I started with a full defensive CM build with Crystal Shell, Prismatic Armor, and the CD reduction rune on frost nova, as well as Cold Blooded, CM, and Evocation as passives that were unchanged throughout. I took the fight time and my char sheet dps to compute the DPS Multiplier, which is the effective dps gain of the build. For example, at 100k dps using the full defensive build I would expect an effective dps of 247k. I also computed relative DPS of each spec meaning switching from Prismatic to Storm Armor increased dps by about 36%.
And in case there's any confusion, 'x' in the table means that skill was used.
| Storm Armor | Shocking Aspect | Pinpoint | Shards | Prism | DPS Multiplier | Relative DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.47 | 1 | |||||
| x | 2.78 | 1.13 | ||||
| x | 2.99 | 1.21 | ||||
| x | 3.01 | 1.22 | ||||
| x | 3.36 | 1.36 | ||||
| x | x | 4.06 | 1.65 | |||
| x | x | x | 4.25 | 1.72 |
The interesting information is that Storm Armor is about a 36% dps gain over prismatic armor. When you add Shocking Aspect it's a 65% dps gain over prismatic armor and about a 36% dps gain over pinpoint barrier. Adding Diamond Shards further increases the dps gain but it's only about a 4% dps gain by itself when you use Shocking Aspect. The dramatic decrease in survivability for the fight makes it very not worthwhile, but that could easily change depending on the fight. Rak for example, would probably be just fine with DS or prism.
I also expect the values for Shocking Aspect to be dependent of crit and attack speed, since it only procs on crits and higher attack speed should lead to more procs from WW, so with 50% crit, I'd expect the damage to increase by about 16%, or I'd expect the total dps gain to be about 90%, for a relative dps of 1.9. With a crit % of 52% I would expect Shocking Aspect to double your dps over prismatic armor, roughly speaking, with the same APS of 1.965 or so.
For reference, my stats at the time of the data collection were 104k dps buffed (110k with pinpoint), 1.965 attacks per second, 20 APoC, 1298 LoH, 1.5% Life Steal, 641 resist all and 4588 armor unbuffed, with 40.5k hp and 43% crit with Scoundrel. I also had about 400 life per second regen, just to complete the stats.
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The one and only thing that I would've liked to be seen is a nerf of one of the 4 things you need for CMWW (DS for survivability, FN for stunlock, CM for resetting the timers, IAS with a working spell for proccing CM so often). Sure, there would be a shitstorm on Blizzard, but right now the low budget players and people with an equipment worth around a few dozens million gold (yes, these people exist) will force any wizard in their group to go CMWW for high MP and/or ubers because it's such an easy mode button and their only realistic chance on getting stuff on these levels done. Therefore, in my opinion, CMWW as of now is nothing but a huge help for bypassing the gear hunt that Diablo has ever been about in the first place.
Which brings us back to the thread's title - yeah, CMWW is the only way to do high MPs unless you have godly gear. If you have godly gear and want to kill things in less than a few hours, CM (not necessarily CMWW, but CM) is mandatory - like Jaetch and maka said. However, "is CMWW the only way to high MP" (topic)? Maybe, but maybe you can also get your EHP to levels where you don't mind to be hit by enemies and you're able to kill them with Blizzard (especially once it's buffed after the patch), Disintegrate, or some similar spell that does not rely on CM procs. It will probably never be as efficient as CM(WW), but it might work once you have MP10 endgame gear.
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There's a thread where many people posted and discussed their top 10 fixes (http://www.diablofans.com/topic/81730-my-top-10-things-that-would-make-d3-better/) and the time it takes to listen to your video you can read that thread 5 times and get input from 20 people. Don't get me wrong, many people found your previous threads to be useful, but this really feels like you're just taking an interesting thread from this forum, put it into a (WAY TOO LONG) discussion, upload an audio file on a video platform, and gain clicks by using this forum as advertising.
