I just got to act 3 with 22k unbuffed DPS on my arcane glass cannon (I know, it's really low). Act 3's very beginning is obviously a brick wall to me so I was wondering, just how high should my DPS be by the end of A3?
I have 46k DPS and 120k EHP with force armor and glass cannon and I cleared act 3 and act 4 without any problem
I switched to tank build where I was not able to kite though, due to the small space of the tower of the damned
The entry level gear for that build is about 2mln worthy
I appreciate the advice, but I'm not a fan of melee wizard builds since they have to spam a lot of skills relatively quickly and require more money than I have time to farm out. Trying to boost my DPS by getting my crit% from 20% to 30-35% is going to be tough for me though, since rings and bracers with high int, crit%, and RA/vit costs stupidly large sums of gold (no way am I touching the RMAH).
I cleared Act 3 when around 30-35k dps before the enrages were added to the bosses, so aside from Ghom, you can full clear with around that much. 22k seems a bit low but you can probably progress through to ghom, you just might have to skip a few elite packs. I don't know what sort of dps is required to beat the enrage on ghom though. The rest of the zone is most of the same, you can progress, you just might have to skip a few packs.
I say it all the time but I recommend looking at a spreadsheet to help upgrade gear so you can put the items in before your purchase to get the most out of your money. Weapons (and OHs if you have 1h+OH) tend to give very big upgrades but of course it all depends on your gear. Also you don't need a lot of Vit/RA if you're using a ranged glass cannon build with Force Armor. You just want to maintain a healthy EHP level around 118k or so for elites (higher EHP might help on a few mobs but is mostly wasted). EHP is effective hit points that converts all your defensive stats into an equivalent amount of hit points to make survivability easy to compare. Depending on your build I also recommend using 2 defensive CDs for progression even if that means losing some dps. I preferred DS and Teleport, with illusionist passive, though Mirror Images is also a good one.
I think the difficulty starts to lift substantially somewhere in the 40k-50k DPS range for ranged, non-Archon builds. Before that it really feels like you're beating your head against the wall - it's possible to progress, but really slow going. Somewhere in that range it feels like breaking through the wall and enemies start dying.
We all have our definition on what 'farming' is, some claim to easily farm at what ever DPS but personally I dont see that kind of DPS as 'farming' state, I would personally say that one would need 75k single buffed ( either GC or Force Weapon ) to have a 'farm' state in Act3.
i'm at 82k fully buffed. glass cannon magic weapon and familiar with 500 resist all. trying to hit 100k right now. but i need a weapon thats 1050 with a socket
Tank wizards have deceptively high dps due to the constant fluctuation of arcane power. Don't sell a tank build short, its expensive sure but with constant chain reactions of explosive blast echoing through mobs and amplified by frost nova + cold blooded is nothing short of impressive. Just my two cents but i think its a far superior build and beats kiting any day of the week. Though it is fun to see those huge numbers its almost as fun to see lots of mediocre numbers popping up
Tank wizards have deceptively high dps due to the constant fluctuation of arcane power. Don't sell a tank build short, its expensive sure but with constant chain reactions of explosive blast echoing through mobs and amplified by frost nova + cold blooded is nothing short of impressive. Just my two cents but i think its a far superior build and beats kiting any day of the week. Though it is fun to see those huge numbers its almost as fun to see lots of mediocre numbers popping up
Tank wizards have deceptively high dps due to the constant fluctuation of arcane power. Don't sell a tank build short, its expensive sure but with constant chain reactions of explosive blast echoing through mobs and amplified by frost nova + cold blooded is nothing short of impressive. Just my two cents but i think its a far superior build and beats kiting any day of the week. Though it is fun to see those huge numbers its almost as fun to see lots of mediocre numbers popping up
While they are very effective, I thought molten/plagued/AE affixes were a nightmare for this build?
not when u perma freeze mobs most of the time(including champ packs), its more a matter of good posiotioning, but yeah arcane sentry can still whipe the floor with you happen to be in their way unless you have insane res/armor/life(which some of the people playing this spec have!), the melee spec has loh/ls to get life back.
what is some of the best ways to up dps, currently sitting around 22k, and only in act 2 just get more 63 gear, higher weapon? or more int?
Without knowing anything about your gear, it's a little tough to give advice. The basics are: if you're using a shield and tank spec, 22k is actually very high dps. If you're using a kiting spec, you shouldn't be using a shield, in case you are. Weapons and sources provide a lot of dps and are often the quickest way to increase your dps. Otherwise you need to start branching out to gear with INT+other dps stats like crit, crit damage, or increased attack speed (IAS).
Quick rundown on stats found on gear besides INT:
Rings, Amulets, Gloves can all have crit %, crit damage, and/or IAS
Helm, Bracer, Sources and Shields can all have crit %
Weapon can have socket that gives crit damage or native crit damage (or both!)
And my #1 advice given when people want to try improving dps, especially when weapons and/or sources are involved: use a spreadsheet. For your armor slots, it's often easy to just find stuff with as much or more int but a little more crit, for example. For weapons, you often want to consider INT, weapon DPS, sockets, native crit damage, even attack speed and the best way to compare various combinations of those is a spreadsheet.
