Boxing the meta 4 man

[Devile]

There are quite a few things u are missing from what I saw in that video:

• U are using F&R and no generator which means u are missing a ton of DPS. Get the Endless Walk set + CoE and u should do much more damage, and also help with survivability while moving around.
• No perma ignore pain. This is a big one. U should have it 100% of the time, specially while moving around when positioning to the next pack. Not just because of the DR but immunity.
• Autocast your EB. U forget to cast it and keep losing the buff. Use the numlock trick or whatever works for u so its always being casted. Same goes for other buffs/debuffs from your party that can be casted while moving (blinding flash, warcry, ignore pain, etc.). Looks like u cast them just before engaging and that's a big NONO. That's why u got 1 shot by that Lacuni.
• Diamond Skin seems kinda useless there. Maybe go with Frost Nova for additional 33% debuff or Familiar for more damage.

AND, the biggest issue of all: POSITIONING. This meta is all about positioning. Your twisters were always going all over the map instead of going in a corner and stacking the damage. Just play solo in any map and test by yourself. Its fairly easy to aim and get them to not move much. U also need to move around, pull a ton of mobs and only then start killing them. Illusory boots or Wings of Angels might be a "must have" to make this work.

If u dont pull a ton of mobs and stack your twisters in that same spot, the spec wont work.

[Cmoidudu]

I can't agree more than that on what you said. I'm still missing some key elements on the build. I just got a Solanium (at last!) on my Monk, he wasn't using one on the video... For the rest...

• U are using F&R and no generator which means u are missing a ton of DPS. Get the Endless Walk set + CoE and u should do much more damage, and also help with survivability while moving around.

• Yep. It's just that I don't have a decent set so I'm instead getting +20% Arcane from my necklace and 50% damage from F+R, with good crit chance and damage on the items. But it's also true true that a very bad Endless Walk will still give me 100% damage, which is more than 50+20. I'll fix that soon.

• No perma ignore pain. This is a big one. U should have it 100% of the time, specially while moving around when positioning to the next pack. Not just because of the DR but immunity.

• That too I already improved. My Barbarian got some gear upgrades.

• Autocast your EB. U forget to cast it and keep losing the buff. Use the numlock trick or whatever works for u so its always being casted. Same goes for other buffs/debuffs from your party that can be casted while moving (blinding flash, warcry, ignore pain, etc.). Looks like u cast them just before engaging and that's a big NONO. That's why u got 1 shot by that Lacuni.

• Well that one is tricky. You have to hit in order to trigger the damage buff + damage reduction, not just cast, so if you can't hit anything during 6 seconds, the stacks are gone. But still, you are right, when I move for a "long" time I start fighting with zero stack, which is not good.

• Diamond Skin seems kinda useless there. Maybe go with Frost Nova for additional 33% debuff or Familiar for more damage.

• Since I don't use Teleport for obvious desync reasons, I have some kind of "free slot", so I tried Diamond Skin with the Arcane Power reduction affix. Not so useful however. I'm trying different things at the moment.

AND, the biggest issue of all: POSITIONING(...)

Absolutely. But this is hard to both have your team gathered, and place the creatures between you and a wall. Plus, the Monk will move the target. Maybe I'll need to get rid of Cyclone Strike... Which would be a huge DPS loss since the Monk also uses Strongarm Bracers. But I'm still very far from what the SoS Team is doing. The Wizard is targeting an angle of a wall (not a corner) and the Twisters seem to be stuck there. Amazing.

[edit] Also that SoS Wizard dude is not using the Paragon points for "Life on hit", if anybody has a clue about that...

[Devile]

[edit] Also that SoS Wizard dude is not using the Paragon points for "Life on hit", if anybody has a clue about that...

I had all Ancient DMO gear from S3 (or 2?) and guess what? Forgot to claim my mail so I'm working on gearing my Wizard to try this combo. Everything else I already have it. I may ditch the Monk for a Crusader just to get Wings of Angels, but with the current lag I have, I may forget the whole thing til my lag issues are fixed (if ever).

LoH? Maybe it breaks the game. Such high attack speed + Pain Enhancer bleed + Area Damage + LoH = game freezes. Too many server calculations and it should lag like hell.

[Cmoidudu]

I have no problem with lag, it happened only once as I was pushing GR levels... A nice 15-20 second super-lag-freeze as you can see on Twitch. And I completed GR68 a couple of hours ago (still no ancient Twisted Sword).

My Wizard now casts Black Hole / Event Horizon instead of Diamond Skin or Frost Nova. Oldies but goodies. Also I'm using a random ancient wand and the Twisted Sword in the cube. That's a huge DPS loss on elite and bosses (no Furnace in the cube). And yes, I have a Traveler's Pledge with Dex on my Wizard

I'm chaining empowered GR63's for Paragon farming and gem leveling to 50, and then I use them for +250 stat on gear. I still need to practice that "glue-the-twisters-on-decor" thing. Sometimes I can make it work, very efficient. But most of the time the Twisters decide to live on their own

Anyway trash mobs are easy, then everything depends on the boss and how you place it. Teleporting bosses are a pain, specially Perendi...