If anyone could summarize which ten points out of the other thread these guys found to be their top 10... thanks!
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Wizard Gear Guide
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Well then, just from the top of my head:
1. Fix crafting. How? Some ideas:
a.) At least level 63 items
b.) For paying more money or materials, fix one or two stats (e.g., boots should always roll MS, or items always have a fixed mainstat)
c.) Allow to upgrade/downgrade materials like tomes or gems (just both ways)
d.) For tank barbs, the Helm of Command is actually useful; why aren't there similar recipes for other classes and builds?
2. Allow public games with monster power, in particular for uber runs, but also key farming
3. Introduce more caps for stats. Example: If crit had a fixed cap, CM for wizards might be less OP, you could just choose on *which* slots to get crit and it wouldn't be a requirement on every item, and so on. Same thing for other stats. This would kind of bring back more freedom in gearing up without having to wipe and revolutionize the whole itemization system.
4. Nerf OP spells. Yes, you read right, nerf. My main is a wizard, and by nerfing the two main spells of my class right now (Archon and CM), other builds would become interesting. Right now if someone proposes a really interesting build, everyone just goes like "gtfo, this is way less efficient than my pew pew Archon".
5. Increase mob density in act 2+3 such that they become viable farming areas (I think Blizz already has plans on doing so).
6. Spells that require YOU to get the killing blow on a mob should be triggered by any group member kill, otherwise it's killing group play (like Archon).
7. Reflect damage visualization (already announced)
8. Postpone PvP (release in 2015) and make the rest of the game perfect first (yep, I don't care about PvP and I'm that selfish :-()
9. Rename the "adds +x% elemental damage" in something that actually correctly describes what it does AND make it apply to all damage, not just physical - getting rid of this stupid "black weapon required" issue right now.
10. Give the Tal Rasha set 2+3 piece set bonuses that actually have some use to it (why aren't they all like 100 main stat, 60 allres, why do we get +3% loldamage and DH +7% pwncrit?)
Edit: the b )
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10. No - I like these challenging packs. Some specs (WW barb, CMWW wiz) don't even care, if you got a problem with a combo, skip it.
9. No - absolutely not. But I'm waiting for the visual cue that was announced such that I don't insta-kill myself.
8. No - people would just do old fashioned boss runs again like in D2.
7. No - hell, rather the opposite. We had a discussion about this at some other points, and I really really believe that more stat caps would foster gear diversity. If you had a cap on IAS, CC, CD, INT you wouldn't need quadfecta/trifecta on every possible item or max CC/IAS on each possible slot in order for an item to be even remotely useful. Just look at GF, MF, MS cap and how these super important stats have become "optional" on many slots, making Tyrael's, Lacuni's, Inna's just an *alternative* but not a must-have.
6. No. They are worthwhile, but rather for achievement hunters, for loot there are other kinds of mobs. We don't need every mob to be the same (max loot, or I don't care about you). If you aren't interested in rare mobs, treat them as white - let them slip.
5. No, chests are fine, they're optional and if they would drop more, it would be mandatory to open every chest. Got a legendary out of a chest, open every single one of them ever since...
4. No, right now no one kills the bosses even anymore - because their loot compared to difficulty doesn't match. You would have to improve loot if you increase difficulty, and then it would all be D2 Baal runs again. What do you mean by random?
3. No, this is not an MMORPG, we don't need perks. Multi player is bugged, however - it sucks that you get more XP/loot per hour when playing solo, and as an Archon wizard multi player sucks because you need every killing blow (though Blizz already said they want to fix this). Improve bonus XP, make public games open for monster power, would be my two main fixes.
2. No - why? What? It's already annoying enough that you can farm Leoric's Signet only in one area. It's nice that everything drops everywhere, it's only due to mob density that everyone runs act 3 only.
1. Well, since I disagree with everything else and I feel bad, I will say "ok" here, although the more honest answer would be "meh, don't care".
