Wizard in Inferno

[Quark]

Saw this in EJB.

Wizard has a tough time with fast weapons because our best offensive spells either don't benefit from speed (Hydra, Blizzard) or drain AP faster (Disintegrate, Ray of Frost). Archon negates this by having everything be free and using a stronger version of Disintegrate. Someone has taken this to the logical extreme in Inferno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWRO5BNYB...tube_gdata

http://i.imgur.com/2KpiW.jpg

Now, the build certainly has some restrictions. You'll note he's splicing the feed here, that'll be due to deaths and archon running out (or going back to pick up all the items that he passed to keep archon going). But when you're killing so fast, does the time spent going back or waiting out archon timer really matter?

I haven't gotten to check out the battle.net thread yet where he says he's going to post gear.

[MongoJerry]

Archon is a really fun skill. I use it when releveling my hardcore Wizard in late normal and early nightmare. A few times, I've been able to keep it up long enough for the cooldown to run out before I fell out of Archon form -- meaning over a hundred mobs were killed in one pass.

Now, regarding that guy, yeah, he clearly has really amazing gear *and* he spliced out a few deaths in there. He doesn't even have his Archon form runed to either defensive skill -- teleport or slow time. So, any champion or boss pack that can grab or hold him down will eat him alive. He's set up for maximum offense no matter what -- Sparkflint, Magic Weapon -- Force, and Glass Cannon. I assume that his Archon is runed with Improved Archon. He only has 30k life, but his armor and resistances are decent -- considering Archon will give him another 40% boost to both armor and resistances. If he changed the Archon rune to teleport and alterred his gear to get around 50k life, maybe the build could work generally.

[MongoJerry]

I thought about this a bit more last night, and I'm confused, Quark, about your comments about fast versus slow weapons. That doesn't seem to be the point of the video at all. It seems to be mostly "here's a fun thing you can do if you obtain all the best items in the game and focus entirely on offense." The only thing about it involving fast versus slow weapons is perhaps the fact that faster weapons allow him to proc his life on hit more often.

[Quark]

Most of it is actually IAS gear. Equipping a slow weapon with little to none of your DPS coming from IAS will give you the most efficiency with channeled spells. As you gain IAS gear, burst DPS will grow but you'll run yourself dry in no time leading to little or no sustained DPS upgrade. Archon ignores that with the free cost - pour on the IAS.

Since you're no longer worried about weapon speed for slowness, then, there are three considerations on slow 2 hander vs fast 1 hander. The slow 2 hander will have the highest base DPS. The fast 1 hander will give you a shield (survivability) or source (regain the lost DPS). The fast 1 hander will also gain more DPS from +damage armor you have equipped.

The versatility of swapping shield/source, extra +damage gear, and more procs on spells all favor fast over slow. It's too bad 4 of the most common wizard spells (Disintegrate/Ray of Frost/Blizzard/Hydra) all swing the pendulum greatly in the opposite direction.