S3 Wizard Team Progress [Archive]

joes

04-13-2015, 10:20 PM

OK, so I went for wizard in S3 as well.

Man, I'm really enjoying wizards - I just dinged 70, have ~280k sheet dps and 4mil toughness and can efficiently farm T4. Just in case, I'm running Zwizm build (http://www.d3planner.com/557051093 with some small modifications and different key bindings). Basically, I have Frost Nova and Black Hole on round-robin with appropriate step cooldowns in ISBoxer, rest of the skills are broadcasted. Yes, I mostly have yellow gear and whopping 20% CDR (from the skill).

Play style is very simple: cast Hydra somewhere in front, stand still and spam Black Hole and Meteor behind Hydra, but in front of me. Black Hole sucks monsters and most of the projectiles. Is something gets close - I use Frost Nova, Hydra finishes them off.

For elites - I'm casting Black Hole on myself (to suck in whatever they might shoot) and Frost Nova with some delay. Most of the elites get affected by Black Hole (even with diminishing returns they're still CC'ed for a bit of time) and then Frost Nova locks them in place.

RG - just spam Frost Nova and Meteor. Even with pretty bad CDR I can manage RG without any problems.

Anyway, I'm just having fun, that's for sure. I didn't imagine wizard team would be so effective without proper gear. Can't wait to get real set items and see how far I can push it.

P.S. Yes, I don't know what they did, but now I have stable 60 fps on both foreground and background characters with ~60% GPU load (but I have cards in SLI).

Zwizm

04-13-2015, 10:27 PM

Count me in for the Wiz love. Decided to do Era this time around but I had never collected Tal Rasha gear so I had to get that out of the way. I've also been pretty lucky getting CC and CHD on all of my F&R rings and I've only have one great Tal Rasha ammy. In any case, you guys have some good times ahead. I was able to complete GR 50 today and had two close fails at 51 (39 and 50 sec over time limit) where I died too many times from lack of skill LOL! I was also able to get up to GR 53 keys in trials so I'm sure some of you guys will be at 55+ once fully setup. So much fun!!!

P.S. Next up, getting my T6 Explosive Blast setup going with at least 75% move speed. 4 Woh's dropped this week so I'm feeling lucky.

Devile

04-14-2015, 11:51 AM

RNG is treating me really bad. No Serpent Sparker, not a single F&R and no more Tal pieces so far. Got 1 helm which is the only part all 4 wizards already have :/ Doing bounties now to get RoRG for all and FFS, 1 wizard got like 4 already while the others NONE! Really bad luck.

Yelgis

04-14-2015, 02:04 PM

That sucks Devile.

I just completed 6p Tal's on 3 of my team. The 4th is missing several pieces yet. Two have gotten lucky while gambling gloves and have TnT's though they aren't great (one is 46% the other is 48%). I have had two non-ancient SS drop, but they are far from good. I still have a long way to go in my gearing process that is for sure, but I am getting most of the basics out of the way.

I think I need one more Halo of Arlyse and maybe one more Convention of Elements to deck out all my guys with them. I have FnR on two of them, but toughness is my primary issue, not damage currently. So I am working on building up the teams tankiness. I can do low to mid 30's if I play somewhat cautiously. Deaths are what slow me down more than anything. Once I get Halo+APD's on the entire team and get some defensive gems leveled, I should be doing a lot better.

Last night I almost got my Gizzards to 25. After that I will start on Esoteric. With both of those leveled I will then start leveling my damage gems probably in this order Trapped -> Toxin -> Zei's -> PE. I plan to level all of them to 25 just to swap them in and out for testing to see what works best with my play style.

I had considered Mutilation guard, but we already get a large melee damage reduction with Halo ring. Not really sure if it is worth a jewelry socket spot.

I went with Gizzard first because it just gives a lot of toughness for low to mid GR's, but I feel Esoteric will eventually outstrip it especially once I have Halo and APD's on the entire team. Once I am to the point of just running Esoteric for defense, I will probably run Trapped and Toxin as my dps gems. Zei's could work but that requires perfect Hydra placement to maximize it and with 4 characters to controls I just don't see that happening. Besides 4x Toxin provides a larger buff than Zei's anyway and comes with a DoT which gets nicely boosted by Tal's 6p to do decent damage as well. I think Toxin will be our best second gem.

I don't plan to use PE much to reach crazy ias breakpoints on Hydra. I am shooting for the 3.07 breakpoint for the Hydra and that only takes 38% ias if you have a 7% roll on your SS and a 50% TnT. That can be reached with IAS on rings, gloves, paragon, chest all perfect rolls. I may end up using Slow Time with the attack speed buff rune to make it easier to hit the BP's.

I have also toyed with the idea of dropping one of the Wizards for a Tiki WD. The WD could provide elite affix lock as well as constant BBV for 20% attack speed (assuming I can get an SMK). Dropping a wizard would be made up for by the Doc providing a large amount of damage buffs to the wizards (30% BBV, 20% poison haunt, 15% piranhas).

The other option is to drop a Wizard for a ZDPS crusader. Laws of Valor would cover the attack speed buff and the sader could also bring 20% crit and 20% damage from Shield Glare. This option is more appealing because Shield Glare can be put right in the round robin rotation with Frost Nova to maintain boss stunlock, whereas the WD has to actually cast his stun (Black Blood Sacrifice).

I don't normally play mixed teams, but I could see those swaps being pretty easy to manage and they could bring a lot to the table.

Devile

04-14-2015, 06:56 PM

I played like 6 hours yesterday and didn't get a single important upgrade. Hopefully today things will be different.

As for wizards, I'm not liking much all the dsyncs caused by certain elite affixes. There's no way to lock the whole elite pack before they cast something. Fear, knockback, vortex and wormhole are my biggest pains and that's gonna be a LOT worse in higher GR where u rely completely on your nova rotation ... 1 dead wizard and that can mean full team wipe. I wanna try something something else to initiate (moba/dota term) on elites. Dunno, maybe Teleport Calamity to jump/stun a pack before they can do anything, or be able to escape and then reinitiate where there are no ground effects, or even fully skip the pack ... I dunno. Maybe higher movement speed with a Crusader buff. Most, if not ALL my deaths come from letting elites cast those initial ground effects and 1 or several wizards end up running around the screen or die.

If I don't go with F&R, I'll prolly go with Unity + Halo of Arlyse and Illusionist + Teleport. Yeah, I know is a TON of dps loss but that won't matter if u fail the rift. DPS will kill faster but if u spend minutes facing the ground, it wont really matter at the end. I've seen plenty of GR50+ without F&R so it may work.

Magicme

04-15-2015, 01:25 AM

I find that round robin blackhole fixes most of the desync problems due to elite affixes. Using event horizon lets me get rid of any ground effects that do go off.

I'd be interested in seeing how a 3wiz+x team would go, definitely potential there. As long as they can help perma cc the RG then I'd be happy, because making the RG a snoozefest is one of my favourite things about 4wiz.

I'm building towards an exp set on each wiz to farm paragon from ~GR35. It's possible to get ~170% increased exp and still have Tal6, which should be more than enough DPS for GR35.

