Magic Missile w/ Charge Blast Rune (Single Target DPS when AP is low & AP generator with Passive Rune)
Arcane Orb w/ Obliteration Rune (Nuke all the things)
Frost Nova w/ Shatter Rune (Endless Nova's if anything survives the initial nuke!)
Wave of Force w/ Impactful Wave Rune (Cycle between this and Nova to ensure you ALWAYS have an AoE stun available)
Ice Armor w/ Chilling Aura Rune (Goes without saying, stunning enemies when you get hit = win)
Explosive Blast w/ Unleashed Rune (Kaboom)
Passive 1: Arcane Presence (Enough AP to kill everything in the room with 1 volley)
Passive 2: Prodigy (Allows you to weave in 1 Magic Missile after every 3rd Orb to provide a steady flow of AP)
Q - Diamond Skin (Crystallize) - 17kish Absorb shield
W - Blizzard (Frozen Solid) - Blizzard has chance to freeze mobs / Meteor (Molten Impact) - Increase Meteor dmg and leaves aoe on ground for 3secs
E - Familiar (Spark Flint) - Familiar that increases dmg 12%
R - Energy Armor (Force Armor) - Dmg more than 35% is reduced to 35%
M1 - Magic Missile (Split) - 3 missiles 50% dmg each
M2 - Magic Weapon (Force Weapon) - 15% increase
Passives
- Galvanizing Ward - HP regen whilst shield up
- Glass Cannon - 15% more dmg, 10% reduced dmg reduction
- Cold Blooded - 20% more dmg by cold on snared frozen / Conflag - Fire cause target to take 10% more dmg for 3 secs
Gear - Int and HP regen main stats.
Last edited by ToRFutureBoy; Wed, 30th-May-2012 at 6:57 AM.
Passives: Evocation, Astral presence and Conflagration.
(Note that this build has shit all change around to different buttons (altho what buttons arent important), but has 2 secondaries and 2 forces, meaning you have to enable 'elective' option in game mode.
Basically the sole purpose of this build is to chain together 4 of the strongest AOE attacks the wiz has to instantly kill the mob you're attacking. And it works insanely effectively. The combo works by having your cursor at the edge of the screen as you run around, and as soon as you see a pack, you meteor it, you then activate explosive blast and run towards the middle of the mob where you meteored, as you hit attack range of the mobs, you diamond skin so as to not die, you then wave of force as the meteor hits/explosive blast goes off, and hold Ray of frost(w/ sleet storm) on to aoe dmg/time everything around you. (It's worth noting for lower lvl wiz's, Ray of frost w/ sleet storm is quite different to normal Ray of Frost, its a small area AoE around you that does damage/time same as the original ray of frost).
Disintegrate is there simply as a finisher for named bosses who survive the first wave.
Why the runes/passives I chose and how they all fit together: Sleet storm: Obvious and explained above, normal ray of frost would be useless without this build. Forceful wave: 2 reasons, 1 is that extra damage is obviously always helpful, and 2 is that it not knocking back as much helps with sleet storm doing even more damage. Prism: You're casting a lot of high arcane cost spells very quickly to chain this combo, running out of arcane early whilst ray of frosting will really fk you over, this helps a LOT in terms of allowing you that extra ray of frost/molten impact a second time on the end, as well as using disintegrate to finish named monsters. Unleashed: Exact same reasoning as above, also the explosive blast cooldown is tiny, thus it allows you to cast it again as soon as its off cooldown easier. Chaos Nexus:Ideally, if you could, you would have another ray of frost here as it's better for single target dps which is most of what you're using this for... Unfortunately, you cant, so having Chaos Nexus on Disintegrate is your 2nd best option, as it increases the 155% dmg of disintegrate to 195% per single targets Molten Impact:You're only casting one meteor per fight, so you want it to be the most damaging as possible one. Astral Presence:Again increeeedibly handy at allowing you to chain together all these sick spells. Meteor(60)+Explosive blast(10 w/ rune)+ Wave of force(25) alrdy puts you at using 95 arcane power almost instantly. So the extra arcane juice is well and truly needed. Evocation:Since your 'combo' has a large cooldown on wave of force and diamond skin, you want to lower that as much as possible so you can continue to speed through mob after mob, this allows that perfectly. Conflagration:Since meteor will be the first thing hitting (by a fraction of a second if you do it right), it increases the overall damage of your combo by 10%, which is preeeetttttttty damn huge and one of the reasons this build can work.
