Wizard set suggestion for patch 2.7

Wizard
1

Wizard is now the worst class in the game. The nerf hammer hit wizard hard and now with the rise of crusader, witch doctor, demon hunter and barbarian. It is time to revise wizard.

Wizard only has 3 viable builds, Vyr’s archon, Hydra, and Meteor. The major problem of the class is that channeling skill supporting items are too powerful. Deathwish provides 325% increased damage and Etched Sigil provides free spender and 150% increased damage. These 2 items make non-channels build obsolete. The solution is to make wizard items similar to necromancer one, there are multiple powerful items to support non-channels builds.

unnerf Deathwish and Etched Sigil remove the 1 second minimum channeling time.

off hand:
Winter Flurry: Enemies killed by Cold damage have a 20% chance to release a Frost Nova. Frost nova gain Bone chills rune and its effect is increased to 150%

Primordial Soul: elemental Exposure’s damage bonus per stack is increased to 40%.

Mirrorball: projectile skills fire 2 extra projectiles, all projectile deal 100% increased damage.

Light of Grace: your projectiles pierce 2 additional times, and deal 100% increased damage

This is the suggested list of new off-hand item. As you can see they are competing items for Etched Sigil. Typhon hydra build will like to use winter Flurry as hydra will fire off Frost Nova. Tal Rasha, would use primordial Soul as it uses all 4 elements. Mirrorball and light of grace are for Arcane orb build.

Main hand:
Starfire: Lightning damage is increased by 45% for every 10 yards you are from the target up to a maximum of 40 yards.

Fragment of destiny: Your primary skills attack 50% faster and deal 300% increased damage

Gesture of Orpheus: Reduces the cooldown of Slow Time by 30%. Enemies affected by Slow Time take 150% increased damage, Damage over time skills gain triple effect.

Exarian: Your Melee skills deal 400% increased damage to enemies within 25 yards radius.
Melee skills include spectral blade, Explosive blast, Arcane orbital, wave of force

The Ancient Bonesaber of Zumakalis: You deal 150% increased damage when familiar is active.

Slorak’s Madness: Channeling skills deal 800%-1000% increased damage, but drain 1% of your maximum life per second.

Thes weapon would act as competing items for deathwish, once again they are around the same level. Starfire would likely be used with Vyr. Gesture of Orpheus would be used with DMO, firebird or even Vyr.

Tal Rasha
(2) Set: The cooldown is reduced to 1 second

Jang’s Envelopment: Blackhole gain Supermassive rune, each enemy hit by blackhole restore 5 Arcane power.

The Smoldering Core: Each enemy hit by Meteor reduce the cooldown of black hole by 1 second. Blackhole deal 600% increased damage.

The Grand Vizier: Reduces the all resource cost cost by 50% and increases damage of meteor by 600%.

These changes will allow Tal Rasha to be the only class that maximizes the effect of Stone of Jordan and convection of element. The player will have to rotate attack to summon meteor of the particular COE cycle. This will be a major buff to the existing meteor shower build. For star pack build, the added meteor can also provide some extra damage in between cycle.

Star pack wizard should also be un-nerfed as the build is now on bar with other build. I would also like to see a non-channel version of the build, I suggest that we add a 2 handed weapon that give a similar damage bonus as both channeling items. In this new version, wizard would have to use blackhole and meteor wisely. The Jang’s Envelopment will generate arcane power for the use of starpack, in the same time each enemy hit by meteor will lower the cooldown of the blackhole. One can keep the combo of 2 going forever with skilled play.

Delsere’s Magnum Opus
(2) Set:
Casting Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Explosive Blast, Primary skills, or Wave of Force reduces the cooldown of illusion skills by 3 seconds.
(4) Set:
You take 60% reduced damage after using an illusion skills for 15 seconds
(6) Set:
Using illusion skills increase the damage of your Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Explosive Blast, Primary skills, and Wave of Force abilities by 10000% for 15 seconds

These changes will be a major quality of life changes for the wizard. The reduction of cooldown in teleport could potential result in a speed farming build for wizard. The requirement of affecting enemy with slow time is now a reward for extra damage instead of a requirement. One can also go for the Mirrorball and light of grace version without using slowtime.

