Game Guide - Skill Calculator and Items

[Zarathustra]

Seems the Items section of the guide has been updated as well: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/

Enjoy.

[Frag]

Seems the Items section of the guide has been updated as well: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/

Enjoy.

Huh...

[Treesh]

They've changed at least the demon hunter skill calculator. It didn't used to have hatred generator, hatred spender and discipline, just hatred vs discipline. *goes back to banging out a possible demon hunter spec to be played first*

[RTM]

All skills look to be based on weapon damage now, casters included.

Wizard example

Makes for some nice easy caster scaling!

[Concillian]

The Dancing Wizardess. A silly little theory about how attractive you can make auto-attack, the spec features a defensive buff (Crimson Energy Armor for +20% Defenses and +180% Resistances), an offensive buff (+20% damage done and +45% life leech from Alabaster Magic Weapon), three defensive cooldowns (Golden Slow Time for permanent 'immunity' to projectiles, Obsidian Teleport for permanent -25% damage taken, and Crimson Diamond Skin for a Get Out of Jail Free Card) and Obsidian Arcane Orb for heavy melee pbaoe'ing and to make sure you have something spend Arcane Power on, also can be prebuffed. Passives reinforce the theme, granting -20% melee damage taken, cooldowns reduced by 20%, and an open spot, currently inhabited by 30 AP on Healing Orb. As you can see from the listed abilities it does not appear Blizzard has put in an actual melee attack, even by runestoning, for the Wizard, thus leaving you with Arcane Orb pbaoe and auto-attacking, albeit a somewhat sexy auto-attack: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...aVe!ZccabZ

Took a look at this one.

This seems to mix two ways to play, and I think it would be best to focus on one or the other.

The two I see are:
1) You are the bomb
teleport in with the damage reduction, drop the Arcane PBAOE and run away if needed.
In this playstyle, magic weapon is not really needed, and I'd replace those with something that enhances the bomb:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...UVf!cccaaa

In this case you'd gain some dynamo charges with shock pulse, pre-buff orb, teleport in, buff up diamond and lay down a twister to accentuate the orb explosions, then shock pulse fishing for corpse explosions. Loss of slow time means it lacks an escape mechanism, so if that becomes an issue you could replace twister. I wouldn't replace shock pulse, as the whole build kind of centers around passive buff, then unleash, which seems to synergize very well with the arcane dynamo passive.
Ice armor / alabaster further accentuates the 'I am the bomb' playstyle.

2) Melee wiz
this would seem to favor teleport more as an escape mechanism, which would amost certainly favor the alabaster rune. Slow time can be runed to offer similar protection as diamond skin and I think these become an either / or, which frees a slot for what seems like the best melee sorc synergy, golden runed hydra... tank in the firewall.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...aVe!bcaacZ

[Frag]

The Dancing Wizardess. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...aVe!ZccabZ

Yeah, that one is pretty poopy...

In my defense that build was built using a couple of assumptions that have been exploded, as well as before the weapon damage change. The pbaoe portion of arcane orbit is more lighting-shield-like then fan-of-knives-like and Spectral Blade is the melee attack for the Wizard.

Melee wiz
this would seem to favor teleport more as an escape mechanism, which would amost certainly favor the alabaster rune. Slow time can be runed to offer similar protection as diamond skin and I think these become an either / or, which frees a slot for what seems like the best melee sorc synergy, golden runed hydra... tank in the firewall.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...aVe!bcaacZ

Meleeing Wizards only have one option for an attack and need to take it. Also, I'm not sure I agree with teleport having to have infinite use in order to melee, at least for the way I play. You engage groups very cautiously in Hardcore and a single Teleport should be sufficient to escape from the play I've watched, thus the utility of Safe Passage or Fracture appeals to me. For speed/MF running, you'd definitely want Wormhole though. Playstyle difference, I'd wager.

What I'm finding I'm not sure how to deal with is the dumping of Arcane Power. You're pretty tight on spots once you take the 'requirements', as I see them. Magic Weapon, Energy Armor, Slow Time and Spectral Blade. I agree that Teleport deserves a spot, which means we a single spot open.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...Vfg!Y.YbaZ

There are a few options, maybe many, for the arcane power dump: Hydra (safe in situations where you can't enter into melee, powerful), Meteor (can use yourself as the anchor for massive damage), Blizzard (similar to Meteor, though more dispersed and thus less damage), Energy Twister (stationary, similar to Meteor, instant, but less damage), Arcane Orbit (previously discussed) or Explosive Blast (curious, seems built for the build, Crimson makes it instant). The rest of our options are channeled, have cooldowns, or there's no reason to recast it.

