Wizards 2.1

[Devile]

Taken from the 2.1 thread:

A quick video doing T6 normal Rift 4x wizards using Firebird's 6 piece set.


http://youtu.be/KPzg1c8looM

All are running this build:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#liQNSO!Zhgb!YcaYZc

No Illusionist for now until I get all with roughly the same toughness to add Unity rings. DPS is pretty bad with the exception of my main, but as u can see, everything melts pretty fast, including elites and the Rift Guardian. Of course, T6 is a joke now, so it's not the best reference, but still, worth testing for now. My main has a godly Furnance, #2 and #3 decent Sunkeepers and #4 a junk Sunkeeper. Jewelry sucks as well since I had to use dex/str for now.

Low difficulty is not a problem but the lack of CC will eventually be a huge issue in Greater Rifts. I'll have to figure out something once I get there.

After some testing, I figure out a way to CC without stopping much. Well, the only thing I can say is that I wasn't expecting this AT ALL. Sure Wizards can deal very good damage, but I thought I was not gonna do better than my DHs ... WRONG. I found a good way to CC and still beat the timer. Funny thing is only my main has very good gear. The other 3 wizards have pretty low DPS and kinda low toughness. The Unity idea worked pretty good. I mainly died cause of lag. Seems like 4 wizards casting Apocalypse lags me to death :(

Anyway, here are 2 videos showing a very simple build for 4x Wizards in Greater Rifts.


http://youtu.be/rpIcslWPVTc

Got lucky at the end with a Conduit pylon but didn't wanna use it.


http://youtu.be/Atg9bB8uhQw

All are running this build:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#liQNgO!Zhgd!YcYYZc (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#liQNgO!Zhgd!YcaYZc)

with the exception of the last wizard which uses Elemental Exposure instead of Dominance. I'm pretty sure I can push it to 40+ if I get good gear for all of them.

[Multibocks]

It makes me sad that even my best geared character can't do above 33 solo and you are wrecking 37 with 4 guys to watch out for 😞

[Ishar]

Slightly off topic, but these videos convinced me to dust off my wizards. Totally awesome. I'm thinking about incorporating a wd though. Did you ever do that? I remember a post speculating about it.

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[Devile]

It makes me sad that even my best geared character can't do above 33 solo and you are wrecking 37 with 4 guys to watch out for ������

IMO, this combo is the best for multiboxing GR. At least that I've tried. Crusaders sound amazing on paper but Stampede is a very frustrating skill with tons of limitations, not to mention u rely completely on CDR. U depend a lot on your party buffs that cycle in round robin and if 1 Crusader dies, u will either have less toughness or no wrath to spend. U also need that 100% Akarat's Champion uptime. Waller affix makes playing this combo a total nightmare. Too many single points of failure that can easily get all 4 chars dead. Still best option for bounties and keywarden farming, but not really for GR.

Wizards are a lot more flexible. Sure they don't have that huge toughness, but they don't really need 40m+ to survive. They can receive, not 1 but 2 times, fatal damage. They also have an amazing escape mechanism (teleport), that's not restricted by walls and resets constantly when u receive high damage. U can attack and just keep running while mobs die while u are already attacking more mobs. Slowtime pretty much renders all ranged attacks harmless to your party. Wizards also benefit from Strongarms stacking. While not as good as Crusaders, it does quite a lot of damage. From my GR38 video, I could see these obscene DoTs.

127412751276

Wonder why Elites were melting.

I did try the Tiki WD, but not fully and not to this level. I might give it another try, but the problem I see is u will put all your eggs in 1 basket. That WD dies, and u are doomed. Also, Electric is a big problem and if u get Electric + Knockback, it can get nasty. With Tiki WD, u need to be very close and that's very dangerous. 1 mistake and its a full party wipe. I rather stay far from the target, teleporting around. Sure u can still have teleport but sync will be a problem. At higher GR, anything can kill u and not having that long range advantage can easily wipe your whole party. I think Tiki WD works until GR36 or so, but beyond that, is far to easy to die with it.

If I go with Tiki, I would replace Slowtime with Force Weapon and Teleport with Familiar or Meteor Molten Impact.

[Ellay]

Yes!! I feel like my tin foil hat can finally come off, those numbers are INSANE. Love them strongarm bracers.

Do you round robin Black Hole or just do it all at once?

[Devile]

Round Robin each for higher CC, that way I have it always off cooldown. Trash doesn't need much damage to die, but they hurt, so I really need Blackhole available always. For elites I try to chain them fast to stack as much debuff as I can. For the RG I spam it all at once to proc the Firebird infinite DoT for all chars.

