Yup… Aetherwalker bad. We told them time and time again in the old days and they gifted us that thing. Has always been a hindrance, now it’s becoming impossible to use. This need to change, but they won’t listen. They seem to still fear the Teleport from D2, that’s why we won’t get the mobility we should have.
Won’t happen - we will see some % adjustments and that’s it. They rarely introduce completely new stuff during ptr. We might see a revert of ES if we protest loud enough, though.
Grand Vizer, Smoldering core is awkward. Two 2-handed weapons. There’s no-offhand for Meteor, either, except maybe Tal’s source. They could buff to Tal’s Meteor to 150% meteor without too much trouble.
They’d have to switch Smoldering Core to a 1-handed weapon.
Quite true, however the example was used to illustrate choice between being able to fire more meteors (The Grand Vizier) or having greater range with a tad more firepower (The Smoldering Core).
Then there wouldn’t be a choice as you could equip smoldering core and Tal-Rasha orb on hand, while using The Grand Vizier in the cube.
Right, but you could pick which meteor element you wanted to use, and maybe a skill choice or two. Maybe it’s better for no LoN variant meteor build to exist, maybe they should just simply buff GV and Smoldering Core to extremes and just make it only playable with Tal’s set. Maybe 600% damage on both, plus Nilfur’s.
On retrospect; Maybe just one. you’re still locked into 4 elements and an Armor spell.
I mean even if they buffed the meteor items, Tal-Rasha should still be superior (I mean first Tal-Rasha should be buffed since it’s damage is a bit lacking), considering that it possesses it’s own form of autocasting meteors. That’s something that LoD/LoN variant builds can’t match (especially since they changed etched sigil…).
Imo, Tal-Rasha should be changed so that you don’t need to cast 4 different elemental attacks in order to gain the buffs, instead casting different elements merely get you your buffs faster. I mean once you get all 4 buffs active, you’re usually just juggling two elements instead of all 4. But that’s a topic for another time.
We’re totally revamping Tal Rasha’s at this point. The DR needs to be fixed, AGAIN, and we would need probably at least 15,000% damage, and we need the 2 piece probably tweaked as well.
Off the table.
Good point. With that in mind, I’ve made a thread on the PTR feedback forum asking them to revert the change (and put Twister buffs on other items instead).
Found the info. Wizardspike has a 2 second ICD according to datamine:
https://www.d3planner.com/game/70608/powers/P610_ItemPassive_Unique_Ring_006The .5 damage delta was removed, but the ICD stayed in place.
Instant trash effect then.
Why cant they actually get anything right? Just increase the Damage on Unstable Scepter and call it a day.
They can… but looking at what they did to wizards I have the slight feeling no one on the team has actually ever played a wizard. Otherwise they’d knew at first glance how underwhelming (or more bluntly said: disappointing) the new patch is from a wizards perspective.
Yeah, I think the worst part about this patch is that in the eyes of non-wizard players, this patch looks like it’s a wizard’s patch, when in actuality it’s a patch that could break wizards if these changes go through as is.
Imo, it’s just as bad, if not worse, than when they got rid of critical mass; at least then, a number of our skills and passives received attention to make up for it. There was barely anything like that in this patch.
Oh, it is a wizard patch - one that cripples wizards and limiting our options instead. On paper there are some buffs, but if I look at them, instead of appealing I find them appalling. Literally everything I liked about wizards is in cinders now. Depending on what happens next I have resolved myself to not playing a wizard next season. I just does not look any fun.
I keep trying PTR patches hoping they fix things enough for me to want to play the Live servers again…
And I’m constantly disappointed by the sheer ignorance of what is actually broken.
You still have to juggle all 4 elements to keep the defensive 4-set bonus at 4 stacks.
That’s only because the 4-piece bonus defensive buff doesn’t refresh like the 6-piece bonus offensive buff. Even then a person would still mostly juggle just two different elemental attacks until they need to reactivate the 4 piece bonus.
OK here’s is my PTR feedback for the new Typhon Frost build
What I like the best: the set number buff. It’s obvious that the typhon set is underperforming and needs a buff.
What’s still needs adjustment: the new mechanics. It utilizes 2 skills to buff hydra damage (primary + blizzard) instead of 1 (channeling skill). The the skill set is already relatively fixed with little room to wiggle. You absolutely must have these skills:
So that leaves us only the last skill slot to customize the build. Most people use blackhole for the obvious damage buff. On a rare occasion I see someone using Blizzard – Frozen Solid in GR120. Now the choice is forced to be Blizzard, which removes the buff, which can be powerful in density, from black hole. So the set buff from 1300% to 2000% (50% increase) suddenly doesn’t become very appealing anymore because if your blackhole pull a typical density pack of 10-20 mobs you can easily get 30-60% more damage. On top of that, we already lose about 6% damage from the change from Deathwish (325%) to FoD (300%).
