Season 3 Tal-rasha Wizard Team discussion

[Yelgis]

Good info there Zwi.

I know Hydra is what everyone is looking at for the moment, but I was thinking something like this.
http://ptr.d3planner.com/788569175

A Wand of Woh build should also be strong. I intend to hit the 54%+ CDR with my team to take advantage of perma freeze lock with cold snap. Since I am playing close Explosive Blast pairs well as a main damage source and it takes advantage of Audacity passive.

Here is a little breakdown.
Mammoth Hydra = 330%/sec x2 (SS) x 7 (Tals buff) * 2 (FnR buff not accurate because it is actually higher at 125% but good enough for camparison) x 2.5 (the number of ticks/sec at the 3.08 APS breakpoint for hydra... this needs 50% TnT and 38% character ias to reach with a SS with 7% ias on it)

Mam Hydra DPS = 23,100%/sec

Doing the same calculation for Explosive Blast yields:
520% x 3 (the number of hits of concussive rune) x 4 (total casts with Woh) x 7 (Tals bonus) x 2 (FnR bonus) = 87,360/cast
Now divide it by 2.6 (cooldown of EB is 2.51 at 58.18% CDR which this build can hit with perfect rolls) and you get 33,600%/sec


EB seems to do more damage than Hydra. Both Hydra and EB can take full advantage of Arcane Dynamo so they are both equal in that regard. EB has the advantage of being able to keep up Taeguk much easier than the SS Hydra build though and the EB build has no reliance on IAS so gearing allows for higher CDR, CHC and CHD. Both builds can access the same amount of +skill damage for their main skill.

The Woh build can use EB at 25% effectiveness compared to EB and the EB build can use Hydra at 25% effectiveness of the Woh build. So they are equal in that regard. (EB build Hydra will only hit 1.25 ticks/sec breakpoint since it doesn't stack IAS and only has one hydra so that is how I calculate 25% effectiveness... in truth it is higher since the EB build can stack CHD and CHC much easier than the Hydra build do to not needing IAS on gear.)


Whichever build you choose one of your characters can use EE to give the entire group 20% damage. I don't like Strongarms because they are only useful for trash and elites that can actually be pulled. APD's should provide an enormous amount of toughness so I focused my passives on DPS. Force Armor could be swapped to something else if needed.

The only thing my build doesn't really have is a pull mechanic. Right now I was using Arcane Orbit since it can be cast off the gcd making EB and Orbit two easy to maintain buff abilities for the Talk 6p. I could easily swap it to Black Hole for a pull since BH would have just over a 5 sec cooldown on this build at perfect CDR. In that case, I would probably use either the one that clears ground effects or the one that buffs spell damage based on number of mobs hit.


I feel the Woh build might perform better than the Hydra build for multiboxing. Simply because it would be easier to play and the gearing allows for easier time getting CDR while still keeping other dps stats high. The Hydra build is far better for soloing where you can't rely on perma freeze and being in close proximity to mobs as well as for grouping when you are only playing a single character. In group situations because of Tiki Doc and Crusader controlling mobs and providing BBV and other attack speed buffs the Hydra build can reach the 4.03 and maybe even the 5.8 breakpoints with enough mobs nearby and pain enhancer. When reaching those breakpoints the Hydras will outstrip EB. Normally you would only be able to hit the 2.5 ticks/sec bp with decent gearing, but with group IAS buffs from an ideal party if you hit the higher breakpoints the next one is 3.33 ticks/sec and the highest one is 5 ticks/sec. The damage really ramps up in that situation.



Getting good Woh's and SS's on 4 Wizard's will be no easy task though. So I plan to work out a build I can use without a specific weapon. Unfortunately Wizard skills are kinda bleh without weapon support so I am not sure where to start on that heh.

[Devile]

The only thing my build doesn't really have is a pull mechanic. Right now I was using Arcane Orbit since it can be cast off the gcd making EB and Orbit two easy to maintain buff abilities for the Talk 6p. I could easily swap it to Black Hole for a pull since BH would have just over a 5 sec cooldown on this build at perfect CDR. In that case, I would probably use either the one that clears ground effects or the one that buffs spell damage based on number of mobs hit.

Why not the new Bracer + Energy Twister? It pulls 30 yards I believe.

[Yelgis]

Ranslor's has zero effect on elites. It basically only pulls white trash and while the range and spammability of it is impressive for that function, I don't only want to be able to pull trash. You would have to give up APD's or Strongarms as well and I feel the toughness or dps is a better call personally.

[Magicme]

Looking forward to trying this with Tals; it works with Firebirds but I get the ridiculous server slowdown (ping shoots up to 1.5k and everything freezes) from all the DoT calculations (apparently this is what it is caused by) a bit too much for my liking.

Thanks for sharing Zwi, good to see that this build has solid potential without using Halo. From my testing so far, Halo felt like overkill anyway.

[Yelgis]

I've been playing around with the planner site some more and mathematically the Hydra build seems to work out to be the strongest by far for grouping. It just scales so well with the attack speed buffs from the current meta of WD/Sader support.

The other builds are pretty competitive from a multiboxer standpoint and they are also less taxing on your system. The EB Wand of Woh build does comparable damage to the Hydra in a multibox 4x wizard situation. Hydra just scales better in the current group meta.

I am also playing around with a build to use before getting Sparkers/Woh's. It focuses on Arcane Torrent with the lightning rune. I always liked that skill and now that Tal's can boost its damage along with FnR it should be even better.

[Magicme]

Out of interest Zwi, what Legendary gems were you using for higher grifts on the PTR?