The Twisted Sword: Energy Twister 150–200% for each currently active Energy Twister. (no limit)

Valthek’s Rebuke: Reduces the all resource cost cost by 50%. Energy Twister gain Wicked Wind rune and Raging Storm rune. Also increase its damage by 900% increased damage

The un-nerfing of energy twister will bring back on of the favor build. A new 2 handed with 600% damage modifier is added to balance out the use of deathwish and Etched Sigil danage bonus.

New build for DMO:
Dark Mage’s Shade: Your Melee skills deal 350-500% additional damage, while Diamond skin is active. Diamond gain Crystal Shell and Enduring Skin runes.

Archmage’s Vicalyke: Mirror Images now deal full damage but only mimic primary skills.

With these item changes I think we may see magic missile and Spectral blade wizard.

Firebird’s Finery
(4) Set:
Dealing Fire damage with one of your skills causes the enemy to take 3000% weapon damage as Fire per second until they die. This effect can stack multiple times with different skills.
(6) Set:
Your damage is increased by 6000% and damage taken reduced by 60%.
Each ignited enemy also increases the damage of your damage over time skills by 3%.

Atropy: Blizzard deal 1200% increased damage

This will bring back the only herding and grouping build of the firebird set. I have also removed the requirement of using 3 fire skills. One can go for 4 skills for 12000% increased fire damage or just use 1 skill only for other Mayhem.

Vyr buff:
(2) set: Archon gain all runes and Archon skill deal 300% increased damage

Currently, Wave of Destruction is doing most of the damage, Archon skill is useless and don’t deal significant damage. I would like to see Archon to deal similar damage as Wave of Destruction.

Skill change:
Frost nova now deal 430% weapon damage. Frozen mist now provide 30% dodge chance.

Ray of Frost has be replaced by its rune sleet storm. All other runes now modify sleet storm with the same effect. Sleet armor is renamed to storm armor, which provides 30% damage reduction.

Disintegrate now has the base damage increased to that of Ray of frost, its resource cost has also been reduced to 16.
Volatility has changed to bare the original effect of Ray of frost Black Ice.

Glass cannon: damage bonus increased to 30%.

8 Likes
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I’d love for the Firebird set to get some attention. They need to lose the 3 different fire spells mechanic ASAP. This alone would be a huge improvement. I’d also like to see a flat increase to fire spells damage by the set.

2 Likes
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Imo, they should have Delsere buff all primary and spender skills.

Firebird should be either completely revamped or simplified

Such as:

2 piece effect :
• When you die, a meteor falls from the sky and revives you. This effect has a 60 second cooldown.

4 piece effect :
• Dealing Fire damage with one of your skills causes the enemies to take 1500% weapon damage as Fire per second for 3 seconds. This effect can repeat an additional time. If an enemy is attacked with a Fire skill while burning, the enemy will become ignite, taking 3000% weapon damage per second until they die.

6 piece effect :
• Attacking with a Fire skill reduces the amount of damage you take by 60% for 6 seconds. Igniting an enemy or attacking an ignited enemy with a Fire skill increases your Fire damage by XXXX% for 6 seconds.

This removes the need to use and/or juggle more than one fire spell, the need to drag elites in order to keep up your damage buffs and damage reduction. And ensures that only your fire skills are buffed.

3 Likes
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You need to delete this. This isn’t even close to being viable. 6000% damage and 6000% weapon damage aren’t equivalent.

We’d probably need 12,000% damage as a starting point.

1 Like
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Gesture of Orpheus new effect would increase damage over time effect by 450%. Also each ignite enemy will increase damage over time damage by 3%. In a good Rift this may potentially increase the damage by another 300%.

Compare with Chantodo firebird which provides 80000% weapon damage and can clear 100+GR. 6000* 3* 4.5 = 81000%, Which may be enough as a buff.
I am very cautious with this buff cause it could be combined with Chantodo Archon.

6

Another solution would be make Deathwish and Etched Sigil to only channelling skills.

Also, the proced skill from Etched Sigil can be un-effected all the damage multipliers from other items and maybe only get an additional buff from Etched Sigil.

E.g.:

Deathwish
° Increases the damage of your channellling skills by xxx%
—remove that it effects the damage of all your skills while channelling.

