Just did an initial read and all I can say is fantastic job! Your original guide was my go to guide when I first started to gear out my wizard, and it looks like this will be the guide to go to for wizards looking to learn a bit more about their class. Very nice.
Not sure how many shards I have spent but Kadala, gives me a lot of legendaries. Have been doing sources so far and have 3 leg sources the most recent one being mirrorball. What I want though is a good trium.
I hope they will temporarily increase the mob density on Master level, just for the gap between Patch 2.0 and RoS going live.
Yeah that is my hope too, cause right now, it just feels so damn empty. Only cursed chests add a huge number of mobs and I only found 1 during my whole playthrough.
Cursed chests are a good addition though.
This is going to be like an WOW expansion. Items droped >ilv60 will be a massive upgrade. Also, the patch is nothing without ROS, so dont hate it yet xD Im testing skills/runes right now, im loving frozen orb!!
Yeah I agree, the problem I potentially see is the time between the patch deploying on live and ROS. As it stands, if you have good gear already, the patch may make farming more boring. The drop in mob numbers and the removal of MF from paragon seem to have adversely affected the drop rates of legendaries. Of course, I did not play enough to be sure, but I spent over an hour and only got 1.
For those who don't have great gear, the patch will be a god send.
Dont get me wrong I am very excited about ROS but the patch by itself just was all right. I guess if they fix mob density I would enjoy it much more.
Was on the PTR for over an hour and here are my initial impressions:
1. Have 4 para level 100s and a 10 para level DH and my total Paragon XP is 213.
2. Master is way too easy for high geared archon players even with the changes to archon and removal of CM.
3. Dominance is exceptionally powerful. Now your HP bar gets white when under shielding effects, very nice.
4. MF seems to be removed from both para levels as well as new gear, at least none of the dropped loot 2.0 had MF on them.
5. Using my para levels I was able to get back to my old HP of 40K by getting 25 para points in vitality and about 5% in life.
Spells:
basically my setup was MW-FW, Sparkflint, EA-Pinpoint, <AP Spender>, Electrocute/ShockPulse, Archon
1. Frozen orb was nice. Never once needed Frost Nova on master level, so switched it to an AP spender while keeping archon. Tried all the *edit* arcane */edit* spenders.
2. Sleetstorm will be tons of fun, but is AP intensive.
There has been a lot of talk about APOC, didn't have it and didn't need it, except for one potential instance which was during my one and only cursed chest, where I ran out of mana and was not able to kill fast enough to get the bonus chest. However, better use of skills would have helped.
Speaking of which being able to change your skills out of combat seems like it makes it way too easy to handle content. Next time I will clear around the cursed chest, change skills/items and only then click on the chest.
What I did not like:
1. In my short period, got no upgrades and only 1 legend which is as bad as those in live. It was Blackthornes belt: Primary: 296 armor, Secondary: 85 poison resistance, 28% extra gold from monsters, Pickup + 1. Now that is crappy.
What I hate:
They removed the mob density changes from the live patch, and it feels barren.
Overall, not very excited about the patch so far. If you are well geared in live you will roll through master as it is right now, with a lot fewer monsters to kill. Note: Cursed Chest event does provide a huge number of mobs, but I only found 1 and traveled through most of ACT 1 including rainbow country.
If I have any further insights and can motivate myself to play will post here. Would love to hear what other people's thoughts are on the patch so far.
I totally agree, he gave us the incredible combat and classes. He did a hundred things right, and a handful of things wrong and he got crucified for it. I bet him and Josh collaborated or at least discussed the various aspects of RoS.
They absolutely nailed the combat feel, one can argue that was the single most important feature for an ARPG. What's the point of great loot if the combat was not incredibly satisfying. Sure they got end game loot wrong, end-game content wrong etc., but Jay got so much right, its why I still play this game religiously.
I have my hopes up for RoS. Shall have to wait patiently and see.
1. Armors look they will last for 4 minutes which is double the duration (much needed).
2. Poison effects are being replaced by fire effects for wiz spells which sort of makes sense and now seems like the obvious thing to do, given that they want to prioritize elemental damage for wizards and fire spells were really lacking (See: Magic Weapon, Hydra). Also goodbye zuni boots as they will probably fix the adds to poison damage to work only with poison spells.
3. Illusionist passive will be great for farming with 30% run speed.
4. Power hungry changes seem nice, but conflag and galv ward passives are a bit meh, will have to play to see.
5. Wonder how disintegrate - intensify and Ray of Frost snowbound work. I am assuming the continued casting of either spell will cause the damage to increase by 30% and not the next spell. If so, is that better or worse than the previous incarnations?
6. Archon - Damn i was convinced they would nerf CM only so Archon's could not be quickly refreshed, but this will kill of the infinite archon. On the other hand if CM is not nerfed, with high enough crit gear we could still refresh archon really really fast. Will have to wait and see, (of course like Jaetch suggested lots of other possibilities open up).
7. Audacity seems a bit bland. 20% damage passive for enemies within 15 yards.
8. Elemental exposure passive should be fun for those who like using multiple forms of damages. However, even taken into account an elemental weapon, would there be many wizards who would take this as you would need 4 different elemental types to hit 20% damage and even then it is based on stacks.
Overall I think this looks very interesting but we obviously need to test these out.
As far as crafting bracers first, I would have to disagree. My other slots were terrible in comparison at the time, and I love the movement speed on lacunis. I've checked out some innas pants, but chose the depth diggers over them for the high int/vit/ar. I've actually raised my ar enough to farm mp8 much more effectively solo or coop.
