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Almost typical as my build, however, with 2 differences. I dont like both meteor and disintegrate, cause u cant use both effectively. If u use meteor, you usually dont do enough of disintegrate.Therefore, no meteor for me. Instead i use wave of force which is both defensive and more reliable overall damage. It costs so much less mana than meteor.
And i have blur instead of evocation. I think this is preference though, both are decent.
Question - how do u manage your arcane energy with both meteor and disintegrate? 60 is a lot for a spell in tight situations.
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Level 55, latter half of Act II Hell difficulty: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WYXOSj!agf!YYaZcb
I've been playing the tank for my playgroup. This strategy will require some careful gear selection. You want to load up on health regeneration and armor. With group buffs, I can hit 1.7k health regen/second. Dexterity and strength are "nice," but I don't think it's worth prioritizing them. Otherwise, be happy if you can get any extra int, because your damage output will be somewhat low in a four-player game. Increased attack speed or crit % are also important, perhaps more than int. (haven't done any calculations though) More vitality will reduce the times where you get bursted before being able to react.
How to not die: keep up your buffs and hit things with healing blade. If you can get the bonus off your frost nova, your healing will increase noticeably and you'll stay near 100% with life-leech and passive regen. When the damage starts to go crazy, blow your frost nova and you'll be 100% when they recover. Your backup is diamond armor; you can almost never die while it's active. Keep attacking w/ healing blade to lower the cooldown of frost nova and diamond skin.
Some things I noticed with this strat: it's very tempting to get Jagged Ice or Ice Reflect runes from Ice Armor. I've found the extra armor and crit from energy armor's Pinpoint Barrier to be stronger at the moment. With better equipment, though, ice armor may become the superior choice.
Explosive blast is not very good. Arcane Orbit would be good, but the orbs detonate too slowly and it doesn't contribute to "staying alive," which is the most important thing in Hell and beyond imo.
Stretch Time is just barely not good enough; frost nova is just better.
Using the passive Illusionist with Teleport & Mirror Image could be really, really, good; coupled with Energy Armor's Force Armor rune and decent regen from gear/passive you could be effectively unkillable.
Alternatively, a complete glass cannon: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZTXSYQ!WXY!bZaZZZ
This probably has the best sustained single-target dps possible for a mage. With the runes and passives, you can cast Ray of Frost nearly infinitely. You can replace frost nova with whatever you want, but I like having it. You won't really have anything to spend AP on, so consider blizzard or meteor to replace it.
As for gear, if you can get enough extra AP regen you'll have more flexibility in spamming blizzard. Probably best to just pump up intelligence as high as possible, though.
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On May 18 2012 16:26 richter wrote:Level 55, latter half of Act II Hell difficulty: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WYXOSj!agf!YYaZcbI've been playing the tank for my playgroup. This strategy will require some careful gear selection. You want to load up on health regeneration and armor. With group buffs, I can hit 1.7k health regen/second. Dexterity and strength are "nice," but I don't think it's worth prioritizing them. Otherwise, be happy if you can get any extra int, because your damage output will be somewhat low in a four-player game. Increased attack speed or crit % are also important, perhaps more than int. (haven't done any calculations though) More vitality will reduce the times where you get bursted before being able to react. How to not die: keep up your buffs and hit things with healing blade. If you can get the bonus off your frost nova, your healing will increase noticeably and you'll stay near 100% with life-leech and passive regen. When the damage starts to go crazy, blow your frost nova and you'll be 100% when they recover. Your backup is diamond armor; you can almost never die while it's active. Keep attacking w/ healing blade to lower the cooldown of frost nova and diamond skin. Some things I noticed with this strat: it's very tempting to get Jagged Ice or Ice Reflect runes from Ice Armor. I've found the extra armor and crit from energy armor's Pinpoint Barrier to be stronger at the moment. With better equipment, though, ice armor may become the superior choice. Explosive blast is not very good. Arcane Orbit would be good, but the orbs detonate too slowly and it doesn't contribute to "staying alive," which is the most important thing in Hell and beyond imo. Stretch Time is just barely not good enough; frost nova is just better. Using the passive Illusionist with Teleport & Mirror Image could be really, really, good; coupled with Energy Armor's Force Armor rune and decent regen from gear/passive you could be effectively unkillable. Alternatively, a complete glass cannon: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZTXSYQ!WXY!bZaZZZThis probably has the best sustained single-target dps possible for a mage. With the runes and passives, you can cast Ray of Frost nearly infinitely. You can replace frost nova with whatever you want, but I like having it. You won't really have anything to spend AP on, so consider blizzard or meteor to replace it. As for gear, if you can get enough extra AP regen you'll have more flexibility in spamming blizzard. Probably best to just pump up intelligence as high as possible, though.
