First 70 on a seasonal wizard, need advice

Good morning.

This is my first seasonal wizard, and I’m hellbent on getting Andariel’s arms. I’m on the last chapter in completing the 6 piece Vyr’s set, so I have plenty of questions.

  1. I crafted level 70 gear, a weapon, and completed the socketed weapon and rare-to-legendary weapon requirements. This is my current loadout, so any advice going into T1 would be fantastic!

https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/GrazedZero-1804/hero/121733673

  1. Which paragon points should I take first? I started placing points into CDR (offense) and Life on Hit (utility).

  2. Should I be using the 4 Vyr pieces I have, or wait til I get all 6?

Any and all advice is welcome. This is new territory for me.

Thank you for your time.

First tab: max movement speed, then possible max arcane power or just straight int
Second tab: for most builds, max crit damage, then crit chance, then attack speed, then cooldown reduction.
For Vyr’s, max cooldown reduction, then crit damage, then crit chance, then attack speed
Third tab: max all res, armor, life, regen
Fourth tab: doesn’t really matter, except do gold find last. I usually max RCR, then life per hit, then area damage, then gold find.

Archon generally isn’t worth using until you have some supporting items. I’ll generally wear the set pieces, but I just use them for stats until I can get something that makes Archon worth using. Messerschmidt’s Reaver is huge here. You can run 4p or 6p Vyr’s with a Messerschmidt’s Reaver alone. After that, Swami is the next most important piece, then either Fazula’s/Chantodo’s.

Okay, first off, just put your Vyr’s pieces on, even if you aren’t going to use Archon. They’ll have better stats than your yellows.

Second, start looking for gear with crit stats on it. That’s a big damage boost.

Third, start putting all your shards into sources. You want either a Triumvirate or an Etched Sigil, those will be your biggest dps boosts by far. An Etched Sigil or a Triumvirate can carry you into T2-T4 even without any other bonuses.

If you get an Etched Sigil, run with Disintegrate: Convergence or Arcane Torrent: Static Discharge (your choice) and Meteor Shower. If you get a Triumvirate, run with a primary skill (your choice) + Frozen Orb + Prodigy passive (poor man’s Shame of Delsere belt). If you happen to get a Chantodo’s source while gambling sources, bonus! It’s not immediately useful though, you want either Triumvirate or Etched Sigil as one of those items alone can progress you through chapter 4 a lot easier.

You’ll need a 1-hander to use a source. You might consider upgrading a wand if you don’t have one you can use. But don’t do too many wands yet, you’ll want to get a Messerschmidt’s Reaver first. So do like one wand, doesn’t matter what it is, just for a 1-hander to wear (bonus if it’s an Unstable Scepter, Aether Walker, Wand of Woh, Serpent’s Sparker, or Chantodo’s wand).

If you are planning to transition to Vyr’s, start upgrading yellow 2-handed axes (note the 2-handed part!) for Messerschmidt’s. You can craft level 70 yellow 2-handed axes at the blacksmith if you don’t find them, but try to save any 2-hand axes you find to preserve your materials. Vyr’s is viable with Messerschmidt’s alone, and it’s by far the easiest supporting item to get. You can run Vyr’s 6p with nothing but a Messerschmidt’s to start. That’s how I started this season. It’s a lot easier to get than Obsidian ring.

After that, you’ll want to start working on Swami, Fazula’s, and Chantodo’s wand + source.

In the meantime while you’re working on that stuff, switch a couple skills around. First, Magic Weapon rune to Deflection (or Conduit if you need the arcane power). Armor to Energy Armor: Force Armor or Prismatic Armor. Pick up Illusionist as a passive.

Or better yet run a few rifts with TinneOnnMuin :grin:

when playing a int class it goes to armor->life->regen->all res. You get all res from int :stuck_out_tongue:

Sure, at high paragon. But it’s actually often not ideal to do that at low paragon, when it actually matters.

Sub-200 paragon, you have low int and almost no all res. All res also gives you a fixed amount of all res, whereas life and armor are both %-based. The less all res you have, the more the fixed amount of all res is worth. You typically get more toughness from all res sub-200 paragon than you do from armor.

By the time it would be better to take armor% over all res from paragon, you already have enough paragon to max both.

This is a bit situational, as it will depend on what rolls you have on your gear. If you want to be really optimal, you just try it both ways and take whatever maximizes your toughness. But as a general rule, you’ll often find all res from paragon gives comparable if not higher toughness at low paragon. (side note: taking life% generally gives you the highest sheet toughness regardless, but I prefer having the mitigation from all res and armor first)

Don’t believe me? Play around with it on a sub-200 paragon character at the start of a season. You should find you often have higher toughness at sub-200 paragon with crap gear by taking all res first.

Also, even in the 600-800 paragon range, I’d pretty much never recommend taking 10k regen over 250 all res. 250 all res is worth way more than 10k regen in my books. Maybe unless you’re 5k+ paragon. But if you are, you have them both maxed anyway.

At 200 paragon, all res is typically better than armor%. And at 600 paragon, all res is better than regen. Hence why I recommend all res first.