerfed.
edit: Also why deep cuts? does it trigger more crits?
Basically yes. I think that +15% crit is a good start, you can always run with poinpoint barrier if you are not getting enough critical mass procs to stay alive. A good judge would be to face 4 elites; it is better to fight 4 at one time than 3 due to more targets being hit. For elites, frost nova being spammable does not help a huge amount because of the shortened duration so you still have to play intelligently, stay out of fire, move for mortars and whatnot. I have +24% movement speed as part of my gear and could not conceive parting with it for any reason.
Deep cuts has a very high coefficient with life on hit, and I believe (not 100% sure) that the DoT crits as well.
Diamond skin is essential, but it is only one part of the equation. The big picture is that you are doing a lot of things to stay alive. You are:
1) Perma-freezing white mobs, slowing down number of incoming attacks from champions with frost nova.
2) Recovering life for every target hit by each attack.
3) Slowing down attack speed / movement / missile speed of your enemies.
Diamond skin is essentially 40k life on demand that benefits from your armor and resistances. While it is up, you should be able to keep your actual life full with healing. When it is not up, you need to be finding more targets to crit
The gear is honestly not a huge issue, as not a lot of people are buying int shields with crit, etc. The one big problem that I have with the build is that treasure critters are fairly hard to kill in a timely manner (solved by grouping or changing spec, as you don't really have any auto-targeting skills so you can choose when to engage the critter).
Healing Blades is garbage; it has a lower Life on Hit coefficient and the lifesteal does not even bridge the gap with current gear levels; not to mention that you lose the extra damage output. Considering that current gear levels are already sufficient to farm the game; it does seem like Bliz has significantly dropped the ball when it comes to "leech" skills (which have their effectiveness further divided by 5 in Inferno, by the way).