I started to play Diablo again after the 2.0 patch, and started a Wizard. Tried a lot of builds, and Frozen Orb was my best skill for sometime.
After getting some +arcane dmg items before the expansion, I decided to try something else, and just loved the way Arcane Torrent - Cascade works, so I'm playing with a build based on it since then.
Sometimes my profile has a weird full DPS build with glass cannon+Temporal Flux. I use it for some T6 stuff only, like boss farm, etc. The link above shows my correct build.
Yesterday I found this awesome wand:
I can still reroll the +dmg to atk speed to get the same DPS as my current weapon (I dont know yet why rolling 9% dmg didn't changed the DPS of the weapon, I think it's because it's damage is arcane, but doesn't make much sense,).
So, because of the wand, I decided to try Desintegrate, with my arcane items, I tought that I would be able to do better than I'm doing now. I tried every rune, for quite some time. Turns out the result sucked for me. I can't even compare the DPS of both skills, single target/aoe, Arcane Torrent seems to be WAY superior on every dam aspect.
My question now: I'm using desintegrate wrong? The skill really sucks? Someone that uses it on his/her build, could please try to help me out? Or Arcane Torrent is just too awesome?
With my Wiz I can Melt stuff and not die on T1-T2-T3. Sometimes I do some old school Azmodan runs at T4, T5, still doing a pretty good job, and even some T6 bosses/events solo as well, but haven't tried Rifts on higher torments yet.
(I dont know yet why rolling 9% dmg didn't changed the DPS of the weapon, I think it's because it's damage is arcane, but doesn't make much sense,).
Are you saying it didn't change at all? As I under stand it, the % damage only affects the base damage of the weapon unless the bonus damage is non-elemental a.k.a. "black" damage.
Since the base damage of that wand (the damage without the arcane damage bonus) is 210 - 389, that 9% you re-rolled should be worth an extra 19 - 35 damage, or 40 DPS.
Which, of course, is hilarious, but should still have changed the DPS of the weapon.
Entropy was the one that I used more, still sucked. How high is your atack speed? With the mp shrine (1 hour duration because of gloves), I can sustain Arcane Torrent 99% of the time, so I hardly have to use spectral blades. With Entrophy, it does less damage and I ran out of AP super fast. Probably my atack speed is too high?
About the build I use, I usually grab some mobs together, and just hold Arcane torrent. They die extremely fast. How high is your DPS/Arcane Dmg?
@daysichopper Yes it changed a little bit. I think it sucks, at least for me, with a XXXX-XXXX non elemental Dmg, the DPS would be way better, without having to change it to atack speed (atk speed sucks once you have too much).
@Thornagol yea, Disruption is also pretty good.
I created the topic because the difference between both skills is huge, at least that's what I felt. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, hence why I need some opinions about people that use Disruption as their main skill.
@Sylfanos Well you have way more Desintegrate extra damage than arcane, that's why maybe you felt it slower while trying Arcane Torrent. When I tested I had 52% Arcane and 14% on Arcane Torrent (still trying to get arcane torrent on the new offhand). With the wand, 52% Arcane and 22% Desintegrate. and after the tests I didn't even changed the items to %Desintegrate because the results were disappointing.
Oh and your Atack Speed is way lower than mine. I can't confirm right now, but I'm probably around 1.7~1.8. I will check once I get home (bad armory is bad).
I think it's a matter of personal preference, because my POV is exactly opposite. I just can't stand the delay between the start of a cast and the moment torrent actually starts dealing damage. Also, I don't like the way AT is targeted, but again - that's probably just me being so used to Disintegrate's mechanics.
I guess, the only thing that I like about AT more is the ability to hit fast-moving mobs, like wasps or treasure goblins. Disintegrate is somewhat weak at that, especially with the Entropy rune.
As for damage - can't compare it, since I'm too lazy to switch my gear to +AT damage to try it. I'm currently sitting at ~1M char sheet DPS, 51% arcane, 41% disintegrate, 26% damage to elites - T3 elites die really fast. Of course, I have to cast Electrocute here and there to replenish AP (not having gloves of worship really sucks), but that's pretty much once per elite pack, i.e. 1-2 sec per battle. Some packs of demons even die without AP replenishment (thanks to +20% damage from Tyrael's Might). All in all, i'm pretty happy with Disintegrate.
