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
and the best part of this game for me has been experimenting with all sorts of different builds on my journey to get there.
during normal mode i was really into the arcane spells, so i basically just made every spell available some sort of arcane ability, such as magic missiles, orb, arcane hydras, arcane armour, conduit magic weapon, arcane familiar arcane torrent and archon (purple shit looks epic) i also did this with electricity spells such as chain lightning, storm armour and hydra, fire spells like fire bolts and meteor, and frost spells like hydra, blizzard, ice armour etc etc.
going through nightmare however, i started to get a little more strategical with my builds, and after unlocking a passive skill called critical mass i got an idea. a melee wizard build! a build which helped me tear through nightmare mode along with glade spidereight and jerds with EASE!!!
the idea of the build is to use spectral blade to slice and dice all the monsters that glade and jak were stacking up with their barbarian and monk skills. every other spell in the build was merely a buff to compliment the damage of spectral blade
frost nova, the 3 conjuration spells familiar, magic weapon, and arcane armour, were all runed to increase the critical strike rate of the spectral blades attack, meaning that with critical mass activated, the cooldown of my finals spell (edured diamond skin) cooldown so quickly it was seem like there was no cooldown at all, essentially meaning that as long as i was attacking. i was invincible
in hell this became difficult however, as blue and yellow mobs had such sick aura combinattions such as vortex/firechains/pesitlence that it just smashes the diamond armour instantly and kills you
also because i wasnt as good at choosing my equipment as i was at creating builds so i was trying to go through hell mode with only 8k hp and 10k dps (you cant kill stuff if you cant stay alive)
so now ive completely re-geared myself to better survivability, cutting my dps in half to increase my hp and armour by more than double (basically everything i wear goives me intel, vitality, and damage or attack speed %. and changed again to what i call my stunlock build:
basically you use paralysis passive ability in conjuction with either lightning blast or living lightning (preference) and lightnin hydra to keep everything stunned. On paper, 8% may not look like much but with such fast attack speed, and the splash damage of electricity spells you may find that your enemies are stunned about 80-90% of the time you're attacking them. and just incase you find yourself getting hurt you also have inpoactful wave, cold snap diamond skin and force armour to keep you alive
with this new build using blur and galvanize ward i have been soloing act 3 and some of act 4 in hell mode
the only problems are those bullshit yellow or blue mobs that have crazy good aura combos, in which case you can try and try until u win, get a friend to help, or in the worst case scenario, reset the server and hope for an easier set of mobs.
i hope these builds can help anyone who gets stuck. gl hf playing wizard ^_^V
Last edited by Champi; Sun, 20th-May-2012 at 3:12 AM.
Focus's on Long range damage output using Arcane Torrent (Disruption), Hydra (arcane) & Disintegrate (Chaos Nexus)
With the passive (don't remember its name right now) All your arcane damage will cause slows and the damage output of your Hyrda and Disintegrate goes up considerably when stuffs been disrupted.
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The Zerg formerly known as [TA]Ridiculisk.500
TAhackdZ.379
I finished normal on with demon hunter but found the survivability/DPS ratio was not to my liking. So I rolled a Wizard.
I had a pretty easy time going through normal, not really worrying about stats, but I did go with 1hand/Shield to be more tanky
Left Click: Spectral Blade (Impactful Blades rune)
Right Click: Disintegrate (Convergence)
1: Diamond Skin (Crystal Shell)
2: Wave of Force (Impactful wave)
3: Storm Armor (Reactive Armor)
4: Slow time (Miasma)
Pretty much I start battle by spamming Disintegrate, as soon as I'm about to get hit I pop Diamond Skin, and continue Disintegrate. As soon as Diamond Skin wears off, I cast Wave of Force. Disintegrate in between, then Slow time, kite, and Disintegrate some more. I also use a potion in the rotation if I'm taking too much damage. And repeat the rotation with Diamond Skin again.
If my AP is low, I try to lure the mobs to a choke and just spam Spectral Blades. The Impactful Blades rune seem to decrease their dps against you with knockback, so it's a "defensive' offense move IMO.
I beat Diablo solo on this build pretty easily, except I switched out Slow Time with Hydra for extra DPS~
Edit: Passives used are: Glass Canon, Blur, Astral Presence
The build revolves around using Energy Armor (Force Armor) and stacking HPS.
If you don't know what Force Armor does, basically any attacks that would deal more than 35% of your maximum HP is reduced to deal only 35% of your max HP in damage.
