There's no spammability in the context. Even with an infinite Prism (not the case) you would still lose ap and would only be able to cast 7 meteors before completely ooap.
EVEN if we were talking about spammability. Spam 280% ray of frost and you're better both in terms of damage and in terms of arcane power cost.
Single target damage is a weakness of this build, but by your logic, anything that doesn't have ray of frost is a horrible build.
I can spam meteor pretty well though and it does do great damage (even to single target).
I was going to point this out too. If you are suggesting that lacks RoF - Snow Blast (the 280% dmg rune form) is a bad build because it doesn't have the highest single-target damage/AP ability, I don't think that's a very tenable position. Not every build needs to have the best of every situational solution. The build needs only to handle things well, and note, I said the damage needs to be "comparable," not equivalent. If one had 50% dmg to single targets, and the other 280%, maybe the lower one would need to be reexamined as bad, but we are looking at 280% dmg on 20 AP vs (let's say one tick of the Meteor DoT) 220% dmg on 28 AP; it's not as efficient, but it is comparable. I'd also have to say that 7 Meteors is pretty spammable; not infinite, but reasonable.
As Bleu42 points out, 3/6 variants are definitely AoE; the psn variant is also kind-of AoE. I have been assuming 1 cast/sec, and still think it is unequestionably worth taking in most builds, as I think that it's damage over 15 will be equivalent to or higher than most available damage buffs. Further, it will have tactical uses; I definitely plan to run it and think it is more-than worthwhile.
While I would enjoy a sig spell/Hydra-only build if there were no cast cap, I can see why they did it this way. With AoE variants, it would either have to do so little damage as to be useless, or would quickly become the far-and-away best Wizard spell if it didn't have a low casting cap. As it is, with a cheap cost and long duration, it effectively becomes a more-interesting damage buff along the lines of Familiar - Sparkflint which will take up little of your cast time, but provide very high damage/arcane power.
I think the intent is to use Meteor for single targets as necessary; in the context of spammability, there's no reason its dps shouldn't be comparable to that of any explicitly-single target spell.
Hm, I read Blazing Wrath as also affecting anyone affected by BoH; if it's a self-buff only, I'd probably go for Infused With Light so as to produce more spirit -> more stun spamming. Can anyone confirm exactly what it's effect is?
I don't really see a lot of need for a teleport effect if you have Cyclone Strike; your party members can just stay behind you (or in whatever configuration makes sense/is safe, and you should be able to just pull all the mobs too you without much difficulty, I imagine (certainly, this claim is untested, on my end.) If that assumptions breaks down, I might consider Dashing Strike - Flying Side Kick or Quicksilver (probably not Fists of Thunder) as a gap-closing solution; I'd probably take out Serenity if it came to it, but not happily.
As far as soaking, I can concede that if resists are too hard to come by, or CCs are too much of a problem, One with Everything or Pacifism might become necessary, but I think it will be quite possible to get away without them.
The group I expect to be in will be all-different classes; it had not occurred to me to consider how I would spec a monk if I expected to have two (or more.) As such, this build might be a bit hybrid-y, but in a game like Diablo, I think even a hybrid-y tank will be quite sufficient with a good group, since you can play the game tanklessly anyway. When the concern is overall group killing power per time and survivability, I think these tradeoffs are acceptable.
I thought base regen was 12.5? Was it once that and it changed? Is there a good place to find a regularly-updated list of resource pool descriptions (unmodified maximums and regen rates?)
I think you will end up with more net attacks/time from Hydra than from Chain Lightning, esp in the Mammoth Hydra form (although really, in any of it's AoE forms), assuming that such effects are capable of crit.
If Prodigy is more a once-per-cast (that was my original assumption, but it seems to be widely understood to be once-per-damage; the former makes more sense to me too), then I might still run it with Shock Pulse - Lightning Affinity. http://us.battle.net...RYXO!cXg!YZcYZZ
Prodigy is much worse than Arcane Presence with this build. With Star Pact + Prism, I plan on spending most of my time casting Meteor, not chain lightning. The 2AP/sec alone will be superior than 4 AP per chain lightning...
Assuming you expect to cast even a small number of Chain Lightnings, I think Prodigy will quickly overwhelm Arcane Presence, esp if it procs multiple times off of multiple targets (is there confirmation on whether it does or does not behave that way? If not, I'd probably rune it for Surge of Power or use Shock Pulse - Lightning Affinity.) If you really expect to be running effectively-pure Meteor casts, I'd not even carry a sig spell at all, just swap it for something else (Slow Time, Familiar, Mirror Images, Magic Weapon, or Teleport or Wave of Force for defensive purposes.)
At 35 - 7 = 28, you will have a 15.5 AP loss per second, on a 1sec Meteor cast, at base regen (11.5 with Astral Presence and Familiar - Arcanot); even in the latter case, I can't imagine that this translates to particularly small down time spent casting Chain Lightning. I'm realizing that this will come down very much to how fast casts get. With a sufficiently high cast speed, Prodigy + some sig spell will definitely overwhelm Astral Presence or Familiar - Arcanot, but for a slow-ish cast speed, it won't; that balancing point might be rather deep into the fast-cast realm, since you will effectively get off 7-8 Meteors before being out of AP. Given that, I might consider: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#kRYgXO!bXg!ZcYZZZ or http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#kRYXjO!bXg!ZcYZYZ
and if Evocation really turns out not to be valuable because you can chain Diamond Skin enough to keep the AP cost buff any time you would Meteor, and chain Frost Novas (and Slow Time, if you have it) enough for defensive/herding purposes, then I'd probably swap it for Conflagration.
