Etched Sigil change is complete garbage, wonder who the hell was like “Hey, Energy Twister isn’t being used enough, lets force people to change their builds so it sees more use!”
I don’t really play this game much anymore but I’ll definitely play it less since Wizard is my favorite class to play.
Still no firebird remake? Disapointing.
Forgot to fix firebird which is completely unusable. Forgot to buff tal rasha which is far too weak and glassy. Ruined etched sigil. Buffed valthek but who wants straight traveling twisters? Now forcing people to lay down blizzards and signatures for all hydra builds? This is just mind bogglingly stupid.
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Was I the only one around here wizarding when firebirds hydra+blizzard was the best spec in game? This was before S1.
I guess maybe a dev thought it might be fun to hydra and blizzard again, and honestly fire blizzard was fun - VERY FUN back then. I am curious though what the filler is and if it will be fun. It seems they want us to go frost over fire for the setup. Guess let’s see what the PTR has in store.
Since this seems to get glossed over in most posts I’ve seen and I play Typhons on both season and non season, I think this is a GREAT change. The set was way too underwhelming. I don’t know if this change is enough. I know many of you rec more defensive and they didn’t buff that part of the set’s bonus.
I can see these changes plus the other should push my nonseason up a few GRs. It should make S22 interesting with the 4 slots too.
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A x14 multiplier became x21, exactly 1.5 times more dps or about 2.5 gr gain.
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Which in nonseason with my paragon should push me to at least 120.
What’s the gain in S22? With the 4th slot? Any theorycrafters here?
No there’s a number of us who have been playing since before seasons were implemented (I’ve been playing wizard since Diablo 3 launched). If the devs intent was to recreate that build, then they’re missing something for blackhole as that was a crucial skill for that build.
The issue imo is that they’re trying to force people to go hydra with these changes; when a more effective measure could’ve been buffing the hydra support legendaries (and the set a bit more if necessary), making the damage modifiers of fragment of destiny (the 2nd part of the item, not the first) and winter flurry global instead of skill-specific; and keep etched sigil arcane spenders autocast effect but change it’s damage modifier as well as death wish to affect only channeling skills.
Then perhaps buff some of the existing support legendary items to make up for losing death wish and etched sigil damage boosts.
For example:
- Wand of Woh
- Orb of Infinite Depth (change the dmg modifier to Explosive Blast)
- The Grand Vizier
- Any of Energy Twister existing legendary items
Doing this would’ve opened up many potential builds (for example a meteor build that doesn’t rely on etched sigil’s auto cast) without the need to force awkward and/or irritating playstyle on folks; while still keeping builds like Hydra strong (assuming that was the developers intent).
However, what was done instead was that a good number of builds were rendered obsolete for just a couple of new ones. That said, I still intend on trying out these changes once the ptr launches, but I’m not expecting anything fruitful to be honest.
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In season you get winter flury instead of etched (same multiplier), keep deathwish and add fragment for x4 damage. In a mathematical vacuum, this is almost 9 gr. However, you must cast blizzard, signature and channel at the same time. That sounds incredibly clunky although we need to test first.
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With seasonal Hydra solo push in mind:
- LoD will be more likely to keep the Channeled variation as the toughness with LoD is much higher than TV (excluding OID for both).
- Typhon’s Veil probably will not be able to manage the Channeled variation toughness. Dropping Squirt’s is also questionable.
So:
- LoD Channeled Hydra is most likely at this point to be best for seasonal.
- LoD Non Channeled Hydra and Typhon’s Veil non-channeled Hydra (that include OID) are most likely the runners up. These will be easier to play, and TV should be easier to gear.
The issue here is Blizzard won’t do damage, relatively to Hydra. Back then Hydra and Blizzard would both kill things, but that’s not the way anymore. Blizzard will strictly be a maintenance ability and it also delegates where on the screen you will do damage.