In your second build, what for do you need astral presence with low AP usage?
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just thought I would share some of my thoughts with everyone, Firstly, you can use runed energy armour (the one which reduces the cost of all spells by 3 AP) combined with the ray of frost rune which reduces its cost to 12 AP, and then you can use ray of frost as a "signature" spell, aka it doesn't cost Arcane power. I use it in combination with disintegrate and the standard diamond skin/ frost nova, alongisde Magic weapon and familiar or mayb some other random abilities for some variation. Also the passive that gives you arcane power every time you pick up a health globe is INSANE when you group with melee barbarian friends(or other people in general who pick up orbs while u are spamming), you basically get so much ap that you can spam disintegrate forever. Barbarians have a passive which increases the drop rate of health globes which is why its so great.
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On May 17 2012 08:33 Kiante wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2012 08:22 ShadowDrgn wrote:
I'm liking the wizard, although the majority of the skills seem really useless. I'm at level 26 and on hardcore so I play fairly defensively. Here are my thoughts. I'd love to know if you guys have found uses for some of these skills that seem bad to me.
Primary
Magic Missile: Boring, but good against bosses and big enemies you don't want to get near I guess.
Shock Pulse: Awful. Maybe the orb rune is good? good on big aoe packs
Spectral Blade: Pretty good, but does put you in melee range. being in melee sucks imo, but the damage is great
Electrocute: Not terrible, but not great either. this one rocks, the range is huge, has aoe and cool runes
Secondary
Ray of Frost: You have to stand there and use it. Useless. the charge up glyph is fucking insane on bosses
Arcane Orb: Amazing. High damage, huge area, travels fast, fire and forget. can be shit if you hit a mob on the outside of the pack
Arcane Torrent: Doesn't go far and projectiles are really slow. Maybe the mines or cascade save it, but otherwise sucks. lol agree suxxx
Disintegrate: Same problem as Ray of Frost. If you're channeling, you're not moving or doing damage with a primary.i spammed this skill since i got it. it's amazing. you kite mobs away (teleport/nova), go round a corner and pewpew. better still if you have a templar, he gets some aggro whatever, the aoe is nuts, this is by far the best sorc skill
Defensive
Frost Nova: Not terrible, but as an escape mechanism, it's not too great either. this is a great aoe setup
Diamond Skin: Best wizard skill? yep
Slow Time: Might be good on some boss fights, haven't really used it much. this is a good aoe setup skill especially with the +dmg rune
Teleport: You travel like 1/3rd of a screen and can't go through walls. Very disappointing compared to D2. it's still a teleport, great for kiting, especially with wormhole
Force
Wave of Force: Awesome escape spell and does good damage. long cooldown makes it meh imo, nova does a better job here, and explosive blast does better damage
Energy Twister: Super slow and very lame animation. Good for bosses maybe? this is great on indoor sections, spam a bunch into a room and everything dies, runes are great for it too, SUPER TORNADO OMFG
Hydra: Well, there are worse skills you could use in a boss fight... Blizzard somehow made hydra even worse than D2. hydra is great for kiting, drop it while getting in position, i used this along with disintergrate to great effect until i replaced it with teleport. the runes make it better too, first rune makes it aoe orbs shot
Meteor: Why would I cast this over Arcane Orb? It's expensive, slow, and doesn't do a ton of damage either.you can cast this better from range. does aoe after the fact, if you can nova/slow some mobs down, drop a meteor in front of them it's great damage
Blizzard: Don't have it yet, but numbers look awful. good for kiting, needs runes to be good tho
Conjuration
Ice/Storm Armor: Useful if you disconnect in the middle of some enemies? didn't really use this, because i was building low vitality getting hit wasn't on my to-do list
Magic Weapon: 10% extra damage on your weapon is a big damage boost. It's a lot better than it looks.this is amazing, runes only make it better <3
Familiar: I've never even tried this. Looks like a huge joke to me. first rune gives +12% damage (better than magic weapon) and they stack. not a joke
Energy Armor: Don't have it yet, but it looks like it puts the other armor skills to shame.didn't use this because getting hit is dumb
Mastery
Explosive Blast: Why would I ever use this over Wave of Force?6 second cd. rune it to make it go off where you cast it, infinite kiting pewpew
Mirror Image: PvP-only ability?i used this to bring down diablo lol.
