wizard team opinions/advice

[djeayzonne]

Hey guys, I took a half-year off of Diablo to play Dragon's Age and then just got super busy with work, but I just picked it up again over the weekend. Being going pretty hard at it, so I already have 3 wiz with 6-piece Tal's and the last one with Delsere.

I am just wondering about build ideas, what I should do with the Delsere dude, gearing, and so on.

Tal Rasha wiz build is:
Chain lightning
mammoth hydra
blizzard
teleport-calamity
force weapon and force armor

Delsere dude:
frozen magic missile
slow time
mammoth hydra
teleport-calamity
force weapon and force armor

leg gems: toxin, bane/trapped, gizzard

Of course they are solo builds, but I saw some cool speed runs using In-Geom and somewhat like old CM used to be, but not sure how that might work with multiboxing and dsyncs.

Not sure how if the gems I am using is the optimum combo.

Not sure if I should make delsere dude tals as well. Sure like the utility and damage bonus from the bubble.

What say you?!?

[djeayzonne]

Well, I just got another piece so I could switch the wiz running Delsere to 6-piece Tals, but I would lose the 4-piece Del at the moment.
Not sure if that is a good idea or not.

Also, what do you guys think about Focus and Restraint versus Convention of Elements plus some other ring?
Hoping to get Arlyse sooner or later, but I already have 2 running F+R and one running Convention of Elements, but my main could run either (running F+R right now).

[Ellay]

Focus and Restraint is required if you want to push the grift levels. Overall though Wizards are super squishy because of it. If you can find a way to pump really good damage without it. Halo of Arlyse is amazing in combination with Ice Armor.

[Devile]

Tal's is a lot better for pure damage but Delsere is amazing for Crowd Crontol which is needed to survive. U can go with 1 Delsere but u really need Arcane Orb + Triumvirate so u dont waste the damage of Delsere's which is fairly decent. Otherwise u will not benefit from Delsere's damage bonus and will end up with a CC char which u can get with just Tal's and items to reduce the cooldown of the bubble. I'm using full Tal's on all 4 wizards and just 1 with the bubble and higher CDR. Does the job fairly well, but if u want more CC, go with 1 Delsere but don't waste the bonus damage just on Magic Missile. What I would do is have Frozen Orb on left click, Magic Missle on right click for the Delsere wizard, and Chain Lightning on left, Hydra on right for the rest. That way u spam Chain Lightning and Frozen Orb at the same time while casting Hydra and Magic Missile every now and then. That will proc F&R buff, reduce your bubble cooldown and u won't lose the Delsere's damage.

F&R is far better option than Convention of Elements which is prolly BiS if u go with RoRG, but if not, go with F&R.

[Yelgis]

Seems like you have gotten some good advice so far. I would just like to add that you can do a mixture of both. A popular build with Wiz atm for solo is what people are calling Delrasha or Talsere. It is a combination of 6p Tals with 4p Delsere. You can do this because of RoRG and the fact that Tals doesn't have shoulders but instead uses Belt+Ammy. So wear Delsere shoulder + any two other slots (you can do boots but then you lose Nilfurs which most rather not do).

The main things you lose going with this build are TnT so your Hydras won't be nearly as good and you also lose FnR. To make up for that you can use convention of the elements and since your Hydras aren't nearly as good you can swap to any other 1h ancient you have that is better (if you already have a crazy good ancient SS you can stay with that).

This build works primarily because the Tal's bonus boosts the damage from the slowtime in the Dels' set. It still doesn't do as much damage as a dual hydra Tals with TnT build, but the added CC from slowtime and the fact that it still does respectable damage evens out a bit.

The real advantage of this build is that you can use point of no return to achieve stunlock. Slowtime will stun a target if it is cast in such a way that the outer edge lands on the target. So if you can position it correctly you can stun while casting with it. Since we have 4 to rotate through you can cycle through them an achieve stunlock with about 40% CDR I think.

[djeayzonne]

Thanks for the information on build ideas. Only one wiz has TnT and in-use. Another has one, but I can't use it until a Tal belt drops.
I have only one SS, and it is not an ancient. Other characters have an ancient Sunkeeper, an In-Geom, and an ancient Burning Axe of Sankis.
So, I don't necessarily have the ability to quite do as suggested yet, but I think I might try to make the Del wiz a combo wiz.

I will give chain lightning and frozen orb a go when I can get him to 6-T, 4-D status.

What about gems?
Is the 4-toxin bonus better than each wiz having zei?
Is gizzard the best defense gem?

Is there any point to defense gems after G40?
Replace gizzard with pain enhancer?

I cleared 39 without too much trouble yesterday, though I am doing mostly 33-37 just to level up gems for now.

Just in case you are wondering and i didn't make it clear, this is a season group.

[Yelgis]

If your choice is between toxin or zei's I would go with toxin. Zei's is situational because of its distance mechanic. Toxin is a flat 10% extra damage for each member using it so overall it adds 40% to the group with a whole team using it. Not to mention the toxin dot is actually pretty decent since it gets boosted by the Tal 6p damage buff.

[Cmoidudu]

Zei's require to be very far away to be better than a good Bane of the Trapped, so overall Bane of the Trapped is better... Zei's have a Stun effect too, but I think there more efficient ways to Stun/Freeze as a Wizard.

[djeayzonne]

Hey guys, just thought I would give an update.

My basic build hasn't changed, and I still haven't been able to get the gear to make the del wiz a delrasha wiz yet.
I have been running toxin, bane/trapped, and gizzard, but I decided to level up pain enhancer to 25 for everybody and then give it a try after that. Didn't want to put it in while leveling it up.

Anyway, to my surprise, I did a 39 grift, and the lack of gizzard didn't make much difference. If anything, since I knew it was gone, I was a little more careful in my approach. I still had a couple of deaths, but that always happens, even in T6 rifts sometimes, mostly due to dsyncs.

Using toxin, bane/trapped, and pain enhancer definitely sped up killing everything including trash, elites, and the guardian.

I am going to level up tirinae to level 25 and then replace pain enhancer with that and give it a try.

I also kind of want to try a build based around the lightning rune version of arcane torrent, but not sure how that would work while trying to benefit from F+R.

[Cmoidudu]

You are running three offensive gems, and if you want to venture after GR39, I would strongly recommend that you replace one of your offensive gems by a Gizzard.

Anyway, how do you regenerate health as a Wizard without a Gizzard ?