Etched Sigil
° Increases the damage of your channelling skills by xxx%
° Every second while channelling, you also cast one of your other Arcane Power spenders for yyy% increased damage.
----e.g. if the proced skill is Meteor, then this proced Meteor will not be effected by Nilfur’s Boast (legendary boots that buff Meteor) and also not by The Grand Vizir (legendary staff that buffs Meteor), but only by the damage multipler of Etched Sigil. That will make it much easier to balance.

Winter Flurry is such a great thematic item, but sadly it is mostly useless in its current form.

I really like the idea to give Frost Nova the Bone Chill rune, but I am afraid that even with the buff to 150% it might not be enough, when you compare it to other Wizard Off Hands.

So I also would increase the %cold damage affix on it by an amount that makes it more viable, like maybe 40-50% (or probably even more when you compare it things like Triumvirate, which gives Arcane Orb a bonus of up to 1200% with 3 stacks)

° increases cold damage by ~40-50% (large buff to cold damage)

Or maybe add it to the Legendary Affix and make Cold Skills deal 300% more damage (or more, or less, or whatever is needed to make it useful) if that is necessary.

This is interesting. So not just Magic Missile, but all missiles, including things like Arcane Orb? Or Hydra missiles? What about Wave of Force? 3 novas?

Could be be very interesting to play around with.

This is overdue.

An additional or alternative effect could be that the slow effect of Slow Time clings on enemies for a few seconds after they left the bubble.

Now that you have mentioned the Stone of Jordan, I just wanted to trow in here that the new special affix is really useless in its current form, since you can get the same bonus by simply only stacking the %elemental bonus to the element you need and still have a free ring slo.

So by utilizing SoJ new feature, you are basically just giving up a ring slot that can be used for much, much better rings like Unity, CoE, F&R, etc just to gain something that you could otherwise get by ust stacking the right affixes.

It would be better if the SoJ allows you to accumulate all the different %elemental damages into one and on top of that increase the %elemental damage roll on the ring itself from 15-20% to maybe 40-50%.

Firebirds is (mechanically) the worst set in the whole game, but I do not think this a perfect solution, due to you still having to group up enemies, which is not desirable in lower level GR’s, XP farming, most of solo play, bounties, normal rifts, etc.

Don’t get me wrong: the removal of requiring the fire skills to ignite an enemy is great, but it comes back through the backdoor on the 6 piece sets.

I gave an extensive feedback thread about Firebirds which includes possible solutions both from me and the Wizard community as well:

I like this change, but I wouldn’t want to see Ray of Frost completely removed.

Ray of Frost, (Numb rune) can replace the Volatility rune of Disintegrate, but I would not completely remove RoF.

Also, if possible and if it wouldn’t take too much time/effort to animate this stuff, the new Sleet Storm skill could have various elemental effects based on the rune.

Sleet Storm (base skill)
what you suggest Sleet Storm is currently

Fire Rune
increases damage further

Storm Armor (Lightning Rune)
reduces damage taken while channelling by 30%

Arcane Rune
increases the AoE further

Frost Rune
increases the slow effect, gives the skill a chance to freeze enemies and enemies also attack a bit slower

Last Rune (wildcard element)
can reduce resource costs, or maybe another Lighting Rune that causes several Lightings to strike from the sky ever second you channel.

but I hope you want it to keep its freezing effect?!

Ha, sorry that I am reading this just now, I have written down my response as I have gone through the thread and this just came up.

Yeah, Black Ice can also work, but I think that Numb is thematically more fitting and the animation looks better as well.

Maybe this RoF rune on Disintegrate can freeze enemies and increase frost damage against enemies effected by it by 15% and look like the Numb Rune…?!

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One more thing regarding Teleport.

I wonder why you didn’t mention it, but it really could have 2 charges on the base skill instead of a coolodown with an ~8 second recharge time, similar to Dashing Strike, and it also could rework the Wormhole rune to give the skill a third charge.

That is such an important change! it would make Teleport so much more flexible, while still not making it overpowered like in Diablo 2.

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Thanks for the whole thread btw.

1 Like
7

All of these ideas range from “meh” to terrible. Though mirrorball is a great idea. The problem with Glass Cannon is it’s additive damage. The problem with Delsere’s is Slow Time doesn’t follow you. Your revision to firebird makes it…still the worst set in the game.

