Deathwish design was a mistake, along with ES. it shouldn`t buff the damage universally. Deathwish should only buff one or two skill, of just buff chaneling skill alone.
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For all of you guys who want DW and Sigil nerfed and/or changed to only buff the channeling spells let me take you back.
Patch 2.1.2, GR-51, 4-man FB-6 Disintegrate. Jump forward to about the 34 second mark and then play and watch. Watch as the Wizard just stands there, holds down right click, and slow kills stuff. Do any of you really think 325% damage to disintegrate in its current form is going to be viable at GR130+?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiQiCjZKENE
Yes, lets nerf Wizard back to the point of RoS release were the devs gutted the class, never finished developing the class changes for the expansion, and just let it languish.
If you really think this is going to be viable, you’ll get your chance to prove it before next season starts. Today, 3/28/2021, Season-22 ends. You can run a LoD Disintegrate build. Just load up the same skills, put DW in the cube and go go GR 130, 140, 150.
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In my original post I suggested to also give Deathwish a damage buff, and also to rework Light of Grace to work with all Channelling Skills and also give it a damage multiplier to that item.
Of course 325% is not enough, but the issue is that the 325% currently applies to al damage and not just to the three Channelling Skills. You can buff the damage later, after it only effects Channelling Skills.
It is not a nerf when you compensate for that by buffing builds in other ways.
I agree that Deathwish the way Deathwish was and still is designed is not good, but Etched Sigil pre-nerf was really cool.
Maybe they can redesign it so it procs Meteor Shower instead of Twister, or maybe they can create another Legendary Source that automatically procs Meteor Shower either every second when you channel, or after you spend xx Arcane Power.
Yeah, and that is fine.
A lot of swords look really good, like the Runesword, but these fit more on a Barbarian. for my Wizard I prefer to have Wands, especially the Magnus Wand.
Most of the people who say that Deathwish should only buff channeling skills, had already said that the damage buff for Deathwish should also be increased for the channeling skills as 325% isn’t enough. It’s already a known fact that the channeling skills don’t do enough damage by themselves, as such folks who want to play a pure channeling damage build aren’t able to because of the lack of damage.
Good thing no one ever suggested that. What’s been suggested is that Deathwish gets buffed and then changed to work for only channeling skills. Then buff all of the other skills that relied on Deathwish and Etched SIgil (For example meteor, arcane orb, explosive blast, etc.). This way not only would there be channeling builds where the channeling skills deal damage, but also arcane spender builds that don’t need to rely on channeling.
Again, no one’s asking for Blizzard to just nerf Deathwish and leave it at that. What’s being asked is that Blizzard buffs the channeling skills so that they can be used by themselves, and then buff the non-channeling skills so that they wouldn’t need channeling to buff them.
Of course, if Blizzard isn’t willing to do all of that, then sure it’d be better for them to not touch Deathwish. However on the off-chance that they are willing, then that’d be the best of both worlds.
I think there’s only a few one handed swords that I’d say fit mostly a Barbarian. But swords like skycutter look pretty good with Wizards imo.
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Channel spells have largely been ignored since the game’s inception in lieu of other Arcane spenders. Firebird is a step in the right direction but honestly I’d like to see a set dedicated solely around channeling with the option to include other spells via items like Wizardspike, Etched Sigil or 2-piece Tal Rasha as supplemental damage rather than the primary source of damage like in the past.
@Clueso, @Lawson, @Obliviion:
I think this is worth repeating.
- I can appreciate your desires to improve the class and improve the game for everyone. This means we are all striving for a similar goal.
- Asking for a nerf to something that functional while attempting sprinkle said request with additional requests for buffs will not work with Blizzard. They will read the request see the nerf and will respond to that. Nerfing will take priority while buffing seems to have no priority.
- Do not be swayed by the recent change to FireBird. Blizzard has a terrible track record of not responding quickly even when they had a full dedicated team (ex: see Wiz at RoS release and DH for good chuck of vanilla).
- A 325% damage increase to all damage will not break Wiz or the game. It is insufficient by itself as a damage increase to just channeling skills. This means breaking DeathWish will not be a fix. You guys have basically agreed with this statement.
- Since breaking DeathWish will not be a fix please stop asking for it to be broken and/or altered. Again, I don’t see any of you complaining and begging for Shadow Hook to be nerfed and it increases all damage. Its relatively simple to get over 300 max essence and Simulacrum-Reservoir doubles the Necro’s max essence so its not hard to get a 300+% damage increase to all damage.
- There is a plethora of wands, sources, rings, amulets and other goodies that require immediate attention. So, if you believe the devs have to break some eggs and start somewhere, ask them to start with stuff that is currently in a broken/dead state first. Do not worry about getting stuff toned down because if they buff enough things within a class it will automatically trigger a nerf cycle. The only exception is Necro, which is tied to a DLC, and by all accounts looks like favoritism/priority toward DLC sales ($$$$).
