How would you rank the game's legendary amulets in the context of high GR solo rifting? If you could choose one, all primary stats being equal, which would you take? My take to kick things off:
Elemental Immunity - Cold, Lightning, (Eye), Arcane, Poison, Fire. Organized generally by elements that deal the most unavoidable damage. Cold/Lightning pretty close -- Frozen seems to get me more than Thunderstorm but normal monster lightning damage (e.g. Exarch) also a factor. Then Arcane more for Jailer than Arcane, then Poison and Fire as being largely avoidable with proper positioning.
Eye of Etlich - String of Ears equivalent for pesky ranged. Useful if you're going straight mitigation over Force Armor. I'd put it after Cold/Lightning in terms of preference. Having become accustomed to it, though, switching away from it would probably be very painful since some ranged hit like a ton of bricks.
The Traveler's Pledge - Option for those without a good SoJ if combined with a great Compass Rose (which has benefit of being 5-stat) to get +Vit and +50 CHD set bonus.
Rakoff's Glass of Life - I've heard some swear by the amount of globes increase you see with this when there's a fair amount of trash. Got a good one and tried it for a little while. Did see more globes from trash, but often didn't need them. Highly situational.
Flavor of Time - 5 properties, but MS rerolled so you're stuck with CDR.
Hellfire- If it hits one of the top 5 passives you could want (Glass Cannon, Blur, Illusionist, Unstable Anomaly, Evocation), allows you the ability to have the 5th-best passive. Generally underwhelming, pain to grind, etc.
Tal Rasha's / Blackthorne's - If it's the best stats you got, go for it, but don't bother with any of the set bonuses. Basically just a 4-primary leg neck. Everything else is about right here or below (squirt's, rondal's locket, etc.).
i'd go for eye of etlich if i have string of ears. as you'll more than likely be able to comfortably take hits here and there. cold or lightning immunity neck if i have a good witching hour. as you're going to have like 5mill less toughness you won't be able to take as many hits. or none at all heheh.
I have never seen a really good eye. not sure if it comes with fix stats but I imagine that amulet is pretty rare in a useable form.
Do you really want glass cannon? why wouldn't you pick conflag. or even astral presence? are we talking about apocalypse fire bird?
Not quite understand how you put cold first since, correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't give you freeze immunity. So you'll have to move out of frozen even with that amulet, and for frozen pulse it's just not worth it. Jail and thunderstorm is the real unavoidable dmg you want to be immune to in my opinion. If you're going with force armor I think mara is also a real contender since there are so many poison crap going on hitting for ridiculous dmg and you won't get oneshot by jail and thunder. For rift guardians mara is possibly the best one.
if you don't have to consider witching hour, blackthorne amulet with belt is really not that weak with the extra vit and elite dmg. I think a worthy Traveler's pledge - compass rose combination is a bit harder to pull off since it means you don't have unity or soj, and then you might as well go with rorg and cindercoat/magefist.
Astral Presence, all we're casting is Blizzard, Hydra, and on CD Black Hole. Unless you're overspamming Blizzard or casting it on/behind enemies instead of into their path, I've just never had problems with AP.
The only passive I'd consider swapping GC out for on a standard set is Evocation for more Black Holes. I've tried it both ways, and I'm starting to lean more toward Evocation for higher GR for more CC and to get the toughness back.
Re: Cold, this is primarily just from personal experience on what causes me to take spike damage. It's exclusively for Frozen particularly when a pack carpets an area with Frozen and the damage is immediate and doesn't give you an Illusionist proc. Thunderstorm is more forgiving, with a slight timer I can usually get out of if I have TP up and if the first one does hit you you'll get TP back immediately. Jailer is a beating but not impossible to play around. If I ever get past 41, I'm sure Jailer will start to rise to the top as it approaches 1-shot.
for astral presence: I think it's quite ideal if you don't have to "overcast" it since you often find yourself kiting or going around trying to pull as much as possible. in my experience it is rare-ish, or hard to accomplish, that enemies get tanked by the map+follower (doors, narrow caves, etc.). So most of the time they tend to leave the blizzard area quickly. Or simply you just didn't put it at the absolute perfect place. I think it's useful. For guardians, yeah, not so much.
My best is only 37 because I don't have Furnace or SoJ, but It's really hard to imagine that you just cannot TP or double TP out of the frozen it kills you so instantly. Unless it's a small room and the blue champs spam 9 on top of you or something, but Idk. And you would still wanna get out as fast as you can because of the cc. Maybe I misunderstand you completely.
I really like the countess neck. My dh is my main and very soft, with the wizards resistances/defense frozen/ts doesnt hurt nearly as bad, but jailer is just too strong. Its also fun to taunt the game by standing in arcane beams.