If you really don't have much castable downtime, and thus don't actually need a sig spell at all, I think Hydra is going to be more useful than Chain Lightning due to it's fire-and-forget dps and crit opportunities.
Additionally, I'd probably go with Meteor Shower to increase both number of hits (crit opportunities) and damage (assuming Meteor Shower will be able to mostly hit every target, or one target if there is only one, with every impact), or Comet for more control of mobs w/ the slow, or Molten Impact for straight dps if Meteor Shower isn't quite up to par.
I would also get Hydra in there, esp as a source of more crit opportunities. If using a form of Meteor other than Comet, then I'd definitely go with Mammoth Hydra and probably then get Conflagration in place of one of the passives. (On the possibility that AoE DoTs like the Meteor fire DoT and the Mammoth Hydra firewall DoT are unable to crit, I'd use a different Hydra which can crit.)
For passives in general, I think Evocation will be worthwhile, given that you somewhat rely on both Diamond Skin and Frost Nova as CD abilities, and I think Prodigy will outshine both Astral Presence and Familiar - Arcanot for AP regen, and will be the best way to cover your needs. Between Evocation, Prodigy, and Critical Mass, I'd consider dropping Evo or Crit Mass for Glass Cannon, or esp Cold Blooded if you go with Comet (in which case I'd probably go with the Frost Hydra), or Conflagration (esp if in a group); increased damage is always something to strongly consider.
I've always had a hard time fitting Meteor into any of my builds.
In general, I'm planning a Wiz build along these lines: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZkRQgj!YWe!bbcZZa
Although if it turns out that RoF cannot, in fact, be runed below the base (or geared) AP regen point, I may swap it for a sig spell, in which case, I might also replace Meteor with a channeled attack.
Guardian's Path could be replaced with Exalted Soul, and Exploding Palm could be just about anything (such as Serenity - Peaceful Repose, or whatever else.)
Consider how long you need to keep this thing going to actually kill a group of mobs, and whether or not you, in fact, need true spirit-neutral generation and expenditure.
Dodge and armor are comparable when they can be applied to the whole party, but I would say they are not even comparable when available only to the Monk (this being the case with passives or runes on abilities, though not for mantras.)
Barbarian - curiosity/completeness
Demon Hunter - curiosity/completeness
Monk - curiosity/will be tanking for the first group of people with whom I play
Witch Doctor - curiosity/awesomeness/will be soloing with this one first/make dead stuff & make dead stuff do stuff for me
Wizard - curiosity/awesomeness/my typical style/Shadow-vessel-gonna-cut-you-with-its-laser.../friking lasers!
Crippling Wave - Concussion 20% dmg red 20% attk spd red 30% mvt slow
Shouldn't need much explanation here. I see no reason to run multiple spirit generators as a tank; the damage-reduction-runed options on things like Deadly Reach are only self-applied, and I don't see them as remotely worth an ability slot.
Lashing Tail Kick - Scorpion Sting 50% chance 1.5s stun
This seems to be left out of many Monk tanking builds, but strikes me as one of his best tanking abilities. This could lead, with sufficient spirit generation, to chain stunning at least a substantial subset of mobs. Every 5 CW (Crippling Waves) will get you a LTK (Lashing Tail Kick), which means, by my estimation, every 2-3 seconds with gear options, maybe a smidge faster. Even if it's only every 3 seconds, then that constitutes roughly a 25% overall damage reduction to all players on average, and an average root on 25% of nearby mobs.
Cyclone Strike - Implosion
I could conceivably see going to Eye of the Storm for the rune, but I don't expect it will be necessary often enough to require that. This would mostly be to open fights, and to protect people if/when more creatures run in or leave the Monk to go after someone. Most of the spirit dumping would be on LTK. To me, this serves the same purpose that Dashing Strike (or even Tempest Rush) might in the context of a tank: protecting your teammates (though it has no utility as an escape for the Monk, but your tank shouldn't be trying to escape anyway, they should be protecting everyone else.)
Breath of Heaven - Blazing Wrath 15% dmg inc buff
I could see going to Circle of Life rune if you had a hard time surviving, but I think the damage buff will be a worthwhile thing to keep up on everyone; I would probably try to spam BoH (Breath of Heaven) every 15 sec just to keep the buff up on everyone (15% from Blazing Wrath as well as 16% from Guiding Light; that's 31% net damage increase on your party, vs an avg 29% increase in net healing by going to Circle of Life.
Serenity - Tranquility
Should be pretty self-explanatory, but to clarify, since I most-commonly see Peaceful Repose in people's builds: the function of a tank is not only to survive, but to protect everyone else; this rune form means preventing or shedding CCs from your party; that's invaluable. Similarly, Peaceful Reposeis a heal that won't affect them, so people who think it can replace the function of BoH as a tank are being... more than optimistic, imo.
