Wizard thoughts

[MongoJerry]

Nice, thank-you! That definitely gives me some ideas. Archon is so fun. It's hard to go without it, but I'm having to run without it most of the time in hardcore, because I don't have access to my defensive skills when in Archon form (Diamond Skin and Teleport in my case at the moment). It is a very fun skill, though, and I do switch it in on occation when I know I'm going to be safe -- like say, when I'm roaming with Frag (massive barbarian tank) and two Lurker witchdoctors with billions of minions out. It's so tough to not have it in general, though.

I recently replaced Frost Nova with Teleport-Wormhole as one of my two defensive skills, and Teleport is already feeling natural to me. It's already gotten me out of a lot of jams with bad combination champions and bosses. You might consider it.

4) Magic Weapon-Force Weapon

Same damage theory as Familiar-Sparkflint except this is better. Even the people running Inferno squeeze this into every build they can. Magic Weapon seems to have a greater effect than 15%, and I'm now thinking that it is not the multiplicative interaction of effects but just Magic Weapon which is the source of most Wizard damage.

For example, with just Glass Cannon I have 13200 displayed DPS. Sparkflint alone at a nominal value of 12% takes it up to 14600. Magic Weapon alone at a nominal value of 15% takes it up to 17200.

There's a display bug with Magic Weapon. You might not have seen my post in the general forum. The display applies Magic Weapon twice, so a 10% gain from Magic Weapon shows as a 21% gain in the display. However, I did test it out, and the real damage output is the listed 10%. I'm going to put up a bug report on Blizzard's forums on Monday, when more Blizzard employees are likely to read it.

With that said, I keep going back and forth on Sparkflint versus Magic Weapon-Force Weapon. They're very close, with Sparkflint providing more single target damage while Magic Weapon-Force Weapon is better in aoe situations, where you'll hit a lot of mobs. I actually think that in general, Sparkflint will provide just a hair more damage overall, since even in aoe situations, you have to mix in some magic missles due to AP considerations, but it's very close.

What are your passives, btw?

[Skandranon]

Teleport-Wormhole is also a really good choice. I should have mentioned it along with Frost Nova and Diamond Skin: as a matter of fact against some of the hardest packs it is probably better than either of them.

Nice catch on the display bug. I think of the two I still prefer Force Weapon but it's a much closer thing now. The thing that bugs me about Sparkflint is that it won't necessarily hit the thing I hit.

Also, my passives:

1) Glass Cannon. I feel like this is still a no-brainer. With Energy Armor the difference between Glass Cannon and no Glass Cannon is .7-1.5% protection. That's almost totally irrelevant, also see below for what I have to say about Inferno.

2) Astral Presence. Even more of a no-brainer. I would probably drop Glass Cannon before this if I really had to. This counteracts Energy Armor's penalty and just helps hugely overall since your primary damage sources are still AP powers.

3) Galvanizing Ward/Prodigy. I swapped depending on the situation. Prodigy with Magic Missile (split) is, as you observed, a great AP returner, and when I felt like I had the luxury to play with it I did. I do think ultimately that Galvanizing Ward is the better choice.

I took my first steps into Inferno difficulty tonight. Truly I have no conception of how a hardcore character will ever survive this difficulty. One particularly painful pack required upwards of fifteen deaths from every member of the team. When someone beats Inferno on hardcore it will truly be an achievement.

I swapped my rune on Energy Armor to Force Armor, with the result that I quickly knew what 35% of my max health was since nearly every hit was for that value. I haven't even discarded my vitality yet - I have 31.5k health - and it might as well have been 3 health, since I died in three hits either way. I do not think I will ever be unassigning this spell or rune, which rules out Ice and Storm Armor completely for Inferno. The other consequence of always being hit for the same value is that any statistic that reduces incoming damage is somewhat meaningless - not entirely, since Reflect Damage packs will simply obliterate you if you fully discard vitality, but armor and resistances, I believe, have no effect on even that.

I kept all the skills I mentioned in my previous post but my lack of defensive abilities began to show even more as I died probably around 20% more than the other wizard on my team. As a team capability, I think keeping Archon is worthwhile even if I do die a little more, because sometimes we needed large numbers of mobs exploded quickly or a minion focused down. The strength of Archon in this case is its flexibility - it can hit multiple mobs at once, or focus one for huge damage, or pass through mobs, especially important if the boss has Invulnerable Minions, a hell and inferno only modifier that does exactly what it says. (That is, by consensus amongst everyone who's experienced it that I've asked, the worst possible boss modifier.)

