Take what you are doing to Etched Sigil and just apply it to the core ability across the board by 250%-500% of their current values or instead of over 6 secs make them do their full damage plus bonus said above every sec for six seconds. and leave the current live version of Etched Sigil alone.
k thx bai.
Blizzard’s intent seems to be to break wizards dependency on deathwish and etched sigil; and while we may not know the full scope of their plan regarding it, the issue is that the method they’ve chosen to do so has caused far more problems than it’s solved ( in short we lost more builds than we’ve gained with this patch thus far).
Ideally they should’ve done something akin to:
Something I think that’s worth repeating (as it has been mentioned by numerous other folks already) is that while channeling builds were predominant for wizards, our channeling skills themselves were quite weak. As such this upcoming patch is just going to further weaken an already weak build (after all, channeling skills lose the dmg boost given by etched sigil).
Since the PTR Feedback section of the Forums is open they are looking more towards in there for suggestions/feedback regarding the new changes:
The problem is that we never bothered making a build that used channeling skills - because they’re all terrible. We just used them to enable other spenders.
If they want to make builds where we actually use channeled skills - if that’s a goal - then we’re going to need a generic set based around them and the 2 piece is gonna need to be “Channeled spells can now be used while moving.”
Yes, the channeling skills are bad. That’s something a lot of us can agree on. Which is why changing the damage modifiers of death wish and etched sigil (while also removing the 1 second delay) to affect only channeling skills then upping said damage modifiers would be more ideal than what blizzard may currently have in mind.
There’s no need for that imo, in fact I’d prefer we don’t get an item or set ability that allows us to move while channeling. They just need to change teleport so we can reliably teleport without needing aether walker (such as giving teleport charges or having it naturally cost arcane power).
There’s definitely a need for that. D3’s endgame is faced paced and high movement. Channeling skills suck at both because they have a ramp-up time and they bring your movement to a halt. There’s way too many things that need avoiding for your character to be standing in 1 place for more than a second or two.
Plus, I’d kill for a viable Sleet Storm build.
Deathwish can be changed to allow channeling skills their full damage without needing to ramp up; and teleport can be looked at to give us greater mobility (without needing to sacrifice a weapon slot via aether walker).
Which would be a large modifier loss and still wouldn’t help channeling skills nearly enough even if it kept that.
I think you misunderstood. I’m saying that Deathwish would not only buff channeling damage, but also allow channeling to deal it’s full ramped up damage instantly:
For example:
Death Wish :
Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost, and Disintegrate no longer ramps up and now deal their maximum damage. Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost, Disintegrate, and Disintegration Wave all deal 300-400% more damage.
I didn’t. I covered both possibilities:
I disagree, that would help channeling skills. Also it’s worth keeping in mind that both Ray of Frost and Disintegrate have legendary items that could be used to further buff the two skills (of course said items would need a buff as well). Arcane Torrent doesn’t have an exclusive legendary item, but there are a good number of legendary items that lack legendary powers that can be used for it. Then a further buff could be given the Hergbrash’s Binding if necessary.
In short, changing deathwish and etched sigil to channeling skills only and then further buffing them would be the step in the right direction.