I think the lack of global modifiers this season will really showcase what classes/sets need the most attention. Going in I’d pretty much classify it as 3 tiers by main stat.
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Dexterity. These two classes aren’t perfect, they certainly have sets that could use some help but they have multiple sets and/or builds that are well designed top performers. Good at speed and push content, pretty clearly the two best classes right now.
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Strength. This is actually where my ‘good place’ would be. Most sets are good, but maybe need some damage and/or toughness increases. Not a lot of full reworks needed in either class. Where I’d say the balance is best and where I’d like to see the entire game balance point be.
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Intelligence. These three classes are way behind the pack, sometimes massively. The WD got some help, but not nearly enough. The Necromancer basically has no sets at this point. The Wizard will be the focus of the remaining post.
The Wizard’s single biggest problem is Teleport, and it’s embarrassing that this skill is in this shape 10 years into this game. A “long” cooldown mobility skill is just mind boggling on a class with so few cooldown needs. You really need either Firebirds or Aether Walker to make the skill viable and that’s a non-starter, really. Giving up a weapon slot for pure utility in a game that demands such massive damage multipliers from it’s weapon slots makes no sense.
Every class has a mobility skill, there is no need for such massive limitations on Teleport.
To me, Wizard sets/builds have never been in a good place. Most of the time they’re either ‘meh’ or way overpowered due to a bug/glitch or some other unintended interaction that once fixed brings the build crashing down.
Take Firebirds for example. Arguably still the class’s best set and most recent re-work. Not every skill works with it, and after the AI skill removal very, very few skills work with it. Gets the much needed cooldown on Teleport but then gets tied to a channeling skill. These two concepts dont really work that well together so the end result is the set that should have the most mobility is actually not that good in speed content.
There is just a lot of stuff like this that doesn’t make much sense for Wizard. It’s often more beneficial to be out of Archon. DMO buffs a ton of stuff but there aren’t really that many skills with supporting legendaries worthy of being buffed. Tal Rasha is basically a gimped, conditional version of LOD. Speaking of LOD builds, there’s Twisters, which while it can be very powerful, it’s also something that’s really kind of pain to play to anywhere near it’s potential.
For most classes, you just don’t run into this many contradictions. Stuff just works and that’s not something I think I’d really ever say about any era of the Wizard class.