Do you think there's hope for Wizards in S23?

Haven’t played D3 in a while ( since season 19 to be more precise ) And some things have changed while others have stayed the same. So after doing a little catching-up by reading the patch notes and watching some videos I am kind of sad Wizard is still in this awkward state.

Sure just like all the other classes it got a new set that gives you a new way of playing the class but I personally wasn’t really sold on the build, though I have to at least give it a try to be fair.
However other than that not much has changed at all for the class, which kind of upsets me as I love the power fantasy of a Wizard in RPGs. DMO is still as clunky as always with less mobility now because you have to work in the new item, Tal Rasha is but only an ancient folklore and, well Firebird still has unintuitive gameplay, a lack of toughness for how you’re supposed to play and a lack of damage to top it all off.
Vyrs which I personally consider a lot of fun is also not a GR pushing powerhouse anymore and the attack speed change that happened to Chantodo’s on the PTR on S19 I believe still bums me. Emitting energy waves at like twice the speed is simply more fun!

It really makes me wonder if they have something ANYTHING planned for future seasons to address some of these issues

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I doubt S23 will give us any relief. The truly sad part about Wizards is Blizzard thinks they’ve improved them with Typhon’s and the complete train wreck that’s the change to Etched Sigil. I swear they must’ve thought something like “People were complaining that most viable end game builds used Etched Sigil so we nerfed the hell out of it so they can try hobbling together 4 effects to replace it with some buggy AoE nightmare instead. Fixed.” No fix to mobility, no fix to channeling, the fact viable wizards (especially in HC) become tankier than almost any other class just shows that who is ever in charge of Wizards at Blizzard either hates them as a class or, at best, has never played them. The forums are filled time and again with great suggestions for improving the class and Blizzard always seems to find ways to ignore all of it. Therefore I fully expect nothing (or less than nothing) to improve for S23.

Funny thing is, that Etched Sigil (legacy) is fine, and wrEtched Sigil (new one) is also fine - if you like to play Twister. From a mechanic viewpoint it’s not a total wreck. What made this change horrible is that they killed the item for early season (I really liked my auto Arcane Orbs) and they entirely killed working builds like Channeling Meteor (Shower)…

As for S23… don’t know, seriously. If they look through our feedback and take some ideas from it, then maybe, They have enough time to get something done. But since the S22 patch was our wizard patch already (haha) I have doubts that we see something major for S23.

Sad but true.

Wow that sounds extremely depressing. Jesus

Which for the most case is standard procedure for Wizards.

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RIP kinda sad that you guys have it so rough over at camp Wizard, meanwhile over at camp Demon Hunter we got it all. A shame considering Mage has a lot of potential

In Demon Hunters defense, they also went through plenty of hardships as well, I remember when Calamity was rendered nearly useless, and despite Demon Hunters feedback on the matter, Blizzard made no attempts to remedied the problem.

My only hopes for wizards is that they don’t give us any more overly gimmicky builds, as quite frankly I’ve had enough of those, and that they don’t break any more existing builds…

That would in essence mean they have to prolong the status quo - a state that is (at least from my perspective, others might have different thoughts) quite awful.

One can only hope that they actually read through the feedback and suggestions made here and elsewhere. I wish they ignore the flaming and hatred some guys spread and take valid criticism from experienced players like Cratic to evaluate their latest design decisions fairly - and then make the necessary changes.

Personally I would like to see far more changes to wizards than what should be expected. And I’d be really happy if they take a look at some of the ideas people suggested, including but not limited to my own. What I don’t want is more item and set changes to buff a single skill through introducing nasty gameplay like with what happened with Winter Flurry just for sake of doing something that doesn’t allow channeling.

Putting things in order, I would say my personal wishlist is:

  • fixing Teleport & Aetherwalker
  • completely redesign and buff Tal Rasha and Firebird
  • add Signature Skill builds (stand alone or paired with Hydra or Mirror Images)
  • make Channeling viable on its own and bring back Meteor builds - ideally also revert the Etched Sigil change and DO SOMETHING ABOUT DEATHWISH!!
  • reconsider the suffocating the 4 weapon/offhands requirements (Twister, Arcane Orb, Hydra)
  • make Vyr a strong competitor… not only with Chantodo - that includes Fazula and Swami

Obviously there’s plenty more things that should be taken care of eventually, but those are things I personally want to see addressed rather sooner than later.

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Honestly, if I had to choose between having no new wizard changes for the next update or having balance changes that results in us having more gimmicky and awful playstyles; I’d choose the former over the latter nearly any day.

That’s all we can do. That said, I definitely like your personal wishlist.

I guess that’s because you like Archon. Personally I detest the Archon playstyle, that’s why I’m deeply frustrated with current state wizards are in. I look at the running season and know what will happen after it’s over. I still want to play a wizard, but it’s becoming less enjoyable with every new patch / season these days.

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That’s partly it. However what I mean is that I rather have no changes instead of additional bad changes for Wizards. Take this patch for example, I’d gladly have just taken the buff to Wizardspike, Typhon, DMO, and Twisted sword and wouldn’t have any issue leaving out the change to etched sigil, winter flurry, even if it would’ve resulted in less balancing changes.

The removal of channeling meteor from Tal-Rash wrecked my favorite build. Vyre is fun, but groups don’t stop so you can build stacks. Some players even kill your target while you are doing so. What a frustration. I have played the new S23 meta and it doesn’t feel like a wizard at all. You aren’t “casting spells”, you are dashing to enemies to slash them as your damage dealer. I’m glad the wizard might have a place in groups again, but it really isn’t a wizard. Its a barbarian with an invisible knife. The review of class strengths should read for wizard: "Position 6 (right above shamans) unless you want to play a melee. Because those seem to be the two options.

For me, it all rests on what Firebird’s rework is capable of doing. It could potentially do what GoD did for the Demon Hunter: give the Wizard a two-in-one combo that is great for both speed farming and GR pushing.

Everything else is going to be taking a step back from Season 22 and it’s 4th cube slot. All the resurgent builds we saw in S22 will go back to being mid-tier builds, like Frozen Orb and Energy Twister. They won’t be able to compete once the 4th cube slot vanishes.

The best Wiz LoD build will return to Mammoth Hydra and the best set build will be Typhon’s frozen hydra - neither of which are top-tier builds. Vyr’s will remain as an option, but a poor one for anything other than solo GR pushing.

None of the builds I’ve mentioned are very efficient at farming in any capacity, which I think is the Wizard’s biggest drawback right now. I don’t mind playing 2nd tier builds if I’m having fun, but I absolutely require a fast farmer for things like bounties, T16 key hunts, and gem-leveling. My fingers are crossed that Firebirds is the answer because I’d love to main a Wizard and not have to worry about rapid-building a WW Barb to do all my farming.

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Well, we shall see what the revised Followers will do - at least for solo players like me that’s something I really look forward to. As for Firebirds… all depends on what they do for the final tweaks. Going by the last few PTRs the set could very well go live as-is. I really hope it will because it’s finally enjoyable.

As for the extra cube slot. Yes, I will really miss it. I mainly used it for Aetherwalker, but the season was great for me. First time I managed to beat GR130 true solo, below paragon 2000 no less. Since I know what will happen after the slot is gone, I will use the remaining time to level up my gems and some spares, since without the cube that will no longer be possible for me.

The answer to that is that, as par for the course, they overnerfed it. At least they’re consistent in their total clusterf*** of handling power of new Wizard sets.

Yup, can’t disagree on that. They went far beyond reasonable tuning with that.