My toons are here...

Wizard : http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/c.../hero/31711726
Barbarian : http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/L.../hero/54153108
Monk : http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/F.../hero/42339329
Witch Doctor : http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/E.../hero/48211560

[edit] I just figured that 4x Gem of Efficacious Toxin is silly since there is only one DPS. So i'll have the buffers wear those gems for +30% damage on the Wizard, but the Wizard will use Bane of the Stricken. With all the ticks from the Twisters, this should skyrocket DPS... I'm not too sure about Pain Enhancer however.

Also, I finally understood that "immobile Twister" thing. The Wizard has to stick his nose into an angle and then spam... The problem is that in the meantime, the Monk and the Babarian are hitting... Nothing (it doesn't matter for the Witch Doctor). I'll try to work around this.

[Devile]

Talking about luck ... been farming since 8am T10 to gear my main Wizard for this combo and no luck with Ancient Twisted swords. Got like 6 already, all non ancient. U posted this and 30 mins later, I get this:



Prolly lowest base damage ever, but still the stats are nice. Can't complain.

As for the problem of hitting nothing, try skills that hit 360 or have more AoE. Won't be easy, thats for sure.

[Cmoidudu]

Talking about luck (...)

Now I hate you.

And, using Ranslor's Folly bracers might help... We'll see.

[Cmoidudu]

OK, so I changed a lot of things (again) in the setup. For a first I got rid of all pets, since they are blocking monsters and you don't want that. On the contrary, I picked more skills to gather monsters.

This team as a major and a minor flaw.

The major flaw is still the same, you can't hit a wall with the Wizard and hope to stack Twisters, when in the meantime the rest of the team isn't hitting the monsters, so you are getting no globe, so no power, so no Twisters... so you need to face monsters for a while and them face the wall to stask Twisters, etc.

The minor flaw is, I'm using Leap + Call of Arreat on the Barbarian, and if I don't pay attention, dude can leap away and get separated form his buddies.

Here is a GR70 video, and I certainly can push further... as a reminder, I still don't have an ancient Twisted Sword yet...



Also, this is how I arrange all skills. I'm only using straight key forwarding in IsBoxer, no round-robin etc.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I thought your healthbars were bugged until the RG fight.

[Shodokan]

OK, so I changed a lot of things (again) in the setup. For a first I got rid of all pets, since they are blocking monsters and you don't want that. On the contrary, I picked more skills to gather monsters.

This team as a major and a minor flaw.

The major flaw is still the same, you can't hit a wall with the Wizard and hope to stack Twisters, when in the meantime the rest of the team isn't hitting the monsters, so you are getting no globe, so no power, so no Twisters... so you need to face monsters for a while and them face the wall to stask Twisters, etc.

The minor flaw is, I'm using Leap + Call of Arreat on the Barbarian, and if I don't pay attention, dude can leap away and get separated form his buddies.

Here is a GR70 video, and I certainly can push further... as a reminder, I still don't have an ancient Twisted Sword yet...

Also, this is how I arrange all skills. I'm only using straight key forwarding in IsBoxer, no round-robin etc.

Well its good to know it is possible to multi-box all the supports even if its slightly inefficient in comparison to the normal ability for the barb to also pull/group.

Your major flaw though doesn't seem like something you can get around. That being said you might be better off with 3x DMO twister/channel wizards and a barb support or two and two supports. The single DMO wizard setup although piloted by botters is doing extremely well in solo play, the major problem with it though is that teleport is used almost exclusively for positioning which is another thing that is done at the very high end of the spectrum to avoid as many hits as possible. Because of that limiting factor as well I'm not sure that this setup is ideal in comparison to something like 2x LoN bomb + 2x support simply because you cannot even come close to optimizing your damage.

That being said I do think that if you want to continue playing the meta setup then you should think about swapping your setup to have your wizard using a build similar to the solo pushing builds in order to get more success. No matter how you swing it you aren't going to be able to position properly and consistently be able to deal maximum damage without your supports actually being able to generate globes.

[Cmoidudu]

Another quantum leap and I completed GR75. Since I still don't have an ancient Twister Sword, low 80's should be possible as soon as I'll get one... At GR76 I obviously lack the DPS on elite packs (Twister Sword in cube so no Furnace there). They take too long to kill (and I still have a huge margin of improvement on positioning).

Also I changed Barbarian's "right-click" skill from Leap to Avalanche + Snow-Capped Mountain. Works better. Now I need to find 2 good "Pull of the Earth" set pieces to reduce its cooldown (and ground Stomp too).

(...) to have your wizard using a build similar to the solo pushing builds (...)

I'll consider that...

I thought your healthbars were bugged until the RG fight.

Well as long as the 4 dudes are stacked, toughness skyrockets. I'm somewhat bleeding at GR76 however