- With the end of Season-22 and removal of 4th slot so many builds will be left broken or under-performing with zero compensation. Some recent buffs, like buffs to hydra, require 4 slots to take advantage of, so the nerfs were built into the design. This means those aren’t real buffs, which means Wiz like the other classes are getting an implicit nerf. With Wizard, mobility is taking a big hit because we are forced into a major trade off between Aether Walker and a big damage increase (See Hydra, Twister, and Frozen Orb items).
- Limiting DW to just channeling spells, even with a damage increase, will be boring as hell. The devs seem to know this just based on the recent FireBird redesign, and the introduction of DW and Sigil together.
- Cratic suggested DW be sacrificed (nerfed) for buffs in other places.
- Lexa said DW is cancerous, implying it needs nerfs/adjustments.
- So many others are trying to tip-toe around asking for nerfs by sprinkling requests for buffs along with the nerfs, but I’m not buy it.
- Constricting DW to just channeling spells is a nerf, and is not a fix.
- The channeling spells are inherently anemic so are we going to expect an 800-4000% damage increase on a 1h weapon and call that balanced? Using D3planner, we can calculate where the damage will land just based on a LoD Disintegrate build with Taeguk ranks. FYI, an 800% increase aka 8x increase is rank 150.
Let me drop this here so no one gets to claim ignorance.
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- Tal’s 2p is anemic by itself.
- A channeling specific set would requires a whole new set.
- The devs are much more likely to point you toward LoD/LoN, which also means no Tal’s 2p.
- Wiz Spike has low proc rate and the frozen orbs will not proc area damage.
- Twisters from Sigil will be low damage and will not proc area damage.
The above is partly why DW affects all damage.
I know Tal’s 2-piece, Wizspike’s Orb and Sigil’s Twisters are underwhelming, hence why I said supplemental damage as opposed to being the primary source in a channel focused build. New Set Idea is something I came up with respect to Ray of Frost. Its a very raw/unpolished idea but something that puts an emphasis on a channel spell as the primary source of damage while giving players the option to supplement it with other Cold spells that proc while attacking/channeling.
No, what they asked for is Channeling to be buffed so that channeling skills can deal damage on their own, and our non-channeling abilities to be viable without needing to buffed by the act of channeling. This has already been explained.
It just turns a lot of builds into Channelling builds, something that Wizards are kinda oversaturated with since a long time, while also not having a dedicated Channelling build that uses a Channelling Skill as its main damage source.
Which is why basically everyone in this thread is asking for the damage multiplier to be buffed and/or to have another Channelling Skill focused item (I suggested Light of Grace to also buff the damage of all Channelling Skills).
It will fix that a lot of builds turn into Channelling builds and the “corrupting” potential that DW has on all kinds of builds (aka turning them into Channelling builds).
I probably would if Necro would be one of my main classes, which it isn’t.
But non of them have such a corrupting effect like Deathwish (and by that I mean that it turns too many builds into channelling builds).
I guess you could say that about almost all legendaries that buff a skills damage by xxx% and you would be right with that.
It is a nerf to certain builds, which will also fix them because they will no longer require a Channelling playstyle - and yes, that is an improvement for the Wizard - and when buffing Deathwish from 325% to e.g. 350-400% increased damage to Channelling Skills (or 400-600%) and then also letting Light of Grace increase the damage of all Channelling Skills by 350-400% or 400-600% (or whatever the fitting numbers are), …
… yes, that is a buff.
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Don’t forget Light of Grace causes Ray of Frost to pierce. Honestly I’d change Light of Grace to allow all channeled spells to pierce(not just Ray of Frost so this would apply to Arcane Torrent and Disintegrate) while simultaneously buffing the snot out of their damage to promote a build with a channeled skill as the focus(not the vehicle) for damage output.
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Now that you mention it, few weeks or months ago I made this Mockup for Light of Grace where it both increases the damage of all Wizard’s Channelling Skills, as well as also giving each of them additional effects, where Ray of Frost would keep the piercing effect. You may like it:
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That is honestly a superb Light of Grace update that gives a unique perk depending upon what channel spell you use. Unfortunately creativity is lacking at Activision since their focus is elsewhere heh.
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Honestly, there should be more legendary items that give buffs depending on the skill and/or skill rune you have selected.
I’d rather see the teleport reworked rather than this.
Honestly, if I had to choose between either one, then yes a teleport rework/change would be more ideal imo. That said, a deathwish change certainly has it’s merits, but only if Blizzard goes the distance to actually to buff the other skills so that they wouldn’t need to rely on Deathwish, and not put in a half baked effort like they did with etched sigil.
Actually, I Don’t see a change/rework to teleport happening now, especially since teleport was (or will be) tied in with Firebird. As such, the only adjustments that I can see happening to Teleport now, would be via Aether Walker.