Yelgis

04-15-2015, 02:25 AM

That is the beauty of the Sader. He can use Divine Verdict Shield Glare and join right in the nova rotation with the wizards to keep the stun lock up. Monk or DH could do this as well, but they don't provide nearly as much to the group as Sader.

Cmoidudu

04-15-2015, 09:58 AM

I definitely won't play on S3 but I'm starting a Wiz team too, I have seen how it works. I have the same problem as you guys, which is, Tal Rasha seem to be VERY hard to drop. I have a complete Firebird set on all my characters, plenty of Vir's, some Delsere's, and... Maybe 4 pieces of Tal Rasha overall. That's going to be a long way.

Also i'm pretty sure that you know it, the #1 Paragon dude (non-season) is a multiboxer, and he uses that same setup at the moment (1x zDPS Crusader with all the XP stuff, and 3x Tal Rasha Wizards), and what he does all day is chaining GR41 in about 3 minutes.

He has a Twitch stream with a very bad image quality and it's in french (which doesn't bother me since I'm french), but you can see what he does and how.

Devile

04-15-2015, 12:30 PM

Very nice setup he has going there. These are his profiles:

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Angband-2240/hero/46686501
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Ang-2368/hero/51807201
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Seleriter-2590/hero/51807189
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Myrmid-2201/hero/51807199

Nothing too fancy from what I see. He doesn't seem to be using round robin at all. Focusing mainly on raw damage from Wizards and huge AoE of Blizzard Apocalypse + Tals buff + F&R buff. The zDPS sader is not boosting DPS at all, is just used for the movement speed and going thru mobs. He doesnt CC that much, since the damage is so high, he 1 shots everything, even elites. No nova rotation, just Shield Glare + Black Hole and elites are dead. It looks like T6 speed farming :S

http://www.twitch.tv/Angband_

Yelgis

04-15-2015, 02:14 PM

I just started leveling my Sader for the group. I plan to use him for damage boosting and extra attack speed while I am pushing greater rifts, but when I am just doing bounties and normal rifts I plan to use wings of the angels for the speed buffs.

That guys profiles are odd. He is using EE on all his wizards and that makes no sense since it does not stack at all. T6 probably doesn't even matter so I guess it isn't a big deal.

Cmoidudu

04-15-2015, 05:11 PM

He is using EE on all his wizards and that makes no sense since it does not stack at all.
You sure ? Good to know... So I need to have that on only one Wizard ? So I can pick another passive for the others ?

Yelgis

04-16-2015, 10:42 AM

Yea basically. I tested it during the PTR and couldn't see it stacking at all across wizards. Everyone you ask on official forums will say it doesn't stack too, so I tend to feel that is the case. I also tested Cold Blooded and couldn't get it to stack either. It really sucks that none of the Wizards buffs stack, but you have WD's that have cold Zdogs, Piranhas, Posion Haunt, and Mass Confusion and they all stack. Seems a little unfair considering.

That means I only run EE on a single and Cold Blooded on a different one. My third wiz in the team might run Glass Cannon, Audacity or the one dmg buff where you stand still to get it. Haven't really settled on which one yet. My 4th character is now a Zdps Sader. I am still gearing him up (only ni the mid 60's for CDR atm). Having the run speed of Wings of Angels is amazing for my clear times in T6 and I can swap it to the crit Valor when pushing harder grifts. His shield glare damage buff and the crit from Judgement are also very nice and almost makeup the damage loss from not having a 4th Wizard. Overall group damage will be higher when running the Valor Law with the CHD buff both because of the 100% CHD and because of the 23% attack speed it gives (which scales crazy with dual Hydra).

Running the sader allows me to gear for attack speed easier and not have to run Gogok or too many ias rolls to reach the 3.07 breakpoint. I still need to map out how much cdr I would need to get the next breakpoint above that.

Devile

04-16-2015, 05:16 PM

Finally I got a bit luckier and finished 6 sets for all my wizards. Well, not quite, but at least a couple RoRG helped. I won't be leveling a sader in S3. I'll try the zDPS sader on non season since I have all the gear to do it there instead of farming mats forever on season.

Will start pushing GR now to level my gems to 25+ :D

Devile

04-17-2015, 10:59 AM

Yea basically. I tested it during the PTR and couldn't see it stacking at all across wizards. Everyone you ask on official forums will say it doesn't stack too, so I tend to feel that is the case. I also tested Cold Blooded and couldn't get it to stack either. It really sucks that none of the Wizards buffs stack, but you have WD's that have cold Zdogs, Piranhas, Posion Haunt, and Mass Confusion and they all stack. Seems a little unfair considering.

After reading about this, what I understand is that BUFFS with different runes can stack, but EE and CB are debuffs and that will only get REFRESHED and not stacked when another party member applies that same debuff. Just like Monk's Mantra of Conviction, it's a debuff and it won't stack with other monks. That's why EE and CB don't stack and make's no sense to have them as passives for all your chars in the party. Have EE in 1 char, CB in 1 and that's it.

There seems to be very few debuffs that can actually stack and basically just from items (Strongarms, Gem of Efficacious Toxin, etc.). Are u sure WD debuffs stack??? IE: Barb hits a mob and does X damage. WD1 casts Haunt Poisoned Spirit on that mob and applies the 20% damage debuff. Same Barb hits the mob and does X + Y damage cause of the debuff. WD2 casts Haunt Poisoned Spirit on the same mob and applies 20% additive damage debuff. The Barb hits the same mob and does X + Z (where Z > Y) because the 2 WD debuffs stacked???

That seems very strong IMO, even if the debuffs are additive and not multiplicative, that's a TON of %damage.

Yelgis

04-17-2015, 12:29 PM

Yes I tested the debuffs for WD and they almost all stack. The only exception is BBV which doesn't and maybe Hex since I didn't test that.

Piranhas, Poison Haunt, new cold Zdogs and Mass Confusion all stack.

Yelgis

04-19-2015, 01:38 AM

I just completed GR 41 tonight with 19 seconds to spare. I had plenty more time than that but had several nooby deaths against the Fire winged boss that wasted a lot of time.

I have a couple of GR42 keys. I just am going to try to keep pushing them up and see how far I can go now. I swapped out one of my wizards for a Sader and it works out beautifully. When I am doing Grifts I run Valor Law with the crit damage buff and when I am doing any lower content like bounties and t6 rifts I run Wings of Angels for the movespeed buff. The team is working out really nicely.

I have crap non-ancient serpent sparkers on all 3 of the Wizards and do not have FnR on one of them. So there is a lot of room for improvement. I am also using rubies on their helms even when trying to push. Leveling paragon is going to be a bigger area for improvement than anything else atm. I am sitting in the 280's with my highest and the lower ones are in the 260's. All the way up to 600 is straight dps gain for the team so every little level helps.

Right now I am using Bane of the Trapped, Toxin and Wildebeast Gizzards for gems on the Wizards. The Zdps Sader is using Wildebeast and Toxin. I will probably level either Gogok or Esoteric for him next. Trapped gems are between 27-31 on all my guys. Toxins are all at 25. Wildebeasts are all 25 as well. So still room for bumping up my gems. Toxin and Trapped will be leveled higher first because they are both good dps gains. Toxin dot scales pretty well with Tal's.