Archon: No clue, not 30.you get a aoe damage ability with low range, a signature skill which is low right high damage single target, and a disintergration beam type thing with a slightly shorter range i think, and 300% damage. if you get a bunch of kills it lasts for fucking ages. not bad. kind of hard to use and situational because it doesn't have an escape, but a butload of damage, especially on packs of mobs. wouldn't use it on bosses tho, diamond skin etc too important my thoughts on your thoughts
on the archon skill.. from since i got it until i got done with normal (last night with a WD buddy of mine) i used it as a boss/champion mob.. and the like ability..
activate it and hold right button.. everything died in an instant..
like one of the bosses in last act.. they just died.. it didnt even feel like a mini boss fight.. it was like the champion packs from act1-2 
one drawback.. all your normal defense stuff is gone while this is active! (have no runes on it yet) so basicly.. get stunned... or locked in.. something..and you die
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level 55. this is the build i've mainly been using. extremely dps heavy.
i've soloed act 1 hell and currently on act 2. also works damn good in parties too.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UcOQYS!XYT!YaZZYZ
I'm building around crit damage and crit chance and I have about 10k dps at level 55.
Using critical based runes, I can get about 37%~ crit chance and seriously trash through everything.
Arcane Orb is my main AP dump and damage. I use this over other skills like Ray/Disintegrate because I can kite very easily with arcane orb together with teleport which was something that was really difficult for me with the channeling skills. Ray/Disine also don't crit, I'm not sure if that is intended or it's a bug, but that was a big turn off as well.
I use Electro for my primary because I have really nice attack speed (1.7~), and I can get AP back insanely fast with the "Surge of Power Rune". This skill crits like mad too, yellows everywhere. It's also a nice way of quickly getting up your "Arcane Dynamo" passive up and get that epic 40k arcane orb crit.
Also a great idea to change back to magic missile for difficult boss fights because electro doesn't gain much AP against single targets.
As for gameplay, I mainly rely on Wormhole teleport for survival. I try to get the "Frost Nova" rune buff as much as possible with my wombooo combo. Teleport in a big fight, quickly use nova, teleport out then crit the shit out of everything. If you're really quick with the combo, you can teleport->nova->teleport->teleport.
Some other options are "Blizzard" with snowbound buff over "Frost Nova". Real nice in parties, for when you already have a tank so you don't need to kite as much. 20 AP Blizzard doesn't cost much at all, and it's a nice reliable slow. If you reeeeally squishy, I guess you can squeeze in Diamond Skin and replace Nova/Magic Weapon.
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UcXSPO!aXY!YYaZZb
So I changed up my build and I have to say this is the BEST build I've used by far on hell (level 59 now). Tried some suggested builds in here but nothing really gave me the all around goodness of this one. You get amazing survivability and you have great aoe/single target dmg with good regen.
The thing I learned in hell is that rare mobs are hard to snare, and if you are slowing them/ccing you're in a really vulnerable spot, so instead I took up mirror image which is AMAZING. It's 7 seconds of pure awesome distractions and they take up the same heatlh pool as you in total, that's over a diamond skin worth of damage, and against fast mobs that destroy ranged it's the best survivability you can get. Add that to diamond skin and you can have a permanent rotation on a lot of mobs, even rares.
Arcane orb is op simply put. The only weakness of it is is that it's slow so fast ranged casters are gonna evade it easily, but other than that, the damage on it is the best per arcane cost and most general situations.