Why this works:
The reason this build is a solo build is that its designed to 1-hit every single mob you run into leaving only named monsters behind. In parties of 3 or more people, you 100% cant get away with doing this, because the mobs dont instantly die, meaning your strategy will not work and the monsters will be there to kill you. However, in solo mode, mobs simply do not have enough hp to survive your combo, you're basically doing 260%+225%+260%+215%=960% weapon damage instantly in a huge aoe, and thats not including the extra 10% from conflagration, the dmg/time from meteor, or the continuing dps you do from holding the ray of frost. That's a ridiculous amount of AoE damage in what can be instantaneous if you do it right.
Notes on the end:
Again, DO NOT DO THIS IN BIG PARTIES YOU WILL DIE COS YOURE A GLASS CANNON WIZARD DIVING INTO THE MIDDLE OF MOBS
I would not recommend this, even in solo,in hardcore. You're burning your only "get me the **** out" card in the build (diamond skin) straight away, leaving you quite likely to die if you fuckup the combo on the wrong set of mobs.
Change your build for end of act bosses. I wont do a big writeup but something like ray of frost (snow blast, not sleet storm), an armour, archon, teleport/illusion depending on the boss and hydra is a good one
Templar follower with Intervene, Loyalty, charge and either level 20 skill is the most helpful (And rather crucial) follower
Build Philosophy:
As for the above build, this non-boss build is all about using the most massive AoE's on the Wizard. The build maintains minimal defense/survivability in favor of controlling the battleground and executing large nuke AoEs
Offensive Tactics:
The most common and effective tactic I use is the following -
1/. Ensure Energy Armor is up and running
2/. ~ move to a central area of the mobs you are about to nuke. This is important, because a straight left click might attack mobs instead of positioning you
3/. Frost Nova the group of mobs. This is critical to allow you time to cast other nukes safely. The Nova will freeze the mobs in range, preventing them from attacking and you from taking damage.
4/. Cast Explosive Blast ON THIS SPOT. The Time Bomb rune causes the explosion to go off where you cast it (not on yourself), which is critical to this build as the allows you to GTFO from the mobs and still nuke them. This must be your first nuke straight after Frost Nova because of the extended timer of Time Bomb. You will still have plenty of time to land it, and it will do much more damage.
5/. Cast Meteor in the middle of the frozen pack. I prefer to do this before I run out as the Molten rune will kick in extra DoT damage as you catch the tail end of the Frost Nova. You can also cast it slightly towards your exit path so that mobs following you will have to run through for the extra damage, or you can run out before you cast meteor to be extra safe.
6/. OPTIONAL. Stutter step cast Arcane Orb as you run out.
Following the attack:
By this point, if done properly, you will have killed or deeply damaged most of the mobs. If you didn't Arcane Orb in step 6, that is now your finishing tactic (and oh shit attack). You will get 2-3 chain orbs after your nuke sequence before you have to switch to Arcane Missile, but that's all you should need. Finish anything with Arcane Missile, and don't forget your should be close to another Frost Nova for defense (or repeat nukes) if you get into much trouble.
Defensive Tactics:
While there are less defensive focus builds than this, it can still be a risky build if not used properly. Ensure Energy Armor is up all the time as this will not only reduce damage taken, but provide you with valuable Arcane Energy for additional casting when you get hit. While key to the Offensive tactics, Frost Nova also doubles well as a defensive crowd control to help you escape and kite things. Along with the shorter cooldown this ability synergizes well on both sides of the tactics fence. Aside from these two spells, the best defense is a good offense. Be smart and effective with the nukes and you should only even be forced to kite or stutter step to clean up leftovers (and not big packs).
Bosses/Champs/Elites:
For champs and elites it's pretty much the same deal. Clean up the surrounding mobs then kite and kills the remaining. It might take a couple of nuke rounds to kill harder champ packs, but patience and practice will make it easy. While this build will allow you good tools to survive boss encounters, I recommend tweaking to a different build to increase 1v1 damage. The build is still viable, but DPS is less efficient as the build is AoE focused.