I have considered trying to work Taeguk into my build instead of Wildebeast. My Sader provides almost 200k healing through his Consecrate skill because of his weapon so the Gizzard is kinda lagging behind. Taeguk would also give some armor so that is always nice. If I don't go with Taeguk I will probably level Esoterics for the team because what seems to kill me the most is Frost affixes and other elemental skills.

I still need more CDR on the Sader to get him able to go into a proper perma stun round robin with my wizards, so bosses aren't faceroll easy yet.

Cmoidudu

04-20-2015, 11:55 AM

Ok so I finished my team, and then I have been chaining Greater Rifts to complete my stuff. I just found the last boots, so everybody has 6 pieces of Tal Rasha + Meteor boots + Focus and Restraint. DPS is very nice, however I can't really talk numbers since i'm killing off-screen like a bastard most of the time ;)

I chose red gems in helms too, this is really significant. I did a GR39 with Amethysts, which is ~1B XP (including reward from the town dude), and GR39 with Rubies are ~1.37B XP (I checked several times). Eventually I'll try to change the Focus+Restraint for Hellfires+Leorics for another ~75% XP bonus. Maybe i'll need to go down to GR36-37 because of the DPS loss, but the XP gain will still be much higher.

About gems, I went for the Molten Wildebeest too, with Toxins (of course) and Zei's for the ranged bonus and the stun effect.

All characters have the 3 following passives : Unstable Anomaly (more efficent than Blur after testing), Galvanizing Ward and Unweavering Will. Then dude #1 has Elemental Exposure, chick #2 has Conflagration, chick #3 has Cold Blooded, chick #4 has Paralysis.

All characters have the following spells : Magic Weapon + Force Weapon (20% damage buff), Arcane Torrent + Cascade (Arcane), Hydra + Mamooth Hydra (Fire), Electrocute + Surge of Power (Lightning), Blizzard + Frozen Solid (Frost). One of the characters has Magic Missile + Glacial Spike and Blizzard + Lightning Storm for the +15% Ligthning damage. 3 characters have Black Hole + Event Horizon, the last one has Slow Time + Time Warp which is yet another +15% damage buff, and it helps greatly since some Rift Guardians send nasty missiles.

About weapons, I'm using random ancient weapons. I have non-ancient sparkers too, but I'm not sure that the 2x hydras will compensate for the dps loss...

Here's a video of a random GR39 , which I'm currently chaining for quick XP + loot + Blood Shards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZD1Dh5fefI

Devile

04-20-2015, 01:29 PM

I have full sets on all 4x wizards and just missing F&R on 1. All have meteor boots too. I'm not focusing on Hydras, instead Blizzard Apocalypse. IMO makes no sense to me to focus Hydras for just GR30-45. I rather focus on efficiency and Blizzard is by far the best option cause of the huge AoE. Angband is living proof of that since his build is very efficient, so no point on reinventing the wheel. Focusing on Blizzard means I don't need T&T and/or Serpent Sparker. I can make it work with craftable Ancient Devastator which is very easy to get or any Ancient weapon, til I get Ancient Sun Keepers. That also means I can even use Leoric Crowns for more exp boost ... granted, need decent Tal's amulets which is not easy (got 1 only), but still it gives me a lot more freedom for a high dps build. I could even go with 2H but that makes stacking Tal's + F&R buff a little too slow for my taste.

This allows me to farm faster and get the parts I will need to push GR45+. All this on S3. Haven't done anything on non season for the past 2 weeks. Once I get all ancient armor, CC/CD F&R and decent ancient weapons, etc. I'll work on my Hydra build to push GR50+ just for fun.

About to hit Paragon 300 in S3 and farming feels very smooth now. Considering I started from 0 just a week or so ago, GR35 goes VERY fast and I'm starting to get a lot of gear. I really wanna add the "zDPS" sader tho it won't boost much the damage, 50% movement speed + going thru mobs makes a HUGE difference in your efficiency on this lower tier GR, specially when u are going for exp and shards.

Yelgis

04-20-2015, 03:16 PM

I like the Dual Hydra build. All my damage comes from Hydra and the meteors from the set. I use Wicked Wind just to proc the arcane meteor and I use Blizzard with the rune that stuns on cast and setup a macro for my 3 wizards to cycle through skills so one is always casting Blizzard while the others are using different skills.

This allows me to stunlock most things at range. Only some elites and rift bosses can't be stunlocked by this. For that I run Nova and Shield Glare on my team in round robin to lock them down. I am still in the process of finalizing my CDR gear on the sader to get able to keep a proper round robin going.

Other skills might be better clearing T6, but the damage of Hydra can't be touched. I am only using non-ancient Sparkers between 2100-2300 dps. All three characters are at the 2.5 attacks/sec BP on hydra because of the Sader running Laws of Valor. That is 2.5 Hydra attacks/second and the Hydras on my main do around 60 million dmg/tick. With them attacking 2.5 times a second and having two of them out, the damage is pretty crazy.

Cmoidudu

04-21-2015, 02:35 AM

I would gladly use Wicked Wind too but since I'm non-season I don't have the pull-stuff-bracers. Also the cost (35 Arcane Power) is a little expensive IMHO since you need to cast Blizzard too for another 40 Arcane Power...

I tried to switch my set of random ancient weapons for a set of non-ancient sparkers (I have 4 of them). Theorycrafting shows that it's a decrease in Meteor damage (obviously), an increase in Hydra damage (obviously), but overall DPS should be higher with the non-ancient sparkers...

However theorycrafting and testing are 2 different things. I like the setup with ancient weapons better: it's hard to have all 8 Hydras to do their job at the same time, because some of them might be blocked by obstacles, etc. when in the meantime Meteors are computer-generated so they don't fail (unless the target is already dead).

Of course, a set of ancient sparkers would do well, but I don't have that yet ;)

Devile

04-21-2015, 04:15 AM

Finally got my last F&R on Season 3. Tried a GR42 for kicks and finished it very fast. Upgraded key to 46 and this is what I got on first try ... didn't have any higher keys:

http://youtu.be/LLsQFO5EFyo

Granted, it was the perfect rift with good density and red zombies, but even then, I'm pretty sure I can push it a little higher without problem. Frost Hydra + Black Hole + Slowtime + Paralysis gives me all the CC I need. Even the RG slows down drastically.

I round robin Black Hole in just 2 wizards. Every time I cast a Black Hole it will cast Energy Twister Wicked Wind and Slow Time (if available ... need to get Ancient Gesture of Orpheus) which will pull almost all screen to my Black Hole and the bubble (if not on cooldown), all locked in place for my meteors. That pretty much gives me the Strongarm, Cold Blooded, Bane of the trapped and Slow time debuffs on every cast ready for my meteors to strike on all mobs. Wizard #2 uses a Crown of the Primus so I have all runes for Slow Time. With a Diamond on Helm and a Gesture of Orpheus I can spam those bubbles and make it even more efficient and safe.

Profiles dont seem to be updating at all, but anyway:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devile-1430/hero/60277963
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Brikinger-1856/hero/60278009
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/TRES-1497/hero/60278185
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FOUR-1713/hero/60278330

Blizzard Apocalypse is very nice to cover large areas, but I don't think it will be enough for GR50+. For now is fun and I can play ranged from VERY far away without much risk. Right now this build will let me farm pretty fast.