Mantra of Conviction - Intimidation 12% inc dmg debuff 10% dmg red
Any version of Mantra of Evasion (MoE) (except Backlash ) or Mantra of Healing (MoH) (except Circular Breathing) are reasonable options; especially Boon of Protection on MoH, if you are having trouble keeping people alive, as it is one of the only direct/controlled methods of group healing/damage prevention other than BoH. Even so, I think MoC (Mantra of Conviction) with Intimidation will, in fact, constitute the most damage reduction/survivability of any of these, not just provide the damage buff; expansion on this below.
Alternately, I could see using: One with Everything if stacking resistance turns out to be difficult/a problem at higher difficulties, Seize the Initiative or Sixth Sense (whichever turns out to be better given gear/stats/scaling) if general survivability is a problem, or Pacifism if Serenity isn't enough CC countering to keep you safe.
Let's count damage reduction. Personally, I'm uncertain at the moment how things stack: do damage reduction debuffs, or damage buffs, etc, add, or multiply, and does that depend on whether they are from one source or different sources, etc? The two cases here are: 20% damage reduction - CW - Concussion 10% damage reduction - MoC - Intimidation 25% damage reduction - Resolve
which means either 20% + 10% + 25% = 55% damage reduction, or 1 - 0.8 * 0.9 * 0.75 = 46% damage reduction; ~50% either way. Note with respect to MoC w/ Intimidation: this means that the 10% damage reduction provided constitutes roughly a 20% net reduction to incoming damage to all party members, easily beating out the 15% dodge available on MoE (assuming no/low base dodge values) for most teammates. Beyond this, we can include the 20% attack speed slow of CW, as well as the averaged-over-time ~25%-or-better time-spent-stunned of LTK, which means ( 45% or 54%, depending) damage output * 80% attack speed * < 75% action time for anet < 27% or 32.4% damage output from mobs, or> 73% or 67.6% damage reduction (depending on whether the direct damage reduction debuffs stack additively or multiplicatively.) That seems pretty good to me.
On the protection and control side of things, we have the 30% movement speed slow on CW, 50% chance of 1.5s stun on LTK, the 24 or 34 yd draw on Cyclone Strike, the 6202-7442 heal on BoH, and the CC prevention/shedding on Serenity - Tranquility. The Guardian's Path in 25% increased spirit generation mode lends itself to this aspect of tanking, as that is a 25% more stun time (or more, since some spirit goes to Cyclone Strike and BoH, not all to LTK), making it a more-worthwhile take than passives which only reduce damage taken by the Monk, not the party.
As far as damage, we mostly rely on CW's 110% to adjacent mobs and LTK's 200% to adjacent mobs, as Cyclone Strike won't come up many times per fight. However, the majority of the killing power in this build probably comes from the 15% and 16% damage increase buffs on BoH - Blazing Wrath and Guiding Light generated from BoH heals; as both buffs last 15s, and the BoH CD is 15s, I'd expect to spam it every time it is up, so long as most players will benefit from a heal at the time; to this we add the 12% damage increase debuff on MoC, totalling (1 + 15% + 16%) * 1.12 = 46.7% buffed group damage... which is very substantial (certainly greatly-exceeds the damage buff potential of any other class.) In the unlikely case that you are breezing through mobs so easily that damage reduction is not a concern, MoC can be switched over to Overawe, going from Intimidation's 10% damage reduction to Overawe's additional 12% damage increase, and CW can be switched from Concussion's 20% damage reduction to Breaking Wave's 10% damage increase, for a potential total of yeilding 75% damage output * 80% attack speed * < 75% action time for 45% damage reduction (55% damage output from mobs), and (1 + 15% + 16%) * (1 + 24% + 10%) = 75.5% buffed group damage for the party; the near-equivalent of adding 2-3 players.
Every ability someone has listed, I've thought of a use for in some build or another (with the possibly exception of Energy Twister, as currently implemented, but that's just a numbers-balancing game to make it comparable to arcane orb; particularly the stationary form.)
Magic Missile, which seems to be getting a lot of hate, is the best single-target sig spell (that is, best single-target damage) imo, unless it has a notably slower cast than everything else, which means that it will have a place in some builds (even if you might not want it all the time.)
Hydra is going to probably be in pretty much 100% of my Wizard builds, as it is an excellent, long-range, fire-and-forget spell with probably the highest damage/arcane power available, in at least some of its forms like poison and flamewall (attack rates and effect durations notwithstanding.) Similarly, I'm expecting to put Slow Time in probably all of my builds.
Every buff spell (that is, everything in the Conjuration group), has a place in some form and some build, and I expect that Diamond Skin and Archon will make sense for the right purposes too.
Arcane Torrent, Meteor, Explosion, etc, I've all seen listed, and some of these I just don't understand in a list of "have no use...."
I think the take-home message is that it's going to vary by person and play style, and there may in fact truly be no single right answer to a build, and probably for any given function for a build, there will be at least several equivalent variations. Keep in mind also that numbers *will* be tweaked.
Disclaimer: I am not in the beta, so this is all speculation and theory on my part.