It’s high time Frost Nova did weapon damage. Twisted Sword and Starfire are obvious multiplier increases and should have been done months ago.

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Perhaps, you are right. However, balancing mix set is painful. I would say let’s introduce this buff in ptr and test it out to see how powerful it becomes.

With the new bonus, it u are facing 30 enemies and ignite them all. You will gain a 90% multiplier. Which Bring the total damage bonus to 11400%. With more enemy this set would scale even higher, maybe this could make it the new mobs clearing set.

I think the number is not important, but this mechanism will stay true to the firebird design theme. We can adjust the number afterward. Maybe change it to 5%, for 15000% increased damage when facing 30 enemies.

9

i’d like to have some love to Wave of Force. it was such a cool skill, the jumping animation. the good old wof/teleport build days…

Like something:
Buff Wave of Force rune damages like 2-3x (considering cost its rather weak) and maybe tune a bit.

remake new legendaries
Gesture of Orpheus - Wave of Force hits twice and its damage is increased by 150-200%

The Oculus
Casting Wave of Force removes teleport cooldown for 3 seconds. WoF deals 150-200% increased damage

also belt of bracers for example: Casting Wave of Force reduces your damage taken for 9-12% for 10 seconds. Stacks upto 5 times.

maybe even add additiona item (2handed staff?) for reduced cost/addional damage.
The Tormentor - reduce Wave of Force AP cost by 50% and increase its damage by 250-300% (sort of like The Grand Vizier)

it could work okay with Delsere set. you jump around with the bubble and wof them to shreds. just gotta align wave of force radius to slow time bubble.

edited a bit. Oculus/teleport cooldown connection seemed more suitable

1 Like
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I also preferred the skill in classic days, when each rune had a cooldown, not just Impactful Wave.

Frost Nova would have fit perfectly as a rune on Wave of Force imo.

imo the jumping animation could get removed so it works more like Explosive Blast.

11

i’ll agree and disagree.
i agree that having no cast animation is preferred and more efficient. But we alread have EB. Sure, it’s delay is annoying, but it’s an option. it was decent before, now it’s pretty much buried and forgotten.

But. i do remember the old day: back in the old forum and OG Wizard days (…fck, i’m old…) where we held rift clearing competition and it was once actually won by WoF/TP jumping wizard (i don’t remember the name, but we had quite a scene back then). It was very long time ago (back, when T10 i think was the max and we did have much less set options), but that was the time, where wiz mobility and damage was still relevant. Now, all we do left is archon and channeling (and stupid hydras). Channeling will never make it to speed as needs a rampup and stop&go playstile (while others turbo around with 200%+ movespeed and instadamage and Crowd Control free) and Archon is … well archon, it’s been around in one or the other flavor for what now 8-9 seasons?!?. As for hydras, well, they are worse version of DH sentry tower defense (and it’s not like sentries are highly ranked anyway). Other classes have far suprpassed in direct/one hit damage and mobility options.

Honestly, that jumping animation was cool. I’d keep it. was like little super crazy rabbit on steroids (cast was tied to APS). It was unique. most of our skills come out of our arxe, no real indication. WoF is one of few, where animation actially does what is should.

So WoF/TP would be direct compare superspeed to WoL monks or UE/speedGoD demonhunters or ww barbs etc. Something that does easy ~3min GR100s without a sweat (and is not archon), does also well on bounties and rifts and doesn’t get you killed when something sneezes at you. Something that does not require obscure amount of cooldown reduction or timing elements or have a rampup. It does not have to be a pushing build. They play differently and don’t neccessarily work for faster content.

if anything. I’d add:
The Oculus:
Casting Wave of Force removes teleport cooldown for 3 seconds and you release Wave of Force after you land. WoF deals 150-200% increased damage

The thing is being compatible to Focus&Restraint. This is very important actually. Not a lot of wizard builds are these days. F&R typically does not PROC your spender/generator that comes off something else. You have to selfcast.

1 Like
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Agree I would like to see Wave of force being kept as it is.

One thing that I think will be very cool is to enhance its ability to reflect projectile. Maybe we can use an item that make reflected projectile deal 10 times of its original damage.