Also, i have a question. My countess has 93% crit damage but no socket. As a firebird would i benefit from a third gem (currently running toxin + zei)?
Re: Frozen ... Part of it is that at higher GRs, Wormhole starts to get replaced with Safe Passage so there isn't any "double TP". In cave maps, a blue pack with Frozen can stack/stretch it over a painfully-long distance and its damage at 40+ is massive. You definitely want to move, it's just by the time you can manage to get out of it you can take a lot of damage or it can waste your UA.
Maybe I'm more sensitive to it vs. Jailer because Jailer doesn't have the same "oh no, must move" trigger, I can bait out the Jailer while Safe Passage is up, and it procs Illusionist 100% to TP out of the root. At the point Jailer becomes 1-shot (still not at 41 for me), I'll probably move to Force Armor, which does nothing for Frozen ground damage.
@chadwx -- Would you have to reroll the 93% crit damage? That's tough, but Bane of the Trapped with a properly-geared Templar (Thunderfury, etc.) is very very good, especially on RG, because the +% damage is multiplicative like Zei's. Damage-wise it's strictly better than Toxin, but Toxin has the hard-to-quantify benefit of making corrupted angels killable.
I love it; although I wish the mitigation % was not on the lower part of the roll. The only amulet I would consider replacing it with is xephirian (and even then not so sure), but the four I have found always roll really bad... like no CD/CC/socket. None. Ever. Not sure why that amulet is always so terrible. I would not trade it for Cameo. The damage mitigation from range is just too good. This is especially true since thunderstorm and jailer are both ranged affixes too, so they are mitigated as well.
The one affix that really bothers me is that frozen orb, because if I don't react fast enough or my teleport is on cooldown it could hit me twice which is certain death. Grrrr. That thing irritates me far more than jailer. At least Jailer is once then done and you can heal it off most times.
Best rift completion so far is 41 (currently rank 30). If I ever get to rift 43 and beyond, which is highly unlikely, my tune could change.
@chadwx -- Would you have to reroll the 93% crit damage? That's tough, but Bane of the Trapped with a properly-geared Templar (Thunderfury, etc.) is very very good, especially on RG, because the +% damage is multiplicative like Zei's. Damage-wise it's strictly better than Toxin, but Toxin has the hard-to-quantify benefit of making corrupted angels killable.
Ya, i had to roll off something else to get crit damage or a socket. Noticed it on the jade doc the other day, builds that cant crit doesnt seem to get much from crit damage, compared to say a dh.
Itirnitii, if thats your only problem maybe look into the invigorating gem stone (on high grifts). It reduces frozen by a lot and gives you a sec to move. You could do a xeph neck, force armor for jailer and invigorating gem. Would take care of the unavoidable spells
@chadwx -- Would you have to reroll the 93% crit damage? That's tough, but Bane of the Trapped with a properly-geared Templar (Thunderfury, etc.) is very very good, especially on RG, because the +% damage is multiplicative like Zei's. Damage-wise it's strictly better than Toxin, but Toxin has the hard-to-quantify benefit of making corrupted angels killable.
Ya, i had to roll off something else to get crit damage or a socket. Noticed it on the jade doc the other day, builds that cant crit doesnt seem to get much from crit damage, compared to say a dh.
Itirnitii, if thats your only problem maybe look into the invigorating gem stone (on high grifts). It reduces frozen by a lot and gives you a sec to move. You could do a xeph neck, force armor for jailer and invigorating gem. Would take care of the unavoidable spells
Crit dmg will be factored in to the size of your dots. Firebirds dot, jade wizard dots, doesn't matter, they will raise the damage of the dot with a set amount equal to what you would get (on average) if you were not using dots.
Just doesnt feel the same on non crit spells since its flat paper damage. 46% crit chance with 420crit damage currently. My math is bad but isnt 93%cd only like a 12-13% dps boost? Where as a gem could be much more?
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Elemental Immunity - Cold, Lightning, (Eye), Arcane, Poison, Fire. Organized generally by elements that deal the most unavoidable damage. Cold/Lightning pretty close -- Frozen seems to get me more than Thunderstorm but normal monster lightning damage (e.g. Exarch) also a factor. Then Arcane more for Jailer than Arcane, then Poison and Fire as being largely avoidable with proper positioning.
Eye of Etlich - String of Ears equivalent for pesky ranged. Useful if you're going straight mitigation over Force Armor. I'd put it after Cold/Lightning in terms of preference. Having become accustomed to it, though, switching away from it would probably be very painful since some ranged hit like a ton of bricks.