For Inferno I think the real competition isn't between offensive spells but just how many defensive abilities you can fit in. Diamond Skin combined with Force Armor is an almost guaranteed 2 extra hits absorbed (Crystal Shell is the only possible rune) and that can be so incredibly valuable. Frost Nova comes up every nine seconds (again, most other runes just don't help at all) and being able to stop a bunch of mobs, even for one precious second, can mean the difference between being able to kite them for a long distance or being run down and slaughtered immediately.

Our team had to embark on extremely long kites twice, and it's only random modifier luck that we didn't have to do more. Once we took a mob from the middle of its own area to the entrance of the previous zone. The longer one was a kite entirely through the town of New Tristram up to that promontory overlooking the town where you start the game...and then around and back through the town again.

At least they won't follow you into Cain's house.

[Quark]

A video showing the abuse of Force Armor, Venom Hydra, and +Life on hit items: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTzyjf4R0tg

[Bolty]

A video showing the abuse of Force Armor, Venom Hydra, and +Life on hit items: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTzyjf4R0tg

This is SO going to get nerfed to smithereens. I can't imagine Blizzard intended Wizards to be the premier tanking class.

[MongoJerry]

This is SO going to get nerfed to smithereens. I can't imagine Blizzard intended Wizards to be the premier tanking class.

Perhaps, but it seems like it'd only be good against the Butcher, who has such slow attacks. It'd be fun to combine this, though, with some of the other defensive abilities of Wizards and see if you can really make a true tanking character out of it.

[Skandranon]

I agree with Mongo; it only works when your enemies attack slowly and with only one attack at a time. Damage over time effects like Azmodan's don't-stand-in-this pool or Diablo's lightning blast, as well as most champion and boss packs, won't allow you to be invulnerable in this way. Force Armor merely allows you to survive more than one hit in those situations.

That said I actually also think it's going to be nerfed. I do not know how they are going to replace it, though. I can't imagine Inferno difficulty without it.

[MongoJerry]

That said I actually also think it's going to be nerfed. I do not know how they are going to replace it, though. I can't imagine Inferno difficulty without it.

I assume by "it" you mean Force Armor. I kind of agree that it's silly. From the descriptions I've read of Inferno, it sounds like you might as well make a glass cannon and use Force Armor even in hardcore, because everything will one-shot you no matter how much health you have without Force Armor. Force Armor's seeming requirement seems related to the incredible damage dealt in Inferno relative to the equipment that people have. I don't know yet what the drops in Inferno are like. It's possible that Force Armor could become unnecessary, if one can get good vitality and damage mitigation gear in Inferno that lets you survive without it. That really should be the thing that "replaces" it.

I think Blizzard made a mistake in allowing people to resurrect during major event/encounters. It looks like people are just resurrection suiciding right now. If Blizzard's intention was to have people progress slowly in Inferno and gradually obtain gear act by act, then this mechanic should have been taken out. Taking it out would force people to spend some time in the earlier acts farming and crafting to enable them to progress through the rest of Inferno.

[Elric of Grans]

Let everyone play the way they want to. Some people like to speed through every part of the game in the fastest possible way; others prefer to take the long, slow road and get to that point a month later. So long as both are having fun, is there a problem? I know I have lost nothing in people speed-running to and through Inferno difficulty.

[Skandranon]

I assume by "it" you mean Force Armor. I kind of agree that it's silly. From the descriptions I've read of Inferno, it sounds like you might as well make a glass cannon and use Force Armor even in hardcore, because everything will one-shot you no matter how much health you have without Force Armor. Force Armor's seeming requirement seems related to the incredible damage dealt in Inferno relative to the equipment that people have. I don't know yet what the drops in Inferno are like. It's possible that Force Armor could become unnecessary, if one can get good vitality and damage mitigation gear in Inferno that lets you survive without it. That really should be the thing that "replaces" it.

Drops in Act 1 Inferno are like Act 4 Hell drops, except with a tiny chance of being slightly better. Emphasis on tiny. I personally didn't manage to upgrade a single piece of gear from drops. I mostly bought upgrades off the auction house. We did slightly upgrade our witch doctor and other wizard, and got a fair few upgrades (pooling our drops) for our monk.