So by keeping the max HP low, almost every single hit in Hell is reduced to just 35% of his HP , which is quickly regenned by stacking HPS items. (he has 900 HPS now)
The build is not foolproof of course, you're still susceptible to dying to rapid blows in quick succession and you still need to kite etc, but the survivability is just insane and the idea of running 4k HP in Hell is... ><
And as far as I know, the first person to clear Inferno Diablo solo was a Wizard who used a similar build. GAY WIZARDS
Last edited by crAzerk; Sun, 20th-May-2012 at 8:08 PM.
Hey hey, so at time of writing this build im 55 and somewhere in act 2 of hell. I was having difficulty surviving and not pulling enough damage. 12k hp was never enough and I sac'd so much dmg skills for defensive abilities just to survive that I couldnt kill anything. So I found out about the Force Armor...
The build
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.
How this build works!
Defensive - The idea behind Force Armor is, you have 4.7k hp pool, you take 35% dmg and you regen that as fast as possible (people have gotten 2k hp/s regen). So say diablo hits you for 50,000k dmg, its now just under 2k dmg, which you regen instantly (rough numbers but you get the idea).
However, you can still die! How? Getting swamped and hit too much and dots. Easily counterable! Crystallize is the defensive cool down you need to stabilize hairy situations. If you getting hit too much, pop this and run. If you find yourself in dot dmg (butcher fire, poisons) pop crystallize and run. The beautiful thing is you are still regening that hp and crystallize absorbs an incredible amount (not sure if the dmg it absorbs is calculate dbefore or after force armor 35%).
Your main ability to survive is still kiting, which is why i put the blizzard build here, but it can be done just as well with fire.
Offensive - I've yet to see another Wizard use Magic Missile Split, but then again, i have def not seen 2 same wizards lol. The reason for this is because when you AOE mobs are low, and 1 big charged shot could be overkill, why not split that into 3? The downside? What if you want to focus that single target. Good news! The 3 split shots do 50% weapon dmg each, so if you manage to hit 3 on same target (most boss fights) then you doing 150% weapon dmg (right? maths might be off), as opposed to 120% of the single charged missile. Eitherway, the split shot once learned allows you to be flexible in both aoe and single target situations.
Blizzard vs Meteor are your aoe spells. Blizzard is easier to kite with as it has slow, but mobs die slower as meteor does far more impact dmg and leaves a small dot as well as increases further dmg on mob by 10% for 3s (remember if mob is in scorched earth thats 3secs after, so 6secs total). Meteor is harder to aim, but provides the option to increase party dps with conflag.
How to play?
Whilst the below aoes are waiting for arcane spam your magic missiles, when you have arcane....
Blizzard focused - Spam blizz and kite and stutter step with your magic missile, crystallize if in danger
Meteor (more fun imo, big booms) - Kite like blizz but learn to aim meteor and how to manipulate mobs (mainly if soloing). Neat trick is to run up to the mobs as you are tanky wiht force armor and meteor on yourself, if there are just too many mobs crystallize. Most mobs die instantly to fast, at a lowly 7.5k dmg (thanks to magic weapon and sparkflint famliar, or it'd be worse lol) i crit 30k meteors, and that doesnt include the scorched earth aoe after.
Additional Tidbits:
*If you find surviving an issue or your party needs more "cc", swap out sparkflint as Magic Weapon seems to give more dps.
*On large HP packs with Meteor, stagger meteor casts for maximum conflag uptime whilst getting those magic missiles in between.
*I just got Hydra last rune the fire one, that could synergize really well wiht the meteor spec, will test.
*Why is magic weapon on right click? Cause thats where teleport was before and I got too comfortable using E as ray of frost and W for blizzard, and then things just happaned, shut up, thats why.
*When soloing always run with a templar with the regen hp thing and all the heals...its so easy to live with a pocket healer
Any Questions I'm more than happy to answer
Wonder if its worth building a force armour out fit or if they will hot fix a nerf . Im currently soloing hell act 2 with 8k dps ( got a 260 dps one handed with 180 int xD / 17k hp ) and I find the normal stuff extremly easy with my normal build (disentegrate / arcane hydra / diamond skin / archon / familair with spark and magic weapon with force) but some of the champion combos just wreck my face off and I find my self having to die 2-3 times to kill them >.<.
Last edited by Fadey; Mon, 21st-May-2012 at 10:18 AM.
I find my self having to die 2-3 times to kill them
Story of my life ! Hell difficulty is meant to be challenging I suppose ^^
I had to resort to many cheap tricks like terrain abuse (some stairs/slopes are buggy such that you can stand at the bottom and fire.. refer to this post)
Wonder if its worth building a force armour out fit or if they will hot fix a nerf . Im currently soloing hell act 2 with 8k dps ( got a 260 dps one handed with 180 int xD / 17k hp ) and I find the normal stuff extremly easy with my normal build (disentegrate / arcane hydra / diamond skin / archon / familair with spark and magic weapon with force) but some of the champion combos just wreck my face off and I find my self having to die 2-3 times to kill them >.<.
I doubt they'll hotfix it. Its not OP, it just makes single target stuff really easy. You still die if you dont kite well or stand in dot dmg. You see wizards in inferno going normal Int focused vitality builds, very solid, with cc options as spec. Whats important is that they also take force armor, even with high vitality. I also get my face destroyed heaps by champion mobs, but its usually as a result of failing my cd's or kiting.
Almost every build works, you just got to play it and gear it right.
Here's my solo/kiting Hell/Inferno build... From the 50-60 stretch I was able to not worry about survivability since I could just kite everything, and now at 60 the gear is at the stage where that has sorted itself out (I have good survivability without sacrificing damage)
Anyway, I recommend it if you've hit a harder difficulty and you're struggling to kill stuff on your own
It's low burst, blizzard is the only real spender of arcane power so you need to use it liberally while kiting. Venom Hydra is amazing DPS as long as mobs are actually in the poison puddles (which is good for packs, as every mob will run through the puddle fired at the closest one in the group).
Magic Weapon and Familiar give a pretty massive damage boost, just make sure you keep them active!
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Last edited by breadfan; Sat, 26th-May-2012 at 9:54 PM.
Basically any build can work below hell, like the silly mass aoe build i posted earlier that is good at killing things super fast, basically everything is dead before they reach you.
Certain builds will only work in hell, need more survivability as blues start to hit hard.
And in inferno the choice suddenly becomes massively limited, only kiting builds become viable and the best approach i find is to start the kiting after you engage them by firing your spells before they even appear on your screen. "Off-screen kiting!"
Looking at these other wiz builds here i've come to realize at inferno level the following skills are mandatory
1. Diamond Skin (I prefer absorb more dmg rune)
2. Magic Weapon - Force Weapon (basically a better familiar spark flint)
3. Blizzard - Frozen solid (You have to kite in inferno there is no other way and blizz = frost nova where you want)
4. Energy Shield - Force Armor
Passives - With the force armor you have to get the galvanizing wizard passive. And everyone gets glass cannon. So thats two passives used up as well.
Most wizards also get the "active" skill as familiar - Sparkflint for the + 10% Dmg. lol at the 4 active skills ending up being passives - Magic weapon, enegry sheild, familiar and diamond skin (emergency use)
So basically all wizards really have just "one choice" in your active skill and in your passive skill for your build to be viable in inferno. As for me im experimenting with magic missiles with the temporal flux passive (30% chance to slow enemies for 2 seconds from arcane dmg). I think sparkflint does not need to be used sometimes , and swap it out for frost nova (+cool down rate) vs melee mobs and slow time vs ranged.
I destroy tier 1 whites/elites, get annihilated at tier 3 and at tier 2 i kill whites easily but get rolled every time i see a pack. I don't think its an issue with the build but the gear I have (I only do 40kdps, top wiz's do 60kdps) so guess back to tier 1 gear farming, sigh!
I am also starting to think a Wizards and DH who endlessly kite with blizzard/traps might make a good combo. Or maybe 2 wizards. Idk. Inferno level 2 cant be "tanked."
1. Diamond Skin (I prefer absorb more dmg rune)
2. Magic Weapon - Force Weapon (basically a better familiar spark flint)
3. Blizzard - Frozen solid (You have to kite in inferno there is no other way and blizz = frost nova where you want)
4. Energy Shield - Force Armor
Passives - With the force armor you have to get the galvanizing wizard passive. And everyone gets glass cannon. So thats two passives used up as well.
Most wizards also get the "active" skill as familiar - Sparkflint for the + 10% Dmg. lol at the 4 active skills ending up being passives - Magic weapon, enegry sheild, familiar and diamond skin (emergency use)
I dont use diamond skin or blizzard, and i feel like galvanizing ward is downright horrible since the nerf to the no-vit build... ;o. Also you missed poison hydra which is probably the best skill wizards have in inferno.
Following a million nerfs, i found i like this one best. Venom hydra does tons of dps, and frees you up to avoid dmg and kite. Arcane Orb with tap becomes like a signature since its so cheap and does also tons of dmg for cost. It also slows for kiting.
Im undecided between force weapon or blood weapon for lifesteal, maybe you guys can help me.
Defensively this is solid, crystalize for oh shit button, TP wiht images to get out of waller/jailer/vortex and images to distract. Force Armor is good to not get one shot by random things.
Im currently at 30k hp and 22k dps. Not brilliant attack/crit.
Im undecided between force weapon or blood weapon for lifesteal, maybe you guys can help me.
Force weapon doesn't seem as useful when paired with Arcane Orb... though it's been a while since I've had Arcane Orb in my build. I haven't touched blood weapon yet either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nirvana
diamond skin (emergency use)
I use Diamond Skin pretty liberally really - I'll try to avoid taking *any* damage
Following a million nerfs, i found i like this one best. Venom hydra does tons of dps, and frees you up to avoid dmg and kite. Arcane Orb with tap becomes like a signature since its so cheap and does also tons of dmg for cost. It also slows for kiting.
Im undecided between force weapon or blood weapon for lifesteal, maybe you guys can help me.
Defensively this is solid, crystalize for oh shit button, TP wiht images to get out of waller/jailer/vortex and images to distract. Force Armor is good to not get one shot by random things.
Im currently at 30k hp and 22k dps. Not brilliant attack/crit.
Pretty much my exact build and i'd say we play it very similarly. I kinda bounce between a few changes every now and again.
Familiar (12% dmg boost rune) for extra dmg over diamond skin, since i find everything practically 1-shots diamond skin anyway. This is definitely better for partying w/ a tank but diamond skin might be better solo if youre really struggling survivability wise (and i can see why it'd be very helpful with farming kulle).
Illusionist over temporal flux. Again kinda dependent on what you're farming, but in a lot of situations i find having teleport available everytime you get hit really helpful. Because basically every time you get hit by anything at your gear level in inferno you're taking 1/3rd life, having teleport off cooldown instantly to port away i've found pretty amazing survivability wise. Temporal flux I think was better act 1 inf where everything was pretty slow alrdy and got super slowed so you never got hit ever, but everything in act 2 and so far act 3 is so fuckin fast ive found it doesn't help all THAT much to have them slowed 30% compared to being able to teleport 3 times or more in a fight.
So fights will basically go hydra->Shoot 'n' scoot (SnS)-> teleport when they're close before hit-> SnS -> teleport immediatly when hit (2/3rd hp) -> SnS -> Pot -> teleport immediatly when hit (~2/3rd again) -> SnS -> teleport when hit (1/3rd) -> SnS -> you're in trouble.
Keep in mind every teleport = 2 illusions that will soak hits/slow down mobs too, as well as you'll be well and truelly killing white mobs well before the "you're in trouble" phase, meaning you have orbs to teleport onto (hopefully) by that point.
Elites are still pretty hilariously difficult for my gear atm, and kinda dependent on what they roll (invul minions = leave the game).
my stats atm are 31k dmg buffed(using .9 attack speed wpn for orb dmg), 45k hp, but only 4k armor and ~200 in resist all.
Also, resist all is the best defensive stat in the game. don't underrate that shit.
edit: oh also regarding blood weapon/life steal for us in general, I haven't actually tried it yet, but I imagine its useless against everything with the possible (and large) exception of reflects damage mobs, who are a pain in the ass. but even then i think you're better off getting a weapon or gloves or w/e can have the affix w/ life steal, rather than going it over an extra 5% damage.
I'm also actually really curious about anyone who's played with lifesteal/life on hit with wiz's in inferno, can u actually cancle the damage you're taking on "reflects damage" mobs effectively? cos an elite/yellow with reflects damage and extra health i often kill myself twice/three times over without them even hitting me from pure damage back :\....
Also, resist all is the best defensive stat in the game. don't underrate that shit.
I'm only farming act 1 inferno and I've gotta ask, if that's the case why is prismatic armor so underutilised? Is force armor even post-nerf really still that awesome?
On the same note why is glass cannon taken for 15% damage (a good amount admittedly) when you lose 10% armor and resists? that Seems pretty hefty, or is the combination with force armor just better because you're already getting hit over 35% you might as well take the damage because you're still only getting hit for that much?
