Hello fellow Wizards! 
Feel free to comment here with feedback on the various [2.6.10 PTR] Wizard changes.
I’ll submit my own feedback below, and edit upon providing seasonal specific feedback next week. Linking: Solo Push feedback. Feedback on Speeds and Clones are now also included below.
I will try to preface with Like, Issue, or Recommendation where applicable to organize my thoughts. Click the details arrows to toggle at any time. This feedback will be split into sections.
Good Change / Appreciation
- I appreciate the wizard class is seeing changes.
- I’m excited to have more than just one somewhat competitive option for Wizard next season.
- Like: +5 pickup radius. Especially nice for LoD builds that have less number of secondaries available.
- Like: 4th cube seasonal bonus! Yes!
Issues with Changes
There exist many issues with [2.6.10 PTR] Wizard changes which boil down to a few shared concepts. For this reason, I will discuss these now.
#1. Multiplier placement on items that are tied to skills that already have a skill multiplier weapon available.
Issue: Takes up a weapon slot. This kills diversity, the opportunity to hybrid, and player choice all in one stroke.
In the case of Wizardspike and Valthek’s, the effects offered are either limited by ICD/no AD proc or affect the skill in a way that is detrimental to DPS.
Why can’t these new multipliers simply be moved to their pre-existing skillbound multiplier weapons?
Valthek’s (PTR) multplier should be included on Twisted sword.
Ranslor’s Folly Bracer multiplier should also be included on Twisted sword.
Energy Twister damage is increased by 150% for each Energy Twister you have out, up to a maximum of 5.
Energy Twister’s damage is also increased by 1900%.
Wizardspike’s (PTR) multiplier should be included on Unstable Scepter.
The damage of Arcane Orb is increased by 1700%-2375% and it’s explosion triggers an additional time.
This way, any new weapons added that modify the skills, can be taken or opted for because of their legendary powers, not because of multiplier.
For example:
I think players might be tempted to equip this over, say, Furnace, Aether Walker, or Echoing Fury. It modifies the skill in such a way that is valuable.
On the flip side, it also keeps items like Furnace, Aether Walker, or Echoing Fury as reasonably competitive options.
This will allow more (similarly appealing, competitive) weapon legendary affixes to be added to differing weapons in the future, that will all be available as options for the same skill.
#2. Channeling. Etched Sigil (PTR) was changed to be specific to Energy Twister.
Just because we were bored of channeling for seasons on end, doesn’t mean we don’t also enjoy channeling builds.
Etched Sigil is currently one of the most exciting, interactive items for Wizard. This change destroys that excitement, that ‘next level’ of gameplay that the effect can provide. Why destroy such an successful, engaging, interesting item?
Builds like EB and Meteor channeling; These are prime examples of builds that I love, that will no longer exist.
Deathwish is the biggest issue with channeling. We can easily reduce the multiplier on Etched sigil without changing it from it’s [2.6.9] form; but Deathwish having such a huge multiplier, and always taking up such a valuable weapon slot, is a large issue.
Recommendation: Deathwish’s multiplier needs to be removed completely, for the health of the Wizard class.
#3. Mobility.
Issues: Wizard, and non-archon Wizard in particular has issues:
- Teleport’s Cooldown is too high.
- We can’t enable multiple charges for teleport such as with Necro’s blood rush or Monk’s Dash.
Higher pushing builds (meta focused builds) often drop teleport because it is so unappealing from a DPS viewpoint. This is how bad it is.
Issue: Movement speed.
- The amount from Movement speed skills and abilities is too low, especially compared to other classes.
- The capability to fit in movement speed options (ex: Illusioinist, Sleek Shell, Scramble) is difficult, due to skill requirements elsewhere.
- No item specific or set based movement speed
Recommendation: Add more options for movement speed. Increase values on current options. Include movement speed on some 4 set bonuses. Recommendation: Reducing (Halving?) the cooldown on Slow time and Diamond skin to 7s would also go a long way to enabling mobility.
Issue: Aether Walker. This is a significant increase to mobility, but again, is locked behind a weapon slot, which most often competes with offensive minded bonuses. This makes it very difficult to fit into any Speed GR XP optimized builds, or Solo Pushing builds.
No recommendations on this one, though other Wizards have suggested various fixes. EDIT (10/4/2020): linking feedback from Lexa on Teleport from balance mega thread.
Item and Skill Changes
Fragment of Destiny (PTR):
Like: Now increases speed of all signature skills. Amazing! More options! Signatures other than Spectral blade can now compete in signature/generator based builds. This also allows dual signature builds to exist in the future. Love it.
Like: Stacks for ‘Spectral buff’ are acquired on a per speed coefficient, per target hit basis. Duration of the ‘Spectral buff’ is a rather short 6s duration, but this at least makes it easier to re-stack if stacks drop.
Like: ‘Spectral buff’ is dynamic with Hydra.