Yelgis

04-21-2015, 11:46 AM

Nice job Deville and yes you got a great rift heh. Grats on 46.

Devile

04-21-2015, 12:57 PM

Ty :) Btw, have u tested Frozen Solid round robin to stun lock elites and RG? Isn't there any timing that works on them? I will switch to Mammoth Hydra and Blizzard Frozen Solid after I hit 500 or so to push 50s. Until then, I'll just work on my gear to be able to do fast GR40 for exp/shards.

Yelgis

04-21-2015, 02:06 PM

You need to have 53.5% CDR or more on 4 wizards to do a stunlock with nova. I swapped to a Sader to alleviate that gearing requirement. A full CDR geared Sader with Fervor and Towering Shield Passives have a 1.96 second cooldown on Shield Glare. So my plan is to do a round robin with Sader and 3 wizards.

The wizards only need 20% cdr with Cold Snap to have a 6 second cooldown. The rotation would be Glare -> Wiz 1 Nova -> Glare -> Wiz 2 Nova -> Glare -> Wiz 3 Nova and then repeat.

Since Cold Snap last .9 seconds at full resist and Glare lasts 1.2 seconds you have a 2 second period for each Glare+Nova rotation so cycling between three wizards for the rotation gives a total time of 6 seconds. Plenty of time to keep that rotation going forever.

I am missing 1% CDR on my shield and neck right now on my Sader and my leorics is only 88%. Once I get a better leorics and get Gogog leveled. I should be able to keep it up.

I need to test how the new Zodiac ring works with Glare as well. It might be possible for the Sader to keep up stunlock entirely by himself with that ring and if so, I can swap nova for Force Weapon on my Wizards and change their evocation passives to something else to pick up more damage. That would be the ideal situation. I need a Gyrfalcon's Foote to see if Zodiac still works with the spender if it is free. If so I will change weapons to that isntead of the Involiable Faith I am using currently.

Cmoidudu

04-21-2015, 03:38 PM

Upgraded key to 46 and this is what I got on first try ... didn't have any higher keys
Very impressive, congratulations, specially since you are only in the early 300's of Paragon :)

Devile

04-21-2015, 04:13 PM

You need to have 53.5% CDR or more on 4 wizards to do a stunlock with nova. I swapped to a Sader to alleviate that gearing requirement. A full CDR geared Sader with Fervor and Towering Shield Passives have a 1.96 second cooldown on Shield Glare. So my plan is to do a round robin with Sader and 3 wizards.

I really don't like the idea of being so close to elites. I rather lose permaCC but play safe a mile away, than have permaCC at melee range. With a melee char, u have no choice, but ranged chars? meh. Sure wizards can tank much more now, but I trully hate dsyncs caused by elite affixes. It's so annoying to get knocked back or feared cause u are at range of lightning or other affixes and have full team wipes. Besides, unless u initiate with teleport to be right on top of the pack FAST, sometimes they are able to cast something and that's never good. At GR50+, I'm pretty sure 1 mistake will mean 4 dead wizards since u are so close to everything.

I think using Frozen Solid in round robin + 1 wizard casting bubbles + paralysis will give me enough CC. Maybe I can even drop Gizzard gem for Zei depending on how much I'm getting hit.

Very impressive, congratulations, specially since you are only in the early 300's of Paragon :)

ty :D

Ellay

04-21-2015, 05:10 PM

Really impressed it's already hit grift 46. I think it could definitely take it to the next level.
Messing around with the Wizards as well, working on not feeling so squishy still.

Cmoidudu

04-22-2015, 12:04 AM

I'll be far from a keyboard during the next days, what I should have tested is :

- Have one character use Slow Time + Time Shell and then Tal Rasha amulet + Crown of the Primus + Gesture of Orpheus (like Devile did).
- Have one character use Frost Hydra(s) with Tal Rasha amulet + Frostburn gloves for the freezing thing.
- Definitely switch to Energy Armor + Force Armor for higher Greater Rifts...

Have fun guys :)

Yelgis

04-22-2015, 08:51 AM

Being too close is a valid concern Deville. I am building the permanent CC for bosses only, so I only have to be close for them. Once you can keep the RG locked that portion of the GR become trivial.

For everything else, Blizzard Frozen solid in my attack rotation round robin I have going keeps most everything else frozen permanently. I still play at range because frozen solid can just lock stuff down well at range and you are right it is much safer. My freeze lock is primarily just for the Guardian.

Devile

04-22-2015, 12:21 PM

The main problem I have with Nova is that u will have to sacrifice damage or toughness for it. Since u need 4 elements to get all 4 Tal's stacks and Nova doesn't add stacks, u will have to sacrifice toughness from Energy Armor or most likely 20% damage from Magic Weapon. Sure, 20% damage may not mean much damage since we are already doing a LOT, but its 20% less damage against all mobs only to stunlock the RG, at VERY close range and even then, u can still die if for some odd reason (lag, fps drops, ground effect casted before the stunlock, etc) the stunlock is not 100%. So, it's kinda a big tradeoff for a risky way to kill the RG.

Not saying is not worth it, but I don't see it like a straight trade off. Maybe if it was Bone Chill instead of Cold Snap I would like it more. Besides RG may or may not be such a problem with some CC at long range. I'll see once I start hitting 50s and RG is such a pain that needs something like this to secure success.

Yelgis

04-22-2015, 07:20 PM

The CC should be permanent once you have the CDR for it. I am working on potentially being able to fully stunlock with just the Sader and if that turns out to be possible I will swap magic weapon back in on the Wizards.

I did a 44 today in under 8 minutes and got a key for 48 and got Exarchs and Anarchs in the 48 so I failed it by a good margin. I farmed up to 48 from another 42 key and failed it as well due to a bad Anarch pack about 3/4 of the way through.

Really not liking some of those mob types lol.

Zwizm

04-22-2015, 08:02 PM

I took Yelgis' advice and am running 54% CDR for full stun lock on the RG's and it is pretty much fool proof on all of them except that one poison/octopus looking thing that flee's backwards upon spawning. Once you get to him it's game over like the rest. When I wasn't farming, the main issue I had was killing the RG in time without multiple deaths and this effectively cures that. Once I get back to pushing 50's I think this will be a huge help. That being said I am a huge fan of fighting everything before the RG at max range and I probably wont change that since it seems to be the most effective.

Currently I'm running an Explosive Blast build and farming 35-40 GR's in under 4 minutes. Somehow 12 Woh's have dropped since the Era began and 5 of them have been ancient (I know right?!?!) so I'm putting them to use. It's pretty crazy how fast you can fill up on Legs with the kill speed Wizards have.

Yelgis

04-22-2015, 11:49 PM

I haven't had a single Woh drop in S3 yet. Only 4 non-ancient SS as well. Not having much luck with my Wizards' weapons yet lol.

Ellay

04-23-2015, 10:21 AM

No where near the same rift levels yet but the RG's are definitely the issue. It doesn't feel like Blizzard's freeze is able to lock them down well enough, and Frost Nova does decent but it sucks to have it wasted for the rest of a rift.
My thought is to try out the Delsere's set, which doesn't really lock down RG's either but it's at least a start!