I think the need for damage mitigation to self is being overstated. Without a (dedicated) healer as one might have in WoW or similar games, the function of a tank is going to be to keep everyone else alive, and beyond that, manage not to die. I don't foresee damage being so overwhelming against a reasonably-geared monk that so many abilities have to be devoted to direct survival. However, realistically, some creatures will slip through the cracks (or be summoned, or walk into the area) and go for other party members, as such, I would concentrate primarily on damage reduction through debuffs (hence, add the Intimidation Mantra of Conviction.)
I would suggest that rather than considering Cyclone Strike as a mainstay, use it as an opener (and further on, as necessary) to acquire all the creatures in an area, but take Scorpion Sting Lashing Tail Kick as the primary spirit dump; stunning enemies will be the optimum form of mitigation where and when available. I think it is quitely likely that generating 30 or more spirit every 1.5 sec (duration of the Scorpion Sting stun) using Crippling Wave will be rather easy. On this line of thought, I would also take Guardian's Path passive for the spirit generation bonus to provide more stun spamming.
Given the paramount concern for party member safety, I would separate Serenity from the heal, so that Tranquility Serenity and (Blazing Wrath) Breath of Heaven can be used to heal all party members, rather than just you as the tank. Which Breath of Heaven can vary, but I think it will be quite reasonable to proceed with the damage buff without too much fear of death; otherwise, I would suggest Circle of Life or Infused with Light (the latter meaning more spirit->more stunning=more mitigation of potential damage.) In any case including Breath of Heaven, I would also take Guiding Light passive.
As a general point of theory, if you are running with Concussion on Crippling Wave and Resolve as a passive (I would think it somewhat unreasonable not to, for tanking), than assuming that damage reduction debuffs stack additively, the next 10% on Intimidation Mantra of Conviction is, overall, a 10/(100-20-25) = 10/45 = 2/9ths further reduction of damage. If it is multiplicative, then it is, of course, just 10% more; in either case, I think that reduction will be a superior choice to the 15% dodge on Mantra of Evasion. More generally, dodge will be a less-reliable source of mitigation than consistent reduction, and in tanking, spike damage is always the fear, while consistency should always be the goal. As such, I would also, in fact, recommend armor over dodge.
Between Blazing Wrath Breath of Heaven with Guiding Light and Intimidation Mantra of Conviction, enemies will have a 12% incoming damage increase debuff, and party members will share a 16% outgoing damage buff (on top of your 15%), which sums to a rather substantial increase in overall damage output; more damage output will, in turn, equate to less damage taken per enemy killed, though not to less damage taken per time for the duration of a fight.
crimson (Bone Chill) Frost Nova 110% damage increased for 4 sec on a 12 sec cooldown
1.1*4/12 ~ 36.67% net damage increase w/o Evocation
1.1*4/9.6 ~ 45.83% net damage increase w/ Evocation
FN also deals 75% weapon damage and chills on hit.
This increase can be expected to add together with other general damage increasing debuffs (namely Time Warp and Conflagration), and multiply together with all other damage buffs.
crimson (Time Warp) Slow Time 140% damage increased for 10 sec on a 30 sec cooldown
1.4*10/30 ~ 46.67% net damage increase w/o Evocation
1.4*10/24 ~ 58.33% net damage increase w/ Evocation
ST also slows by 35%.
This increase can be expected to add together with other general damage increasing debuffs (namely Bone Chill and Conflagration), and multiply together with all other damage buffs.
In the case of resource-abundance, the alabaster (Stretch Time) Slow Time rune may have an equivalent or superior effect by increasing cast/attack rate by 140% (superior for the reason that creatures must enter the Slow Time field, whereas the caster, and possibly the caster's allies, will start in it immediately.)
crimson (Mirror Mimic) Mirror Image 70% x2 images of your damage for 15 sec on a 25 sec cooldown
0.7*2*15/25 ~ 84% net damage increase w/o Evocation
0.7*2*15/20 ~ 105% net damage increase w/ Evocation
This ought to be modified by how survivable they are expected to be, and how efficiently they will chain spells; assume they manage to do 1/2 as well as a player, and we modify these numbers to:
1/2*0.7*2*15/25 ~ 42% and 1/2*0.7*2*15/20 ~ 52.5%
This increase can be expected to multiply together with all other sources of damage increase.
Passive: Evocation
cooldowns reduced by 20%
This can be expected to add together with other cooldown reduction.
constant increases:
non-obsidianMagic Weapon 20% damage increase
Presumably, no other effects from this ability would carry into spells....
This can be expected to multiply with all damage increases except spell buffs to weapon damage.
obsidian (Force Weapon) Magic Weapon 34% damage increase
This can be expected to multiply with all damage increases except spell buffs to weapon damage.
crimson (Sparkflint) Familiar 40% damage increase
This can be expected to multiply together with all damage increases except spell buffs to general damage.
Passive: Glass Cannon 20% damage increase
This can be expected to multiply together with all other known forms of damage increase.
active attack skill debuffs:
crimson (Disruption) Arcane Torrent 120% damage increased from arcane spells for 6 sec
Also deals 200% weapon damage per second.
This can be expected to multiply together with all other known forms of damage increase.
Passive: Conflagration 15% damage increased for 3 sec
Results from any of the Wizard's fire damage (Meteor, Hydra, crimson Shock Pulse.)