Also, the huge benefit of having 4 Blackholes to chain them is that u can have your 4 Hydras attacking the exact same spot and the target wont move for a few seconds. That's huge in terms of damage. Mammoth Hydra misses all the time when the target keeps moving, but with Blackhole, mobs take the full damage from all your spells and proc the infinite DoT very fast. The bubbles also help lock your targets in place so they keep getting hit by your spells and also proc Bane of the Trapped.

[Multibocks]

Very nice, I'm hitting 2 billion with my jade doc, but its a good 6 seconds between blasts.

[Devile]

Quick tip: Don't bother with 2H weapons unless it's The Furnace, not even a godly Maximus. A decent Sunkeeper + Firebird's Eye + Magefist will do more damage to Elites than any 2H with the only exception of The Furnace. Trash melts anyway, so who cares if u do more damage to trash. Also, don't go with Cindercoat. Magefist is a better option since u get 1 more attribute and u dont lose toughness.

Did a few tests and nothing but a Furnace beats Sunkeeper + Firebird's Eye + Magefist. A bad Furnace will beat this combo anytime.

[djeayzonne]

Devile,

Where are the clones coming from?
You don't seem to have that skill equipped, unless it is that particular rune for Teleport, though you indicated you were using Safe Passage.

[Ishar]

Sunkeeper and fb eye would seen to give more options for the rest of your gear anyway. Any other legendaries or sets you use?

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[Devile]

Devile,

Where are the clones coming from?
You don't seem to have that skill equipped, unless it is that particular rune for Teleport, though you indicated you were using Safe Passage.

Clones come from Wizard #4 that is using a Haunt of Vaxo (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/haunt-of-vaxo). Wasn't planned, it's just the only amulet with socket I had :D. I haven't tested if it adds up to Elemental Exposure yet, tho the proc rate is low anyway.


Sunkeeper and fb eye would seen to give more options for the rest of your gear anyway. Any other legendaries or sets you use?

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No sets besides Firebird's. This is what I use:

Main
Weapon: The Furnace
Offhand:
Helm: Firebird's
Chest: Firebird's
Gloves: Firebird's
Pants: Firebird's
Boots: Firebird's
Bracers: Strongarms
Belt: Witching Hour
Amulet: Random with INT, CC, CD and socket
Ring1: Fire SoJ with INT and socket
Ring2: Unity with CC and socket

Others
Weapon: Sunkeeper with INT, 10% damage and used Ramaladni's gift to add a socket for 130% CD.
Offhand: Firebird's
Helm: Firebird's
Chest: Firebird's
Gloves: Firebird's
Pants: Firebird's
Boots: Firebird's
Bracers: Strongarms
Belt: String of Ears
Amulet: Random with INT, CC, CD and socket
Ring1: Fire SoJ with INT and socket
Ring2: Unity with CC and socket

Gems are:
Bane of the Trapped
Zei's Stone of Vengeance
Bane of the Powerful

Only 1 wizard runs with the Toxin gem instead of Bane of the Powerful.

Gameplay is fairly simple as u saw in the videos. The key to make the most of your damage is applying your debuffs BEFORE u apply your Firebird's DoT. Firebird's DoT snapshots, so its VERY important u debuff BEFORE u attack. With all the action, sometimes I mess up, but I try to get used to this order. All said, u want to:


Cast Slow Time on your target or Teleport close so your clones cast it, this will slow them and proc Bane of the Trapped. The Time and Space rune lets u target the bubble. Point of No Return was the best rune cause of the stun but with the last patch, the bubbles casted by the clones do not stun. Same goes for BlackHole that is all for show, it doesn't pull enemies.
Cast BlackHole to apply the Strongarms debuff. For Elites u can chain several BlackHoles to apply a higher debuff.
Cast Blizzard Apocalypse.
Cast Hydra.
Watch them burn!

It's kinda hard to follow this order in the middle of the fight, avoiding damage, teleporting, etc. but u get the idea. 1 and 2 can be done in different order, but its important they are before 3 and 4. That will apply the highest damage to your target. For RG, spam all 4 blackholes so the explosions add up and u get the Firebird's infinite DoT fast.