Devile

04-23-2015, 10:34 AM

S3, I've got 3 Woh's, non were ancient. 1 ancient SS at least. Since my build is focused on Blizzard, I don't care much about weapons. I'm more interested on getting Devastator plans ... missing my last one. It's amazing how fast u start leveling and get gear once u are able to do GR35-40 FAST. I think I'll go with Leoric's on all with Rubies for more exp ... my amulets suck, but with the damage I'm doing, don't think that will matter for GR35. I would love to hit Paragon 1000 with the combined exp from S3 + non season. Makes life so much easier to be Paragon 800+ and 1000 looks like a lovely number :D

Need to farm mats and also Act 1 Bounties for better Pauldrons of Skeleton King. I think I'll finish campaign mode tonight to get Templar and Enchantress quests. My immediate goal is to hit Para 400+ by the end of the week and have Ancient Devastators in all my wizards. With those weapons and better rings, I'll push 50s and see how well I do on S3. By the end of S3 I wanna be able to do GR42 as fast as I'm doing GR35 now.

Yelgis

04-24-2015, 12:29 AM

Well I have completed a 45. Still no luck with the 47+ keys I keep trying. Getting some nice gem levels because of the failures heh.

Ellay

04-24-2015, 11:52 AM

Alright no jelly but I just completed GR 23 last night.. still don't have a full 6 piece tal's set on any char but once I do, I think I'll like this build a lot more. I am happy with my progress now though and RG's are more manageable.

joes

04-24-2015, 12:09 PM

I only got single full Tal set on my characters and finished GR31 yesterday in ~10 minutes. No decent rings, no decent weapons, crappy CDR. As others mentioned, biggest problem is survivability.

Actually, I was seriously underestimating effect of full set on my DPS. Before full set I was doing T6 just fine, but with full set on a single character RGs are just melting.

Devile

04-24-2015, 01:01 PM

Try to level your Gizzard gem, it makes a HUGE difference in survivability. The great thing about Wizards is that they are fun. S2 was such a pain for me with Monks. I felt that I was doing so little progress per DAY, while S3 with wizards, I felt a lot of progress per HOUR. At the end I made monks work and it was fun, but it took too damn long! With Wizard u will be doing T6 in a few days and GR30+ in a couple weeks at most depending on the amount of hours u play.

Got my first Ancient Wand of Woh yesterday ... not the best roll, but at least I got it. I'll def hit 400+ this weekend. Played like 2-3 hours yesterday and did like 30 levels.

Ellay

04-24-2015, 01:42 PM

I want the monks to work so badly too but it's true. I stopped at lvl 12 this season and switched to Wizard.

Devile

04-24-2015, 05:07 PM

I'm working on a T6 speedfarm build for Rifts and Bounties:

3x wizards: http://www.d3planner.com/579713869 (http://www.d3planner.com/489439308)
1x crusader: http://www.d3planner.com/681860773

Obviously will replace EE on the other wizards with Cold Blooded and Conflagration. If Convention of Elements is overkill, I may switch to Halo of Arlyse and Ice Armor for more toughness.

Cmoidudu

04-25-2015, 12:57 PM

If Convention of Elements is overkill in T6 (which they are), I'd switch to Leoric's ring + Hellfire... However, if I understood well, XP bonus are additive in T6 now (but still mutliplicative in GR).

Devile

04-26-2015, 04:59 PM

Shodokan

04-27-2015, 12:35 AM

Got to Paragon 400+, finshed GR47 and failed an ugly 49 for like half a minute. My gems are rank 30 or so and I dont think I'll be leveling them. With better weapons and 45+ gems I'm sure I can do 50+ no problem. I'll be taking a break from wizards and season 3 for a few days. Need to try other classes and see how well they are doing in 2.2.

My barbs are doing 37-40s in under 5 mins not pushing since i'd rather faster legs/exp. UE Demon hunters around the same (though with nemesis) but thats only 3 of each. Haven't got around to playing other classes and honestly don't really care to. Wiz, barb and dh are all fun for me right now :) 600ish paragon.

Ellay

04-27-2015, 09:47 AM

Not sure if Void posts here still, but he's been doing 4 x barbs for S3 and was doing Grift 47 2 weeks ago. I imagine probably higher now.

I got my wizards all the Tal's Set, still need some focus to complete the restraint set, overall happy with the speed. Only done up to Grift 34 though.

Devile

04-27-2015, 11:00 AM

Ellay

04-27-2015, 11:22 AM

Yes I believe so.
Reading in a thread where Wizards (if able to go pure DPS) are able to go way beyond DH Dps, but the rotation for multiboxing is a bit tough, something like 5x Dynamo stack - > Hydra, 5x Dynamo stack - > Hydra- > Blizzard - > Star pact, but it's too much management trying to coordinate on all 4.They factored in something like 30 billion + DPS. This is with a group that has cleared GRift 68.

I'd love for the wizards to have a bit more survivability, but hot dog they pump out the damage. If you could throw up a video of the DH's so I can compare.

What I'd really enjoy is some WD's, but two issues with that - no AoE to speak up and so many pets it can cause the game to lag.

Devile

04-27-2015, 01:05 PM

I follow that rotation, is not that hard, but yeah, u need to pay attention. I was gonna add a VideoFX so the buff icons are not down there but actually up and bigger so I can actually see them. I only have 1 SS anyway and use Frost Hydra, so the second stack is not needed in my case. Survivability is an issue cause wizards dont have anything that tanks for them, no real pets and no escape mechanism besides teleport. If u use teleport that kinda changes the whole thing for a multiboxing build. If u add teleport, u gimp yourself unless u go with Calamity to add the Arcane stack, but that means melee range and be vulnerable to extremely annoying affixes (fear, knockback, wormhole, etc.). Yeah, they can put really high damage if they go as glass cannons, but u need to be alive and cast freely for that to happen :D

Shodokan

04-27-2015, 11:12 PM

I'm playing my DHs again and they make my wizards look bad in terms of damage. I'll be working on a Natalya's build on non-season. Right now I have almost all pieces, just missing 3 belts. I was farming GR37-40 with my same old M6 build with just F&R and it was just silly. Died a few times, more often than with wizards but mostly was just killing everything faster. Hopefully survivability won't be an issue once I go with Natalya's. Will post in a different thread.

About barbs, whats the multiboxing goto build? WW with 4 IK + 6 WotW?

Nats set is dumb... honestly with perfect nats set and the ability to run strongarm with fire based RoV its pretty silly damage especially if done with a CDR based build you can get it down to 2 seconds between RoV.

Wizards in general are great damage but their survivability is pretty crap.

I'm running 6p WoTW and bk swords with two of 3 barbs generating health globes. Higher GRs i remove my sprint for damage reduction CoTA for scary packs (frozen + jailer+ waller etc type stuff) as well as for the rift guardian. Damage is pretty strong as with FnR I'm having my tornados crit over 300m each which is about the same as a demon hunter's multishot in full ancient gear without the DML proc. But yes if you are pushing GR you want 6+4 and using unity to spread damage evenly along with the damage reduction CoTA. The main problem is damage and RG can take a long time if you don't get to trap them in a corner.

Cmoidudu

04-29-2015, 11:58 PM

OK I'm back in business... And did some tests.