Issue: Fragment of Destiny has historically been Signature/Generator focused. I am disappointed that Signature skills aren’t getting more multiplier.
Recommendation: Increase the multiplier for signature spells to make them competitive with other builds.
Issue: The ‘Spectral buff’ portion of this legendary power is a very restrictive playstyle mechanic. Placing it on a required Hydra legendary forces Hydra players into that playstyle. Limits player options.
Sets are generally a better place to force players into specific playstyles, since players can always fall back to LoD if they don’t like those set requirements.
Recommendation: add this Spectral stacking mechanic into Typhon’s Veil instead. Rebalance TV multiplier as required.
Recommendation: if the intent is to give Hydra another 300% multiplier, merge this with Serpent’s Sparker instead.
You may have one extra Hydra at a time and they deal 1500% increased damage
Issue: If the intent is to encourage Hybrid builds by mingling Signatures and Hydra on the same item, this is not the way to go about it.
Recommendation: Other than the above recommendations, Hybrids favor:
- More slots available to itemize.
- DPS increasing items that boost damage of multiple skills or elements are very appealing.
- Better DPS balance between differing skills.
Winter Flurry (PTR):
Issue: Blizzard on this item doesn’t do anything but debuff enemies for Hydra. It’s an annoying maintenance buff, and blizzard doesn’t have any synergy with Hydra, aside from possibly helping with Pain enhancer stacks.
Recommendations: A few suggestions linked below.
Issue: both the Frost Nova procs from Magistrate and Winter Flurry (PTR) do not assume the rune of Frost nova that is placed on the skillbar or given by items.
Recommendation: Fix so that these can benefit from the rune on the skillbar, or FN runes granted by items.
Issue: Winter Flurry (PTR) still rolls with defaulted Cold% affix.
Issue: Winter Flurry (PTR) is limited to one skill (Blizzard), but still rolls affixes for all other skill%.
Both of these points combined make it terribly difficult to find a good ancient or primal source with proper affixes. ESPECIALLY when you tack on a legendary power that has a range on top.
Recommendation: Remove the default cold affix, default to CHC instead.
Wizardspike (PTR):
Issue: Multiplier.
Recommendation: Wizardspike’s (PTR) multiplier should be included on Unstable Scepter.
The damage of Arcane Orb is increased by 1700%-2375% and it’s explosion triggers an additional time.
Issue: The 2 second ICD is very restrictive, and the fact that it can’t proc Area damage both make this power very unappealing.
Like: I appreciate that Wizardspike (PTR) does similar damage to Wizard-cast Frozen orbs now; and that it isn’t bound by proc coefficients.
Issue: It’s still worse than the [2.6.9] Etched Sigil-cast proc was.
Recommendation: Replace with a more appealing legendary power, such as the radius increase to arcane orb mentioned above.
If you want to keep this legendary power, you can either merge it into Unstable Scepter (definitely fits the theme of ‘unstable’),
Or rework it, to make it more appealing and place on a different weapon (no multiplier!).
Energy Twister (PTR):
Issue: Changing the base tick interval multiplier from 2 to 1 makes the skill feel terrible to play in nephalem rifting and speeds. Damage instances often simply don’t occur before the twister has moved out of range of your target in a lot of cases.
I understand this is in an effort to reduce latency in other scenarios; but I feel it hampers the responsiveness of the skill, and impairs the capability of Twister in a solo speed setting.
Valthek’s Rebuke (PTR):
Issue: Multiplier.
Recommendation: Valthek’s (PTR) multplier should be included on Twisted sword. Ranslor’s Bracer multiplier should also be included on Twisted sword.
Energy Twister damage is increased by 150% for each Energy Twister you have out, up to a maximum of 5.
Energy Twister’s damage is also increased by 1900%.
Issue: Twisters moving in a straight line impair DPS for Twister builds. Twister is a damage over time build, where stacked instances of the same skill can deal more damage to a target over time. Equipping an item that sends your twisters away rather than giving them a chance to congregate or overlap is therefore hugely detrimental to the build.
Recommendation: Replace this legendary power with something different. Two fairly good suggestions I heard from the podcast Danctuary were: “gives the Wicked Wind rune.” and “Mega Twister that builds per twister cast into”.
Etched Sigil (PTR):
Issue: Lost many builds in redesign. Redesign limits build options, and kills off old favorites.
Recommendation: Revert change. Adjust Etched Sigil’s multiplier down, if required, to reduce the benefit channeled spenders receive.
Round1 Playstyle Evaluation and Initial Testing Thoughts
Preface: I haven’t been able to properly test most wizard builds, because our multipliers are now positioned on items that take weapon slots; what this usually leads to in a solo speed or push situation is that the wizard either progresses too slowly through the rift, or doesn’t have the toughness needed for the build to work.
That said, I did my best to ‘get a feel’ for the differing playstyles, sometimes sacrificing a multiplier and running at a lower GR, to guage levels.
