Crit is pretty important. IMO it's the most important stat since higher crit gives higher effective dps (not just char sheet dps) and gives better survivability in the form of more DS refreshes and better freeze uptime on elites. Also, since SNS can run high MP, the use of a ruby for paragon is largely outweighed by the bonus XP due to the MP level. That means you might get increased farming efficiency with the crit roll than the bonus xp from ruby, in addition to the survivability gains.
In short, I wouldn't get anything except crit if you're going the SC route.
Some are considered melee damage, so it applies to some of those. Specifically molten explosions and arcane are considered melee. There's a post on the official forums somewhere with more specifics that you should be able to search for. Otherwise blur is a decent option, and it feels like savage beast charge is considered melee, so if you get enough EHP to survive a molten explosion, or it puts you over the EHP needed to survive a charge, then it's a viable option. Some still prefer to use Evocation though, so maybe that's worth considering (assuming CM+CB for other slots).
Could use some insight again as I finally grinded my way to a better lollipop stick which was cheaper than I expected it to be, so I have a small amount of gold left.
I was considering getting a litany with AS for my next upgrade, but I am not really sure because I will lose ehp but as I understand that %DR against elites is a massive mitigation and ehp boost?
Litany is a beastly EHP ring against elites. The DR% against elites is worth like 60-100 AR, roughly. They're lower dps than rare rings but really hard to beat in terms of EHP+DPS combination. I have a column in my recent DPS/EHP spreadsheet that includes elite damage reduction if you want to get an idea of how much your mitigation changes with a litany.
You probably want to go the IAS 2.73 route, but otherwise most of the pieces listed in the guide are what you'll aim for, just get AR+armor on everything. I'd say Ice Climbers for the huge EHP, but lack of movement speed might be annoying. Otherwise nats boots and ring if you want movement speed, get a vit roll on the boots, AR+CC on ring if you can.
I don't have any experience in HC. Otherwise, if I were planning to run a build like this I'd use Crystal Shell over shards, UA over cold blooded, and stack as much armor, AR, hp, and LoH as I could. I'd probably stick to lower MP for safety. I'd say at least 50k hp, preferably more, 800 resists, preferably more like 900-1000, and 5k armor with at least 1000 LoH, preferably more like 1500. Those stats are more than enough for MP10 now, but I'd probably keep with MP5-7 or so just to be safe, since I'd be paranoid.
You won't be able to just replace WW with Disintegrate. WW procs CM and LoH A LOT! Disintegrate doesn't proc nearly as well. Instead, you have to build around disintegrate. Also, high APS is a bad idea unless you have like 30 APoC and 2 pieces of -ap cost, otherwise you will drain your AP pool very fast against 1-2 mobs. If anything I would think disintegrate would be more likely to replace Archon.
Wow, that's even better than the one I got a while back for a couple mil. Guess that means I won't be able to sell mine if I were to try. It's about the only piece of gear I have left from my SNS set.
I'd definitely look at a non-APoC OH. 19 should be sufficient with your high crit. If you drop too much crit, like swapping from nats to rare ring with only 3-4% crit, you might lose the ability to sustain against single target. If you mainly solo farm with scoundrel then you probably don't have to worry about that as long as you're still above 50% CC. In that case IC+rare ring will probably give you more dps. You'll lose a little crit but it won't be too bad since you don't have a crit nat's ring. I prefer the IC combo because I prefer the higher dps.
Also, you can probably get better BT pants for cheap since the AR on those is kind of low and the bonus roll is mostly useless for wiz. I'm fond of AR+armor BT pants but those are probably more than your budget, so it might not be worth worrying about for now.
I'd also look into crafting bracers and just buying a VW. I like VW for SNS, crafted for Archon. If you feel comfortable dropping the vit on your shoulders, then you can probably get 250 int, 100-150str VWs for a couple mil. At least you can on the US AH, or could the last I looked. You can make up the vit loss on your new OH. You'll also gain some life with IC if you go that route.
I came to this guide hoping to setup an alt to my Demon Hunter for a bit of a change and to get to understand new gear markets. After using this I've made my wiz my main after a minimal investment. I'm mainly doing elites / keywardens solo at the minute and its going well but I do have a few issues with single elites / the act 3 keywarden. I'm not sure if its an APOC issue or a crit one or something wrong with how I'm playing. I can still kill them its just uncomfortable with them moving so much the problem is particularly apparent when trying to kill goblins.