[Treesh]

All skills look to be based on weapon damage now, casters included.

Wizard example

Makes for some nice easy caster scaling!

I was talking with Tal about that this morning. They made Fan of Knives a percentage of weapon damage instead of the flat numbers they had listed in the skill calc. With Blizzard's tendency to have massive bloat in their games in terms of hitpoints and damage, you really do need to have all skills be able to scale or else anything that just does a set amount is going to be really weak very quickly. Although, it seems counter-intuitive to me to have casters scale with weapon damage too, but as long as Blizzard remembers to have high damage caster weapons too, it's all good. Please let them itemize correctly *crosses her fingers*

[Chesspiece_face]

This is the original template for the Pure Melee Wizard that I will be playing at some point in DIII:

Melee Wizard

This is obviously completely melee. No arcane dumps. The name of the game here is complete control. As such I've runed Spectral Blades - Obsidian, Mirror Image - Alabaster, and Slow Time - Golden.

Mirron Image is the Primary escape tool and offers some extra damage along with the added stun. I've taken Illusionist which can refresh Mirror Image in a pinch, but this can easily be swapped out for Evocation if/when Illusionist is non-beneficial.

I've taken Galvanizing Ward to buff up Arcane Armor making this epically strong defensive skill even better. I am unsure how far Blizzard is going to be pushing the health orb aspect of the game, but the ability to regen health while fleeing/relocating/etc. could be absolutely invaluable. Blizzard's encounter and enemy design looks to be greatly improved in DIII, but I'm still expecting the more difficult sections to involve a lot of running in circles avoiding damage.

Which brings us to Diamond Skin. I disagree with Conc in that Slow Time and Diamond skin are interchangable. They both definitely have thier uses, but the possibility of a Duriel-esque boss that can essentially crush your face with one or two melee hits almost requires the massive defense of Diamond Skin.

[Concillian]

Meleeing Wizards only have one option for an attack and need to take it. Also, I'm not sure I agree with teleport having to have infinite use in order to melee, at least for the way I play. You engage groups very cautiously in Hardcore and a single Teleport should be sufficient to escape from the play I've watched, thus the utility of Safe Passage or Fracture appeals to me.

I was just thinking that teleporting away several times is a better escape than teleporting once and gaining 25% damage reduction. Perhaps boss fights in a tight location is an exception.

---

Although, it seems counter-intuitive to me to have casters scale with weapon damage too, but as long as Blizzard remembers to have high damage caster weapons too, it's all good. Please let them itemize correctly *crosses her fingers*

It's always possible wizards will scale with WAND weapon damage, but it's probably more likely to scale with weapon damage since wands are wizard only right now and WD would kind of be an odd man out.

[Frag]

I was just thinking that teleporting away several times is a better escape than teleporting once and gaining 25% damage reduction. Perhaps boss fights in a tight location is an exception.

It likely is, which is why I'm digging Fracture atm for equal utility in escape or initiation as it deflects whole hits, whereas Safe Passage is stronger as initiation and sustained combat.

Although, it seems counter-intuitive to me to have casters scale with weapon damage too, but as long as Blizzard remembers to have high damage caster weapons too, it's all good. Please let them itemize correctly *crosses her fingers*

You piqued my curiosity Treesh, so I decided to find out if they'd done their homework or not. I took the highest base damage weapon I could find (Overfiend, 413-444), the highest bonus damage wand (Ruinstoke, 92-168 & +251% wizard damage), and the highest base damage wand with the highest bonus damage (Fragment of Destiny, 97-178 & +171% wizard damage), assumed perfect stats and threw them into excel and had it plot a chart. The Overfiend 2h Mace appears to be ~6.09% behind Ruinstoke and ~18.34% ahead of Fragment of Destiny on Meteor, and ~6.09% behind Ruinstoke and ~13.05% ahead of Fragment of Destiny on Familiar. As long as all wands pick up the "enhance wizard damage" property, I think everything will be fine.