The masteries you can mess with. I just have the lightning stun for versatility, but you can go with arcane regen or something else as well. All in all, great overall build for anything.
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On May 18 2012 21:54 Itsmedudeman wrote:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UcXSPO!aXY!YYaZZbSo I changed up my build and I have to say this is the BEST build I've used by far on hell (level 59 now). Tried some suggested builds in here but nothing really gave me the all around goodness of this one. You get amazing survivability and you have great aoe/single target dmg with good regen. The thing I learned in hell is that rare mobs are hard to snare, and if you are slowing them/ccing you're in a really vulnerable spot, so instead I took up mirror image which is AMAZING. It's 7 seconds of pure awesome distractions and they take up the same heatlh pool as you in total, that's over a diamond skin worth of damage, and against fast mobs that destroy ranged it's the best survivability you can get. Add that to diamond skin and you can have a permanent rotation on a lot of mobs, even rares. Arcane orb is op simply put. The only weakness of it is is that it's slow so fast ranged casters are gonna evade it easily, but other than that, the damage on it is the best per arcane cost and most general situations. The masteries you can mess with. I just have the lightning stun for versatility, but you can go with arcane regen or something else as well. All in all, great overall build for anything.
I tried this out a bit (level 46 Nightmare) and it has amazing survivability. I never even tried mirror image before this but wow it's awesome.
I prefer Magic Missile with Attunement (4 AP per hit) over Electrocute but other than that, awesome build!
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god damn i think im the only wizard who is hating on arcane orb.... I tested out an Ice Melee Wizard build today. AMAZING. With a set of vitality items, you could become a way better tanker than Barbarion/Monk. Slow, Freeze, MORE FREEZE, dmg amplified, over all pretty damn good. I suggest if anyone wana try the hardest of hardcore, try building a tank melee wizard 
So i have never played solo, today i did a chapter solo for the first time (Hell). Yellow and blue are so EASY to kill omg... The best part is, with hydra, you can basicly kite 90% of mobs you could find forever and take 0 dmg. Suddenly Partying with people became so freaking hard -_-....
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I'm just gonna say it: any wizard build without wormhole is incomplete. It's insanely good. You can basically get 3-4 teleports for the price of one
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I love my Wizard so far. Here's my thoughts on the class (mirroring a lot of what most folks have said already)
Electrocute is my favorite left-click spell. With prodigy, (or w/e passive it is that gives you energy for casting signature spells,) you regain energy really quickly. Does decent damage vs mobs of small enemies, but I find its best use is regenerating AP, or killing small/fast mobs that keep their distance and are hard to hit with other spells. Those little wasps in act 2 are especially hard to hit with other stuff and can be zappy zapped down pretty quick. My favorite rune is chain lightning just so it bounces around and hits everything. Also great for killing objects, hueuhe
I do need to experiment with other signature spells though. I feel that firebolts has some serious potential. Never found magic missile or magic sword slashy thing or w/e it's called to be much use.
For secondary spells, I'm constantly torn. Arcane orb deals insane damage with the bonus damage rune. Incinerate is nuts for solo play when mobs aren't too durable. Probably my favorite way to clear masses of weak mobs. Arcane torrent is probably my favorite spell for dealing single-target DPS, (boss fights), but frost beam is also good for this. I'm not quite sure which one actually deals more damage.
For Q, I love frost nova. Either the cooldown reduction rune or the crit bonus rune for hitting 5 targets are my favorites. Freeze a pack, get the crit bonus (+ other crit bonuses), drop some meteors, and BOOM. Fantastic damage! Frost nova is just such a good spell. It's a great panic button.
For W, I try to make use of blizzard, even though I feel it's sorta sub-par. I'm only level 42 so I haven't unlocked all the best runes for it, but I just love blizzard from D2 and WC2/3 so I have to use it. Pretty nice for kiting too actually.
Hydra feels so worthless, which is sad because I really love the idea behind it. It has its uses; casting at the end of a hallway to scout, etc, but its damage is just wayyyy too low. In solo play, I feel like I can kill things so much better with my more damaging spells. In group play with a few solid tanks, I can just sit back and drop meteors instead. Has anyone found a solid use for hydra? I really want to use it, but it just feels so underwhelming.