This increase can be expected to add together with other general damage increasing debuffs (namely Bone Chill and Time Warp), and multiply together with all other damage buffs.
Bone Chill, Time Warp, and Conflagration should increase damage from sources other than the Wizard as well. If Magic Weapon does indeed apply its bonus to most spells, then there are 6 active and 2 passive skills (excluding Arcane Torrent, Conflagration, and Conflagration-activating fire spells) which increase damage directly. This is probably an unwieldy number of non-attacks to try and run in a build imo... let alone the lack of resource management.
Perhaps I need to clarify... I was mocking the incorrect use of "your" as opposed to "you're," by assuming that the statement intended to refer to "your behind" as the possessive of one's butt (even though that parsing of the sentence is grammatically incorrect and would lack an "is" between "behind" and "on.")
0
I was going to point this out too. If you are suggesting that lacks RoF - Snow Blast (the 280% dmg rune form) is a bad build because it doesn't have the highest single-target damage/AP ability, I don't think that's a very tenable position. Not every build needs to have the best of every situational solution. The build needs only to handle things well, and note, I said the damage needs to be "comparable," not equivalent. If one had 50% dmg to single targets, and the other 280%, maybe the lower one would need to be reexamined as bad, but we are looking at 280% dmg on 20 AP vs (let's say one tick of the Meteor DoT) 220% dmg on 28 AP; it's not as efficient, but it is comparable. I'd also have to say that 7 Meteors is pretty spammable; not infinite, but reasonable.
0
While I would enjoy a sig spell/Hydra-only build if there were no cast cap, I can see why they did it this way. With AoE variants, it would either have to do so little damage as to be useless, or would quickly become the far-and-away best Wizard spell if it didn't have a low casting cap. As it is, with a cheap cost and long duration, it effectively becomes a more-interesting damage buff along the lines of Familiar - Sparkflint which will take up little of your cast time, but provide very high damage/arcane power.
0
I think the intent is to use Meteor for single targets as necessary; in the context of spammability, there's no reason its dps shouldn't be comparable to that of any explicitly-single target spell.
How do you think it works...?
0
I don't really see a lot of need for a teleport effect if you have Cyclone Strike; your party members can just stay behind you (or in whatever configuration makes sense/is safe, and you should be able to just pull all the mobs too you without much difficulty, I imagine (certainly, this claim is untested, on my end.) If that assumptions breaks down, I might consider Dashing Strike - Flying Side Kick or Quicksilver (probably not Fists of Thunder) as a gap-closing solution; I'd probably take out Serenity if it came to it, but not happily.
As far as soaking, I can concede that if resists are too hard to come by, or CCs are too much of a problem, One with Everything or Pacifism might become necessary, but I think it will be quite possible to get away without them.
The group I expect to be in will be all-different classes; it had not occurred to me to consider how I would spec a monk if I expected to have two (or more.) As such, this build might be a bit hybrid-y, but in a game like Diablo, I think even a hybrid-y tank will be quite sufficient with a good group, since you can play the game tanklessly anyway. When the concern is overall group killing power per time and survivability, I think these tradeoffs are acceptable.
0
I think you will end up with more net attacks/time from Hydra than from Chain Lightning, esp in the Mammoth Hydra form (although really, in any of it's AoE forms), assuming that such effects are capable of crit.
If Prodigy is more a once-per-cast (that was my original assumption, but it seems to be widely understood to be once-per-damage; the former makes more sense to me too), then I might still run it with Shock Pulse - Lightning Affinity.
http://us.battle.net...RYXO!cXg!YZcYZZ
0
Assuming you expect to cast even a small number of Chain Lightnings, I think Prodigy will quickly overwhelm Arcane Presence, esp if it procs multiple times off of multiple targets (is there confirmation on whether it does or does not behave that way? If not, I'd probably rune it for Surge of Power or use Shock Pulse - Lightning Affinity.) If you really expect to be running effectively-pure Meteor casts, I'd not even carry a sig spell at all, just swap it for something else (Slow Time, Familiar, Mirror Images, Magic Weapon, or Teleport or Wave of Force for defensive purposes.)
At 35 - 7 = 28, you will have a 15.5 AP loss per second, on a 1sec Meteor cast, at base regen (11.5 with Astral Presence and Familiar - Arcanot); even in the latter case, I can't imagine that this translates to particularly small down time spent casting Chain Lightning. I'm realizing that this will come down very much to how fast casts get. With a sufficiently high cast speed, Prodigy + some sig spell will definitely overwhelm Astral Presence or Familiar - Arcanot, but for a slow-ish cast speed, it won't; that balancing point might be rather deep into the fast-cast realm, since you will effectively get off 7-8 Meteors before being out of AP. Given that, I might consider:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#kRYgXO!bXg!ZcYZZZ or
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#kRYXjO!bXg!ZcYZYZ
and if Evocation really turns out not to be valuable because you can chain Diamond Skin enough to keep the AP cost buff any time you would Meteor, and chain Frost Novas (and Slow Time, if you have it) enough for defensive/herding purposes, then I'd probably swap it for Conflagration.