However, the most problematic part isn’t the numbers. Before, you just put hydras down and channel to buff their damage. Gameplay is relatively simple. Now, you must HIT with primary skill AND keep the mobs in Blizzard small-ish area, plus dodging attacks at the same time. Before, the channeling skill doesn’t require hitting an enemy. The GoD DH set doesn’t require hitting anything, has 20 sec countdown that’s very easy to refresh. Arrows automatically seek out enemies, do tons more damage while the DH can keep running and dodging attacks. Gameplay is simpler, fun and more powerful.
All veteran playes should know that, the set damage number isn’t the whole picture. In order to be a successful trash killer in META group, your skills must do damage SCALING WITH MOB DENSITY. Look at Necro, WD or even GoD DH, all builds utilize density scaling and/or area damage. Monster density and area damage are 2 hidden variables that should be taken into account when balancing. It is known that area damage can easily double, triple or scale your damage way higher than it actually is.
The Hydra Wizard (Both Frost and LoD) already isn’t welcome in group because: 1/ it doesn’t do enough damage, 2/ the hydras slow and freeze monsters, making them harder to group up for area damage and impossible for barb to pull and 3/ the freeze makes enemies become CC resistant, messing with barb stomp and stun, which is needed for Crusader damage dealing.
For the reasons above, personally I don’t use Blackhole for the last skill slot. My choice is Energy Twister – Wicked Wind in combination with the Ranslor’s Folly bracers. The pixel pull is soooo good for area damage that it easily outweights the blackhole damage buff. In live patch, I already cleared GR131 at such a low paragon of 2855, which put me at top 53 and rank 1 Frost Hydra Wizard in EU server. It shows the potential of the frost build when played correctly (still underwhelming btw). The “rank 1” isn’t because I’m that great, it’s because other 5-10k para monsters are busy with Archon and LoD hydra instead. In fact, you won’t find any Frost Hydra wizard clearing above GR125 on the leaderboard.
When PTR came out, I was so excited to test new hydra build, but after much fiddling and frustration it didn’t work out for me in GR130. So I grabbed my good old Etched Sigil and played the live build to compare. I did GR130 first try in non ideal maps (corvus). After that I even recorded a GR131 clear (second try with worst mobs that jump and teleports on you). Here’s the video if you wanna watch:
Now I have cleared GR133 in PTR. With enough fishing and power pylon at boss, I should be able to do GR135, which is in line with the 50% set damage buff (132 for live patch). I see on top of the leaderboard, people are also using the old Etched Sigil build.
All what I did and wrote about is to prove the point that, the new changes are clunky and terrible. If you wanna buff Frost Hydra build, at least make it matches the old build, if not even surpasses it.
It isn’t that doom and gloom. Have you been on the PTR?
The thing I don’t like is hydra is so clunky now. Blizzard is really not a good spell. I have NO IDEA what they were thinking, however, when I can get it going, it does help mobs just melt. Using a primary+hydras+blizzard does a lot of damage but it is also more of a headache than I would have liked as a “fix”.
Seems twister will probably be the more go to spec in s22, and atm the highest wizard on PTR is in DMO with twister. I am open to trying that, but I have found hydra to be more fun.
I won’t say wizards are going to be complete rubbish like we are now, but this patch isn’t doing anything to make the class fun and competitive either.
Yup, did. Not with this account, though… and quickly decided to play a different class next season - most likely DH or Sader, depending on what happens next during ptr phase II.
I’d be happy to see random surprise last minute changes for wizards popping up, but I have no hope after seeing what happened when the released Typhons. Their reasoning behind the changes is beyond me and I don’t like what they decided on - I know full well that it’s my personal taste… some might like the changes. I sure do not.
Please revert the changes to ES… Why would you ruin so many fun builds for a single build… You can easily have ES as live, and buff the twister dmg elsewhere…
Wizard is ruined if ES will be changed this way. That’s all. There are plenty of totally useless offhands, and they decided to change only one, which is good. Ok - after playing wizzard for thousands of hours, i will be playing another class for first time in season. Will simply NOT play stupid Twisters, jsut because devs for some reason wants me to,