Diablo 3: Patch 2.1.0

[Ellay]

I wanted to try out Wizards last night with the popular Apoc/Hydra/Black Hole build, and while my gear didn't support it I could do it fine in T2/3 but it just didn't gel well. Honestly for multiboxing DH's seems like the smoothest option, it's getting 1 shot that's annoying

[dancook]

Almost at lvl 70 with WD + 3 X Wiz, and advice on builds would be appreciated.

Currently using arcane torrent powered up by arcane dynamo, and a bunch of damage increasing abilities.
WD just has a small army to give Wizards some time to do damage.

[Devile]

For Wizards, nothing comes even close to Firebird 6 piece + Blizzard Apocalypse + Blackhole Blazar + Mammoth Hydra. The Furnace is BiS but that's crazy difficult to get. Second place is for a good rolled Sunkeeper + Magefist. If not, Maximus.

But is not just cast and forget. Firebird set needs to hit 3000% damage in 3 secs in order to proc the infinite DoT. And since this damage only cares about base damage, a slow 2 hander with high DPS is the best choice in order to hit that 3000% damage fast. If not, u will have to keep reapplying the DoT. That's why some ppl use Meteor Molten Impact so they hit that 3000% damage instantly and the DoT will tick forever.

[dancook]

For Wizards, nothing comes even close to Firebird 6 piece + Blizzard Apocalypse + Blackhole Blazar + Mammoth Hydra. The Furnace is BiS but that's crazy difficult to get. Second place is for a good rolled Sunkeeper + Magefist. If not, Maximus.

But is not just cast and forget. Firebird set needs to hit 3000% damage in 3 secs in order to proc the infinite DoT. And since this damage only cares about base damage, a slow 2 hander with high DPS is the best choice in order to hit that 3000% damage fast. If not, u will have to keep reapplying the DoT. That's why some ppl use Meteor Molten Impact so they hit that 3000% damage instantly and the DoT will tick forever.

Would you still do that with a WD? the build normally includes teleport - and I kind of miss using that, but then I realise how long I'm able to stand nuking sometimes..

[Devile]

Wizards can do pretty high damage and have higher toughness than DHs, so in theory they should do better in higher Greater Rifts. At least that's my theory for multiboxing only. But, the main problem is CC and pets. DHs have cold damage that will slow everything. Even 1 DH will keep everything slowed (I prefer 2 DH with cold) . And to make it even better, they have 4 autocast pets that will distract mobs so DHs can go to a safe spot and wait til everything dies. Since they have high burst damage, they can afford staying without moving forward to wait til things die.

Firebird Wizards lack burst damage, don't have pets and CC is not great. Skills have long cooldowns and slowing things is prolly not the best idea since Firebird gamestyle requires mobs to be chasing u and die 1-1.5 screens away from DoT. If they remain stunned/slowed, then u may go out of range and the infinite DoT stops, causing them to not die. Sure u can stick around and wait til they die, but then u will fail the rift anyway. This build requires u to keep moving forward or u won't have enough time. U cast your Blackhole, Apocalypse and leave a Hydra ahead and go to the next pack. Not even stop for elites, just gather 1-3 packs (asuming affixes are not a huge pain in the butt) and DoT all.

The idea of having a WD is that u can still move around, cast your DoT safely and keep moving forward. Mobs will still chase u and keep up with your pace, but the WD will prevent anything from coming too close and hit u. That's why I decided to go with that combo, otherwise, if u go with 4x Wizards, u might run into survivability issues. If u have Illusionist passive, that will cause horrible dsync issues cause not all wizards will get hit at the same time, causing your teleport to be off cooldown at different times for each wizard. Without Illusionist, teleport is limited to your CDR and may not save u in most cases. I rather replace teleport with Familiar or anything that adds more damage.

4x wizards i's doable, but I don't think it will be more efficient than 4x DHs cause u will be running and kiting all over the place and 1 or more wizards will die at any time. U need something to distract mobs and CC them to the point u can free cast and let them chase u til they die. U can try slowtime with mirror images and try to not go too far so things still die, but not sure how efficient this will be. It's something I will test later on.

A SMK WD will boost the party DPS and provide the kind of CC that wont interfere with Firebird gamestyle.

[dancook]

Cheers, I think I will run 4 x wizard until I get 3 with enough gear then substitute in the witch doctor. Might take some time

[Devile]

Been testing Crusaders for almost a week now and I'm pretty much convinced it's a better combo for GR36+ than Wizards + WD or DHs. I'm barely scratching the surface here and my main is already criting elites for 80m+. I have 40m+ toughness, around 100k life per sec and immune to CC, basically immortal. It's just too good. DHs are perfect for Ubers, normal Rifts, Trials and GR1-35. But keywardens, bounties and GR35+, I think Crusader are way better. Farming keys and Bounties with Crusaders is just perfect. Nothing comes even close. Permahorse with Swiftmount lets u clear bounties in prolly half the time DHs and u NEVER die . Not to mention u can always port uninterrupted.