So far, no amount of farming Act 1 Inferno is going to make it survivable. All that really changes is that the base types of items are slightly better and the item mods are also slightly better, but it's not a gigantic leap and it isn't keeping up with the damage.

I think Blizzard made a mistake in allowing people to resurrect in during major event/encounters. It looks like people are just resurrection suiciding right now. If Blizzard's intention was to have people progress slowly in Inferno and gradually obtain gear act by act, then this mechanic should have been taken out. Taking it out would force people to spend some time in the earlier acts farming and crafting to enable them to progress through the rest of Inferno.

I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe you could in normal or nightmare, I don't remember, but at least in Hell and Inferno you cannot resurrect back into major storyline boss encounters by yourself. If you are alone, dying resets the encounter. If you aren't, pressing the revive button warns you that "releasing here will render you unable to rejoin your teammates!" If a team relies on resurrecting, they will likely never progress past the Butcher, and thus be unable to exit Act 1.

That is, unless you're talking about champion and elite packs, in which case yes, you can resurrect infinitely at them. I don't know anyone who doesn't die a lot killing those packs. The amount of sheer nonsense they can hand out with 4 modifiers on Inferno is insane.

Anyway, since I'm on the topic: today our team went to the end of Act 1 and defeated the Butcher to advance to Act 2 Inferno. I discovered something that is going to change a lot of my skill evaluations: notably, in Inferno, elite packs and at least some storyline bosses have berserk timers.

Taken straight from WoW heroic mode raiding, if you don't defeat an elite pack in time (I have unfortunately not been able to figure out exactly what that time is), the entire pack gains a buff which increases their damage and speed, to the point where you cannot run away and they will one-shot you. Not only that, but bosses and/or champions will begin to pulse a screenwide damage aura called Out of Time that tears through your health in seconds - judging from my health, it was doing at least 8k damage/second if not more. The only way to win after that was to let whoever was currently engaged die and to evacuate everyone else to town, which allowed the encounter to "reset".

Thankfully, that didn't happen very often, so the time is probably something forgiving like 10 or 15 minutes. I'm not sure if we'd have hit it more often if I wasn't still running my all-offense, zero active defenses build. The Butcher, however, justified my keeping Archon and all my passives: his berserk timer is a mere three minutes, after which he lights up every single grate simultaneously, rendering the room an inescapable firepit of death. We wiped to his berserk twice before we won.

I'll admit I was missing Ray of Frost. I've always known it was good for some kinds of single-target situations, and had habitually swapped to it for the Butcher, the Siegebreaker, and Azmodan. But swapping to it would have dropped all five of my stacks of Nephalem Valor, meaning that the Butcher, when defeated, would drop only two blues and a mass of whites, instead of 2-3 rares and 4-6 blues (as is typical when you kill a major storyline boss with 5 stacks of Valor). So I had to make do without, and it turned out to be good enough.

That said, if softcore players find they can't hit the requirement, they can just decide to lose Nephalem Valor and make the skill change. It seems to me that the real implication of the berserk timers is for hardcore players. It means you cannot just load up on defensive spells and play very safely, since if you do that for too long the mobs will simply berserk and kill you anyway. You need to do some serious damage. That might mean skill swapping, but the skill swap times are extended in Inferno, to something like five or more minutes. Probably you'd have to move very cautiously, activate a pack and then flee to a waypoint so you can set a custom build for that particular combination of modifiers in town, where you don't incur a cooldown.

I'm not a hardcore player, though, so I could be completely wrong about that. What are your thoughts?

[MongoJerry]

Let everyone play the way they want to. Some people like to speed through every part of the game in the fastest possible way; others prefer to take the long, slow road and get to that point a month later. So long as both are having fun, is there a problem? I know I have lost nothing in people speed-running to and through Inferno difficulty.

Blizzard was trying to make the encounters challenging by eliminating town portals during the encounters and making most of them be "cage matches" that eliminate the ability to run away from or kite bosses. It seems silly to keep in this loophole that allows one to get past an encounter without really beating it. People are supposed to farm and craft a bit to gear up and prepare for the next encounter, according to the pre-release interviews with the developers. By allowing people to resurrect multiple times during an encounter, they're allowing characters to get past encounters before they (or the players) are really ready.

---

I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe you could in normal or nightmare, I don't remember, but at least in Hell and Inferno you cannot resurrect back into major storyline boss encounters by yourself. If you are alone, dying resets the encounter. If you aren't, pressing the revive button warns you that "releasing here will render you unable to rejoin your teammates!" If a team relies on resurrecting, they will likely never progress past the Butcher, and thus be unable to exit Act 1.