If you really don't have much castable downtime, and thus don't actually need a sig spell at all, I think Hydra is going to be more useful than Chain Lightning due to it's fire-and-forget dps and crit opportunities.
0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UkRYXO!bcg!aZcYZZ
Additionally, I'd probably go with Meteor Shower to increase both number of hits (crit opportunities) and damage (assuming Meteor Shower will be able to mostly hit every target, or one target if there is only one, with every impact), or Comet for more control of mobs w/ the slow, or Molten Impact for straight dps if Meteor Shower isn't quite up to par.
I would also get Hydra in there, esp as a source of more crit opportunities. If using a form of Meteor other than Comet, then I'd definitely go with Mammoth Hydra and probably then get Conflagration in place of one of the passives. (On the possibility that AoE DoTs like the Meteor fire DoT and the Mammoth Hydra firewall DoT are unable to crit, I'd use a different Hydra which can crit.)
For passives in general, I think Evocation will be worthwhile, given that you somewhat rely on both Diamond Skin and Frost Nova as CD abilities, and I think Prodigy will outshine both Astral Presence and Familiar - Arcanot for AP regen, and will be the best way to cover your needs. Between Evocation, Prodigy, and Critical Mass, I'd consider dropping Evo or Crit Mass for Glass Cannon, or esp Cold Blooded if you go with Comet (in which case I'd probably go with the Frost Hydra), or Conflagration (esp if in a group); increased damage is always something to strongly consider.
In the case that survivability is a strong concern, I'd consider:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UkRYXO!cWg!aYYYZZ
In general, I'm planning a Wiz build along these lines:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZkRQgj!YWe!bbcZZa
Although if it turns out that RoF cannot, in fact, be runed below the base (or geared) AP regen point, I may swap it for a sig spell, in which case, I might also replace Meteor with a channeled attack.
0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#bcVijQ!acd!cZZZbZ
Guardian's Path could be replaced with Exalted Soul, and Exploding Palm could be just about anything (such as Serenity - Peaceful Repose, or whatever else.)
Consider how long you need to keep this thing going to actually kill a group of mobs, and whether or not you, in fact, need true spirit-neutral generation and expenditure.
0
0
Demon Hunter - curiosity/completeness
Monk - curiosity/will be tanking for the first group of people with whom I play
Witch Doctor - curiosity/awesomeness/will be soloing with this one first/make dead stuff & make dead stuff do stuff for me
Wizard - curiosity/awesomeness/my typical style/Shadow-vessel-gonna-cut-you-with-its-laser.../friking lasers!
0
Crippling Wave - Concussion
20% dmg red
20% attk spd red
30% mvt slow
Shouldn't need much explanation here. I see no reason to run multiple spirit generators as a tank; the damage-reduction-runed options on things like Deadly Reach are only self-applied, and I don't see them as remotely worth an ability slot.
Lashing Tail Kick - Scorpion Sting
50% chance 1.5s stun
This seems to be left out of many Monk tanking builds, but strikes me as one of his best tanking abilities. This could lead, with sufficient spirit generation, to chain stunning at least a substantial subset of mobs. Every 5 CW (Crippling Waves) will get you a LTK (Lashing Tail Kick), which means, by my estimation, every 2-3 seconds with gear options, maybe a smidge faster. Even if it's only every 3 seconds, then that constitutes roughly a 25% overall damage reduction to all players on average, and an average root on 25% of nearby mobs.
Cyclone Strike - Implosion
I could conceivably see going to Eye of the Storm for the rune, but I don't expect it will be necessary often enough to require that. This would mostly be to open fights, and to protect people if/when more creatures run in or leave the Monk to go after someone. Most of the spirit dumping would be on LTK. To me, this serves the same purpose that Dashing Strike (or even Tempest Rush) might in the context of a tank: protecting your teammates (though it has no utility as an escape for the Monk, but your tank shouldn't be trying to escape anyway, they should be protecting everyone else.)
Breath of Heaven - Blazing Wrath
15% dmg inc buff
I could see going to Circle of Life rune if you had a hard time surviving, but I think the damage buff will be a worthwhile thing to keep up on everyone; I would probably try to spam BoH (Breath of Heaven) every 15 sec just to keep the buff up on everyone (15% from Blazing Wrath as well as 16% from Guiding Light; that's 31% net damage increase on your party, vs an avg 29% increase in net healing by going to Circle of Life.
Serenity - Tranquility
Should be pretty self-explanatory, but to clarify, since I most-commonly see Peaceful Repose in people's builds: the function of a tank is not only to survive, but to protect everyone else; this rune form means preventing or shedding CCs from your party; that's invaluable. Similarly, Peaceful Repose is a heal that won't affect them, so people who think it can replace the function of BoH as a tank are being... more than optimistic, imo.
Mantra of Conviction - Intimidation
12% inc dmg debuff
10% dmg red
Any version of Mantra of Evasion (MoE) (except Backlash ) or Mantra of Healing (MoH) (except Circular Breathing) are reasonable options; especially Boon of Protection on MoH, if you are having trouble keeping people alive, as it is one of the only direct/controlled methods of group healing/damage prevention other than BoH. Even so, I think MoC (Mantra of Conviction) with Intimidation will, in fact, constitute the most damage reduction/survivability of any of these, not just provide the damage buff; expansion on this below.