Replaced all my +Disintegrate bonuses with +AT ones yesterday and ran some T3 & T4 bounties to test it more thoroughly - generally, there's hardly any difference in damage output. There are various situational differences, but they are minor:
AT is better than Disintegrate (with any rune) vs fast-moving monsters
Disintegrate + Chaos Nexus trumps AT when cleansing chects, when waves of monsters contain 2-3 fat mobs + tons of small ones that are somewhat spread. You simply focus the fat monsters and leave small ones to minor rays
But Disintegrate + Chaos Nexus sucks vs wallers, unlike AT. However, Disintegrate + Entropy hits through walls just as well
Disintegrate + Entropy generally kills white trash faster since there's no projectile travel time
Disintegrate with either rune - Entropy or Chaos Nexus - is equally good against groups and single targets. With AT you need to replace Cascade with Disruption for bosses on higher difficulties, which is a bit annoying
However, AT is cheaper, which becomes noticable if you don't have Gloves of Worship for constant Empowered Shrine buff and you play on T4+, where elites don't die in 5-10 seconds of sustained DPS.
In the end, it's all about what's more comfortable for particular player.
Personally I play with the build on my profile and only have 4 APoC with 11 regen if I remember correctly. I don't use a generator and the only time I ever run out of AP is on bosses or rift guardians if my Archon is not up. Otherwise I empty my AP, use Archon and after that the fight is usually over before I run out of AP again.
I really dislike Disintigrate, it seems to cost way more AP and Entropy always has you in close range.
I don't get why people bring this up so often like it's a serious flaw of the spell/rune. Are you saying that with AT mobs never ever get close to you? What difficulty do you farm then? When I play solo on T3+, there are always some mobs sitting right on my face regardless of what AP spender I use.
Not sure why people bring this up so often like it's a serious flaw of the spell/rune. Are you trying to say that with AT mobs never ever get close to you? What difficulty do you farm then? From my experience, when playing solo on T3 and higher, there are always some mobs sitting right on your face, no matter what spender you use.
It's not about mobs being close to you and/or hitting you. It's about having to move every time something is out of range or runs away from you. With AT I can just stand still and obliterate everything in my sight without ever moving, including runners.
Not sure why people bring this up so often like it's a serious flaw of the spell/rune. Are you trying to say that with AT mobs never ever get close to you? What difficulty do you farm then? From my experience, when playing solo on T3 and higher, there are always some mobs sitting right on your face, no matter what spender you use.
It's not about mobs being close to you and/or hitting you. It's about having to move every time something is out of range or runs away from you. With AT I can just stand still and obliterate everything in my sight without ever moving, including runners.
Yeah, chasing is probably the worst thing about Disintegrate + Entropy. It kinda balances out its high DPS and good spread.
Wow, first of all, thanks everyone for their reports. I'm really really glad that some people use and really like Desintegrate as their main skill.
Armory Sucks, so I would ask you guys to post some stats later, so i can compare and maybe figure out what's wrong.
Currently I'm trying to get rid off all my %Atk Speed bonus without loosing DPS. Getting +Dmg on rings instead is working right now, and always crit chance + crit Dmg with a lot of Int.
Right now I'm at 1.7 APS ingame. I think it's still high for Desintegrate. With the Regen shrine (gloves of Worship OP) I can spam AT-Cascade without loosing AP. I can't do that with desintegrate, and I'm not even close of being able to do that. What makes AT good for me is probably the high atk Speed, once I lower it, than maybe Desintegrate will become better.
The good thing for me is, AT works so well with Unwavering Will, it's almost perfect. But, I got that awesome Wand with %Desintegrate on it and would like to improve my DPS using it, I don't want to change all my AT bonus for Desintegrate, change to the wand with 22% bonus dmg to do the same DPS as I do right now. Would be better to wait untill I drop that Super OP wand with %Arcane Dmg then.
If you guys dont mind, I would like to know some stuff:
Armory or course, and build that you guys are using;
Atack Speed ingame(APS)
Crit Chance
Crit Dmg
Buffed Dmg using your build(profile DPS sucks)
% Arcane Dmg
% Desintegrate or %AT
Gloves of Worship (Yes or NO)
Probably with this I can do some stuff in order to figure out what would be better for a Desintegrate build.
I'm also using a disintegrate build (my armory - http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Daedalus-1424/hero/38039829). I prefer Chaos Nexus to Entropy since it gives me longer range and does the same damage close in that Entropy does (close enemies will always get the main beam and a nexus beam). For those that are using Entropy what's the lure? I'd be interested to see if it's worth switching.
At my AS level power of the storm is enough to maintain disintegrate indefinitely (I also have a little APOC and Astral Presence). It's really a huge advantage to not run a generator and be able to use a %500+ dps ability all the time.
My gear isn't great so I use teleport fracture and slow time for escape/defense, but I'm thinking slow time should get swapped out for something else but I'm not sure what (I like Blackhole, but it wasn't enough to keep me alive at the harder gear levels). Any suggestions would be good.
I'd love to switch in Unwavering Will for Audacity but I heard that Unwavering Will currently wasn't working (providing no benefits at all right now) so I've been waiting to make the switch.
Yea, that OP belt changes the gameplay completely. I would like to know how people do what I described without using that Belt, if possible.
