very well done post thank you for putting the main builds in all one place
side note how much effective health is needed to not get owned with an archon build in act 3
Hi guys on the subject of EHP, I've been testing this out with a naked (gasp!) wiz
Theres a damage range to hits so I have listed the max:
Colossal Gol - 159k (the big hit)
Phase beasts(elite) - 128k (bonus! Firechains 29k)
Swift skull cleaver - 177k
Demonic tremor - 160k dodgable big hit, 100k 1hand hit
I was also under the impression that elites get a 25% dmg boost? Can someone confirm
Testing was done till 30sec death timer respawn reached and I remade
So it looks like 180k is the min you can get away with atm
I also dont think you should include dodge chance in EHP calcs for force armour. However successful hits will often 'bleed' through if you're dancing on the edge.
Really appreciate that info That would put the max damage around 200k if you factor in +25% elite damage. I dont have it confirmed but it's the only number thrown around that I've seen. That gives another potential threshhold of about 164k to optimize Force Armor usage for those hits, 148k if you ignore the skull cleaver.
If I take into accout the naked armor and resists of 60 and 17 respectively (with Glass Cannon, if you didn't have Glass Cannon it will be a bit different) that 177k hit is actually 190k base damage using a calculated total damage reduction of around 7% naked. That means the thresshold would be 176k EHP for the elite skull cleaver, 159k EHP for the other hits. For comparison the other mob damage is expectected to have a max damage around 159k for elites, so the elites can hit as hard as normal tremors and Gols.
With around 120k EHP a normal skull cleaver would hit for 70k or a little over half your health if you have Force Armor. The Tremor would likewise bleed through for around 50k or a little below half your life. Elite versions would hit for around 238k and 215k respectively so a skull cleaver would practically one shot you with 120k EHP while the tremor would smash for some 70% of your health. That actually sounds about right.
I don't suppose you tested the fireball damage from the Molok's (or whatever they're called) and those other fireball hurling guys in Act 3, or any bosses?
EDIT: Those thressholds would be mostly optional because, as Morphos said a few posts up, these attacks should be avoided. I do want to add that trying to avoid elite tremor attacks is easier said than done because they're rediculously fast. With 12% movement speed if I run continuously I still can get caught and hit, so if you farm that part of Act 3, the higher EHP threshhold should be considered, imo.
elite tremors hits are not easy to avoid by any means they are way too fast, so I think the optimal ehp to famr an area with them would be around 150-160k EHP.
I have question. Used Piercing Orb for awhile, but recently switched it to Electrocute
- Lightning Blast. While i see downside - you have to stand and shoot much often to make use of high atack speed, i wonder why no one uses it in groups for example. Is it realy worse than Piercing Orb? I pesonely use it in solo too - PO gets annoing when it misses long range target.
I've used both at various points and each has their advantage. I think the main advantage of LB over Porb is if you have +AP on crit since LB shoots faster and more often. From a damage stand point I don't actually know which does more dps but I would guess Porb, if you're standing still and shooting constantly, and can hit what you're aiming at.
Thanks OP for this informative post. Its nice to have someone willing to put in the effort to help educate the rest of the player base. I was wondering if you would mind if I repost this information on my website, Diablo 3 Inferno Builds . I'd like to help spread this information and I would include back link back to this site so it is evident where the information came from. This site just started roughly three weeks ago and i've been working on filling it with some quality content so I hope you consider it! Thanks again for the information.
Thanks OP for this informative post. Its nice to have someone willing to put in the effort to help educate the rest of the player base. I was wondering if you would mind if I repost this information on my website, Diablo 3 Inferno Builds . I'd like to help spread this information and I would include back link back to this site so it is evident where the information came from. This site just started roughly three weeks ago and i've been working on filling it with some quality content so I hope you consider it! Thanks again for the information.
I don't mind you linking it at all as long as you attribute it and don't claim it as your own.
What i am interested in is, why not use familiar with sprk flint instead of a venom hydra?
You then will do extra dps and u don't have to pop the hydra all the time.