When I tried a DPS build (glass cannon with magic weapon and familiar) upping my DPS to like 80k, stuff still seemed to die slower than the 60k dps critical mass (wicked wind) build, not to mention dying a lot lot less. I might sound a bit like a broken record here, but that critical mass build is really overpowered, and if you don't have the gold to use it, just sacrifice DPS until you have the stats required (enough crit and arcane power on crit to spam all your spells). Once you never ever die it doesn't matter if it takes you a bit longer to kill stuff, not to mention explosive blast is so strong when spammed that you will kill faster even if your character screen shows much less DPS.
The DPS you need for your survival stats to not matter is insane. I wouldn't even think going that route (for act 3, at least) and I have several items that cost much me more than 10 million gold...
Seems a lot of folks inflate their numbers over picking viable specs. For instance, stacking IAS and what not despite losing all semblance of survivability. Then the echo chamber cries, "OMG!!!111 I hav 150k DPS anD diE n 1 HiT!!!11 sToopID gaME!!11!"
TLDR = your DPS isn't necessarily an indicator of success.
Case in point, my DPS is around 42k (buffed) and I do fine in Act3 until I hit a pack with the Invulnerable/Fast combo. My spec is centered on a slow 2H with massive amounts of Life After Kill (cheap) and I use trash mobs to stay alive... 25% run speed and teleport helps me drag elites into trash to keep that red orb full.
i'm at 82k fully buffed. glass cannon magic weapon and familiar with 500 resist all. trying to hit 100k right now. but i need a weapon thats 1050 with a socket
Tank wizards have deceptively high dps due to the constant fluctuation of arcane power. Don't sell a tank build short, its expensive sure but with constant chain reactions of explosive blast echoing through mobs and amplified by frost nova + cold blooded is nothing short of impressive. Just my two cents but i think its a far superior build and beats kiting any day of the week. Though it is fun to see those huge numbers its almost as fun to see lots of mediocre numbers popping up
Exactly. Chain Reaction is 291% weapon damage, that is Archon territory and I am spamming it as fast as I can hit the keys. It takes my 35k paper dps way way up. When I go 80k Archon build I get disappointed at how long act3 elites can take the full beam. I keep thinking at this point the fight would be over if I were using my melee build.
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Buffed or unbuffed? How far are you in A3?
I appreciate the advice, but I'm not a fan of melee wizard builds since they have to spam a lot of skills relatively quickly and require more money than I have time to farm out. Trying to boost my DPS by getting my crit% from 20% to 30-35% is going to be tough for me though, since rings and bracers with high int, crit%, and RA/vit costs stupidly large sums of gold (no way am I touching the RMAH).
I say it all the time but I recommend looking at a spreadsheet to help upgrade gear so you can put the items in before your purchase to get the most out of your money. Weapons (and OHs if you have 1h+OH) tend to give very big upgrades but of course it all depends on your gear. Also you don't need a lot of Vit/RA if you're using a ranged glass cannon build with Force Armor. You just want to maintain a healthy EHP level around 118k or so for elites (higher EHP might help on a few mobs but is mostly wasted). EHP is effective hit points that converts all your defensive stats into an equivalent amount of hit points to make survivability easy to compare. Depending on your build I also recommend using 2 defensive CDs for progression even if that means losing some dps. I preferred DS and Teleport, with illusionist passive, though Mirror Images is also a good one.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
- Sceleus, web master of Diablo 3 Inferno Builds
While they are very effective, I thought molten/plagued/AE affixes were a nightmare for this build?
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Without knowing anything about your gear, it's a little tough to give advice. The basics are: if you're using a shield and tank spec, 22k is actually very high dps. If you're using a kiting spec, you shouldn't be using a shield, in case you are. Weapons and sources provide a lot of dps and are often the quickest way to increase your dps. Otherwise you need to start branching out to gear with INT+other dps stats like crit, crit damage, or increased attack speed (IAS).
Quick rundown on stats found on gear besides INT:
Rings, Amulets, Gloves can all have crit %, crit damage, and/or IAS
Helm, Bracer, Sources and Shields can all have crit %
Weapon can have socket that gives crit damage or native crit damage (or both!)
And my #1 advice given when people want to try improving dps, especially when weapons and/or sources are involved: use a spreadsheet. For your armor slots, it's often easy to just find stuff with as much or more int but a little more crit, for example. For weapons, you often want to consider INT, weapon DPS, sockets, native crit damage, even attack speed and the best way to compare various combinations of those is a spreadsheet.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
The DPS you need for your survival stats to not matter is insane. I wouldn't even think going that route (for act 3, at least) and I have several items that cost much me more than 10 million gold...
TLDR = your DPS isn't necessarily an indicator of success.
Case in point, my DPS is around 42k (buffed) and I do fine in Act3 until I hit a pack with the Invulnerable/Fast combo. My spec is centered on a slow 2H with massive amounts of Life After Kill (cheap) and I use trash mobs to stay alive... 25% run speed and teleport helps me drag elites into trash to keep that red orb full.
Picture proof woth gear ?