- I have been chaining GR 39-40's with ~80% XP bonus (Leoric's Helm + Red Gem + mediocre Tal Rasha amulets). Then I gambled gloves at Kadala so right now all my toons have Taskers and Theo's, 3 of them being "tri-fectas" with Attack Speed + Crit % + Crit Damage (and Int). Then I used Serpent Sparkers (non-ancients). Still, I have the feeling that it's inferior to a "random-ancient-weapon" setup. I need a set of ancient sparkers, which I won't get anytime soon.

- Having one character spamming Slow Time is a wonder, specially with dedicated gear (Gesture of Orpheus + Crown of the Primus). I'm even considering a setup with 2 pieces of Delsere's (boots and shoulder) so that I can cast Slow Time every ~2-3 seconds and fill the screen with it. That "Point of No Return" rune works great even on Rift Guardians, and the DPS loss due to not having Meteor boots will be compensated by the "permanent" +15% Damage, +10% Attack Speed, -25% damage taken, 80% slow and almost chain-stun from the Slow Time runes.

You can notice at the end of Devile's video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLsQFO5EFyo) how the Rift Guardian gets stun each time he wants to go in or out of the Slow Time bubble. However, Bloodmaw jumps out of the time bubble without being stun, and teleporting bosses (like Skeleton King) will ignore it too.

I'm thinking of something like this :

http://www.d3planner.com/897036417

Dude will be using Magic Missile + Glacial Spike for (Slow Time CD reduction) and Blizzard + Lighting Storm for the Ligthning damage buff, plus a Fire spell and an Arcane spell. Other Wizard are regular DPS dudes.

Cmoidudu

04-30-2015, 09:13 AM

Here is the video of a GR 47 using that spamming Slow Time dude. Then I failed 48... Difficult Rift, and one of my character crashed :mad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROwj0csNM60

[edit] There goes GR48. And now i'm back to GR38-40, where everything melts in 5 minutes with ~80% XP bonus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkoMO6W3cKo

Cmoidudu

05-02-2015, 11:00 PM

Just talking to myself I guess, but here are a couple of recent adjustments that I made to the team :

- I wasn't properly casting my Hydras. Most of the time only 1 out of 4 were up, and I finally found why... This is because when I channel Electrocute with left mouse button, it sort of messes up casts done with other keys on windows 2, 3 and 4. So I just had to learn how to stop casting for a second so that I can spread my Hydras ;)

- I changed my Arcane spell (Arcane Torrent + Cascade) which wasn't hitting all the time, and chose Magic Missile + Seeker which is an automatic hit. This way i'm almost all the time with full damage buffs (4 stacks of Tal Rasha + Focus + Restraint). Former videos showed that most of the time I missed one Tal Rasha element (only 3 stacks out of 4), which is 150% damage buff...

Pazgaz

05-03-2015, 10:02 AM

Noticed that as well. My solution was spam 1 a few times which is bad habit and DPS loss.

Cmoidudu

05-04-2015, 04:09 PM

I don't know who this guy is, but I already hate him :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_7eCuUVJU

Devile

05-04-2015, 04:50 PM

Saw that a couple days ago. Really nice setup he has there. Found his 4 profiles but don't seem to be updated or at least matching his videos. I think he achieves perma stun with 3 skills: DH Fan of Knives Fan of Daggers, Crusader Shield Glare + Sweep Attack Trip Attack. Also the monk has an Eun-jang-do. The one thing I dont get is his Crusader and how is he resetting cooldowns if he is not using Obsidian. He uses F&R but I can see the cooldowns skip seconds. What item or skill does that?

PS: Also uses Crippling Wave Tsunami on the monk.
PS2: nvm, Roland's set effect resets cooldowns.

Ellay

05-04-2015, 05:11 PM

Honestly, they really need to fix WD tiki build. I am using it as well but it really trivializes so much of the game that at points I stop using it. I'm not sure why he wasn't just including sacrifice on the WD to add the 3 second stun and the rest of the team can now be pure DPS.

I'm thinking maybe this is the best route to go as well. I could just do 3 wizards and the tiki WD and I would no longer have surviviability issues :)

Devile

05-04-2015, 05:19 PM

Not really, u still need the monk to survive. The mantras + Inner Sanctuary provide a TON of damage reduction, otherwise u get killed easily at GR50+. Tiki helps but forces u to be very close to danger. 24 yards is very close range for squishy chars like wizards. That combo works very good cause he can deal high damage and also take damage without dying.

Cmoidudu

05-05-2015, 12:42 AM

zDPS WD helps a lot against elites (I know hwt I'm talking of), it turns the fights into a mere DPS challenge.

But on the Rift Guardian it's a different matter, and you need more than that to incapacitate the boss.

Cmoidudu

05-10-2015, 01:14 AM

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

05-10-2015, 04:20 AM

Can you post links to you profiles?

Cmoidudu

05-10-2015, 04:37 AM

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/cmoidudu-2696/hero/31711726
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Loup-2764/hero/23069299
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Fango-2485/hero/23438644
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Erha-2932/hero/36279264

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

Pazgaz

05-10-2015, 04:51 AM

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

05-16-2015, 05:22 AM

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

05-16-2015, 12:15 PM

Video or it didn't happen! j/k :D 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

05-16-2015, 03:03 PM

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

05-16-2015, 08:15 PM

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

05-16-2015, 08:47 PM

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

05-16-2015, 09:15 PM

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

Cmoidudu

05-17-2015, 09:12 AM

GR 52 done, with some luck with the Rift Guardian for a once. Last tries I got the dude-with-the-teleporting-clones-and-the-one-shot-laser-beams, and then Cold Snap. Talking of Cold Snap, if you have some advice, I'm listening. Because if there is a proper tactic to beat him as a multiboxer, I certainly don't master it ;)

Don't mind the ridiculous mouse cursor. At least, I know what I'm doing. Really, until now I needed to concentrate just to figure out where my cursor was... Now I can focus on my toons (are they standing on something nasty?) and still know where is my target.

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

Devile

05-17-2015, 11:18 AM

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

BTW, u sure Toxin gives u more dps? Cause BoT sounds like more damage overall.

Zwizm

05-17-2015, 01:47 PM

Very nice clear Cmoidudu!!! BTW, what is that cursor you are running?

Devil, I was under the impression that Toxin is a flat 40%. Can BoT compete with that? Do tell!

Ellay, Devil is right. I've opted for CC with FN over TnT's, thus Leorics over Tal Rasha helm. I have enough DPS if I have control of the situation versus more DPS and little to on control.

Devile

05-17-2015, 02:17 PM

Yes, Toxin is 40% but additive with the other buffs/debuffs while BoT is multiplicative which should dish quite more dps overall. Give it a try and see if u notice any difference.

BTW, seems like the top build shifted to Teleport + Meteor. This guy hit 61 today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP73kQnTlqY

Don't think we can easily it multibox tho. Fun to watch anyway.

Pazgaz

05-17-2015, 02:34 PM

how come his ui looks like that? :confused:

Pazgaz

05-17-2015, 02:35 PM

oh wait... it's just something he added on top of his normal ui, right?

Devile

05-17-2015, 03:04 PM

Yes, its the streaming software that lets u add that "overlay". It doesn't change the game, its just how it's shown on the stream.