Resolve
25% dmg red
The Guardian's Path
25% inc spt gen (2H option)
Guiding Light
16% dmg inc buff
Alternately, I could see using: One with Everything if stacking resistance turns out to be difficult/a problem at higher difficulties, Seize the Initiative or Sixth Sense (whichever turns out to be better given gear/stats/scaling) if general survivability is a problem, or Pacifism if Serenity isn't enough CC countering to keep you safe.
Let's count damage reduction. Personally, I'm uncertain at the moment how things stack: do damage reduction debuffs, or damage buffs, etc, add, or multiply, and does that depend on whether they are from one source or different sources, etc? The two cases here are:
20% damage reduction - CW - Concussion
10% damage reduction - MoC - Intimidation
25% damage reduction - Resolve
which means either 20% + 10% + 25% = 55% damage reduction, or 1 - 0.8 * 0.9 * 0.75 = 46% damage reduction; ~50% either way. Note with respect to MoC w/ Intimidation: this means that the 10% damage reduction provided constitutes roughly a 20% net reduction to incoming damage to all party members, easily beating out the 15% dodge available on MoE (assuming no/low base dodge values) for most teammates. Beyond this, we can include the 20% attack speed slow of CW, as well as the averaged-over-time ~25%-or-better time-spent-stunned of LTK, which means ( 45% or 54%, depending) damage output * 80% attack speed * < 75% action time for a net < 27% or 32.4% damage output from mobs, or > 73% or 67.6% damage reduction (depending on whether the direct damage reduction debuffs stack additively or multiplicatively.) That seems pretty good to me.
On the protection and control side of things, we have the 30% movement speed slow on CW, 50% chance of 1.5s stun on LTK, the 24 or 34 yd draw on Cyclone Strike, the 6202-7442 heal on BoH, and the CC prevention/shedding on Serenity - Tranquility. The Guardian's Path in 25% increased spirit generation mode lends itself to this aspect of tanking, as that is a 25% more stun time (or more, since some spirit goes to Cyclone Strike and BoH, not all to LTK), making it a more-worthwhile take than passives which only reduce damage taken by the Monk, not the party.
As far as damage, we mostly rely on CW's 110% to adjacent mobs and LTK's 200% to adjacent mobs, as Cyclone Strike won't come up many times per fight. However, the majority of the killing power in this build probably comes from the 15% and 16% damage increase buffs on BoH - Blazing Wrath and Guiding Light generated from BoH heals; as both buffs last 15s, and the BoH CD is 15s, I'd expect to spam it every time it is up, so long as most players will benefit from a heal at the time; to this we add the 12% damage increase debuff on MoC, totalling (1 + 15% + 16%) * 1.12 = 46.7% buffed group damage... which is very substantial (certainly greatly-exceeds the damage buff potential of any other class.) In the unlikely case that you are breezing through mobs so easily that damage reduction is not a concern, MoC can be switched over to Overawe, going from Intimidation's 10% damage reduction to Overawe's additional 12% damage increase, and CW can be switched from Concussion's 20% damage reduction to Breaking Wave's 10% damage increase, for a potential total of yeilding 75% damage output * 80% attack speed * < 75% action time for 45% damage reduction (55% damage output from mobs), and (1 + 15% + 16%) * (1 + 24% + 10%) = 75.5% buffed group damage for the party; the near-equivalent of adding 2-3 players.
0
Magic Missile, which seems to be getting a lot of hate, is the best single-target sig spell (that is, best single-target damage) imo, unless it has a notably slower cast than everything else, which means that it will have a place in some builds (even if you might not want it all the time.)
Hydra is going to probably be in pretty much 100% of my Wizard builds, as it is an excellent, long-range, fire-and-forget spell with probably the highest damage/arcane power available, in at least some of its forms like poison and flamewall (attack rates and effect durations notwithstanding.) Similarly, I'm expecting to put Slow Time in probably all of my builds.
Every buff spell (that is, everything in the Conjuration group), has a place in some form and some build, and I expect that Diamond Skin and Archon will make sense for the right purposes too.
Arcane Torrent, Meteor, Explosion, etc, I've all seen listed, and some of these I just don't understand in a list of "have no use...."
I think the take-home message is that it's going to vary by person and play style, and there may in fact truly be no single right answer to a build, and probably for any given function for a build, there will be at least several equivalent variations. Keep in mind also that numbers *will* be tweaked.
0
I think the need for damage mitigation to self is being overstated. Without a (dedicated) healer as one might have in WoW or similar games, the function of a tank is going to be to keep everyone else alive, and beyond that, manage not to die. I don't foresee damage being so overwhelming against a reasonably-geared monk that so many abilities have to be devoted to direct survival. However, realistically, some creatures will slip through the cracks (or be summoned, or walk into the area) and go for other party members, as such, I would concentrate primarily on damage reduction through debuffs (hence, add the Intimidation Mantra of Conviction.)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WZfXgk!Zbf!ZYZbbZ
I would suggest that rather than considering Cyclone Strike as a mainstay, use it as an opener (and further on, as necessary) to acquire all the creatures in an area, but take Scorpion Sting Lashing Tail Kick as the primary spirit dump; stunning enemies will be the optimum form of mitigation where and when available. I think it is quitely likely that generating 30 or more spirit every 1.5 sec (duration of the Scorpion Sting stun) using Crippling Wave will be rather easy. On this line of thought, I would also take Guardian's Path passive for the spirit generation bonus to provide more stun spamming.