Some nasty elites can be really hard for people that use Entrophy if Archon is on CD right? Well, I will wait untill Blizzard fix the %dmg on weapons with elemental dmg, and then I will try Desintegrate again.
The reason Im doing this is because I wanna do some super big deeps, and only with %Arcane I can't. Lets take fire as example, you can get %fire on every item that you can get %arcane, plus gloves, chest, and even the new offhand. It sucks that our fire skills aren't that great. =/
I prefer Disintegrate over AT because I like the aoe of chaos nexus. For bosses AT does more damage but for just general aoe disintegrate wins out for me. AT is easier to channel though, since it has the lower AP cost, so it tends to work better with higher APS.
I run with 2 cost reduction pieces of gear, plus a -4 cost SoJ and power of the storm. I only have 4 APoC, which barely matters since I can practically channel in town without dropping my AP, but against 1-2 mobs I should be gaining AP. I do run with Templar, but no Arcanenot or Astral Presence.I'm at 1.49 APS and the other stats you can see in my spreadsheet if you're curious.
I prefer Disintegrate over AT because I like the aoe of chaos nexus. For bosses AT does more damage but for just general aoe disintegrate wins out for me. AT is easier to channel though, since it has the lower AP cost, so it tends to work better with higher APS.
I run with 2 cost reduction pieces of gear, plus a -4 cost SoJ and power of the storm. I only have 4 APoC, which barely matters since I can practically channel in town without dropping my AP, but against 1-2 mobs I should be gaining AP. I do run with Templar, but no Arcanenot or Astral Presence.I'm at 1.49 APS and the other stats you can see in my spreadsheet if you're curious.
Well, legacy SoJ makes a huge difference in your case. I guess, you can replace that cost reduction with +damage on your other ring and still have no AP problems. Most people don't have/use that SoJ, however.
Anyway, I still use AT and I like it just as much as I like Disintegrate (they have their pro's and con's, like I said earlier). Yet I still think that Disintegrate is the way to go for T1-2, because if mobs die in 2 seconds, that initial delay caused by AT's travel time actually makes a noticeable difference. For longer fights I feel that these spells are on par thanks to AT being cheaper.
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I started to play Diablo again after the 2.0 patch, and started a Wizard. Tried a lot of builds, and Frozen Orb was my best skill for sometime.
After getting some +arcane dmg items before the expansion, I decided to try something else, and just loved the way Arcane Torrent - Cascade works, so I'm playing with a build based on it since then.
My armory:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/lemonkiss-1675/hero/41482763
The build that I use:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WejSmO!ZiSg!bccZZc
Sometimes my profile has a weird full DPS build with glass cannon+Temporal Flux. I use it for some T6 stuff only, like boss farm, etc. The link above shows my correct build.
Yesterday I found this awesome wand:
I can still reroll the +dmg to atk speed to get the same DPS as my current weapon (I dont know yet why rolling 9% dmg didn't changed the DPS of the weapon, I think it's because it's damage is arcane, but doesn't make much sense,).
So, because of the wand, I decided to try Desintegrate, with my arcane items, I tought that I would be able to do better than I'm doing now. I tried every rune, for quite some time. Turns out the result sucked for me. I can't even compare the DPS of both skills, single target/aoe, Arcane Torrent seems to be WAY superior on every dam aspect.
My question now: I'm using desintegrate wrong? The skill really sucks? Someone that uses it on his/her build, could please try to help me out? Or Arcane Torrent is just too awesome?
With my Wiz I can Melt stuff and not die on T1-T2-T3. Sometimes I do some old school Azmodan runs at T4, T5, still doing a pretty good job, and even some T6 bosses/events solo as well, but haven't tried Rifts on higher torments yet.
Thanks.
Are you saying it didn't change at all? As I under stand it, the % damage only affects the base damage of the weapon unless the bonus damage is non-elemental a.k.a. "black" damage.
Since the base damage of that wand (the damage without the arcane damage bonus) is 210 - 389, that 9% you re-rolled should be worth an extra 19 - 35 damage, or 40 DPS.
Which, of course, is hilarious, but should still have changed the DPS of the weapon.
About the build I use, I usually grab some mobs together, and just hold Arcane torrent. They die extremely fast. How high is your DPS/Arcane Dmg?
@Thornagol yea, Disruption is also pretty good.
I created the topic because the difference between both skills is huge, at least that's what I felt. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, hence why I need some opinions about people that use Disruption as their main skill.
@Sylfanos Well you have way more Desintegrate extra damage than arcane, that's why maybe you felt it slower while trying Arcane Torrent. When I tested I had 52% Arcane and 14% on Arcane Torrent (still trying to get arcane torrent on the new offhand). With the wand, 52% Arcane and 22% Desintegrate. and after the tests I didn't even changed the items to %Desintegrate because the results were disappointing.