Passives:
There is some give take here depending on where your struggles are. I like Glass Cannon to max the damage when grouping (will discuss next), but when soloing you can afford to swap it out for some more utility. Alternatives are things like Evocation to reduce cooldowns (more casts), Conflagration for bonus fire damage, or additional Arcane regen/pool passives (see below). I use Blur to beef up my defense and allow me to run around amongst mobs, which isn't something "I" think you can sacrifice. Lastly I recommend something to regen/improve your Arcane pool. I use Astral Presence for the extra spell and small passive regen, but you can also use Prodigy to regen if you find yourself casting lots of Arcane Missiles (or aren't as bold/crazy).
When and How to use:
This build is a little less risky than some other when running into the middle of packs (due to Blur and Energy Armor, and Frost Nova), but it can still get you into trouble, particularly in groups. In normal mode this build is fine for groups of up to 4 ppl all the way to the end of the game. In Nightmare I've used it for up to 3 man groups in Act 1, and I think it should hold for a while after that. The trick is how skillfully you can use it to move around without getting hit. If you can't, then consider more ranged centric AoE builds.
In terms of utility, there are a couple of layers of defense to help get out of tight spots, but if you get trapped on zero Arcane and/or Frost Nova is on cooldown then you're boned. In addition I'd get to know which mobs hit like trucks, because there are some specific mobs that can almost one shot a Wiz (if geared right). You don't have to change your style when facing these mobs (other than to be a little more careful), but you can choose to just range out them if you wish.
Gear:
In terms of gear, this build is best when you focus on damage output. That means the best weapon damage you can find (speed is almost irrelevant as you don't spam cast much with this build), and the most Int you can stack into armor. Secondary is Crit, Vitality, and Armor. These aren't critical but can help make the execution less risky.
Level:
This build really only kicks in properly at level 28 (when you get Energy Armor). Before this the build is viable using something like Frost Armor, but the risks are increased. Good execution will allow you to still use this build in Normal mode for up to 3 person groups, and "maybe" in 4 person groups with a few deaths, but that really depends on your skill. I don't use freeform builds at the moment (cause I don't have to for this), but you could sub frost armor for diamond skin below level 28 if you want.
I don't know how long this build will be as optimal for the higher level you get, but I think it will hold for a while past 30. The challenge will be how it fairs against mobs in Nightmare as you progress, but some of this will depend on gear as well.
Final thoughts:
This is a crazy super DPS build that can be risky to execute (though less so than other builds). I can work in many situations and has some useful tweaks possible for slightly different skill levels and play styles.
Last edited by Halstrom; Fri, 18th-May-2012 at 10:34 AM.
In terms of gear, what do you guys look out for? I focused on stacking up intelligence till my stats was like 100 vitality 1000 intelligence but my dps was still terrible and my low vitality meant I get one shotted half the time (in parties) when i was under leveled.
I've gone through everything on Hardcore up to Act 3 so far by using nothing but:
Magic Missile w/ Charge Blast Rune (Single Target DPS when AP is low & AP generator with Passive Rune)
Arcane Orb w/ Obliteration Rune (Nuke all the things)
Frost Nova w/ Shatter Rune (Endless Nova's if anything survives the initial nuke!)
Wave of Force w/ Impactful Wave Rune (Cycle between this and Nova to ensure you ALWAYS have an AoE stun available)
Ice Armor w/ Chilling Aura Rune (Goes without saying, stunning enemies when you get hit = win)
Explosive Blast w/ Unleashed Rune (Kaboom)
Passive 1: Arcane Presence (Enough AP to kill everything in the room with 1 volley)
Passive 2: Prodigy (Allows you to weave in 1 Magic Missile after every 3rd Orb to provide a steady flow of AP)
The general gist of it is:
Run in, Nova everything, stand in the middle of it while it's all stunned, activate Explosive Blast. Everything dies. Follow up with a Wave of Force in the event anything somehow survives. You also have JUST enough time to unload 2 Arcane Orbs whilst your Explosive Blast is casting, so it's truly a devastating amount of AoE damage in a matter of seconds.
For bosses, I swap out Frost Nova for Diamond Skin w/ Crystal Shell Rune, Explosive Blast for Mirror Image and Astral Presence for Blur - just a bit of extra mitigation.
Glass Cannon
Shock Pulse
Spectral Blade
Ray of Frost
Arcane Torrent
Disintegrate
Slow Time
Teleport (!!)