Here's my character: http://eu.battle.net...10/hero/1093049. I've gone for the Mempo/socket combo as I plan on upgrading the gear but I'm not necessarily set on it. The other reason I went for it was to get the socket for exp% particularly as getting a hellfire ring that fits the build is bloody dificult. Maybe you think going for a crow with socket is the better option particularly as I don't have crit on my Mempho in the first place?
Thanks for the guide, was really easy to follow and helped me come in completely cold from another character quite quickly.
Your crit is low and your APoC is low so you can't sustain against a single target, which is why you have issues against single mobs. For each WW you cast you only gain back 34.2 AP per mob, which means you don't have enough to fuel your EBs against single target. I prefer to run with 20 APoC, that way you can more easily get by with lower CC but ideally you want as high CC as possible since extra CC still makes your effective dps higher.
My recommendations for gearing are already mentioned in the guide but in general I don't recommend mempo. I also don't recommend a socket for SC because the crit is too good. Instead, you should ignore bonus XP, imo, because you should be able to run higher MP and gain extra XP from that which far outweighs the bonus xp from ruby in helm or hellfire ring. With a SC helm you can drop ApoC from your OH and get extra damage along with some vit and/or extra int. You'll either have to switch to a OS wand or just run at the 2.5 breakpoint though, unless you really want to use Lacuni, which I also don't recommend. Personally I find 2.5 APS works just fine with my 100 ms latency for solo play. You might need 2.73 for Ubers but otherwise it's a personal preference.
Once the discussion moves to other classes I'm lost, because I only play wizard. I'm too lazy to level another char just to be able to farm the same things I can farm on my wizard. Well, too lazy and what little spare time I have I rather would use playing my wiz anyway.
If you're dying a lot with certain builds, you likely need more survivability. Otherwise most of them aren't that much different from Archon where the goal is to mostly facetank since they don't have chain freezing. Archon and CMWW are the most popular because they require the least amount of survivability to work at high MP. I can farm MP9 pretty easily with my Archon build since I have enough mitigation to gain life against RD and I only have 3700 armor and 790 resists before buffs or GC. If I instead use a Disintegrate build I lose the 40% armor and 40% resist buff from Archon form, which is hard to make up for, but it can be done with higher armor/resists on gear. I can still survive decently with just 1-2 gear swaps and using Prismatic Armor and no Glass Cannon.
To me the annoying part is the APoC requirement of those builds. I don't like dropping 8-10k dps and 85 vit from my OH to pick up 10 APoC, and/or losing 70 resist, 15% life, and 8-10k dps to pick up 10 APoC on my helm with a SC. I also don't like losing the 15% dps from having to drop GC because of survivability issues. I just stick with Archon for now when soloing because I can get higher char sheet dps and because it's easier to maintain higher EHP. I'll try my disintegrate build again later tonight and see how MP10 goes in terms of deaths. I stopped using it before because I could kill things faster with Archon.
My point is the other builds work, and people can clear MP10 with them and not die much, if at all. However, they have to gear and build for it more than CMWW and Archon.
Just because Archon is likely to be nerfed in the future doesn't mean you can't still use it now, or gear for it. The gear isn't getting nerfed. It'll still be useful for other builds.
There's disintegrate builds, Arcane Torrent builds, Sleet Storm, meteor builds, etc. All of them are MP10 capable, but I think most are more about high enough survivability, whereas CMWW Is mostly just about high CC+APS with some armor and resist and you are suddently MP10 viable.
They should leave cmww as it is, if they nerf it, i cant even imagine, what they will have to do to make wizz viable in high mp - like 50% dmg taken reduction ??? without freeze everithing will 2 shot you.
There's plenty of other builds that are viable in MP10, they're just not as efficient or not as high survivability as CMWW.
Archon, for example, can run MP10 with high end gear. It even kills trash faster than CMWW at similar gear prices.
It depends what exactly they do to it. If it's just a lower coefficient, it'll probably still be viable, but with more emphasis on higher crit and APS, assuming they don't lower it by like 10x or something crazy.