I dont even have full gear. Most my Crusaders have 1-2 gems only, yellow amulets, random SoJ with INT/DEX or Holy/Electric damage. Only 3 have Unrelenting Phalanx Shields with suboptimal rolls. 1 Furnace, 1 Heart Slaughter and 2 horrible Baleful Remnants.

The thing I hate the most is doing T6 rifts with them. Once u play DH u are spoiled. Everything feels so damn bad and slow. I'm facerolling T6 but doesn't come close to DHs speed. But I have no other choice in order to gear them. Sure I can do T6 rifts with DH and then switch to spend my shards, but Kadala is a @#$% and I get more stuff from regular drops than from her. Once I get my forth shield and a couple more Leoric Crowns, I'll trying GR35 and see how it goes.

It's so cool to have maxed reflection pools all the time

PS: Tried GR37 and failed horrible. Right at the beginning a nasty champion pack with Extra Health Knockback Desecrator and my favorite affix, WALLER which boxed my whole party with desecration for the first minute and a half. Density was really good, the map too, but elites were @#$@%. No less than half were waller and I got completely boxed every single fight. Every time I was catching up with the timer, a waller pack. Well, it helped me see that I'm not ready for GR37 yet. 2 Crusaders are doing decent damage, but 2 are doing less than half those 2 are, so not gonna make it that way. Survivability is pretty good. Trash does almost nothing. Can face tank some elites ground effects but I can die if Akarats Champion runs off. Once I improve the damage of those 2 Crusaders, I should be able to do GR37+. Also, for GR, Gogok of Swiftness is a must IMO. Need 100% uptime for AC and getting that much CDR from gear will hurt my DPS.

Did GR34 without problems. It was not as fast as with my DHs, but not a fair comparison since DHs have all end gear items Crusaders don't iven have BiS weapons. Still, it was decent and nothing did much damage.

[Ellay]

Really exciting to hear I like the fact you get to be on the same screen as the boss you are fighting, instead of chilling behind a wall until it dies

The perma swiftmount thing also sounds awesome for keywardens/bounties. As well as the damage reporting now with a Furnace of 80m, seems like those bracers stacking is working very well.

I'll probably give crusaders a try again.

[Devile]

80m+ without Furnace. My main has a Heart Slaughter, at least for now. SoJ with DEX, not the best shield/helm, but overall, in good shape:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/D.../hero/44621324

Bracer stacking works amazing for trash, Elites (blues and minions) but does nothing on Champions, Rift Guardian and some big ass white mobs like Executioners, Mallet Lords and Punishers. For those u need raw damage on all your chars and my party is handicapped right now. I'm carrying 2, but once I improve them, it should be a lot smoother. At least I managed to get all my Shields, reason why GR34 was possible. Now I need to work on 2 more Leoric Crowns, 2 decent weapons and Physical/STR SoJs for every char. Right now I'm hitting Champions and RG for around 50m. I should be posting later today my topic about Crusaders. I'll prolly upload a video later tonight as well.

Steed Charge is THE best skill to move around. Something u don't quite get from the description is that mobs don't attack while u are on the horse. While WD Spirit Walk kinda does that, many ppl don't know that the "spirit" left behind can be killed and that will instantly cancel the skill. That doesn't happen here. It not only lets u run at an unbeatable 150% movement speed, but it literally makes u invisible to everything for 3 secs. Not to mention u can go thru mobs and even most doors. Can be used to quickly search all map for bounties/keywardens or escape from tricky situations. I use it all the time whenever I wanna switch to Nemesis Bracers on Shrines/Pylons. I get 3 secs where Elites don't even cast a single affix, to switch back to Strongarms and position correctly. By the time Steed Charge is over, the pack is already stunned. Many times wallers can't even cast because I'm able to quickly Steed Charge in position and stun them before they start casting walls.

Crusaders beat DHs for bounties and keywarden runs by a LONG shot. Not even with Danetta's Hatred DHs can compete with Crusaders. DHs are so squishy on T6 that I was forced to look around with just 1 DH and once I found the objective, clear the area a little bit and port the other 3 to that position. Plenty of times I got my whole party killed by doing this, specially on Fields of Misery cause of the huge ranged mob density. Also, porting out was always a problem and had to clear everything to port, wasting time. Sure, I can clear everything pretty fast, but still, sometimes u get your portal cancelled cause of a single mob or an elite affix, etc. Not a problem with Crusaders. U just run around extremely fast with your whole party without consuming any resource at all, go thru mobs safely, get to your target, kill it, port to the next bounty/keywarden. I'm able to farm RoRG prolly 3+ times faster than with DHs and NEVER die. I actually ENJOY doing bounties now. Multiboxing bounties/keyruns was prolly the most BORING thing in D3 for me, specially after u do split farming. Everything felt so damn slow and many times I fell asleep. Not anymore. This weekend I lost the count of how many bounties I did and got a ton of RoRG, 2 ideal for my party.

So yeah, Crusaders are in very good shape. My target is to be able to do GR40 with them. We'll see how it goes.

[Ellay]

Even though the strongarm bracer doesn't proc, is the stun still going off on RG and Champions?