Energy Twister
Hydra
Meteor
Storm Armour
Magic Weapon
Familiar
Sometimes I can justify using Electrocute, but my entire play style revolves around kiting in between AoE nuke cooldowns, so anything that requires me to stand still (Electrocute) is a liability. Again, keep in mind, the entire goal is staying alive, as this is a Hardcore Character.
People have been constantly telling me that I NEED to stack vitality, but I've just stuck to INT and any Vitality I have is by pure co-incidence (or helm gem, duh). Up until this point, it seems that I can completely negate 95%+ of damage in the game rather than try to survive it.
EDIT: I forgot to mention I use the Templar as my follower for all the obvious reasons Pinder already stated. He really helps protect/heal you when needed. He brings yet another stun to the table. I don't need to go into detail on what abilities you give him because it's pretty damn obvious - the ones that help you survive!
You build is more or less the build I was using (at a lower level) but I group heavily, and non-solo that build is a "Glass Cannon" whether you use the passive or not
The reason is that you can't always Nova ALL mobs with 4 man pack, and so as soon as you lose full CC you are in trouble. Otherwise yer, it all makes perfect sense, including not stacking Vit over Int, because your best defense is over-killing everything and just not taking damage.
Risky though.....I find that 1 hit can take half my health from some mobs. In HC I'd be regularly soiling the chair.....
How do you deal with the massive single hitters in ActIV though?
You build is more or less the build I was using (at a lower level) but I group heavily, and non-solo that build is a "Glass Cannon" whether you use the passive or not
The reason is that you can't always Nova ALL mobs with 4 man pack, and so as soon as you lose full CC you are in trouble. Otherwise yer, it all makes perfect sense, including not stacking Vit over Int, because your best defense is over-killing everything and just not taking damage.
Risky though.....I find that 1 hit can take half my health from some mobs. In HC I'd be regularly soiling the chair.....
How do you deal with the massive single hitters in ActIV though?
Yeah I haven't done any co-op yet, mainly 'cos i'm spending a lot of time idling in town whilst I get some work/study done, or 'cos I'm dicking around exploring every little patch of terrain, breaking every pot or doing every optional achievement along the way.
As per my previous post, I'm only up to Act 3 so far, but my general philosophy is to simply avoid being hit, rather than figuring out how to survive "heavy hitters." Worked out pretty well so far!
By the way, for those thinking of burst damage (in fights and on bosses), do not overlook Archon. The amount of burst damage that beast of a spell can put out is insane.
I was wondering about gear as well. I have a lot of items giving my int. Which is key. But what else is "good to have" for the Wizard? I keep looking at merchants and think, no, I'm still good with what I have.
It kinda goes without saying that strength and dexterity are less desirable stats for obvious reasons. Your best sources of DPS are somewhere in the order of:
Also an interesting point is that weapon DPS isnt necessarily what you should be looking at over weapon damage. For a lot of us (if not all by later stages), your attacking once, or twice, then kiting, then attacking, then kiting, etc. Rarely utilizing the full attack speed of any weapon you pick up anyway. Because of this youre 1000x better to use weapons in the lower hit/sec range (.9 to 1.1 ish, stuff like crossbows, axes, staves etc.) than stuff with high hit/sec ranges (strangely enough, our own class item, wands, fall into this catagory). Think about how often you cast something like meteor or blizzard, youre rarely casting it twice concurrently and basically never more than that. It's actually more benefitial to have a 1.0dps 1hit/sec weapon than a 1.3dps 1.5hit/sec weapon, as the 1.0dps 1hit/sec weapon will have higher damage stats.
Also even if youre using spells like disintegrate/ray of frost a lot, if you have the choice between similar dps but smaller or higher hit/sec, still choose the smaller hit/sec weapon as it will drain your arcane juice much slower but still be doing the same dps.
Basically, for wizards (and probably a lot of other classes), un-intuitively, lower hit/sec is benefitial rather than higher hit/sec.