1 Like
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here’s a thought for meta and a half (that wouldn’t ever make it, lol, remember the old slow 5 sentry ball lightning days):
rune for slow time: allies projectiles are also slowed.

so sort of self missile dampening. GoD DH does like 10x damage against missile dampening elites (because it’s hungering arrow pierces over and over again). insta GoD+Wiz meta. Also some projectiles, that can proc multiple times per hit would get a good boost.

14

I think this is the original design inspiration for the DMO set, but at the end this effect slow down the game too much, so they dropped the idea completely.

This extend to the slow ball build for DH, if it is up to me I will drop the effect completely and change it to a flat damage increase by lets said 600%.

15

Possible to rework how rime heart work as well? I would love to have a cold wizard.

1 Like
16

The animation is hugely awkward, if that’s removed, I’m ambivalent.

1 Like
17

Yeah, it would be nice if Rimeheart received some favorable attention.

maybe something along the lines:

  • Increase your cold damage by 10% of your critical hit damage. Chilled enemies take 25-30% more damage from your cold attacks, this bonus is doubled against Frozen enemies.
18

Wizards definitely need to get more love in the coming season(s)!!! In my opinion now that all of the classes have their new sets it is time to look at increasing non-set variants. With all the legendarIes in the game it is time to open them up for wide spectrum use across any skills. For example there are numerous item that work with lightning such as mendel heal that give a great boost to lightning however only from paralysis and just for the first hit.

Properties:

  • Enemies stunned with [Paralysis] also take 13000–14000% damage as [Lightning]
  • One of 3 Magic Properties (varies):
    • +61–84 [Dexterity]
    • +61–84 [Strength]
    • +61–84 [Intelligence]
  • +4 Random Magic Properties

This should just be enemies “Stunned” which would increase the potency of other item that increase stun chance along with affixes increasing lightning damage. This would allow a viable non-set wizard lightning build allowing players to not require a set to get to higher GR levels. It would be things like this that would make the open greater player creativity and strengthen the games re-playability.

19

Wave of Force - Impactful Wave already reflects back enemy missiles.
It gives WoF a 5 second cooldown though.

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I personally would have liked it if all WoF runes would have a CD of ~10-15 seconds, largely increased damage and also if the novas would look a bit more like their elements. E.g. Fire Nova could look a bit more like this, just smaller…
https://s.glbimg.com/po/tt/f/original/2010/12/22/diablo2.jpg

… which would make the nova look more like a Fire Nova than a shock wave.

Or a Lightning Nova like this:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JuNsLrg5Jrw/maxresdefault.jpg

Fire Nova

  • leaves behind scorched earth
  • or ignites enemies for x seconds for x% additional weapon damage over that duration

Frost Nova

  • Frost Nova gets removed and now integrated into Wave of Force via a rune, but now has a larger radius that mate the other runes of Wave of Force and also freezes enemies for 3 seconds.

Lightning Nova

  • emanates 4 lignting novas one after the other, each dealing 30% damage of the base skill

Arcane Nova 1

  • repels missiles and knockbacks enemies and deals slightly increased damage

Arcane Nova 2

  • consumes all remaining Arcane Power for increased damage
  • uses the explosion animation of the unruned version of Arcane Orb

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^^this is what I personally would find exciting

20

The StarPact build was interesting… but very difficult to use. Something along that nature would be equal to the Witch Doctor Mundu build to give them equal footing.

The LOD Meteor/ Tal Rasha builds are fun but they don’t perform as well in pushing high GRs. I’d like some changes to the meteor skills, Legendary Gear or Tal Rasha sets in some ways.
Either by upping their damage, impact effect or maybe adding a new ability.
Tal Rashas would be a nice way to bring back the StarPact (idea).

Maybe not in the same way, but in a more fair way to have 1 gigantic meteor that requires all your skill buffs, arcane mana for 1 huge shot for ads. But used in a way that is enjoyable and welcome to new players. Tal Rasha’s is meant for multiple meteor types.

Firebirds… yah i never used that anymore. It dose nothing. Its burning effect requiring 3 skills should be removed. And perhaps replaced with the effect being applied if you have 3 seconds of continuous fire damage to make them ignite.

1 Like