Personally I don't think they should do that, I think they should nerf how FN works with CM, since that's really the main thing that makes CMWW stand out compared to other builds. CMWW has high dps and high crowd control, which is why it's so popular. If you remove the high Crowd Control aspect then it's not much different than any other high dps wiz build, and suddenly all the wizard builds are at the same level, or close to.
Honestly if you don't expect to run Ubers I'd just stay at 2.5 APS, especially if you were somewhat used to running with lower APS. The freeze strength is still pretty good and it's a lot easier to stack DPS and EHP at 2.5 APS as opposed to 2.73 APS. For Ubers you could just use an IAS Chanto to hit 2.73.
In short, I wouldn't get anything except crit if you're going the SC route.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Litany is a beastly EHP ring against elites. The DR% against elites is worth like 60-100 AR, roughly. They're lower dps than rare rings but really hard to beat in terms of EHP+DPS combination. I have a column in my recent DPS/EHP spreadsheet that includes elite damage reduction if you want to get an idea of how much your mitigation changes with a litany.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Also, you can probably get better BT pants for cheap since the AR on those is kind of low and the bonus roll is mostly useless for wiz. I'm fond of AR+armor BT pants but those are probably more than your budget, so it might not be worth worrying about for now.
I'd also look into crafting bracers and just buying a VW. I like VW for SNS, crafted for Archon. If you feel comfortable dropping the vit on your shoulders, then you can probably get 250 int, 100-150str VWs for a couple mil. At least you can on the US AH, or could the last I looked. You can make up the vit loss on your new OH. You'll also gain some life with IC if you go that route.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Your crit is low and your APoC is low so you can't sustain against a single target, which is why you have issues against single mobs. For each WW you cast you only gain back 34.2 AP per mob, which means you don't have enough to fuel your EBs against single target. I prefer to run with 20 APoC, that way you can more easily get by with lower CC but ideally you want as high CC as possible since extra CC still makes your effective dps higher.
My recommendations for gearing are already mentioned in the guide but in general I don't recommend mempo. I also don't recommend a socket for SC because the crit is too good. Instead, you should ignore bonus XP, imo, because you should be able to run higher MP and gain extra XP from that which far outweighs the bonus xp from ruby in helm or hellfire ring. With a SC helm you can drop ApoC from your OH and get extra damage along with some vit and/or extra int. You'll either have to switch to a OS wand or just run at the 2.5 breakpoint though, unless you really want to use Lacuni, which I also don't recommend. Personally I find 2.5 APS works just fine with my 100 ms latency for solo play. You might need 2.73 for Ubers but otherwise it's a personal preference.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
To me the annoying part is the APoC requirement of those builds. I don't like dropping 8-10k dps and 85 vit from my OH to pick up 10 APoC, and/or losing 70 resist, 15% life, and 8-10k dps to pick up 10 APoC on my helm with a SC. I also don't like losing the 15% dps from having to drop GC because of survivability issues. I just stick with Archon for now when soloing because I can get higher char sheet dps and because it's easier to maintain higher EHP. I'll try my disintegrate build again later tonight and see how MP10 goes in terms of deaths. I stopped using it before because I could kill things faster with Archon.
My point is the other builds work, and people can clear MP10 with them and not die much, if at all. However, they have to gear and build for it more than CMWW and Archon.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
There's disintegrate builds, Arcane Torrent builds, Sleet Storm, meteor builds, etc. All of them are MP10 capable, but I think most are more about high enough survivability, whereas CMWW Is mostly just about high CC+APS with some armor and resist and you are suddently MP10 viable.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
There's plenty of other builds that are viable in MP10, they're just not as efficient or not as high survivability as CMWW.
Archon, for example, can run MP10 with high end gear. It even kills trash faster than CMWW at similar gear prices.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Personally I don't think they should do that, I think they should nerf how FN works with CM, since that's really the main thing that makes CMWW stand out compared to other builds. CMWW has high dps and high crowd control, which is why it's so popular. If you remove the high Crowd Control aspect then it's not much different than any other high dps wiz build, and suddenly all the wizard builds are at the same level, or close to.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard