Wizard - Builds/Discussion - Page 126

On June 12 2012 21:17 Gamera wrote:
Hey, I've got a couple of questions since I'm starting 2nd ACT on Inferno, obviously I have some troubles but that's not the case here.

21k DPS, 43k hp, ~6k armor with FA
1H/OF
Blizzard, Orb, Hydra
Diamond Skin, Magic Weapon, Force Armor
~170 Arcane Power

My conception of build is as follows: I want to focus as much on crit dmg as possible - dealing a lot of dmg and regenerating arcane power by that. I don't use any primary spell so I'm depending much on items with: +arcane on crit +max arcane power +crit hit chance and obviously +crit hit damage. I'm now around 29% crit chance and +178% crit dmg. I had almost 36 crit chance but only 96 crit damage so changed that recently. Now I'm not as often criting (thus not regenerating as much arcane) as I used to but I have better crit dmg (still it's low I know).

Eventually I want to have ~36 crit chance and ~200% crit damage, with good vitality and intelligence. Is it even possible to have it without having to invest into it crazy amount of gold? I'm struggling even to get one million as of now (crap drops).

It's kinda hard to get +arcane power +crit chance +arcane on crit with good % at the same time. Afaik you can only get crit chance from amulets, rings, braces, gloves, helm and +arcane power +arcane on crit from helm, wand, source, so I'm kinda limited.

I don't have much resists, and much armor, but I don't care. I can kite pretty well, and if I die - so be it. I'm playing with friends as a support anyway. Has anyone here similar build/conception? Has anyone here ~40 crit hit chance and ~250% crit damage? Thoughts?

I don't want to play a lame style 4 defensive skills + MM + hydra. For me it's not Diablo.

On June 14 2012 08:16 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Is there such a thing as reduce mana cost of arcane orb modifier? I saw one for hydra the other day and that got me wondering.

On June 14 2012 08:16 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Is there such a thing as reduce mana cost of arcane orb modifier? I saw one for hydra the other day and that got me wondering.

On June 14 2012 08:54 tsarnicky wrote:
why do people ever chose magic weapon over familiar? Seems to me +12% all damage passive + 20% wep dmg active >> +15% wep dmg.

I'm probably doing the math wrong but here's my comparison of the two passives
let's say wep dmg = 1 and avg multiplier on your spells is 100% (per ~1 second: venom hydra+bliz+an orb every so often).
dmg with magic wep: 1.15*1 = 1.15
versus 1*(1+.2 [familiar]) = 1.2 --> 1.2 * 1.12 [12% from rune] = 1.344
that's 15% more dmg from the familiar

also here's my build (lvl 55 hell actII).
Before you look at the build let me tell you, i have NO arcane power issues, I only run out once in every 5 or so elite packs I face (didn't run out v butcher/quest elites): thanks to arcane orb/blizzard mana cost reductions.

for everyday life: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#clRjOX!aXY!Ybbaba (debating whether I want wave of force or familiar)
for more tankiness v belial etc http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#clRdOX!aXb!Ybbaba

On June 14 2012 09:01 Iranon wrote:


You misread Familiar, in a pretty major way. The familiar attacks for 20% weapon damage (i.e., the little floaty orb tickles monsters when it feels like it). You get a 12% damage increase on your attacks.

And unless things have changed, the Magic Weapon bonus is applied twice for some reason, it's more than a 15% increase in practice. MW is much better than Sparkflint.

On June 14 2012 09:51 Firebolt145 wrote:
So tempted to post 'just read the last 20 pages you lazy bugger' :>

Act 2 sucks, get through it as quickly as possible, act 3 is where the current 'go-to' spot for farming is (siegebreaker).

Venom hydra is amazing and most builds utilise it, it's your choice whether to go the more defensive MM/blizzard/hydra build or the more aggressive Arcane Orb/hydra (sometimes also with MM) build. Force Armor and Magic Weapon are essential, you have one (or two if no MM) additional utility skills which is usually a toss up between Diamond Skin and Teleport.

Gear wise - your neck/bracer/gloves/rings should be a mix of int/attack speed/crit chance/crit damage. Boots need to have 12% movement speed on them. Other pieces are basically int/vit/all res.

I'd say about 30k hp + 250 all res + 35k dps is enough to progress to act 2 or 3. If you haven't reached that point yet either buy gear off the AH or continue to farm Butcher.

edit: hey NB, perhaps you should consider quoting this post in the OP. I think it's a pretty decent summary of the current most common meta for builds/gearing and it would be nice if newcomers to the thread could easily find this. If anyone else has anything else to add please do.

On June 14 2012 10:05 Doraemon wrote:
thanks for that. was looking for something similar. just hit inferno with 22k hp, 12k dps and not much res. lol i'm screwed

On June 14 2012 10:06 Tula wrote:
After much pain and tears of frustration I have also killed Diablo on inferno. Thanks for the good advice earlier in the thread (too tried to scroll back and quote), personally i felt that using wave of force to reflect the fireballs while good, inevitably leads to death in phase 3 when he throws 2 in a row (because you aren't used to dodging). Once i switched that slot over to sparkflint and simply focused on dodging everything it took about 15 tries.

My gear: 44k HP, 380 fire resistance (only one that matters as far as i saw, so i double stacked 3 pieces to raise that), 53k dps (with all buffs).
curious question to the people who killed him sooner, how do you deal with the AO clone? For me that was basically an instant wipe. I could easily deal with the 2 other configurations (twister/blink, charge pulse/meteor) but the AO guy one shotted me after spawning through diamond armor every single try...

On June 14 2012 10:14 TheYango wrote:

Spend your gold on a good 2H. Even without upgrading anything else, that should bump your DPS up to 20-25k, which should be enough to farm act 1, and clean up your gear for act 2.

On June 14 2012 11:03 Doraemon wrote:


thanks. so act 1 just focus on dps? i'm using a 1 hander + source right now.

On June 14 2012 09:04 tsarnicky wrote:


I'm probably being retarded here, but it seems to me that is how I read familiar? Could you explain how you would do the damage calculation?

Also for magic weapon, are you saying the damage bonus is actually x1.15^2?

edit: I also edited my OP, care to answer / comment on the stuff i added? ty

On June 14 2012 11:12 Tula wrote:


well obviously you want to upgrade your entire gear so all your stats go up, but for the beginnning of act 1 the things you need the most are about 20k dps and 20k hp. Since you got the HP DPS is your priority. Note you will have to spend a lot of time kiting anyway, even if you had 40 k HP, so don't missunderstand us HP is important (as is all resist and other stuff) but to play comfortably in inferno you need to be able to actually kill stuff

A cheap blue 2h weapon should almost double your damage (1.2k dps goes for about 50k on the EU servers...) after that your next priority should be boots with movement speed (if you don't have them). Then start upgrading everything

The usual order of importance still applies: IAS > Int/Vit > Crit > Crit damage > all resist (movement speed is sort of outside that order since it only exists on boots and legendary items, but it is definitly the most important stat to play comfortably).

After the patch (whenever that might actually be) we'll probably need to reevaluate how important IAS is, but currently it's definitly the most important stat.