Usually I have a look at maxroll to see what are the recommended builds for a particular class and I notice for example that for Meteor Wizard they recommend the 2 handed Mangsongs however all the top clears are using 1 handed.
Any thoughts on this? I didn’t post under the Wizard section as it is dead.
Thanks
they have a discord you can ask on but they aren’t the most welcoming to questioning
Are the top clears using Wizardspike? That could explain.
Mang Song Lesson has +300% to wizard skills which 4x multiplier. Wizardspike has +100% to wizard skills and up to +100% stacking damage which are both 2x separate multipliers. In theory both have the same sized damage buffs but Wizardspike allows an offhand as an additional stat stick.
Mang Song Lesson is more consistent damage as the full buff is applied immediatelly. Wizardspike requires consecutive hits to the same target to reach the full damage buff.
Some of the top clears use Oculus and Star Pact. Maybe because Oculus helps with arcane power generation. And also combinations of Aughild’s and Guardian’s.
Also you can’t blame Maxroll too much since their top contributors aren’t playing much D3 anymore by the looks of it.
Maxroll (or Icy Veins) give very good advice, sometimes they may have missed a piece of data (Everyone has the right to make a mistake).
I usually juggle between Maxroll/Icy Veins and leaderboards, and see what works best for me.
Mang Song has higher minimum damage than an average one hander. By attack speed and stacking damage bonus the Wizardspike can turn out to be better for long fights, with Stricken but I believe higher minimum damage and elemental bonus offer consistent results. By average, two handed weapons hit 50% higher damage than a one hander, now add skill and elemental damage bonus to sweeten the deal and you may have a comparable outcome to two separate multipliers.
As for maxroll and icy-veins, they write guides for minimizing loot hunt and frustration from it. While players have different priorities for loot hunting and farming, guides usually aim to throw you into the fray of Greater Rifts quickly. However, if you were to spend more time farming or crafting, you can have more performance at the cost of some tweaks to the traditional build. You have to understand each player have different comfort zones and play styles beside cognitive skills; you have enough flexibility to reach your targets and don’t have to stuck on guides. If you are mad at randomization because you can not imitate your “idol” page on a platter instead of adapting, that is a losing mindset. If you don’t dare to go out of written guides, you won’t have fun. Period. Guides are written for common denominator, it is up to player to interpret them and identify the aspects of the build to modify it for their needs. This is what you see on leader boards and it is a rare sight to witness.
Its a mixed bag between wizardspike and oculus the other one hander (but focussed on damage reduction vs damage increase of the wizard spike).
That’s an interesting analysis thanks. Surprised maxroll didn’t pick up on that, they’re usually very good.
Could wizardspike be more? The first is +100% added damage, the next is up to 100% as a separate multiplier perhaps, just like CoE?
Edit: I do see that you mention them as separate multipliers now 
I think the more important factor with Oculus is the large APoC roll. It greatly helps refreshing Arcane Power which means one can fire Star Pact meteors way more often.
Yes, those are separate multipliers.
They have builds set up for T16, speed rift, GR push, Echos and group play, not just one build.
I wonder how much more beneficial this is given that we already have arcane power on offhand and from the altar?
That doesn’t deny or dismiss what I have just said. They show you a shortcut and suggest the most to the point build with efficiency and least loot hunt requirement. That is the purpose of guides at the end of the day; they are nothing more than a blue print but not everyone has to obey it to a single letter. However, you can always take initiative and modify it to your needs. When you can identify the aspects of need and weak points of your build, you won’t have problem changing things around and still be effective. Take a look at leaderboards. Most of the top players have very slight diversions away from guides written online; be it passives, skill modifiers or items.
If you use a one-hander, you can fit a third set (guardian) in addition to Tal Rasha and Aughild. Players are generally lower paragon since it’s a season start so the guardian is pretty good atm for early pushing. Plus, guardian provides a lot of vitality so it gives much higher HP pool and wizard passive and skill provide shield based on the HP pool, so not only your survivability goes through the roof, you can keep better uptime on Squirt’s necklace.
With oculus’s dmg mitigation, you should be able to facetank a lot of things even in GR150 and keep nearly 100% uptime on Squirt in solo push (Wear RoRG and put squirt in kanai).
I think this will probably change once people get much higher paragon.
Great thoughts thanks.
Maxroll is a great source for noobs to get their feet wet, but the builds and guides have never been what the best of the best use.
I think this is done intentionally because the few people that put the guides up don’t want competition.
I don’t believe it’s done intentionally.
Rather, there’s this misconception that the major streamers, including those on Maxroll, are theory crafters, whereas in reality, they aren’t. Rather, they’re more like reporters.
Not that they don’t do any theory crafting whatsoever, but they’re far from the best of the best players, thus you need to have realistic expectations.
They’ll change their guides when people in their community bring it to their attention that there are better approaches, found by theory crafters. Though this has been happening a lot less the past few seasons as now the game is of less importance in the ARPG space.
But theory crafting itself is a lot harder without a PTR, because of another misconception that the leaderboard equates to the best players. In real world situations, the ability to grind can offset skill. I.e. A player who has put in 200+ hours into the season so far will most likely have better gear and significantly more paragon than a player who’s only put in 20 hours, and no amount of skill will be able to overcome that. With the PTR, it was so short that the time difference was minimal, allowing for theory crafters to get a higher spot on the leaderboard.
Which is why I never suggest max roll to anyone. Lots of misinformation.
I didn’t check maxroll, but note that top leaderboards are mostly divided to 2 groups. I play in EU and didn’t check others, but I don’t expect them to be very different:
Anyway, in my opinion any build guides should be treated as a starting point and collection of ideas. While some guides are better than others, none of them fit everyone in every situation. 1- or 2-hander in a meteors build is relatively small detail which everyone can figure with own gameplay during season.
Looking at SSF leaderboard the two top spots have 2-handers but a huge amount of paragons this early in season. There are many 150 clears with 1-handers plus source by players with “normal” amounts of paragons.
Also sometimes they might have had a great build suggestion based on PTR and then someone comes up with an even better one and some people think o look how bad maxroll’s guide is while the improvement only came afterwards. And they’re not going to redo the whole thing.
Also doesn’t help when people call build suggestions (this applies to all, not just maxroll) awful because it isn’t what the top spots use. Or that they need to find a kind of middle ground of being applicable to the somewhat average player and someone who will have thousands of paragon. Or that in any game the top players will stray from what their game’s best build guides are.
I believe now since season 30 they pretty much redo the builds based on what that season theme originally used and probably do some quick check to make sure it isn’t entirely inadequate because of changes.
What amuses me is that people who criticize the guides, optimal or not, don’t add anything extra