In game, viewing the leaderboards, I see most of the top Solo wizard builds using a “mix”, non armor set build. Can anyone explain this set or send me in the right direction.
The Magistrate
Mantle of Channeling
Squirts
Cindercoat/Aquila Cuirass
Tasker and Theo
Ashnagarrs Blood Bracer
The Witching Hour/Hergrash’s Binding
Unity and CoE
Swampland Waders
Illusory Boots
Serpent Sparker/Deathwish
Orb of Infinite Death/Etched Sigil
You get the idea
The Legacy of Dreams gem gives you a damage and toughness bonus for each legendary item you have equipped. The bonus is bigger for each ancient piece you have. But it only works if you don’t have any set bonuses active (you can have a single piece of a set equipped if you want, e.g. if that’s the only ancient item you have for a slot, you just can’t have more than one piece of any set because if you have a 2p set bonus active it cancels out the gem buff).
Gem caps at rank 99. At rank 99, it gives 375% damage bonus per legendary, and double that (so 750%) per ancient item. With a full 13 ancients, it gives a 9750% damage bonus and 52% damage reduction. That’s comparable to most 6p set bonuses. It’s basically an alternative to using 6p sets.
Once you have full ancient gear and most of the right pieces, the LoD Mammoth Hydra build is actually stronger than the actual hydra set (Typhon’s Veil).
Basic idea is that you drop pairs of hydras, then channel to get the damage bonus from Deathwish/Etched Sigil. Hydras do the vast majority of the damage with this build, so all the items and skills are chosen to support your hydra damage or toughness. You have to stand still to channel to get the damage bonus from Deathwish/Etched Sigil, so you need to be pretty tanky. Hence the Unity, Orb of Infinite Depth etc.
Thank you for the reply.
So would it make sense to stack on some Armor/Vit getting into this build?
I’ve been running a Vyr’s build for some time, never really looked into another build
It won’t hurt, but more important are general damage reduction that you gain from various sources (Unity is solo only, so think about that, too)
Now, Vit and Armor… Ashnagarr bracers will double your shields, so if you use those, you should think about Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon / Deflection, both will grant shields that are derived of your Maximum Health. That means, Vitality is a good way to increase your overall toughness.
Since wizards gain resistances from main stat but have few options to actually raise their armor level, stacking armor will also be helpful because it is a damage reduction level seperate from resistances. It makes sense with high paragon, though. In that case you use rubies or emeralds to increase strength or dex, and gain armor from that. The more paragon ranks you have, the more INT can be replaced. You could even go as far as augmenting STR or DEX… but as mentioned, that is if you really are very high paragon.
Also, you should not give that much priority to it armor and vit. If you loose too much dps by going for those, then simply don’t do it. The best defense is a strong offense. Dead mobs can’t hurt you.
Thanks for the breakdown guys. I was thinking of going this route as well now that im coming back to the game.
Are there any other builds besides mamoth hydra that work with this?
One day i hope to get a sleet storm build going - tp into mobs and channel, maybe it can feel a bit like sns builds back in the day.
This might be the way to do it at least up to grift 70-100 maybe?
For LoD builds you mean? After LoD Mammoth Hydra, LoD Meteor Shower or LoD Frozen Orb are your best bets.
LoD Meteor Shower is probably the closest to what you want, you use Etched Sigil and Deathwish and just channel down meteors. You’d typically run it with Meteor Shower and either Flame Ward or Static Discharge, but you could switch it up and do Sleet Storm + Comet or something. Meteor will still be doing the bulk of the damage though, the channel skill is more just there to trigger the Deathwish and Etched Sigil buffs and call down meteors.
Here’s a general LoD Meteor Shower setup: https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/TinneOnnMuin-1187/hero/52371630 (should be a Squirt’s Necklace instead of Hellfire)
And my LoD Frozen Orb: https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/TinneOnnMuin-1187/hero/57858516
I use the Frozen Orb setup for running vaults, you’d normally swap Sun Keeper to Aether Walker, Goldskin to Aquila Cuirass or Tal’s chest (for IAS), Avarice Band for CoE etc.
Both those builds would ideally have the WD pants Swamp Land Waders for the extra elemental damage. Really any ancient pants will do just fine though. Same for many of the other slots, in the beginning just start by filling out with random ancients for the extra damage bonus from the gem and then slowly replace them with the BiS ancients as you get them.
Also, most wizard builds now rely on Blood Bracers + big shields (Galvanizing Ward and Deflection) and then Squirt’s Necklace. Squirt’s Necklace doubles your dps if you haven’t taken damage in a while. And hits to your shield don’t count as damage taken, it has to hit your health pool to drop the Squirt’s buff. So most wizard builds rely on the shields + Squirt’s combo to keep the buff up.
You can even include swami and fazulas and archon in this, geting massiv damage from hydra when you leave archon for 20sec after, 50stacks from belt+the kills you and other in party make while you are in archon, you put out hydra then go to archon in the end of physical rotation on COE ring so you get 2rotations fire before the 20sec is gone, all kills for example wd make add to your archon stacks, in other word to your damage for those 20sec,support wizard with attack speed bubbles is Nice companion for this also
Some good food for thought, thanks folks.
i tried it, none of them is as good as lod hydra
vyr archon is still the best imo for archon builds
it is pretty depressing that wizards are so limited on viable builds, but i guess if you ignore every meta crap and just play wiz for fun then anything is possible, just dont expect to be wrecking leader boards etc
Hi, does LOD stack with Manald Heal damage?