As we can see above he asked for DW to be sacrificed (nerfed) and then compensate with buffs to FB. He later attempted to defend/justify his nerf request by saying the devs could provide compensation by fixing the broken builds in the next balance patch. The next balance patch could be more than a year away or may never come. In the case of tap-channeled meteor shower the build is dead and has remained in that state since they broke Sigil, DW, and MoC.
Cratic later walked his request back partially across more than one thread. He left it as nerfing DW now wouldn’t make sense but should be tabled for a later patch. This leaves the emphasis on nerfing DW now or later. So to counter your argument that no one asked for it I listed just two. I didn’t copy Venilator who came out and said he’s been advocating for a DW nerf for 18 months. It doesn’t get more direct that than. Let’s not pretend that there aren’t calls for DW nerfs.
Once again, he wasn’t solely calling for a nerf to Deathwish. It was mostly a call for redestributing Deathwish’s power, so that the skills that relied on it would have the damage boost without deathwish, follow by potentially buffing the channeling skills so that they could deal damage by themselves. No one (that you’re referring to that is) called deathwish to be nerfed and left as is.
Even the post you linked, the request was more in line for a damage redestribution.
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Since patch 2.4 release to be exact. Prior to 2.4 Wiz was still in recovery/catch up mode from RoS release. Its true some Wizards were asking for buffs to channeling. As depicted in the video I linked from patch 2.1.2, it would be slow and boring as hell unless they give channeling spells an insane damage increase. To stave of the impending boredom with a channeling only implementation, they made Sigil, but the triggered spells would need a damage increase so DW buffs all damage. This is a smart design choice that created huge build diversity.
DW does not corrupt or have a corrupting influence. Passive, AP free, triggered spells while channeling and buffing all damage is/was a smart design choice. Changing DW to channeling only will not fix something that is not broken.
What many are tip-toeing around is that the skills/runes themselves require fixing but the devs and management refuse to address that directly (at least not without the community donating another $40 US per RoS license for the work). So the devs will fiddle with damage numbers, up and down, and do some minor reworks on the items and sets.
Let’s say the devs made Slorak’s and Light of Grace buff all Wiz channeling spells including Electrocute.
1st - We know they are going to need to go well above the 325% on at least the weapon to make it viable for end game.
2nd - They need to buff each and every Wiz legendary and/or add additional legendaries (we’ll exclude sets, DW and Sigil for the moment).
3rd - They need to address AP recovery and I’m steering in the direction of how Critical Mass worked.
Why all of this?
If we are going back to paying full price for manual casting full time we need way better AP recovery. Delsere belt is generation not recovery. Once DW is nerfed, crippled, redesigned or removed we will be back at the pre-2.4, pre-DW, pre-legacy Sigil, pre-legacy Twisted Sword, RoS Wiz. Take a look at 2.3 Del-Rasha Meteor Shower:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ToDXIpgUw
The alternative to not compensating AP recovery will be stutter stepping and generator weaving full time which slows down everything. It will be like playing a Cluster Arrow Demon Hunter with no set and no LoD/LoN. Slow Kill and not viable.
Compare the above Meteor Shower video to what CM provided in vanilla (2013):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qdZl4nyTao
Jump ahead to the 2:03 mark and play. Pay attention to how Emperor was able to recover and maintain AP when nuking density without generator usage. Even this style of nuking, in the current game, would most likely be insufficient without massive buffs to legendary and set items, and/or major redesign of skills/runes/passives.
Removing channeling is a major step backwards. If removing channeling is an improvement to builds then why do we not have viable manual cast Meteor builds especially those that don’t depend on reverse archon? How come there are no non-channel non-reverse archon, twister builds doing GR125-150? Also, if a build requires 2500 - 4500 paragon to be playable, then its not viable.
Think of it this way. Remove DW (and possibly Sigil) and we are back to patch 2.3 since DW, Sigil, and Twisted Sword were patch 2.4. To move us beyond the patch 2.3 state in 2021, the devs have to replace the work of 2.4 with a full pass of all Wiz legendary/set items, and most likely all Wiz skills/runes/passives. The likelihood of a full pass of just Wiz at this point of the game is next to nil. If they break/remove DW and implement some new channeling only changes it will be patch 2.3 with the new channeling stuff. Nearly everyone will play the new channeling stuff, or TV/hydra, Vyr/Archon, FB, and maybe LoN/LoD. The viable builds will shrink dramatically. At that point queue the crying, complaining, hatred, resentment, and the mass exodus from Wiz or D3 completely.
I’m not pre-ordering or pinning my hopes on D4 or D2R.
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thank you for these detailed posts. I’m under the impression that a lot of people who never/rarely played wizard are now trying to explain the wizard community how the wizard is supposed to work