Oh and your Atack Speed is way lower than mine. I can't confirm right now, but I'm probably around 1.7~1.8. I will check once I get home (bad armory is bad).
(Didn't knew I had 2 forum accounts, oO)
I guess, the only thing that I like about AT more is the ability to hit fast-moving mobs, like wasps or treasure goblins. Disintegrate is somewhat weak at that, especially with the Entropy rune.
As for damage - can't compare it, since I'm too lazy to switch my gear to +AT damage to try it. I'm currently sitting at ~1M char sheet DPS, 51% arcane, 41% disintegrate, 26% damage to elites - T3 elites die really fast. Of course, I have to cast Electrocute here and there to replenish AP (not having gloves of worship really sucks), but that's pretty much once per elite pack, i.e. 1-2 sec per battle. Some packs of demons even die without AP replenishment (thanks to +20% damage from Tyrael's Might). All in all, i'm pretty happy with Disintegrate.
... Oh, and BTW - I would kill for that wand.
I really dislike Disintigrate, it seems to cost way more AP and Entropy always has you in close range.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Codyksp-2674/hero/36849753
Note that I have 15% AT damage on my boots as well and 20% arcane on my bracers.
Armory Sucks, so I would ask you guys to post some stats later, so i can compare and maybe figure out what's wrong.
Currently I'm trying to get rid off all my %Atk Speed bonus without loosing DPS. Getting +Dmg on rings instead is working right now, and always crit chance + crit Dmg with a lot of Int.
Right now I'm at 1.7 APS ingame. I think it's still high for Desintegrate. With the Regen shrine (gloves of Worship OP) I can spam AT-Cascade without loosing AP. I can't do that with desintegrate, and I'm not even close of being able to do that. What makes AT good for me is probably the high atk Speed, once I lower it, than maybe Desintegrate will become better.
The good thing for me is, AT works so well with Unwavering Will, it's almost perfect. But, I got that awesome Wand with %Desintegrate on it and would like to improve my DPS using it, I don't want to change all my AT bonus for Desintegrate, change to the wand with 22% bonus dmg to do the same DPS as I do right now. Would be better to wait untill I drop that Super OP wand with %Arcane Dmg then.
If you guys dont mind, I would like to know some stuff:
Armory or course, and build that you guys are using;
Atack Speed ingame(APS)
Crit Chance
Crit Dmg
Buffed Dmg using your build(profile DPS sucks)
% Arcane Dmg
% Desintegrate or %AT
Gloves of Worship (Yes or NO)
Probably with this I can do some stuff in order to figure out what would be better for a Desintegrate build.
It's bugged and doesn't affect elemental damage rolls, fix is due in next patch, there was a blue post on this recently.
At my AS level power of the storm is enough to maintain disintegrate indefinitely (I also have a little APOC and Astral Presence). It's really a huge advantage to not run a generator and be able to use a %500+ dps ability all the time.
My gear isn't great so I use teleport fracture and slow time for escape/defense, but I'm thinking slow time should get swapped out for something else but I'm not sure what (I like Blackhole, but it wasn't enough to keep me alive at the harder gear levels). Any suggestions would be good.
I'd love to switch in Unwavering Will for Audacity but I heard that Unwavering Will currently wasn't working (providing no benefits at all right now) so I've been waiting to make the switch.
Well, your dps is very close to mine. I have 1.77 right now. But I don't have any Apoc, just the gloves.
How do you fight frozen/molten, or even goblins with Entrophy? Doesn't it suck? It seems you kinda need teleport for Entrophy.
Some nasty elites can be really hard for people that use Entrophy if Archon is on CD right? Well, I will wait untill Blizzard fix the %dmg on weapons with elemental dmg, and then I will try Desintegrate again.
The reason Im doing this is because I wanna do some super big deeps, and only with %Arcane I can't. Lets take fire as example, you can get %fire on every item that you can get %arcane, plus gloves, chest, and even the new offhand. It sucks that our fire skills aren't that great. =/
I run with 2 cost reduction pieces of gear, plus a -4 cost SoJ and power of the storm. I only have 4 APoC, which barely matters since I can practically channel in town without dropping my AP, but against 1-2 mobs I should be gaining AP. I do run with Templar, but no Arcanenot or Astral Presence.I'm at 1.49 APS and the other stats you can see in my spreadsheet if you're curious.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Well, I'm now waiting for the hotfix on the %DMG of weapons to test Desintegrate again. Entrophy can only work well if used with calamity.
Anyway, I still use AT and I like it just as much as I like Disintegrate (they have their pro's and con's, like I said earlier). Yet I still think that Disintegrate is the way to go for T1-2, because if mobs die in 2 seconds, that initial delay caused by AT's travel time actually makes a noticeable difference. For longer fights I feel that these spells are on par thanks to AT being cheaper.