Devile

05-17-2015, 03:26 PM

GR70 ... maybe one day we can multibox it :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csGFSBIi6H8

Pazgaz

05-17-2015, 04:08 PM

a comment on this youtube video sums how I feel:
"Once you have the gear to deal enough damage, what is the hard point of this then...Playing softcore and CC'ing everything with broken WD mechanics which is way too OP, that's not difficult lol. There is no hard aspect of the game, by playing against monsters who can't even fight back. So it all comes down to get some gear to do high enough damage and then gamble for some lucky rifts with high density. "

Cmoidudu

05-17-2015, 11:44 PM

(...) So it all comes down to get some gear to do high enough damage and then gamble for some lucky rifts with high density. "
Unfortunately he's not wrong... It's one of the major flaws of the game in its current state IMHO. However, with this setup I can handle almost any type of monster population, in any rift map, and reach the Rift Guardian with some time remaining all the time at GR52... But then everything depends on the Rift Guardian.

The Rift Guardians that are really tough (for me) are :
- Cold Snap : I can take 75% of his life and then he'll spam his frost shit and he will kill my team 10 times in a row before I can finish him.
- Raiziel ? (teleporting demon with clones, waller and red beam).
- Voracity : I can hardly see the poison clouds, which at this level kill me almost instantly. Resistance to poison is the weak point of Tal Rasha Wizards.

(...) BTW, what is that cursor you are running? I can't really say... I couldn't run it properly with IsBoxer, so I posted a message in the IsBoxer forums about that, and the message got immediately deleted. So I don't want to get the IsBoxer guys angry. But I'm sure that you can find out with a little Google search. And, it needs to be run as administrator in order to work with IsBoxer ;)

Cmoidudu

05-18-2015, 12:36 AM

BTW, u sure Toxin gives u more dps? Cause BoT sounds like more damage overall.
- 4x Toxin gives a flat +40% to all characters, that's one thing I learned from this forum :)
- Bane of the Trapped gives a +30% to each character who wears it (assuming it's level 50).
- Also I chose Bane of the Trapped over Zei's Stone of Vengeance because you need to be almost off-screen to have the same amount of damage buff from Zei's, and sometimes I can find myself at a pretty close range. Also I have the feeling that I don't need the extra Stun thing.
- And I discarded Bane of the Powerful because, even at very high level, the +20% bonus will fade during the Rift Guardian fight.

GR70 ... maybe one day we can multibox it http://www.dual-boxing.com//images/smilies/biggrin.png
I would wait next patch before spending time and effort building another setup, since Blizzard said that they will remove or nerf the "perma-lock" abilities.

Devile

05-18-2015, 02:25 AM

Yes, Toxin is 40% debuff but additive and I'm sure 30% multiplicative is far more than 40% additive. Check this:

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12206610584?page=1#2

That's why Zei and BoT are the best damage gems cause they have their own multiplicative factor, while others are additive. There are spreadsheets to calculate this easily.

Finished a GR50 today with my Season 3 chars:
http://i.imgur.com/PauPBqO.jpg

Wonder how high I can go with my non season wizards that are almost twice my Paragon, better gems and more materials to craft/reroll. BTW, Meteor Shower + RCR > Hydras. Get a Cindercoat and roll RCR wherever u can and spam those meteors. No need to roll any other damage type anywhere, u already have Meteor damage. Get your 4 Tal stacks and spam them. Elites and RGs go down extremely fast. I don't think I can do that much damage with Ancient Serpent Sparkers + TnT. And the best part is that it works amazing with any Ancient weapons, even a craftable Devastator and no need for retarded skill sequences. Just cast your meteors at the end and that's it.

Ellay

05-18-2015, 10:23 AM

The exciting thing about Wizards I was finding yesterday is that you can push for high Grifts, but if you want to do T6 or Bounties quickly, if you have Aether Walker's, swap in Teleport - Calamity and zip around the screen.

Cmoidudu

05-18-2015, 11:58 AM

BTW, Meteor Shower + RCR > Hydras. Get a Cindercoat and roll RCR wherever u can and spam those meteors (...)
I have some spare Cindercoats, so I might try this. Dude I checked your profiles and I hate you, since you have 3 out of 4 Tal Rasha amulets with crit chance, and I couldn't find a single one :mad:

I'll see if I can craft some extra shoulders with Ressource Cost Reduction instead of Hydra damage % and try your setup.

However what I can do with Hydras is just hide in a corner, cast Hydras in sight of the target and let them do the job. It helps in some specific situations.

Devile

05-18-2015, 01:30 PM

I've got several amulets on Season 3, not sure if it's plain RNG or the drops are better. Those were the best so far. As for Meteor vs Hydra, there's a consdierable difference in DPS imo. Sure Hydras fire alone, but that won't help much cause the stacks need refreshing anyway, so u can't just forget about them for more than a few seconds. With Tal's, once u hit with your 4 elements and all 4 meteors land, there's a long cooldown of 8 seconds u will have to wait in order to reset the cycle.

Most of the time u are prolly at max Arcane, casting a signature spell that does no damage, just waiting to reset the cycle. With Meteor, that's not the case. Once u get your third stack, u just consume all your arcane power with meteors and watch them burn. By the time my 4 stacks are gone, I have casted at least 4 additional meteors with the 600% Tal's bonus. The burst damage is very noticeable. I haven't done the math against Hydras, but I can tell just by looking at how fast elites die, its more damage. Sure, this is not a fair comparison since I have random ancient weapons vs just 1 Ancient Serpent Sparker. Maybe Hydra does more damage overall but u NEED Ancient Serpent Sparker + TnT + certain breakpoint. If u have all that, test and see what's better. If u dont, this seems to deal a LOT more damage than Hydras.

Ellay

05-18-2015, 01:48 PM

I think the Meteor shower method is better for everything but the boss, on the RG if you can lock into place with round robin Frost Nova, you'll get max DPS on double Hydra's potentially for 1-2 Billion DPS on each wizard.
Everything else should be flopping before the Hydras start getting to work, since it throws out 5 stacks of fire lava stuff on the ground it takes however long your Attack Speed is to reach full dps. Whereas the Meteor is just boom instant DPS and less rotation.

I honestly have not pushed for very high grifts yet because I have 0 Serpent Sparkers :( I got a bunch of Tal Ammy's though!

Cmoidudu

05-18-2015, 01:49 PM

Theorycrafting shows that you're right. With same item base and buffs :

- a "Cindercoat" build (as in http://www.d3planner.com/231255107) does 66M effective DPS.
- a "Sparker" build (as in http://www.d3planner.com/679826954) does 57M effective DPS.

And the gear is easier to get. Cindercoats are "not-so-rare" drops when you gamble chest armors at Kadala, and you don't really need an ancient one. Sparkers are very rare and you need an ancient one...

Devile

05-18-2015, 02:12 PM

Well, with Slow Time is not perma stun, but it's fairly decent. They get stuck a lot and even bugged or something cause RGs are not that hard to kill. If u get Burning Axe of Sankis, Devastators, Sun Keepers or Exarians, the dps difference should be even higher. As I said, once u get that 3rd stack and u dump all your arcane power into meteors, u can really notice u took a big chunk of health from the RG.

The good thing is that u have several weapon choices and not just 1 that happens to be pretty rare.