Given the paramount concern for party member safety, I would separate Serenity from the heal, so that Tranquility Serenity and (Blazing Wrath) Breath of Heaven can be used to heal all party members, rather than just you as the tank. Which Breath of Heaven can vary, but I think it will be quite reasonable to proceed with the damage buff without too much fear of death; otherwise, I would suggest Circle of Life or Infused with Light (the latter meaning more spirit->more stunning=more mitigation of potential damage.) In any case including Breath of Heaven, I would also take Guiding Light passive.
As a general point of theory, if you are running with Concussion on Crippling Wave and Resolve as a passive (I would think it somewhat unreasonable not to, for tanking), than assuming that damage reduction debuffs stack additively, the next 10% on Intimidation Mantra of Conviction is, overall, a 10/(100-20-25) = 10/45 = 2/9ths further reduction of damage. If it is multiplicative, then it is, of course, just 10% more; in either case, I think that reduction will be a superior choice to the 15% dodge on Mantra of Evasion. More generally, dodge will be a less-reliable source of mitigation than consistent reduction, and in tanking, spike damage is always the fear, while consistency should always be the goal. As such, I would also, in fact, recommend armor over dodge.
Between Blazing Wrath Breath of Heaven with Guiding Light and Intimidation Mantra of Conviction, enemies will have a 12% incoming damage increase debuff, and party members will share a 16% outgoing damage buff (on top of your 15%), which sums to a rather substantial increase in overall damage output; more damage output will, in turn, equate to less damage taken per enemy killed, though not to less damage taken per time for the duration of a fight.
0
with cooldowns:
crimson (Bone Chill) Frost Nova
110% damage increased for 4 sec on a 12 sec cooldown
1.1*4/12 ~ 36.67% net damage increase w/o Evocation
1.1*4/9.6 ~ 45.83% net damage increase w/ Evocation
FN also deals 75% weapon damage and chills on hit.
This increase can be expected to add together with other general damage increasing debuffs (namely Time Warp and Conflagration), and multiply together with all other damage buffs.
crimson (Time Warp) Slow Time
140% damage increased for 10 sec on a 30 sec cooldown
1.4*10/30 ~ 46.67% net damage increase w/o Evocation
1.4*10/24 ~ 58.33% net damage increase w/ Evocation
ST also slows by 35%.
This increase can be expected to add together with other general damage increasing debuffs (namely Bone Chill and Conflagration), and multiply together with all other damage buffs.
In the case of resource-abundance, the alabaster (Stretch Time) Slow Time rune may have an equivalent or superior effect by increasing cast/attack rate by 140% (superior for the reason that creatures must enter the Slow Time field, whereas the caster, and possibly the caster's allies, will start in it immediately.)
crimson (Mirror Mimic) Mirror Image
70% x2 images of your damage for 15 sec on a 25 sec cooldown
0.7*2*15/25 ~ 84% net damage increase w/o Evocation
0.7*2*15/20 ~ 105% net damage increase w/ Evocation
This ought to be modified by how survivable they are expected to be, and how efficiently they will chain spells; assume they manage to do 1/2 as well as a player, and we modify these numbers to:
1/2*0.7*2*15/25 ~ 42% and 1/2*0.7*2*15/20 ~ 52.5%
This increase can be expected to multiply together with all other sources of damage increase.
Passive: Evocation
cooldowns reduced by 20%
This can be expected to add together with other cooldown reduction.
constant increases:
non-obsidian Magic Weapon
20% damage increase
Presumably, no other effects from this ability would carry into spells....
This can be expected to multiply with all damage increases except spell buffs to weapon damage.
obsidian (Force Weapon) Magic Weapon
34% damage increase
This can be expected to multiply with all damage increases except spell buffs to weapon damage.
crimson (Sparkflint) Familiar
40% damage increase
This can be expected to multiply together with all damage increases except spell buffs to general damage.
Passive: Glass Cannon
20% damage increase
This can be expected to multiply together with all other known forms of damage increase.
active attack skill debuffs:
crimson (Disruption) Arcane Torrent
120% damage increased from arcane spells for 6 sec
Also deals 200% weapon damage per second.
This can be expected to multiply together with all other known forms of damage increase.
Passive: Conflagration
15% damage increased for 3 sec
Results from any of the Wizard's fire damage (Meteor, Hydra, crimson Shock Pulse.)
This increase can be expected to add together with other general damage increasing debuffs (namely Bone Chill and Time Warp), and multiply together with all other damage buffs.
Bone Chill, Time Warp, and Conflagration should increase damage from sources other than the Wizard as well. If Magic Weapon does indeed apply its bonus to most spells, then there are 6 active and 2 passive skills (excluding Arcane Torrent, Conflagration, and Conflagration-activating fire spells) which increase damage directly. This is probably an unwieldy number of non-attacks to try and run in a build imo... let alone the lack of resource management.
0