According to most sources, Cold Blooded increases all damage, not just cold damage. This makes it, in my opinion, superior to Galvanizing Ward in a Blizzard kiting build. I also found that after going away from Galvanizing Ward my Energy Armor uptime improved to pretty much 100%, from a before a bit more sloppy uptime. I'm guessing the fact that it's shorter increased my awareness on it.
Furthermore a reflection on hardcore, Wormhole is excellent for hardcore due to Teleport sometimes bugging out and getting you nowhere. Wormhole allows for multiple chances to get away in these cases. I also go with Blur over Glass Canon but this should be fairly obvious why. You're not suppose to be hit with a kiting spec yes, but Vortex, Teleporter or Fast will usually net you a few melee swings, so the 20% reduction is nice.
What i am interested in is, why not use familiar with sprk flint instead of a venom hydra?
You then will do extra dps and u don't have to pop the hydra all the time.
That depends what build you're asking about. If you're working on progression with a kiting build, hydra is more or less essential because of its high damage per cast. It allows you to drop it and focus more on not getting attacked then having to worry about weaving in extra spells to do damage. Granted you'll likely be doing that anyway but if you're kiting in a small enough area that the hydra has close to 100% uptime on what you're kiting, the damage per cast is amazing. On bosses, it will increase your damage output by far more than the 12% the sparkflint will do because of that high damage per cast.
You really should experiment with critical mass build, it is clearly the 2nd most overpowered build in the game right now, with the first being the sprint barb (check kripp's videos for it).
Here's a part of a run I did with this build in act 2:
Of course act 3 is perfectly do-able, but some rare elite packs are incredibly annoying. Not that I have to skip any, but dying 2-3 times on such a pack and having 1-3 such packs in a run can be very time consuming when you have to run back at them from the checkpoint. After some gear upgrades I managed to get the number of annoying elite packs down enough so that I can clear it in 2-3 hours, which I think makes it more worthwhile than the 90-100 minutes it normally takes to clear act 2. Clearing all zones and dungeons of all elites of course, to minimize the need to create new games and lose valor buffs.
Of course, until you have good enough crit and AP on crit (which you should really get even if you're playing low budget due to how overpowered this build is, just sacrifice as much damage as you have to in order to get it to fit in your budget), I think bliz/hydra is the best because it can simply avoid just about anything deadly while slowly picking at it until it dies. But again, I doubt you can't gear a critical mass wizard at least for act 1 farming with only 700k gold (which is about what you should have when you hit 60 for the first time).
What i am interested in is, why not use familiar with sprk flint instead of a venom hydra?
You then will do extra dps and u don't have to pop the hydra all the time.
That depends what build you're asking about. If you're working on progression with a kiting build, hydra is more or less essential because of its high damage per cast. It allows you to drop it and focus more on not getting attacked then having to worry about weaving in extra spells to do damage. Granted you'll likely be doing that anyway but if you're kiting in a small enough area that the hydra has close to 100% uptime on what you're kiting, the damage per cast is amazing. On bosses, it will increase your damage output by far more than the 12% the sparkflint will do because of that high damage per cast.
I am reffering to the blizzard kiting build, the 1st build he is talking about in his post.
Mobs do get slowed, but i feel i still have to run a lot around and sometimes i hardly get time to spam piercing orb to some damage.
Atm i have buffed around 24k dps and 25k hp
You really should experiment with critical mass build, it is clearly the 2nd most overpowered build in the game right now, with the first being the sprint barb (check kripp's videos for it).
Here's a part of a run I did with this build in act 2:
Of course act 3 is perfectly do-able, but some rare elite packs are incredibly annoying. Not that I have to skip any, but dying 2-3 times on such a pack and having 1-3 such packs in a run can be very time consuming when you have to run back at them from the checkpoint. After some gear upgrades I managed to get the number of annoying elite packs down enough so that I can clear it in 2-3 hours, which I think makes it more worthwhile than the 90-100 minutes it normally takes to clear act 2. Clearing all zones and dungeons of all elites of course, to minimize the need to create new games and lose valor buffs.
Of course, until you have good enough crit and AP on crit (which you should really get even if you're playing low budget due to how overpowered this build is, just sacrifice as much damage as you have to in order to get it to fit in your budget), I think bliz/hydra is the best because it can simply avoid just about anything deadly while slowly picking at it until it dies. But again, I doubt you can't gear a critical mass wizard at least for act 1 farming with only 700k gold (which is about what you should have when you hit 60 for the first time).
Looks great on the vid, but u dont have any MF... are you still getting any good items at all? Also why are you the templar and not teh scoundrel?
What i am interested in is, why not use familiar with sprk flint instead of a venom hydra?
You then will do extra dps and u don't have to pop the hydra all the time.
That depends what build you're asking about. If you're working on progression with a kiting build, hydra is more or less essential because of its high damage per cast. It allows you to drop it and focus more on not getting attacked then having to worry about weaving in extra spells to do damage. Granted you'll likely be doing that anyway but if you're kiting in a small enough area that the hydra has close to 100% uptime on what you're kiting, the damage per cast is amazing. On bosses, it will increase your damage output by far more than the 12% the sparkflint will do because of that high damage per cast.
I am reffering to the blizzard kiting build, the 1st build he is talking about in his post.
Mobs do get slowed, but i feel i still have to run a lot around and sometimes i hardly get time to spam piercing orb to some damage.
Atm i have buffed around 24k dps and 25k hp
The reason hydra is a staple in the build is you can toss a blizzard then toss the hydra and while you're running away the hydra is still doing damage. Without hydra you do very little damage as you're kiting and instead are reliant on stopping to cast more piercing orbs, which raises risk of mobs catching up or getting into teleport/vortex range, etc. It is also my experience with fast mobs that I tend to spend a lot of time running so being able to just drop a hydra somewhere is much easier to manage on the fly then aiming an orb at the mobs chasing me.
Also regarding bosses, you might find the enrage timers even more strict if you drop hydra because it does so much damage. When I first got past Act 1 and decided to try some farming, I was easily able to kill Butcher before the enrage with the kiting build. Then I tried changing out Hydra for Magic Weapon to see if it made farming any easier. It did, sort of, but when I got to Butcher, I couldn't beat his enrage anymore and had to reset my skills to kill him. Granted, I only had around 20k dps or so at the time, but it can't really be stressed enough how much damage that hydra can do, especially if you don't greatly outgear the content. I dropped it in my arcane orb spec for Act 1 farming (45k dps in MF gear), but if I go back to Act 3 farming I would likely put hydra back into my spec.
Still, feel free to try it yourself if you haven't already.
What i am interested in is, why not use familiar with sprk flint instead of a venom hydra?
You then will do extra dps and u don't have to pop the hydra all the time.
That depends what build you're asking about. If you're working on progression with a kiting build, hydra is more or less essential because of its high damage per cast. It allows you to drop it and focus more on not getting attacked then having to worry about weaving in extra spells to do damage. Granted you'll likely be doing that anyway but if you're kiting in a small enough area that the hydra has close to 100% uptime on what you're kiting, the damage per cast is amazing. On bosses, it will increase your damage output by far more than the 12% the sparkflint will do because of that high damage per cast.
I am reffering to the blizzard kiting build, the 1st build he is talking about in his post.
Mobs do get slowed, but i feel i still have to run a lot around and sometimes i hardly get time to spam piercing orb to some damage.
Atm i have buffed around 24k dps and 25k hp
The reason hydra is a staple in the build is you can toss a blizzard then toss the hydra and while you're running away the hydra is still doing damage. Without hydra you do very little damage as you're kiting and instead are reliant on stopping to cast more piercing orbs, which raises risk of mobs catching up or getting into teleport/vortex range, etc. It is also my experience with fast mobs that I tend to spend a lot of time running so being able to just drop a hydra somewhere is much easier to manage on the fly then aiming an orb at the mobs chasing me.
Also regarding bosses, you might find the enrage timers even more strict if you drop hydra because it does so much damage. When I first got past Act 1 and decided to try some farming, I was easily able to kill Butcher before the enrage with the kiting build. Then I tried changing out Hydra for Magic Weapon to see if it made farming any easier. It did, sort of, but when I got to Butcher, I couldn't beat his enrage anymore and had to reset my skills to kill him. Granted, I only had around 20k dps or so at the time, but it can't really be stressed enough how much damage that hydra can do, especially if you don't greatly outgear the content. I dropped it in my arcane orb spec for Act 1 farming (45k dps in MF gear), but if I go back to Act 3 farming I would likely put hydra back into my spec.
Still, feel free to try it yourself if you haven't already.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense!
Could you be so kind as to explain why the venom hydra and now one of the others? Would wicked wind rune with twister also be good for this situation, probably costs to much?
Thanks for your repley!
This makes a lot of sense! Should have reasoned that out myself Indeed the hydra is doing damge while i am running away, where as i am not not doing much of anything with sparkflint. This is only effective while standing still. I tried using diamond skin instead of teleport, but my gear isnt of high enough quality yet to make that viable option yet.
Thanks for your repley!
This makes a lot of sense! Should have reasoned that out myself Indeed the hydra is doing damge while i am running away, where as i am not not doing much of anything with sparkflint. This is only effective while standing still. I tried using diamond skin instead of teleport, but my gear isnt of high enough quality yet to make that viable option yet.
****
so i just got lvl 60 yesterday. I changed my build after i read ur repley and its amazing! With just around 21k dps i can kill all the champ and elite packs i encounter up till now. All that is important though is to kinda remeber where on the map u walked, so u can pick up ur loot
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense!
Could you be so kind as to explain why the venom hydra and now one of the others? Would wicked wind rune with twister also be good for this situation, probably costs to much?
Thanks for your repley!
This makes a lot of sense! Should have reasoned that out myself Indeed the hydra is doing damge while i am running away, where as i am not not doing much of anything with sparkflint. This is only effective while standing still. I tried using diamond skin instead of teleport, but my gear isnt of high enough quality yet to make that viable option yet.
The venom hydra is the most used rune because when it hits mobs the venom also drops a pool that hurt mobs for as long as they're in it. Last I heard the pools stack also, which leads to a lot of potential damage, particularly on bosses that are slow moving or stationary like Belial. For the Arcane Orb kiting spec Arcane hydra is used because the arcane damage slows mobs through Temporal Flux passive. The loss of boss dps is usually made up for by at least slightly out gearing content, so it is more of a farming spec then progression spec. None of the other hydras are used in any of the specs discussed in the OP, or any widely used specs that I have seen.
I don't think Wicked Wind would be very useful because it is a stationary aoe, like blizzard, whereas the hydra shoots so it can hit mobs in a much wider area. WW is mostly for critical mass builds with high crit % to reset CDs on spells like DS and frost nova. You might get use out of it if you can kite mobs in a small circle around it, but in that case Venom Hydra does the same thing.
Also, the easiest way to find the loot of mobs you just killed is to find an obsticle and kite in a circle, like if there's a cave on the map in the Act 3 battlefield, clear the area around the cave, then any elites you find, kite them in that direction and then keep moving around the cave. Some affixes might require a larger kiting radius, and others you can just kite in place.
You really should experiment with critical mass build, it is clearly the 2nd most overpowered build in the game right now, with the first being the sprint barb (check kripp's videos for it).
Frankly, I think the CM build is more of an outlier than tornado barbs. Kripp has some great instructional videos, but the stats he achieved with 900k a few weeks ago are not doable anymore. The gear requirements are similar, they both have some issue with monsters who can kite you, but the wizard is more durable (ironically) in poor to average gear and at current AH prices setting up a tornado barb with even mediocre stats is becoming prohibitively expensive.
This may be due in large part to the fact int and dex are more commonly rolled stats than strength, the fact barbs became fotm a while back, or the issue with finding two 1h weapons with appropriate stats vs. relatively cheap 1h and offhand, but that's the reality at present.
Being in a position to choose between the two, i'm leveling my wizard.
@OP, Very well written guide that's sure to save me a lot of time while working on my wizard. You have my thanks.
Cold Snap vs Bone Chill: Better for packs of 3 elites or less.
Shock Armor - Shocking Aspect: This DOUBLES your Energy Twister damage!!!
Teleport - Fracture: Allows you to Freeze/DPS any monsters on your screen at once.
Evocation - Makes single target perma-freeze possible w/Cold Snap.
Please note: You require physical res of 700 unbuffed, playing with a Barb brings this to 1000.
I have 1.71 Attack Speed
41% Crit hit chance
30kdps
I can steam roll act 3 with a barb.
Word.
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side note how much effective health is needed to not get owned with an archon build in act 3
elite tremors hits are not easy to avoid by any means they are way too fast, so I think the optimal ehp to famr an area with them would be around 150-160k EHP.
I've used both at various points and each has their advantage. I think the main advantage of LB over Porb is if you have +AP on crit since LB shoots faster and more often. From a damage stand point I don't actually know which does more dps but I would guess Porb, if you're standing still and shooting constantly, and can hit what you're aiming at.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
I don't mind you linking it at all as long as you attribute it and don't claim it as your own.
Some amazing information in here.
Love all the different builds and in dept information about them.
Also the gear section is great as well.
I just hit 60 with my wiz last night and will be referencing this thread a LOT, thanks Morphos!
First of all great post!
What i am interested in is, why not use familiar with sprk flint instead of a venom hydra?
You then will do extra dps and u don't have to pop the hydra all the time.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Storm-21498/hero/47687845
Furthermore a reflection on hardcore, Wormhole is excellent for hardcore due to Teleport sometimes bugging out and getting you nowhere. Wormhole allows for multiple chances to get away in these cases. I also go with Blur over Glass Canon but this should be fairly obvious why. You're not suppose to be hit with a kiting spec yes, but Vortex, Teleporter or Fast will usually net you a few melee swings, so the 20% reduction is nice.
That depends what build you're asking about. If you're working on progression with a kiting build, hydra is more or less essential because of its high damage per cast. It allows you to drop it and focus more on not getting attacked then having to worry about weaving in extra spells to do damage. Granted you'll likely be doing that anyway but if you're kiting in a small enough area that the hydra has close to 100% uptime on what you're kiting, the damage per cast is amazing. On bosses, it will increase your damage output by far more than the 12% the sparkflint will do because of that high damage per cast.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Here's a part of a run I did with this build in act 2:
Of course act 3 is perfectly do-able, but some rare elite packs are incredibly annoying. Not that I have to skip any, but dying 2-3 times on such a pack and having 1-3 such packs in a run can be very time consuming when you have to run back at them from the checkpoint. After some gear upgrades I managed to get the number of annoying elite packs down enough so that I can clear it in 2-3 hours, which I think makes it more worthwhile than the 90-100 minutes it normally takes to clear act 2. Clearing all zones and dungeons of all elites of course, to minimize the need to create new games and lose valor buffs.
Of course, until you have good enough crit and AP on crit (which you should really get even if you're playing low budget due to how overpowered this build is, just sacrifice as much damage as you have to in order to get it to fit in your budget), I think bliz/hydra is the best because it can simply avoid just about anything deadly while slowly picking at it until it dies. But again, I doubt you can't gear a critical mass wizard at least for act 1 farming with only 700k gold (which is about what you should have when you hit 60 for the first time).
Wouldn't Dream of it, thanks Morphos
I am reffering to the blizzard kiting build, the 1st build he is talking about in his post.
Mobs do get slowed, but i feel i still have to run a lot around and sometimes i hardly get time to spam piercing orb to some damage.
Atm i have buffed around 24k dps and 25k hp
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Storm-21498/hero/47687845
Looks great on the vid, but u dont have any MF... are you still getting any good items at all? Also why are you the templar and not teh scoundrel?
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Storm-21498/hero/47687845
The reason hydra is a staple in the build is you can toss a blizzard then toss the hydra and while you're running away the hydra is still doing damage. Without hydra you do very little damage as you're kiting and instead are reliant on stopping to cast more piercing orbs, which raises risk of mobs catching up or getting into teleport/vortex range, etc. It is also my experience with fast mobs that I tend to spend a lot of time running so being able to just drop a hydra somewhere is much easier to manage on the fly then aiming an orb at the mobs chasing me.
