Looks like Wizard’s Firebird set will be nerfed, possibly by as much as 9 GRs? Someone who’s better at math might know better. Also, hope the nerf can be pared back by around half as it seems rather large. Any thoughts are welcome!
I’d much rather they went after the mirror images interaction with the firebird set, since that’s the primary issue. But it is what it is… I guess.
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Yeah the power level of manual Flame Blades is in a pretty decent spot right now (2.7.1). And it’s a much more engaging playstyle IMO.
It was the Deathwish Mirror Images build that was the outlier. Now the rest of the set gets punished for one outlier. I would have much preferred they nerf the Mirror Images interaction and leave manual Flame Blades where it is. Now Mirror Images is still the strongest Firebird’s build, but weak enough that many players will move on because they don’t like the playstyle. Manual Flame Blades being nerfed too means it’s barely worth playing anymore. And still not really worth it in comparison to Mirror Images.
I would have much preferred they brought Mirror Images in line with the other Firebird’s builds and then balanced the set as appropriate after that. Now there’s still a clear outlier, and all the other Firebird’s builds are pretty mediocre in comparison.
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For seasons it’s really going to depend on what the seasonal theme can do, maybe there’s something that will catch up manual FB much like Wizardspike did. Hopefully some attack speed+ damage boost related socket shards for both weapon and helm. If not then manual blades is going to see like a 12-13ish Tier nerf from what it’s at now which is actually quite balanced, pushed to 130 and would hardly call it pushing as I only did 2 attempts @ para 1.5k so safe to say it currently is 135 viable on 2k standard.
That will make it 100% unplayable besides like GR speeds below GR110.
This was sadly predictable, we had said several times they’ll probably just gut it and RIP all non MI builds.
Meanwhile all our other sets that are underperforming don’t get touched…yep fully expecting roll the DH for next patch but I’ll reserve that conclusion till we see the shard powers
Yeah, it’s strange that wizard can’t have an “S tier”, top performing (solo) build. I’ve always played DH but also enjoyed playing wizard when there were good solo builds.
It remains to be seen how good DH will be in next patch. Impale was great before GoD (which also got nerfed). The Nemesis of the Shadow build will be how it fares with Nemesis on follower when pylons tend to spawn an awful lot of champions with spinners (dervishes).
Yeah I messed around with it for 110-120 speeds this season once I got sick of Mirror Images.
It’s around 5-10 GRs behind Mirror Images, and importantly can clear faster on lower tiers (Mirror Images has a sort of floor on clear speed, it’s tough to get consistently under 3-3.5 min average, but Manual Flame Blades can go faster than that if you drop down a bit).
I did 130 pretty easily with manual Flame Blades at 3k paragon in non-season before I switched to Mirror Images. Could probably have gone higher if I optimized a bit and spent a bit of time fishing. With -9 GRs from the nerf, that puts manual Flame Blades down into the 120-125 range at moderate paragons and 130+ probably only with very high paragon.
That makes manual Flame Blades strictly worse than basically all of our other builds. Much worse than DMO/LoD Twisters at equivalent gear/paragon. Worse than Tal’s/DMO/LoD/Vyr’s FO at equivalent gear/paragon. Worse than Chantodo Vyr’s at equivalent gear/paragon. Much worse than Hydras at equivalent gear/paragon.
The Firebird’s nerf was necessary, but I really wish they’d managed it in a way that didn’t also kill manual Flame Blades. Manual Flame Blades was in a pretty decent spot before the nerf, but in 2.7.2+ it’ll be a pretty mediocre build compared to basically any other viable wizard build.
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Yep that’s what I loved about manual blades the most it’s 110-120 speeds was pretty unmatched. I did do it last season sort of my own version without the Ranslors and once it got to about 115ish or so then speed just dropped off as just wasn’t as effective, but once you got Wizardspike that changed all that since that really utilizes it’s damage boost to full quick effect where as with images it either doesn’t get used hardly at all besides highest pushes or takes awhile to ramp up.
So yeah it’s definitely dead without an advantage like it got this season, so holding out that Shard effects more favor it’s playstyle but realistically it’s a boost to all builds so it will just be behind.
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Well, I expected as much. Don’t care anymore, since I lost interest in D3 for the time being. I surely will play S25 to unlock the rewards and immediately go back to hibernation until they update wizard stuff or S26 starts.
Yeah, my firebird meteor build (non-MI) is gonna take a hit, but at this point I’m not even mad.