Sorry for disagreeing with all what you said, but it's not like I would ragequit if they got implemented; I just feel that they wouldn't fix the problems some haters are raging about.
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I remember that in D2 the way to go with a barb was whirlwind. Sure, there were other fancy builds that were possibly and maybe even worked in endgame, but they needed either loads of gear or a specific item or some weird skill setting and lots of practice etc - in the end, all barbs that I leveled up ended up being WW barbs. In D3, this feels different. Due to the game mechanics, my DH friends were happy that I went for a pure tanking barb in the beginning, having an EHP monster with almost no damage. It sort of worked (the only annoying thing is that there's no real aggro mechanics, therefore I switched to stunlock with CMWW wiz). My barb now serves as a playground to test other builds; obviously WW, but also other popular builds as well as fun builds using some of the spells I personally like (ME LIKES TO SMASH!). The flawed item mechanics (with the exception of IAS, almost all required stats are exactly the same for every build) and the fact that there is no skill tree or status points you have to allocate and reset you can just play around and switch your build a lot. All the complaints from many people here come from endgame 24/7 players with hundreds of hours playtime; I can totally understand this, but for my casual barb with only some low-three-digit hours of playtime D3 works more than fine.
My wizard has more playtime on his account, and so had my sorc in D2. I have to say that most spells in D2 felt the same: sure, there was a different element, but in the end it was all about "click" - some lightning/ice/fire bolt goes off - "bam". And of course AoE, where you had a "click" - wait for meteor/blizzard impact - "boom". Some absolutely required spells along the way (Warmth), some spells that were requirements in the skill tree but useless and a waste of points, so you gimped your gameplay for a few days just to have more skill points for Blizzard... don't get me wrong. The game was fun, and if D2 had a working high-res patch, I would still play the hell out of it even today. But in D3, Blizzard did exactly what they said they wanted to do: make all skills feel unique. I mean, the way Disintegrate, Arcane Orb, or Electrocute work, the way they feel is totally different. I can only "blame" them for the fact that two of their skills became way too powerful (Archon and CM), making them a "requirement" to the game, and that the armor skills are poorly designed. Even though I love Archon and my friends love CMWW stunlock, I would be totally fine if these two skills would be nerfed - because then the other 3 billion combinations of (yes, it's that many) spells and runes could become viable alternatives for wizard gameplay. I also don't get why you can get total damage reduction by only one spell+rune (Energy Armor and Prismatic Armor), why not make each of the Armor spells have a EHP part as main effect (armor, allres, life for Energy, Storm, Ice Armor) and the rune gives a nice bonus effect (damage, movement speed, whatever). Right now it's all about maxing out damage and efficiency, therefore you either go Archon or you have fun and try out the other 3 billion builds.
TL;DR: nerf the overpowered spells and, despite the shitstorm, the game would blow many people's minds.
I seriously believe D3 is halfway on the road to become a game with many classes that all feel very un-boring. But it's a bumpy road... and many (rightfully) curse the way. We don't even know when we're getting there. But I don't think simply going back to D2 will ever get us there.
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I think the order is fine. The reason why it's good to start with Core is because it's a very small area with 1-3 elite packs, thus you get your first two stacks really fast. Same with Tower of the Damned. I was just listing what the "best areas" are in terms of Archon uptime, but the other thing about the efficiency song is to get the 5 NV stacks as fast as possible to have as much bonus XP as possible when killing all the mobs in these high mob density areas - that's why everyone starts at Core+Tower. My route is actually quite similar to yours, and it's probably what most people do (until they get bored ;-)).
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There is absolutely no evidence that Blizzard has employed such an algorithm. It would mean that after a bad streak the system would definitely give you a good streak, or after a long run of no legendary items you will find a godly Echoing Fury. In turn, this would mean that after you find a 2 billion item, you can stop playing because the chance for a good item will now be significantly lower.