[Zwizm]

For PTR testing I was using Esoteric, Gizzard and Toxin all leveled up to the 53/54 range. I'm not sure about you guys but the "crit and get 3% attack speed" gem is just not viable with the current state of the game, for multi-boxers. Once it gets to crunch time where a crap-ton of damage/mobs are on the screen within either a Trial or Rift with WDs, Wizards, etc. the game can not handle it and lags until you're dead.

Yelgis - Your numbers show that an EB build may be optimal for us multi-boxer's and pretty easy to zoom around with in T6 or higher GR's. Looks like there's would be room for Teleport which would go a long way towards initiating elite fights. My only gripe is I hate gathering CDR on gear haha. But if I decide to go Era instead of Season then it will be no problem.

[Yelgis]

The CDR reqs really aren't that bad Zwi. Only because wizards have Evocation. With Evo you only need a Leorics Crown with 12.5% daimond with at least 90% on the leg effect, then 8% CDR on shoulders, and gloves plus 10% from paragon. That gives you 53.53% CDR, which is the bare minimum needed for permanent Frost Nova Cold Snap freeze lock.

That CDR puts you at 3.49 cooldown on Cold Snap and at 2.79 cooldown on Explosive Blast (except for the Flash rune). You need to be under 3.6 seconds for Cold Snap freeze in round robin and 3.5 gives you some leeway for latency. That EB cooldown at 2.8 seconds also give yous .2 seconds of leeway for keeping Taeguk stacked so 53.53% CDR is a sweet spot for CDR.

If you can then budget CDR on weapon, you can get to 58.18% which will boost the damage from your EB spam since it brings the cooldown to right around 2.5 seconds.

Getting a 90% or higher Leorics isn't that hard and rolling 8% on shoulders and gloves are easy. Paragon just takes time, but you can give up a dps stat on a ring until you get the paragon up. Wizard is unique in that achieving permanent round robin stunlock doesn't take perfect CDR rolls on every possible item slot. Getting a decent wand of woh is going to be harder than hitting the CDR requirements by far for the EB build.


Both Tals builds seem to rely on a hard to find wand though. Both SS and Woh aren't easy to find good ones of. So I am playing around with a build that doesn't focus on either. Here is the base of what I would aim for.

http://ptr.d3planner.com/263154767

This build can use any good ancient 1hander you get. I just put Gift of Solaria in there for kicks. It's focus is on using Astral Presence and Force Weapon Conduit to be able to spam the lightning rune of Arcane Torrent. Normal combat would be cast Mammoth Hydra and EB - Obliterate at the same time (EB is off gcd so this can be done) to trigger both the fire and cold tals buff (tals activates on cast of an attack with no hit required). Then toss a MM Seeker out to activate the generator buff from FnR and proc the arcane tals buff. Then you spam Arcane Torrent for 5-6 seconds until the tals buffs drop and you have to run through the process again.

Where this build shines is that Static Discharge Torrent procs Mirinae very very well and since Tals buff effects everything the Mirinae proc gets boosted by your tals damage buff. The same is true for the toxin gem. You will notice the tal damage proc is over 650 million with the gear in that build link and Toxin dps is over 70 million/sec. The Torrent at full stack is almost 500 million as well. It should be pretty respectable for not requiring a specifc weapon. Keep in mind those numbers are without perfect gear rolls and no paragon points used at all.


This build can be taken even further by using a Schaeffer's Hammer. To use Schaeffer's you have to swap Leorics helm to Tals and then your schaeffers needs to have a CDR roll on it and you will have to use 1 ring with a CDR roll, so the CDR requirements are a little tougher then the 1h build. In exhange you get a 850% per second damage proc any time you cast your Torrent for 5 seconds.

http://ptr.d3planner.com/305675023

The link above shows it. I purposfully used a low roll Schaeffers as well. You can see that the Schaeffer effect is 246 million dps. The potential for it to really ramp up is high as well. In perfect gear and paragon for the build, I've seen it go over 500 million/second.

All builds for Tals should use Mammoth Hydra even if not using the Serpent Sparker build though. Mammoth Hydra just does more damage per cast/resource spent and scales better with the tales buff and attack speed then most of our other skills. You can see that the Hydra still has respectable DPS in builds not even focused on it as a skill. The other reason is because hydra damage rolls on slots separate from Meteor/Arcane Torrent. Hydra only competes with explosive blast, so the only time you should roll EB over hydra is with the Wand of Woh build focusing on EB. Without Woh, EB doesn't work nearly as well or scale anything like Hydra.

I only use EB because it is off the global cooldown which mean you can cast it at the same time as casting another skill. Using EB with another skill allows you to get two tals buffs up at the same time and it just reduces your ramp up time to full bonus by 1 less global, which can be anywhere from half a second to .75 seconds. If your APS is crazy high like over 3 APS (the hydra build is the only one I see doing this with and that is with a BBV from a WD and Laws of Valor active from a Sader) then this method only saves you about .33 seconds so you might get away with a skill that has a global cooldown.

[Magicme]

Farmed some Tals sets today and gave the build Zwi suggested a go. Did GR46, then just farmed ~40-42. Haven't tried to push higher.

6pc Tal w/ rubbish necks, no F&R, Toxin/BoT/Gizzard ~ 34, random ancient weaps, meteor boots. Still lots of room for improvement (F&R should be substantially more damage), really enjoying it so far!

[Yelgis]

FnR more than doubles your damage because it ends up being 125% more damage due to its multiplicative nature and the fact it is separate from other buffs.

It ends up just multiplying your damage by 2.25. So yea it will certainly be a big jump when you manage to grab sets of them for each of your characters.