Latest patch added a visual effect on top of targets whenever the infinite DoT is applied.

http://i.imgur.com/LN8fQCx.jpg (http://imgur.com/LN8fQCx)

http://i.imgur.com/t68zj3X.jpg (http://imgur.com/t68zj3X)

It's not easy to notice when there's a lot of action, but u really need to make sure it's there for Rift Guardians. Remember this effect starts when u apply 3000% damage in less than 3 secs, so u need to cast all your debuffs then your 2 attacks and it will trigger the infinite DoT.

[Ellay]

Trying to gear up for the Firebirds.. getting there slowly but surely - is there a decent build to use while working on it? I'm stuck at T2/3 without the bonus on any of the characters using the same method, the damage is terrible with that dot :P

[Ishar]

I am just using my existing frozen orb spec but I'm fairly certain that it is not remotely optimal.

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[Devile]

It's all about the items u have. If u have a Mirrorball u can go Magic Missile + Conflagrate, if not, u can try Arcane Torrent. The Tal Rash set does a fairly decent damage. If not, go with Asheara's + Aughild's + anything and u will get decent CC and survivability. Asheara's procs like crazy with Magic Missile and makes things really easy. Be sure to have 1 Wizard with a Thunderfury with another element rolled (cold, fire or arcane, different from your main attack) so that it has 15%+ debuff from Elemental Exposure. That should work until u get Firebird's.

[Grinner]

Public service announcement: Efficacious Toxin stacks, use 4 of them!

Tested by equipping only starting weap (2-3 damage) on all 4 characters. Then you can equip each amulet 1 by 1 and notice that p1's damage increases for each additional toxin gem.

[Ellay]

?!?!?! that's awesome,!!!!!!

Also I've been using Teleport - Fracture, with Slow Time equipped it floods the screen with Slow Time Bubbles and the cooldown is 6-7 seconds depending on your CDR, it's an amazing CC move and makes it easy to help on defense. Plus the extra bodies deflect some of the damage and it doesn't cause you to desync like mirror image does.
So I swapped two of them to the 10% increased damage so the bubbles are more spread out.

[Devile]

mmm ... will have to test that cause it goes against what plenty of ppl said about Toxin gem. Maybe it was changed in 2.1.1?

[Devile]

Doing season with 4 Wizards, campaign from lvl1. Wanna see if I can get more Furnaces here :P

[Ishar]

I really should do the season thing, but I'm too lazy to level up again. This is why I only have one of each class; though I think it would be nice to have duplicates so that I can have completely separate toons for various teams, rather than ending up with their gear taking up space in the stash 'just in case.' But if I can't stomach the half day investment it takes to powerlevel up 4 characters from level 1; I can't imagine I'd manage to do it the slow way in season.

The fact that the only permanent benefit to doing so is a special transmogrification doesn't help to motivate me.

[Hohoz]

Anyone US side and Seasons ever need a pl hit me up I am more then welcome to help out ... was thinking about starting up a team Wiz but it's hard to beat the DH team atm.Watching all these vids and what not really make me want a team but think gearing them right now makes me cringe almost lol

[Ellay]

What I did was take 1 DH and run through T4 with 3 wizards until I got a firebirds set. That was enough to run T4 easily with 4 wizards.

[Hohoz]

That's what I did with my Monks and Saders lol .... works pretty damn good ~

[Ellay]

edited post, info was incorrect.

[rhancock1972]

One thing to consider when building your 4 wiz's

The devastator - crafted mace with % fire dmg. It can be a very nice jump start before you have enough SK or furnance.

One other thing I have thrown in to have some fun - changed out one toons BH for twister. The twister gives a 15% buff to fire dmg and it starts on the target. For grifts I find it nice. Usually running in narrow corridors...so it kinda works. Just a thought.

[Ellay]

I mixed in a Witch Doctor for the 4th slot, as I was getting frustrated with the lack of defense. It's odd if you add too much defense the screen lags. Not freeze, everything just stops moving. This is typically caused when 8+ Slow Time bubbles appear on the screen.

With a WD in the mix, everything is frozen in place and the pets help offset the initial barrage. Wiz dps btw is super high. Elites / Champions and even Rift Guardians drop quite fast.

I'd like to see how this scales in higher rift difficulty but for T6 it made it much smoother for me and less annoying deaths.

[rhancock1972]

Totally agree with that...I use a petdoc all the time for exactly the same reason.

[Ellay]

Going to try and make a video of this in action soon. The clear speed is hilarious. Damage reflect still gets me sometimes or a random projectile but overall having a WD in the mix is where it is at.
I'm actually wondering if I could use it for other combo's and be so much more effective.. worth a shot!