I saw many people ask for multiple abilities to use at once, and I was (still am) extremely against that philosophy. Why? Because we would receive junk like Blizzard+Hydra. People don’t understand that 99.999999999999% of your damage will come from Hydra. That’s how this game works. You focus your damage on 1 ability. Splitting it in multiple parts makes you weaker. Requiring the use of multiple damage abilities turns all but one into a buff for the main ability.
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Not getting glossed over and it is enough, but we screamed this on PTR S19 through extensive testing when it debuted and were ignored so really it’s a ‘oops this is what it’s suppose to be the entire time’ rather than ‘ooh new set power!’
I don’t think you’ll be doing all 3 no matter how tempting a Deathwish modifier will be. They intended FoD to just replace DW, so it shouldn’t be counted as more power just equal (well okay 7% less which is trivial since it had a 1 second delay).
In other words I agree with this
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hmm as a hc player i am wondering how servers will handle twister (which will mostly rely on AD i suppose), arcane orb (also AD focused) and hydra. Also i think remembering blizzard causing issues on big packs back in the days…
idk if server lag on big pulls on higher gr’s is an issue on us servers, it definitely is on eu.
The problem is Twisters summoned by Etched Sigil won’t work with Area Damage.
Well Raging Storm fixes that because the one that gets combined with your manual does, but for any other rune yes that’s always been an issue but with enough damage modifiers it works out.
My point to the Etched sigil:
Etched sigil is neither of those. It wasn’t too strong nor too weak. It was an awesome item in my opinion and allowed for an interesting play style.
They nerfed it while adding a couple of other off hand items to separate each one. They just didn’t add enough off hand sources to buff other skills that used Etched Sigil
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I know right? We were taking issue that channeling is too strong compared to non-channeling, not that we don’t like channeling.
There exist many Etched Sigil based builds that are very fun to play.
Being bored of something is quite different from not liking it entirely.
I love how etched sigil in [2.6.9] and prior adds that ‘next level’ of interest to a skill or set of skills.
Deathwish consumes a weapon slot, and it’s massive multiplier affects all damage. I’d much rather see it destroyed than Etched sigil; of the two Etched sigil is the one that changes up gameplay and allows for more interesting builds.
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More specifically, that channeling buffs to non-channeled skills are too strong.
Channeling needs to be decoupled from buffing other skills - and it seems like that’s happening - but the channeled skills themselves need new legendaries and very significant buffs to be viable as primary damage dealers, as they should be.
The new version of ES will be very difficult to fit in Typhoon and Tal Rasha set or even for DMO. What are they trying to focus on? Also no change on Firebird? Seem to me like replacing Death Wish and ES to Winter Fury + Fragment of Destiny for Hydra build.
In which case, what is the use of ES now then? Twister is only useful in DMO with the bracer. Maybe in Tal Rasha. But then you have Twisted Sword already for Twister. What about the off hand that go with Twisted Sword? They just don’t work if I wear Twisted sword and ES and Valthek’s Rebuke in the cube.
ES is channel build and you will need Death Wish as weapon. So you have to pick either Valthek’s Rebuke or Twisted Sword in the cube but cannot have both. I don’t play season ever and I don’t have access to 4th slot in the cube which is not fair to the non season player. This is so complicated and I can’t figure out how best to use all these, all because of changes in ES. Just please leave ES alone. Make changes in other gears which is acceptable.
Even so Fragment of Destiny max damage is 300% and Winter Fury is 150%. Which mean you must wear either Fragment of Destiny or Serpent Sparkler with Winter Fury and the other weapon in the cube. This set up will remove both ES and Death Wish.
Why not give us both option? Let us decide either channel build hydra (Current) or Signature spell set up. IF you combine with the belt (shame-of-delsere) and Fragment of Destiny, attack speed will be 100% which is a bit crazy. Maybe remove the attack speed 50%? I mean have you guys think it though properly? Basically Wiz is dead in the water. The only viable build is Vyr, Channel Meteor shower and Channel Hydra. Now channel build is completely gone and totally mess up. So disappointed.