Also an interesting point is that weapon DPS isnt necessarily what you should be looking at over weapon damage. For a lot of us (if not all by later stages), your attacking once, or twice, then kiting, then attacking, then kiting, etc. Rarely utilizing the full attack speed of any weapon you pick up anyway. Because of this youre 1000x better to use weapons in the lower hit/sec range (.9 to 1.1 ish, stuff like crossbows, axes, staves etc.) than stuff with high hit/sec ranges (strangely enough, our own class item, wands, fall into this catagory). Think about how often you cast something like meteor or blizzard, youre rarely casting it twice concurrently and basically never more than that. It's actually more benefitial to have a 1.0dps 1hit/sec weapon than a 1.3dps 1.5hit/sec weapon, as the 1.0dps 1hit/sec weapon will have higher damage stats.
Also even if youre using spells like disintegrate/ray of frost a lot, if you have the choice between similar dps but smaller or higher hit/sec, still choose the smaller hit/sec weapon as it will drain your arcane juice much slower but still be doing the same dps.
Basically, for wizards (and probably a lot of other classes), un-intuitively, lower hit/sec is benefitial rather than higher hit/sec.
This is absolutely true for Wizards and DH's. The other thing to consider is that most 1h ranged weapons (Wands and Small Crossbows) have a horrendous damage range. Like for example, 15-81. Whereas the 2H equivalent will be 76-81, providing more consistent top-end damage. (Not that it matters much for DH's anyway since you can equip a Quiver with 2H bows!)
Also an interesting point is that weapon DPS isnt necessarily what you should be looking at over weapon damage. For a lot of us (if not all by later stages), your attacking once, or twice, then kiting, then attacking, then kiting, etc. Rarely utilizing the full attack speed of any weapon you pick up anyway. Because of this youre 1000x better to use weapons in the lower hit/sec range (.9 to 1.1 ish, stuff like crossbows, axes, staves etc.) than stuff with high hit/sec ranges (strangely enough, our own class item, wands, fall into this catagory). Think about how often you cast something like meteor or blizzard, youre rarely casting it twice concurrently and basically never more than that. It's actually more benefitial to have a 1.0dps 1hit/sec weapon than a 1.3dps 1.5hit/sec weapon, as the 1.0dps 1hit/sec weapon will have higher damage stats.
Also even if youre using spells like disintegrate/ray of frost a lot, if you have the choice between similar dps but smaller or higher hit/sec, still choose the smaller hit/sec weapon as it will drain your arcane juice much slower but still be doing the same dps.
Basically, for wizards (and probably a lot of other classes), un-intuitively, lower hit/sec is benefitial rather than higher hit/sec.
I disagree, I would take a higher-dps weapon with lower aspd than vice-versa. When you have higher aspd, your arcane power drops a lot faster, thus lowering your overall damage capability when compared with something sustainable. I've found that using a weapon with ~1aspd or thereabouts and certain combinations of passives (storm armour w/ ap rune, crystal skin w/ ap rune) allows for complete channeling of your frost beam skill w/ the ~280%damage rune. Extremely useful for most boss fights if you have good positioning (you're able to use it against all major act bosses -- that is, butcher, belial, azmodan, diablo). If you don't need positioning, it's still better to pull a smaller ASPD weapon, as it gives you better burst from your AP whenever you slow down -- for something like this, I might use arcane orb w/ (obliterate? rune which increases damage %).
I disagree, I would take a higher-dps weapon with lower aspd than vice-versa. When you have higher aspd, your arcane power drops a lot faster, thus lowering your overall damage capability when compared with something sustainable. I've found that using a weapon with ~1aspd or thereabouts and certain combinations of passives (storm armour w/ ap rune, crystal skin w/ ap rune) allows for complete channeling of your frost beam skill w/ the ~280%damage rune. Extremely useful for most boss fights if you have good positioning (you're able to use it against all major act bosses -- that is, butcher, belial, azmodan, diablo). If you don't need positioning, it's still better to pull a smaller ASPD weapon, as it gives you better burst from your AP whenever you slow down -- for something like this, I might use arcane orb w/ (obliterate? rune which increases damage %).
i spam frost nova + slow time (both defensive) when i approach mobs then do the 3 aoes, meteor, explosive, and i run back and arcane whatever is left. if anything goes wrong i right click for diamond skin. sometimes i diamond skin before entering a big group of mobs and doing the aoe. i dont have a normal attack, and when i run out of mana i swing my 2 handed sword which for some reason does good damage too haha! I would have included some armor as well but blizz only allows for 4 hotkey slots, i dunno whats up with that t.t
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