Hardcore Discussion

[Eanae]

Kripp downed inferno belial last night. He's on a roll.

[Oxyminus]

This is awesome. I can't wait to play with your wizard; I've never used any of those skills/rune variants, and I've only rarely seen them.

Here's the build I'm using: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...XQO!Xfb!aZbaZZ

The pro is I'm always dealing damage. I basically drop a hydra, then a blizzard, and either toss missles into the fray or just kite. Always doing damage, super safe build.

The con is the build feels very passive. I drop two spells and let them do all the work. The other con is there's no other skills/runes down the line that will really enhance this build, except for force armor. I might take the last rune for blizzard, but the freeze on the blizzard rune procs fairly often, and that naturally buffs the hydra damage. There's something a bit disapointing about being set with a build at lvl 48, and I've been using this build since lvl 43 or so.

Considering tinkering with a slow time/arcane build. But I'm going to wait until I've progressed further into the current act and am farming it more.

What lvl are you at? We should try to duo soon, I'm at lvl 48. Gonna grind a bit of A3 today, but I doubt I'll hit anymore bosses. What lvls/HP/DPS should I be looking at for Cydea and Azmo?

[Vuitton]

My wizard died yesterday because I got careless in Act 2 NM. Shit was dying for me so easily that I thought I could just nuke down a little spider elite that was Arcane and Very Fast. It threw up an arcane sentry next to me in a small hallway right before it died and it just nuked the hell out of my life so fast I couldn't even use a health pot in time. Crystal shell was on CD too.

Started a new wizard. In act 2 normal now.

[aurik]

Here's my Wizard at 48: (With Force Armor +5% crit and Magic Weapon up)



Last thing I did was beat Siegebreaker. I feel confident in Cydaea / Azmodan without changing anything.

[Roranora]

Oh yeah, definitely. I know I took Nightmare Azmo with a lesser geared barbarian. Of course, clobber proc still works on nightmare @Q@;

Sad I was on a real(er) difficulty so briefly.

Oxy, you're higher than any of my heroes since Lv54 Asteria archived; I'll have to catch up with something some day

[Siralin]

Just had my first ever close call. Heart is still pounding haha. Sadly I'm only in nightmare act 2 in the sewers after hakan let the guards "deal" with me. I zone in and just around the corner is a mortar arcane gnat pack. Wouldn't be a big issue, but I was directly at the start of the dungeon and you can't go back up into the city. So I'm stuck in a dead end with those assholes dropping arcane things and lobbing mortars. I reallly didn't want to go deeper into the sewer because I'd just stir up more trouble so I tried to kite them in the little area that I could...barely worked and I was down to red screen HP levels but I'm still alive.

[Oxyminus]

Sounds good Rora. I just dinged 49, can always work on an alt toon in the interim.

Aurik - what do you have rune'd on Meteor? I'd be curious to try out that build. Love the survivability of my build, but it feels like it takes forever to kill anything.

[aurik]

Star pact, reduces cost to 35 so that I can cast 3 in a row.

[Oxyminus]

Thank you.

Any chance you could link me the whole build? I'm worried that at some point my build will stop being successful due to its lack of offensive. Want to try out other things.

[aurik]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...XSO!abX!aZZaZZ

Certainly not all the choices are perfect for every situation. This build works best when you have a friend to tank so that you can focus on dropping rocks. For solo it's a bit more tricky--you have to predict where to drop the meteors and rely on diamond skin to tank. Without a tank I've been thinking of moving back to arcane orb because it's a lot easier to aim. With orb/tap I'd probably think about switching away from Astral Presence passive to Temporal Flux for the free snare...which then makes me wonder about using magic missile again. Perhaps in Act 4. One thing for sure, chain lightning is awesome for act 2 because it's instant, amazing for bees, and act 3 in the crater and beyond because of how dense the stinger packs can get.

Also been thinking of moving to Magic Weapon + Venom. 15% weapon damage over 3 seconds should combo very well with chain lightning.

[Oxyminus]

Thanks Aurik for sending me the build.

Yeah that looks a lot more friendly to having a tank with you. My build certainly is more for solo/survivibility. But that might be a nice alternative when I'm not running solo.

[aurik]

whoops, old post

[Siralin]

I've been considering Force armor instead of Ice armor. Pros/cons? Or is it just 100% that force armor is better?


Edit: I've been using http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UQYXfi!acX!aaZaaa Only thing I dislike is that i can't do damage while running. have to pause and freeze them or tank with diamond skin.

Editedit: Aurik, is your wizard in nightmare or hell?

[aurik]

Force armor + Pinpoint Barrier gives a ludicrous amount of armor, at the cost of 20 maximum AP which turns into slightly less opening burst, which is recouped by the 5% crit buff.

IMO in your build you don't have a good AP sink skill. As you mention, disintegrate forces you to channel. Makes the choice of Prodigy as a passive a strange one; I think Cold Blooded is a clear winner if you're running Ice armor and can fit in an ice skill. With force armor, I'm partial to Evocation so that DSkin and Frost Nova come off cooldown faster.

I could see going with something like this:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Xfl!aWf!YaZaYa

Plan would be to blanket the area between you and the monsters with blizzards, then keep up a hydra to pick off anything that gets close. Frost nova for anything that makes it to you. It's just too bad there's no signature skill that does cold damage, but 15AP every 15 sec for a hydra should be manageable. On the plus side, this build should be extremely easy to kite with.

[Kaeko]

Solo only lv60 Wizard died just now

Was using a very defensive build with:

Mirror Images - Duplicates
Teleport - Wormhole
Diamond Skin - Crystal Skin
Hydra - Venom Hydra
Arcane Orb - Tap the Source
Energy Armor - Prismatic Armor

Blur / Illusionist / Galvanizing Ward

33k HP / 550 resist / 5k DPS / 1H + Shield

Want to take a guess what I died to? Act1 Inferno

[aurik]

Was it Daltyn?!

[Kaeko]

My bro predicted I would somehow die to Sarkaroth.

Ended up dying to Desacrator - Horde - Illusionist - Teleport boss. Mobs surrounded me due to horde + illusions. DPS was too low to kill off, but mobs dealt too little to proc Illusionist. Hate tight dungeons. Died to fire DoT on Desacrator

[Siralin]

IMO in your build you don't have a good AP sink skill. As you mention, disintegrate forces you to channel. Makes the choice of Prodigy as a passive a strange one;

It was a flat out poor choice after looking at it. Switched it out for evocation to test out in the cave of the betrayer and the 15% really does help. For some reason I didnt think it would shave off that much. (Clearly I wasn't thinking about it) Out of curiosity, does it shave off 15% from the original cooldown, or does it shave off from a reduced cooldown? (12sec vs 9 sec with rune)

[aurik]

No idea, but even from 9s that drops it to 7.55 seconds. Also Evocation applied to DSkin and Teleport. It is an awesome passive when the shit hits the fan.

[Oxyminus]

Aurik, care to give some feedback on my build I posted earlier (I'd re-link it but I at work/on iPhone)?

Doesn't feel like enough direct damage. BUT for solo it's super safe. I tried a arcane slow build with both disintegrate or arcane orb, and they nearly got me killed. I'm sitting at about 25k HP, but I think only like 1.2k DPS. Should I respec my gear for more damage?