PS: The only RG so far that kills me non stop is Orlash. It's just too fucking annoying. Teleport + waller + copies = GG. Dunno what was Blizzard thinking when they changed this boss. If I ever wanted permaCC, was for this stupid RG.

Ellay

05-18-2015, 02:24 PM

Which is the same issue we both have run into on the WD's. I would LOVE to play quad WD using a Dagger of Darts and Carnevil but I have yet to see even a regular DoD and without it the build is completely craptastic.

Ellay

05-18-2015, 05:10 PM

Going through the d3 planner it seems like the Meteor Shower has pretty good damage but how many can you pump out though? With the right party buffs I could get the Hydra's pumping some serious consistent damage with the right attack speed. When I try to spam Meteor it seems I can only get like 1 off per second maybe less.

Ellay

05-19-2015, 09:15 AM

Tested out both last night, hilariously while switching out of Hydra build an Ancient Serpent Sparker drops.

The Meteor build is much easier to manage, but felt the Hydra build burns through the Boss much smoother.

Devile

05-19-2015, 10:15 AM

I think it's more than 1, but I don't bother much about it. Obviously attack speed will help with that, but your AP regen will have to be higher to sustain your AP. Magic Weapon Conduit helps with that for big groups but not much for single target.

I gave Zwizm's build a try and it worked very nice. Quite a change of pace from what I was doing which involves kiting a lot. Not maxing CDR at all, just using Evocation and 90%+ Leoric's Crown with a Diamond for 1 sec Frost Nova round robin. Nova lockdown is not perfect for RGs but good enough for me. I did some small changes to it tho:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UliNYO!iShb!YZccZY
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UliNYO!RShb!YZccZY
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aliNYO!eShb!ZacbZY
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aliNYO!WShb!YZcaZY

My 2 highest dps wizards use Black Hole Spellsteal to boost their dps a lot more. The other 2 use Event Horizon and Supermassive to deal with some annoying ground effects and pull even more mobs. They all have roughly the same CDR and casting Black Hole at the same time, so no point on having more than 1 Event Horizon.

The 2 highest dps wizards use Meteor Comet to proc cold but the 4th uses Blizzard which is instant and Frozen Solid freezes which helps me initiate from long range. 1 Wizard will use Blizzard Lightning storm which adds a 15% lightning debuff. I still need to test if this debuff means from ALL sources but regardless, it's still a nice debuff for a single wizard. That wizard will replace Electrocute with Magic Missile Glacial Spike which also freezes. My last wizard uses Magic Missile Seeker just to proc Arcane since it uses Black Hole Supermassive.

Passives are straight forward, but I went with Audacity for my main for higher dps. Since I'm already fighting at melee range, Audacity is a multiplicative buff which adds more dps than Glass Canon. I'm using Unstable Anomaly since my Esoteric Alteration is at rank 1 and I'm getting raped by ground effects.

With this setup, is easier to get close to a pack to freeze lock them. Blizzard from range to freeze, Black Hole and then move right next to them to finish the combo.

Zwizm

05-19-2015, 11:44 AM

Devile, I like it! I must admit, I'm addicted to at least 53.5% CDR that guarantees a fast RG kill. I think I'll also give Audacity a try today instead of Unwavering Will since most of my Elite fights are close range.

I've been messing around with testing BoT, as suggested, and it looks like its ~31% multi bump is at least equal to the 40% add bump from Toxin. Somewhere during testing I decided to drop Esoteric and run Bot, Toxin and Gizzard which got my Hydra ticks maxing at 110 mil per, up from 77 mil. This chopped a full minute off my RG kills at GR55+ and just melts Elite packs. I then went out and completed a 57 in under 13 minutes, without the defense of Esoteric, go figure.

Outside of the movement speed, or lack thereof, this build is pretty solid. Anything under GR50 feels like a GR35 now. I don't know about you guys but it feels like 90% of the rifts I get are those sprawling cave maps with lots of horrible progression mobs. On the off chance I get progression mobs with decent density, it's almost 100% success.

Ellay

05-19-2015, 11:51 AM

Ellay

05-19-2015, 11:53 AM

I've got 37% CDR and it seems sufficient to lock down a RG for about 30 seconds ~ then there is a blip, where it can move just enough to do something.
Also to note Frost Nova procs the cold meteor and if your pumping one out every 4 seconds it's sufficient enough.

Devile

05-19-2015, 12:26 PM

Ellay

05-19-2015, 01:00 PM

well bummer. Thank goodness I was using Meteor - Comet with my build or I'd feel silly.

Devile

05-19-2015, 01:35 PM

The other thing I wanna try is ditch most of the damage reduction passives and gems and go with Halo of Arlyse + CoE. Yeah, I know F&R is a ton of damage, but I have to also add a lot of damage reduction to survive and not really doing a great job in some rifts, specially against fucking Winged Assassins, Fallen Angels and Anarchs. Just go with those 2 rings and focus on more damage on passives and gems. Maybe I can even drop APD and go with Strongarms.

Will have to see how much it hurts my dps and clearing times.

PS: Ohh, was forgetting something about the Meteor build ... Channeling Pylon = GG. Usually that Pylon is completely useless for the "traditional" Tal's build but with Meteor, u can destroy everything pretty fast with it.

Ughmahedhurtz

05-19-2015, 03:07 PM

With your Hydra's ticking at 110 mil per, and having two of them that gives you 10 hits per tick or 1.1 billion damage per tick. I find it hard for Meteor Shower to come close on a mob not moving. That's just massive damage. On top of that you're still throwing down meteors anyways.
Even better is to check your breakpoints and make sure your hydras are ticking at the best speed you can get.

You guys doing any log parses (I seem to recall one of y'all linked a site that could do that for ya) to see what these builds do over an entire GR run? That's data I'd be interested in seeing. ;)

Cmoidudu

05-20-2015, 01:00 AM

(...), specially against fucking Winged Assassins, Fallen Angels and Anarchs.
This is because you use 4x Wizards. Really you should try and replace one of your Wizards with a Witch Doctor. Since you are not going to close range you don't need Horrify (and you don't need the helm), instead use Hex+Jinx and everything coming close to the team is transformed into a pig. And, most of what is not pig-ified attack my dogs or fetishes instead of my Wizards.

Note that 4p bonus of Zunimasha is mandatory for high-level GRs. Also I'm trying a Blind Faith helm for the blind effect, but so far I haven't noticed a big difference. Template and gear is here :

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Erha-2932/hero/48211560
(http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Erha-2932/hero/48211560)

Devile

05-20-2015, 02:24 AM

Remember I'm playing seasons. Not going to level up a WD just for that :D Non season, maybe, but still, Winged Assassins don't come alone ... they sometimes are quite a lot and Hex is not going to turn them all into pigs. Also, not sure if its fast enough to turn them into pigs before they land cause they even go thru Slow Time bubbles. They get stunned when they land but u already got hit and a bunch of them landing on u will cause some serious damage, if not kill u.

BTW, did some testing and Blizzard Lightning Storm does add a 15% lightning debuff from ALL sources. That's for the whole party, but only for lightning damage. Not sure if 15% lightning damage will add more dps to the party than just having that wizard with Meteor Comet. Still, useful info.