It just seems impossible to stop certain elites getting in on me, and when they do I worry that glass cannon and lack of blur would make things worse than they currently are. Are you just farming sections you know have nothing fast enough to get in? are you just killing stuff fast enough that it doesn't matter? Do you farm with a buddy?
I'm only farming act 1 inferno and I've gotta ask, if that's the case why is prismatic armor so underutilised? Is force armor even post-nerf really still that awesome?
On the same note why is glass cannon taken for 15% damage (a good amount admittedly) when you lose 10% armor and resists? that Seems pretty hefty, or is the combination with force armor just better because you're already getting hit over 35% you might as well take the damage because you're still only getting hit for that much?
It just seems impossible to stop certain elites getting in on me, and when they do I worry that glass cannon and lack of blur would make things worse than they currently are. Are you just farming sections you know have nothing fast enough to get in? are you just killing stuff fast enough that it doesn't matter? Do you farm with a buddy?
Cheers for the food for thought.
Prismatic armor is actually amazing, Once you have enough overall armor/res/life that you can survive the 'unavoidable' hits for less than 1/3rd of your health w/ prismatic on, it's way better than force. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with the fact that progression wise, your gear is basically always so borderline that a lot of mobs are hitting you for much more than 1/3rd of total hp.
regarding glass cannon, its just far far better getting the extra damage as a range class. Whilst defense is obviously necessary for when creeps do get the occasional hit on you, 15% dmg can be the difference between 1 or 2 hitting white mobs instead of 2-4 hitting them.
Farming is almost always easier/better solo unless you have a buddy who is more geared than you who is willing to farm less effectively than they can in a higher act to help you farm quicker. Progression however I generally find much easier in a team, both because it's easier to skip an "Impossible(read: invul minions)" mob with 2 people as opposed to one and 'event' bosses or w/e you want to call them, for those i find 3 or 4 people best, since when one dies you have 1 res and 1 tank. This is purely preference tho and also requires good coordination between the people and equal level of patience etc. A lot of people I know do prefer to do progression solo.
But yeah, i'd highly suggest not ramming your head against the wall trying to prrogress, the game should be very tough in inferno but as a general rule i'd say if your dying relatively consistently to white mobs then you're far to under-geared to keep progressing and go back and farm more armor if you're not even getting 3 hits out of force armor, or more dps if you are but are just struggling to kill the things quick enough.
Currently in act 2 inferno juz after magdad after dying a bajilion times. I think it might be problems with my gears instead of build. Basically what i do is blizzard + venom hydra when i see a pack afar, arcane orb when they start moving to me + blizzard if arcane allows. No need for signature spell since im pretty much kiting all the time, although u really need to know when to spend ur arcane and when to conserve it.
PS: Im at 18k HP and 30k Dps fully buffed. Horribad much? haha
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Cheese is Art.
Currently in act 2 inferno juz after magdad after dying a bajilion times. I think it might be problems with my gears instead of build. Basically what i do is blizzard + venom hydra when i see a pack afar, arcane orb when they start moving to me + blizzard if arcane allows. No need for signature spell since im pretty much kiting all the time, although u really need to know when to spend ur arcane and when to conserve it.
PS: Im at 18k HP and 30k Dps fully buffed. Horribad much? haha
HP by itself is a relatively pointless stat, altho 18k is tiny even with amazing resist.
If youre going to post your hp, we need you armor and resist all as well or it really doesn't mean anything.
I'm playing with a new build. I haven't got all 6 skills locked in yet, but basically I'm going for +attack speed % on every item possible, and using that to spam mammoth hydra all over the ground to carpet the floor with fire. It does a pretty solid amount of damage. Keen for some comments as this is a totally different playstyle for me, and I think it has potential but also a few bigger drawbacks.
So hydra is the main AP dump, and I'm playing with Teleport / Frost Nova to try to manipulate mobs in place. I don't think Mirror Images is doing the job I want it to, so I'll be replacing that.
Otherwise I like Energy Armor (Prismatic) and Magic Weapon (Force Weapon) for buffs.
Oh, do I ? Oo
Usually I'm quite attentive to whispers and I would never ever ignore one of yours (or anybody in fact). But My children both have characters, one begins Nightmare, and my girl is still in Normal. They don't answer.
If it's my sorcerer (or the low level Witch Doctor), just insist, I will answer if I'm not afk.
Sure I would farm Act 3 with you ! I can't farm it alone since I die to much there to be interesting for farming, but with you np.
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