I *love* meteor. In solo play though I don't use it much, (as incinerate presently does the job so much better), but in group play I love the meteor with star-pact. Enemies group up on our tanks, drop a blizzard, and then just carpet bomb the area. Boom boom boom! Meteor crits are hilarious. I may switch over to Comet later, but I'm still not sure. Right now star-pact is my favorite rune. The damage-enhancing rune doesn't seem to increase damage enough to warrant. Instead of a like 30% damage increase, I can just drop twice as many meteors.
I can never decide if the damage increasing fairy or if the weapon enhancer add more damage. Right now I run with sparkflint or w/e it's called, but I'll probably switch to energy shield with the bonus AP when I get it. Sacrifice a little damage for crazy survivability and more AP to spam stuff.
I like archon presently, but I'll probably drop it later. Right now I use it as an "oh shit" button, or to clean up mini-bosses. It also lets me save a slot by using the teleport rune. So if I get caught, quickly transform to archon mode, teleport away, and blast shit to pieces with right click death beam.
I usually run something like:
Electrocute (chain lightning)
Incinerate or Meteor
Frost Nova
Blizzard
Fairy that boosts damage
Archon (teleport)
For boss fights I run a little different:
Electrocute (just to regenerate manas)
Arcane torrent or frosty beam (seem to be the best single-target DPS skills)
Frost Nova (freeze ANY boss? LOL yes plz)
Bonus damage fairy
Diamond skin (having an extra "oh shit" button in boss fights is invaluable imo)
Archon (Teleport is nice, and being able to blow all your AP, transform to archon, keep pouring damage out, then turn back with full energy)
So that's my thoughts so far. I think my eventual plan is to be an artillery mage of some sort. Spec Blizzard and Meteor with the cost-reduction runes, and just sit back and carpet bomb the entire map with death from the sky. Not sure yet though. There's soooo many options and I can never decide which I like best. I can also never decide if I should try to specialize in one element, (to take advantage of the passives) or not. All-cold or all-lightning seems to have its benefits, but fire and arcane feel kinda weak imo.
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ok i do not understand how people are using frost nova and diamond skin, diamond skin with teleport, or meteor with blizzard. i do not understand this at all can someone shed some light on this for me plz.
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Lalalaland34490 Posts
On May 18 2012 23:45 durr wrote:
ok i do not understand how people are using frost nova and diamond skin, diamond skin with teleport, or meteor with blizzard. i do not understand this at all can someone shed some light on this for me plz.
Go to options -> game play -> turn on elective mode.
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Finding wizard @ high levels to be pretty damn dull to play (Hell+). Probably has something to do with Hell being lackluster for difficulty, although I can be sure that Inferno will present true challenge and make the class interesting again. I'm hoping after some experimenting I can break out of the "just don't die" role and maybe pull some ridiculous Kiwi build. Let the theorycrafting and testing begin.
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On May 18 2012 23:49 Firebolt145 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2012 23:45 durr wrote:
ok i do not understand how people are using frost nova and diamond skin, diamond skin with teleport, or meteor with blizzard. i do not understand this at all can someone shed some light on this for me plz. Go to options -> game play -> turn on elective mode.
OMFG i have gotten to 48 without this...... (my first Diablo game)
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Lalalaland34490 Posts
A lot of people are like you, don't worry :D
I don't know why it isn't on by default.
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So far I love the wizard, it's so flexible! As people pointed out, I enjoy the aspect of changing my skills around for the particular situations rather than to go with an all-purpose build.
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Are most of the builds here designed for solo play or group play? I made two characters and my level 27-28 wizard has been playing mostly with my brother's monk so far. Here are some things I think so far.
Spectral blade seems to be the highest damage signature move but it requires melee range. The diamond skin rune (prism) that reduces all costs by 7 arcane power works very well with channeled spells like ray of frost and disintegrate. It barely dents your arcane power during those 7 seconds. Arcane torrent is really slow but the damage is awesome when playing with a melee teammate. They just naturally gather the mobs around them.
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EPT