The Inferno Diablo kill video posted on the front page of the Lounge shows a group resurrecting each other constantly throughout the fight. You can't resurrect yourself during the encounter (without going to town), but your teammates seem to be able to resurrect you. That's the mechanic that I think should be eliminated during major events.

[MongoJerry]

Drops in Act 1 Inferno are like Act 4 Hell drops, except with a tiny chance of being slightly better. Emphasis on tiny. I personally didn't manage to upgrade a single piece of gear from drops. I mostly bought upgrades off the auction house. We did slightly upgrade our witch doctor and other wizard, and got a fair few upgrades (pooling our drops) for our monk.

So far, no amount of farming Act 1 Inferno is going to make it survivable. All that really changes is that the base types of items are slightly better and the item mods are also slightly better, but it's not a gigantic leap and it isn't keeping up with the damage.

That's too bad. Obviously, I can't say for sure if there is more that can be done with items. Maybe crafting recipies and such will help. Or, perhaps Blizzard has just unbalanced things too much with the encounter dangers far outpacing the gear. My statement was simply that the solution to the Force Armor dilemma should be encounter appropriate gear. If that doesn't exist, then that's a problem with the game design.

[Quark]

Word is Force Armor no longer works in Inferno after the maintenance.

[Roland]

Word is Force Armor no longer works in Inferno after the maintenance.

Seems Blizzard's patented Sledge Hammer o' Balance hasn't been retired yet. Pity, I had hoped this new team would have learned from the prior's mistakes. Oh well.

I've already found I couldn't beat the Butcher on Hell difficulty by myself. I had to enlist a friend to tank him for me while I could dodge and damage. Still took a long time, but we managed. I consider myself to be geared pretty well, with 3.5k DPS and over 30k life, but there was just no way for me to beat him. I don't know what his algorithm for lighting the fires is, but I would always die to that when he'd lock me into a corner with his fire (after dodging his charge attack), and then light the grate underneath me as well. I have ~62 Fire resistance (which I think translates to ~16% damage reduction), and my armor and dodge %'s are both near 30%. Decent resistance gear is just starting to come up from drops / auction house, but even then it's simply not enough to mitigate the DPS of the fire. I can cross two grates from full health if I choose my path carefully enough, but otherwise forget it.

I'm beginning to think I'm not going to get to - let alone enjoy - Inferno, which is a shame. We'll see, though.

[Bolty]

Word is Force Armor no longer works in Inferno after the maintenance.

Correct. There's some confusion because the maintenance on the EU servers is tomorrow, so Force Armor can still be abused there. I'm still surprised though to hear from some in the Wizard community complaining that Inferno mode will now be "impossible." Wizards are now just in line with the other classes and can't gear/spec entirely for DPS while letting Force Armor keep them alive. They're being 2-shot like everyone else.

[Mavfin]

Word is Force Armor no longer works in Inferno after the maintenance.

I'm still surprised though to hear from some in the Wizard community complaining that Inferno mode will now be "impossible." Wizards are now just in line with the other classes and can't gear/spec entirely for DPS while letting Force Armor keep them alive. They're being 2-shot like everyone else.

You shouldn't be surprised, though, after seven years of WoW, and people's response to balancing there.

[MongoJerry]

So, are they replacing Force Armor with something else? It seems silly to have a skill suddenly not work anymore just because you pass into a new difficulty.

[Skandranon]

Force Armor was working unchanged today in Inferno. Perhaps they implemented some kind of case for if the wizard is running around with minimum health, but I had no issues.

[Quark]

From another board:

Hmm, so far the energy armor nerf seems to have something to do with your hp pool. Act 3 Inferno, sub-20k hps one shot by a helpful little single demon that spawned by the entrance (the one with the tongue attack). Around 30k hps it knocked off what looks like the expected 35%, so I was 3 shot without doing anything defensive. The stupid AH isn't working so I can't re-balance my gear effectively right now.

[Mavfin]

From http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/...d-5-23-12/

Amount of damage absorbed from a single attack will now cap at 100% of a player’s maximum Life

[MongoJerry]

From http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/...d-5-23-12/

Amount of damage absorbed from a single attack will now cap at 100% of a player’s maximum Life

Thanks for the link. That sounds like an interesting but reasonable fix.