S3 Wizard Team Progress

[Cmoidudu]

GR49 done. For a once I got a decent monster population. Usually when I try a GR48+ I always stumble on an Anarch convention, with Winged Assassins and Exorcists...

Not very proud of me tho. I almost ruined the GR with a bad elite pull @05:30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ8DQpRTRt0

[Pazgaz]

Can you post links to you profiles?

[Cmoidudu]

Since the video i looted 2 ancient Serpent Sparkers which I equiped on characters #3 and #4... I'll try GR 50 later, with the DPS boost from the ancient sparkers I might make it.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/c.../hero/31711726
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/L.../hero/23069299
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/F.../hero/23438644
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/E.../hero/36279264

Character #1 is the guy spamming Slow Time bubbles. The others are Tal Rasha dps.

[Pazgaz]

thanks!
For up to 40 or so i don't feel like there's any need for a slow time dude. 4 X tal rasha dps just melts everything.
I'm using energy twister wicked wind instead of magic missile (with the season bracers). Works great of trash and black hole is mostly only for elites and clearing nasty shit off the ground.

[Zwizm]

Finally made some progression this week as GR's 55 and 56 went down tonight. I am really enjoying the play style as it's a cross between melee when necessary and extreme range. The main change was swapping out my Strongarms bracers for APDs. Initially I was worried about a huge DPS loss but after un-scientifically observing my numbers I didn't notice much of a difference at all. This leads me to wonder if my round-robin handling of Black Hole with a new cast every 1.5 seconds, never actually lets the mobs "land" and start taking the increased damage from Strongarms for 5 seconds. Hmmm.

In any case, running around with the APD's have enabled me to handle the dreaded "reflect" packs much better than before. Normally these packs would eventually somehow worm their way out of my max range BH and if one casts reflect, they all do and down I would go. Now I have about an 85 percent chance of success by running into Frost Nova range, letting the APD's proc so I can soak up the initial barrage, waiting until the reflect wears off then locking them up with FN and BH and taking them down. This is much, much easier than trying to take them out at range.

Outside of the reflect packs, I kill everything at the edge of the screen where possible, if not possible, I kill them in melee range using Event Horizon to remove all elite ground effects. Most of the time it works nicely.

I also removed Blizzard/Frozen Solid for Meteor/Comet. The CC from Blizzard turned out to be overkill after I fixed some skill casting and character control issues I was having. Meteor, coupled with the AP return of Electrocute/Surge of power on big packs adds so much damage to the beginning of meaty pulls by letting me just hold down Meteor for the first few seconds and mopping the floor with 'em. The damage of Meteor should not be overlooked.

The one main drawback of this build is movement speed. Since I'm running Frost Nova to help lock things down I don't have room for Teleport. The only skills I could remove for it would be Meteor and a primary spender but F/R needs the spender and clear times need the Meteors, so Teleport is out. If I get sprawling maps with mobs well spread out in clumps of 10 or less, it's a horribly slow nightmare and unfortunately this is very common. If I get a map packed with mobs, it'll be a 12 minute clear even up to GR 58 I believe. So much fun.


Current build....swap in elemental exposure and cold blooded over conflagration for two of the party:
http://www.d3planner.com/225879298

The 55/56 clears both went down in 12 something minutes due primarily to mob density. I was also 5 minutes ahead of a 57 when I got Anarch/Exarch/Winged Assassins and those phantom blue archer guys ....game over. RG's at 57 die between 2.5 and 3 minutes so it's all about everything leading up to the RG making the RNG for Floor/Desnity/Mob types a pretty big deal at that level.

With a few more upgrades I believe consistent 5-6 minute GR50's are possible for speed runs and maybe even a GR 59 for the high end. This is my favorite and most successful multi-boxing class by far. Next up: Defensive Gem tests.

[Devile]

Video or it didn't happen! j/k Gratz on 56. I'm still bored of Wizards, playing pretty much all classes for fun. Taking on WDs again, may try to get DoD for all and see if I can make them work for 50+. Will see ...

[Cmoidudu]

Well I just did 51...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drWDFVNVa2g

So I could really use a GR56 video, or armory links, to see how you do it

[Ellay]

zwizm I don't understand using the Serpent Sparker and not using Tasker and Theo gloves. You're missing a ton of dps potentially if you can hit a certain breakpoint from your hydra's and at some point the hydras do way more damage than your meteors.
Is all of this to get Frost Nova down for perma CC?

[Devile]

I dont think the problem is damage in GR55. Wizards being so damn squishy, he needs to have that permaCC for the APD buff otherwise he dies.

[Ellay]

I'm glad a "pure" combo is doing well though, looks promising.