Also regarding bosses, you might find the enrage timers even more strict if you drop hydra because it does so much damage. When I first got past Act 1 and decided to try some farming, I was easily able to kill Butcher before the enrage with the kiting build. Then I tried changing out Hydra for Magic Weapon to see if it made farming any easier. It did, sort of, but when I got to Butcher, I couldn't beat his enrage anymore and had to reset my skills to kill him. Granted, I only had around 20k dps or so at the time, but it can't really be stressed enough how much damage that hydra can do, especially if you don't greatly outgear the content. I dropped it in my arcane orb spec for Act 1 farming (45k dps in MF gear), but if I go back to Act 3 farming I would likely put hydra back into my spec.
Still, feel free to try it yourself if you haven't already.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense!
Could you be so kind as to explain why the venom hydra and now one of the others? Would wicked wind rune with twister also be good for this situation, probably costs to much?
Thanks for your repley!
This makes a lot of sense! Should have reasoned that out myself Indeed the hydra is doing damge while i am running away, where as i am not not doing much of anything with sparkflint. This is only effective while standing still. I tried using diamond skin instead of teleport, but my gear isnt of high enough quality yet to make that viable option yet.
Thanks for your repley!
This makes a lot of sense! Should have reasoned that out myself Indeed the hydra is doing damge while i am running away, where as i am not not doing much of anything with sparkflint. This is only effective while standing still. I tried using diamond skin instead of teleport, but my gear isnt of high enough quality yet to make that viable option yet.
****
so i just got lvl 60 yesterday. I changed my build after i read ur repley and its amazing! With just around 21k dps i can kill all the champ and elite packs i encounter up till now. All that is important though is to kinda remeber where on the map u walked, so u can pick up ur loot
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Storm-21498/hero/47687845
The venom hydra is the most used rune because when it hits mobs the venom also drops a pool that hurt mobs for as long as they're in it. Last I heard the pools stack also, which leads to a lot of potential damage, particularly on bosses that are slow moving or stationary like Belial. For the Arcane Orb kiting spec Arcane hydra is used because the arcane damage slows mobs through Temporal Flux passive. The loss of boss dps is usually made up for by at least slightly out gearing content, so it is more of a farming spec then progression spec. None of the other hydras are used in any of the specs discussed in the OP, or any widely used specs that I have seen.
I don't think Wicked Wind would be very useful because it is a stationary aoe, like blizzard, whereas the hydra shoots so it can hit mobs in a much wider area. WW is mostly for critical mass builds with high crit % to reset CDs on spells like DS and frost nova. You might get use out of it if you can kite mobs in a small circle around it, but in that case Venom Hydra does the same thing.
Also, the easiest way to find the loot of mobs you just killed is to find an obsticle and kite in a circle, like if there's a cave on the map in the Act 3 battlefield, clear the area around the cave, then any elites you find, kite them in that direction and then keep moving around the cave. Some affixes might require a larger kiting radius, and others you can just kite in place.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Frankly, I think the CM build is more of an outlier than tornado barbs. Kripp has some great instructional videos, but the stats he achieved with 900k a few weeks ago are not doable anymore. The gear requirements are similar, they both have some issue with monsters who can kite you, but the wizard is more durable (ironically) in poor to average gear and at current AH prices setting up a tornado barb with even mediocre stats is becoming prohibitively expensive.
This may be due in large part to the fact int and dex are more commonly rolled stats than strength, the fact barbs became fotm a while back, or the issue with finding two 1h weapons with appropriate stats vs. relatively cheap 1h and offhand, but that's the reality at present.
Being in a position to choose between the two, i'm leveling my wizard.
@OP, Very well written guide that's sure to save me a lot of time while working on my wizard. You have my thanks.
http://us.battle.net...YXhT!gWb!YYZacc
Cold Snap vs Bone Chill: Better for packs of 3 elites or less.
Shock Armor - Shocking Aspect: This DOUBLES your Energy Twister damage!!!
Teleport - Fracture: Allows you to Freeze/DPS any monsters on your screen at once.
Evocation - Makes single target perma-freeze possible w/Cold Snap.
Please note: You require physical res of 700 unbuffed, playing with a Barb brings this to 1000.
I have 1.71 Attack Speed
41% Crit hit chance
30kdps
I can steam roll act 3 with a barb.
Word.