I highly doubt that Blizzard uses such a system, based on drops for real lucky players I've seen I would even say it's definitely not the case, but my sample is obviously not big enough. If you don't have evidence for your claim (i.e., you have seen the code itself) I would be careful, because it would not make sense for Blizzard to implement a drop pattern that takes previous events into account.
About RNG/PRNG... this discussion is happening right now in the MF thread as well. Feel free to join if you think my logic is flawed ;-)
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2) I'm always looking for legendaries/sets which can be replaced by rares. Why? Just because there are many people who pay extra for the shiny legendary brown items, even though the stats are worse. You can sell your Firewalkers and find boots with similar or better stats and still make some money.
3) When you bump up your DPS to 100k, you should be fine with 3% life steal - switch to one hand weapon. Try to get a cheap Triumvirate and a weapon with non-elemental damage (plus min/max damage only). If you want to prepare for a CMWW build, you should get a fast weapon (dagger with IAS and APoC), however, I think right now you should first go and upgrade your Archon and farm a bit before you buy some CMWW gear. If you decide to stay Archon only for the time being, you can buy a axe/mace/spear. These are slow weapons that no one wants because they're bad for CMWW and thus cheap. Get one with a socket, > 2.8% life steal, and some other useful stats (int, crit damage, life after kill, ...).
And yes, Alkaizer route is still best for farming. (Side note: what does "Alkaizer" even mean? Everybody refers to that, even though Alkaizer changed his route many times on his way to p100.) My personal ranking of the best zones for Archon (i.e., highest mob density) are in that order: 1. Keep level 2, 2. Rakkis Crossing, 3. Crater level 2, 4. Tower of the Damned level 1, 5. Fields of Slaughter (although it's challenging to keep Archon up here all the time). Remember to not end Crater 2 by using town portal, but take the exit to the next tower level, as there is a high chance for an additional elite pack, a shrine, and a way point. I also add Stonefort for a small chance for a key.
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Okay, this is something that I come across all the time as a programmer and it bothers me when people mix "RNG", "pseudo RNG", and "predictable RNG". Disclaimer: the following might not be 100% accurate, but a write-up on what I remember from my programming classes and practices couple of years ago. There's tons of more info about that on Google... ;-)
There is no real true RNG, because computers are always deterministic. So essentially, every random number generator (that's what RNG stands for) is just a program that calculates a number based on a specific algorithm. Therefore, computer RNG are PRNGs (pseudo RNG), because it's not really random. If you know the algorithm, you can determine the number. Well... can you?
C++ (the most common language in serious computer programming, unless you're a fucked up iDiot) uses the function rand() to provide you with a random number. In order to have a random result, calculations are based off a seed, which also needs to be calculated by an algorithm. The function to call in order to generate the seed is srand(), and it creates the seed based on computer time (number of seconds passed since 1/1/1970, which is the date all computer programs see as "zero"). So all you need is to know the algorithms for the random functions and the seed and you can guess the random number. => have fun.
This is just the beginning, you can make it truely random by incorporating external factors into the formula, like number of players online in B.Net at the time the RNG is run or the seed is determined; the exact number of XP that the player has at the time of drop, and so on. Blizzard is not a newcomer to the RNG business, and the RNG discussion was even more common (and more ridiculous) in WoW vanilla. Yes, more ridiculous than I've ever seen in D3 - people were kicked out of raids and raid were abandoned and re-opened just to get another raid ID. It was fun, even though everyone knew there's no way to influence this.
TL;DR: Yes, computer program are not really random, they're pseudo-random. But no, your loot does not follow any pattern that you can construct based on your previous loot, let alone anticipate to influence drops.
Just to clarify why your experience was truely random: If you roll a dice which is truely random, the sequence "123456" is just as likely as "111111". Someone who would roll the latter would say "this dice is broken", but you don't know, it might just be a really unlucky streak. If you roll often enough, you will eventually see this. Similarly, if you play long enough at some point one of the millions of D3 players will see the same legendary from the same mob.