The problem with depth diggers/blackthornes etc are that they are pure EHP pieces. Not crit, crit dmg or attack speed. On the other hand lacuni's are generally pure dps pieces unless you can afford those with AR or armor, and even then they tend to be low ehp pieces. Your lacuni's have no AR or armor.
So currently you have pants which have low dps but high EHP and lacunis' that have low EHP but high dps.
If you craft bracers (like those on my wizard) you can almost makeup the dps from the lacuni's while having very high
EHP and then swap inna's pants in for high damage. So basically, you now have more damage and almost as good or better EHP then before. Of course the depth diggers do give you some MF while leveling paragon, but for an archon build you very rarely see depth diggers being used. Listen to Loroese, he knows what he is talking about.
Kind of getting off topic here, but when we are talking about efficiency between classes we really should only talk about MP10. Otherwise why not MP6 or MP5 or MP1. IMO teleport archon is not efficient at MP10, unless you have some really truly godly gear. Also, ownzor you really need to link your profile in your signature so that people can look at your gear and skills to make up their own minds.
I am 560K buffed with scoundrel ( 580K ish against) elites, and my EHP is very high (especially against elites) and MP 10 doesn't give me much of a problem (especially when you factor in cold blooded), though MP9 would probably be more efficient.
As for the OP, not going to add much to what Loroese said, except to re-iterate that you should look at Jaetch's archon video, read Loroese's and Bagstone's threads on Archon and gearing and finally use d3UP, or Loroese's spreadsheet (my personal favorite) when making gearing choices. Look at how archon wizards gear (for example Loroese's or my profiles) for high MP levels. And feel free to ask further questions.
What Jaetch said, the only advantage that I find in archon is that I can refresh my cool-down really quickly with crit mass, where as, if you end WOTB early you have to wait. Also, Archon does not require juggling of fury. A barb being able to ignore stuns, jailers, frozen etc the entire duration of a fight is just way too overpowered.
Other than that my barb at paragon 60 is ridiculously powerful for the tiny amount I spent on her gear. It took me forever to afford gear to do MP 8 for my wiz. For my barb, I bought it for a fraction of the cost and she dies much much less than my wizard used to.
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They apparently just adjusted Act 1 monster density. Will have to check it out.
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They absolutely nailed the combat feel, one can argue that was the single most important feature for an ARPG. What's the point of great loot if the combat was not incredibly satisfying. Sure they got end game loot wrong, end-game content wrong etc., but Jay got so much right, its why I still play this game religiously.
I have my hopes up for RoS. Shall have to wait patiently and see.
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1. Armors look they will last for 4 minutes which is double the duration (much needed).
2. Poison effects are being replaced by fire effects for wiz spells which sort of makes sense and now seems like the obvious thing to do, given that they want to prioritize elemental damage for wizards and fire spells were really lacking (See: Magic Weapon, Hydra). Also goodbye zuni boots as they will probably fix the adds to poison damage to work only with poison spells.
3. Illusionist passive will be great for farming with 30% run speed.
4. Power hungry changes seem nice, but conflag and galv ward passives are a bit meh, will have to play to see.
5. Wonder how disintegrate - intensify and Ray of Frost snowbound work. I am assuming the continued casting of either spell will cause the damage to increase by 30% and not the next spell. If so, is that better or worse than the previous incarnations?
6. Archon - Damn i was convinced they would nerf CM only so Archon's could not be quickly refreshed, but this will kill of the infinite archon. On the other hand if CM is not nerfed, with high enough crit gear we could still refresh archon really really fast. Will have to wait and see, (of course like Jaetch suggested lots of other possibilities open up).
7. Audacity seems a bit bland. 20% damage passive for enemies within 15 yards.
8. Elemental exposure passive should be fun for those who like using multiple forms of damages. However, even taken into account an elemental weapon, would there be many wizards who would take this as you would need 4 different elemental types to hit 20% damage and even then it is based on stacks.
Overall I think this looks very interesting but we obviously need to test these out.
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The problem with depth diggers/blackthornes etc are that they are pure EHP pieces. Not crit, crit dmg or attack speed. On the other hand lacuni's are generally pure dps pieces unless you can afford those with AR or armor, and even then they tend to be low ehp pieces. Your lacuni's have no AR or armor.
So currently you have pants which have low dps but high EHP and lacunis' that have low EHP but high dps.
If you craft bracers (like those on my wizard) you can almost makeup the dps from the lacuni's while having very high
EHP and then swap inna's pants in for high damage. So basically, you now have more damage and almost as good or better EHP then before. Of course the depth diggers do give you some MF while leveling paragon, but for an archon build you very rarely see depth diggers being used. Listen to Loroese, he knows what he is talking about.
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I am 560K buffed with scoundrel ( 580K ish against) elites, and my EHP is very high (especially against elites) and MP 10 doesn't give me much of a problem (especially when you factor in cold blooded), though MP9 would probably be more efficient.
As for the OP, not going to add much to what Loroese said, except to re-iterate that you should look at Jaetch's archon video, read Loroese's and Bagstone's threads on Archon and gearing and finally use d3UP, or Loroese's spreadsheet (my personal favorite) when making gearing choices. Look at how archon wizards gear (for example Loroese's or my profiles) for high MP levels. And feel free to ask further questions.
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Other than that my barb at paragon 60 is ridiculously powerful for the tiny amount I spent on her gear. It took me forever to afford gear to do MP 8 for my wiz. For my barb, I bought it for a fraction of the cost and she dies much much less than my wizard used to.