The Traveler's Pledge - Option for those without a good SoJ if combined with a great Compass Rose (which has benefit of being 5-stat) to get +Vit and +50 CHD set bonus.
Rakoff's Glass of Life - I've heard some swear by the amount of globes increase you see with this when there's a fair amount of trash. Got a good one and tried it for a little while. Did see more globes from trash, but often didn't need them. Highly situational.
Flavor of Time - 5 properties, but MS rerolled so you're stuck with CDR.
Hellfire- If it hits one of the top 5 passives you could want (Glass Cannon, Blur, Illusionist, Unstable Anomaly, Evocation), allows you the ability to have the 5th-best passive. Generally underwhelming, pain to grind, etc.
Tal Rasha's / Blackthorne's - If it's the best stats you got, go for it, but don't bother with any of the set bonuses. Basically just a 4-primary leg neck. Everything else is about right here or below (squirt's, rondal's locket, etc.).
Do you really want glass cannon? why wouldn't you pick conflag. or even astral presence? are we talking about apocalypse fire bird?
Not quite understand how you put cold first since, correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't give you freeze immunity. So you'll have to move out of frozen even with that amulet, and for frozen pulse it's just not worth it. Jail and thunderstorm is the real unavoidable dmg you want to be immune to in my opinion. If you're going with force armor I think mara is also a real contender since there are so many poison crap going on hitting for ridiculous dmg and you won't get oneshot by jail and thunder. For rift guardians mara is possibly the best one.
if you don't have to consider witching hour, blackthorne amulet with belt is really not that weak with the extra vit and elite dmg. I think a worthy Traveler's pledge - compass rose combination is a bit harder to pull off since it means you don't have unity or soj, and then you might as well go with rorg and cindercoat/magefist.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/septic-1763/hero/11694132
INT/CHD/CC/SOCK -- not max all but definitely serviceable.
Re: Glass Cannon --
for astral presence: I think it's quite ideal if you don't have to "overcast" it since you often find yourself kiting or going around trying to pull as much as possible. in my experience it is rare-ish, or hard to accomplish, that enemies get tanked by the map+follower (doors, narrow caves, etc.). So most of the time they tend to leave the blizzard area quickly. Or simply you just didn't put it at the absolute perfect place. I think it's useful. For guardians, yeah, not so much.
My best is only 37 because I don't have Furnace or SoJ, but It's really hard to imagine that you just cannot TP or double TP out of the frozen it kills you so instantly. Unless it's a small room and the blue champs spam 9 on top of you or something, but Idk. And you would still wanna get out as fast as you can because of the cc. Maybe I misunderstand you completely.
Also, i have a question. My countess has 93% crit damage but no socket. As a firebird would i benefit from a third gem (currently running toxin + zei)?
Thanks
Maybe I'm more sensitive to it vs. Jailer because Jailer doesn't have the same "oh no, must move" trigger, I can bait out the Jailer while Safe Passage is up, and it procs Illusionist 100% to TP out of the root. At the point Jailer becomes 1-shot (still not at 41 for me), I'll probably move to Force Armor, which does nothing for Frozen ground damage.
@chadwx -- Would you have to reroll the 93% crit damage? That's tough, but Bane of the Trapped with a properly-geared Templar (Thunderfury, etc.) is very very good, especially on RG, because the +% damage is multiplicative like Zei's. Damage-wise it's strictly better than Toxin, but Toxin has the hard-to-quantify benefit of making corrupted angels killable.
I love it; although I wish the mitigation % was not on the lower part of the roll. The only amulet I would consider replacing it with is xephirian (and even then not so sure), but the four I have found always roll really bad... like no CD/CC/socket. None. Ever. Not sure why that amulet is always so terrible. I would not trade it for Cameo. The damage mitigation from range is just too good. This is especially true since thunderstorm and jailer are both ranged affixes too, so they are mitigated as well.
The one affix that really bothers me is that frozen orb, because if I don't react fast enough or my teleport is on cooldown it could hit me twice which is certain death. Grrrr. That thing irritates me far more than jailer. At least Jailer is once then done and you can heal it off most times.
Best rift completion so far is 41 (currently rank 30). If I ever get to rift 43 and beyond, which is highly unlikely, my tune could change.
Top 10 Solo Wizard Leaderboard - North America
Highest: Rank 6 // Greater Rift 42 12m40s
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Chadwixx-1438/hero/20787708
Thanks
Itirnitii, if thats your only problem maybe look into the invigorating gem stone (on high grifts). It reduces frozen by a lot and gives you a sec to move. You could do a xeph neck, force armor for jailer and invigorating gem. Would take care of the unavoidable spells