I was able to clear 4-5 minute GR109’s (~2kp/18k INT) with both a Typhon’s Veil Frost Hydra build (dropped WF for OID in testing), and a DMO Frozen orb build (dropped AW for testing). With a 4th cube slot, I expect to clear these same levels in ~3-4m.
Hydra: Multiplier increases feel really good; Tested both LoD and TV. From a casual perspective, TV is now more appealing than LoD. I am excited to play TV in solo speed at some point. However, because LoD still offers both more toughness, and multiplier with Deathwish and the Mammoth rune, this will still be the preferred meta configuration in seasonal.
Frozen Orb: Multiplier increase feels sizeable; respectable; feels good. However, without a 4th cube, could not use Aether Walker or OID, meaning it was extremely squishy, and immobile. Nonetheless, I am excited to play Frozen orb next season, in either a DMO or Vyr reverse-archon (likely offmeta) configuration for solo push, and in an LoD configuration for Nephalem Rifting.
Energy Twister: Feels unbelievably weak, less responsive, probably due to the tick rate changes and the fact that the intra-PTR buffs are still extremely lacking. Plus the fact that Wicked wind is the only rune that stacks Twister reliably, and yet, is the weakest rune. No reason that this value can’t be increased. N.B.: Raging Storm is still preferred for push, Valthek’s makes even more difficult to manage though.
I actually prefer non-channeled Twister to channeled Twister. One of the few channeling builds (+FO) that feel disjointed to me.
4 weapons, 3 slots; what’s to say. Non-seasonal cannot fit all the weapons. On seasonal, there’s very little choice in the build.
Speed GR Testing Feedback
Solo Push Feedback (Link)
LoD Cold Twister (Second/Third Round Feedback)
Shadow Clones Feedback
Issue: Shadow clones impact builds that use Obsidian Ring of The Zodiac very negatively; Vyr Chantodo has many build variations using Zodiac that require you have targets to channel a spender on to both reset archon, and gain Chantodo stacks for damage.
When the clone spawns in Nepalems and Lower end Speed GRs, and one shots all the trash around, and your archon ends, you’re just stuck there, running at possibly 25% movespeed until you reach another target, hoping to hit it before your clone notices it’s there too.
This is a negative interaction for certain, especially for builds that run without a teleport.
While we have In-Geom and Crimson’s to work with to avoid this in nephalem rifting, for the lower end Speed GRs especially, Zodiac is the most optimal in my mind.
Note: In testing: speed GRs of GR104-109+ didn’t have as much of an issue with clones instantly killing mobs. Usually, there was enough time to reset archon via Zodiac. The issue in GRs appears more near the lower end (sub 90), where the Wizard is one-shotting most trash.
Suggestion: Allow the player to turn off shadow clones after they enter a game, or perhaps as a configuration setting.
Aside from this, my general Feedback on the shadow clones is that they feel like they impact Nephalem and Speed Rifting quite a bit, dealing quite a bit of damage at GRs lower than ~GR115. Damage is high enough to destroy the RG or elite packs that spawn via Nems at these levels in some cases.
However, very little to no impact with dps on Solo Pushing. While it would be nice to have more impact there, I’m of the opinion that one shotting RGs in 130+ is not as fun to Fish for (feels great when getting lucky though, doesn’t it?).
I’m not sure if this is by design, but I’ll prefer favoring speeds in power over favoring Pushes, seeing as Speeds are what we do ~80%+ of our game time in D3.
My biggest issue with the clones is that they don’t really have any interactivity. The pylons are random, and this does put more of an emphasis on pylon management, but it doesn’t really encourage the player to interact or change their build in any way.
Seeing as we’re past the point where changing up a build from the environmental theme would be recommended;
Other Suggestions:
- Change Shadow Clones to copy our main skills and abilities, similar to how Monk’s Rabid Strike works.
Most interactive and fun, hands down. Also the most work to implement, so… unlikely to happen.
- Changing the clones to be directed by the player, similar to how command skeletons is for necromancer. A dedicated action key for this would be great.
This suggestion would be more player management intensive; but would allow more player agency with what their clone attacks.
- Shadow clones bless us with a random boon: 50% multiplier, 50% CDR, or 50% RCR. Lasts 1 minute.
A la Triune, but without the circles, at a lower benefit.
- Give us a buff when clicking a pylon that tapers off over time. Something like 30% multiplier, 30% DR, and 30% elite damage, that lowers by 1% multiplier/DR/elite damage every 1s that elapse; lasts 30s total.
Would change the scaling of the rift ever so slightly, you’d get these little spikes in damage that might feel really nice.
My thoughts from the S22 Wizard Update Balance Mega Thread by Bossdog (a good thread for suggestions, btw):
I’ll also reference the Wizard Patch [2.6.10] changes thread. More than a few suggestions also being made over there.
Thank you.
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