Since it’s the class that I play the most, I figured I might as well post my initial observations.
All channeling skills now have an initial 30 AP cost (plus the original AP costs while channeling). The build I last used on live was the following:
And it worked effectively even with the attack speed I have (1.64 aps). Yes, I had to manage game play since that attack speed drains my AP fast (I have attack speed for Magic Missile). The above change regardless of my attack speed (even if I use a slower weapon), renders Disintegrate (or any channeling spell for that matter) useless for me because I dump a third of my AP from the initial cast and then initial channeling (and my channeling time is heavily decreased now). The biggest hurt is the immediate 30 AP dump though. The increased damage does not even make up for the increased resource cost as I often times found myself AP starved where I’m having to cast my signature spell more often than my resource spender.
I tried adjusting my play but found that it was futile to continue using Disintegrate (or any other channeling skill) without heading down the reduced resource cost route on gear (which I don’t have). The problem is that I have to move or am “forced” to move/have attacks interrupted by stuff like knockback for example. My AP drains so fast that under many circumstances, I don’t even have 30 AP to perform another initial cast of a channeling skill.The fact this even made it on to the PTR shows a huge disconnect by the developer who even okayed this in the first place. I actually don’t care though because as I mentioned in some prior posting, the only reason I’m using Disintegrate is that prior to my Thunderfury, my best weapon was a Slorak’s Madness (it had only 23% increased Disintegrate damage but was better than nothing). Arcane Torrent might have been better once I got my TF but I dislike the feel of that even more than Disintegrate (and it also has the same channeling cost issue at the moment).
So I decided to just adapt and immediately tried out other skills (with arcane damage) and ended up settling on Energy Twister/Raging Storm (a skill that got buffed). Note that Wave of Force/Arcane Attunement was also an option but I really do not like the playing that way for long periods of time (both the animation and audio gets old after awhile). I also switched back to Charged Blast since it’s now up to 325% weapon damage (Seeker also got an increase to 285% weapon damage).
Here’s the key point with what is turning into a joke with the wizard class. My signature spell (Magic Missile/Charged Blast) along with a +2 Mirrored Ball, makes my NON-RESOURCE-SPENDING skill do far more effective damage than these resource consuming channeled skills. Note that I also have fire skill gear on one of my alt mules, and previously used the +2 Mirror Ball on it… I just prefer playing an arcane build because all of that damage is upfront (not having to stack as with Conflag).The obvious key is that I don’t have to worry about resource consumption/regen and can just spam Magic Missile (and I can do even more effective damage if I increase my attack speed back towards 2+ aps). With Magic Missile, I have both a short and long range skill as well (along with a 100% proc rate). It’s strong point isn’t a wide area of effect though. Sure, the +2 missile property is supposed to make this signature skill strong. The irony and hypocrisy of this design though goes against their oft preached directive of having to make tradeoff/choices because a strong Mirror Ball, means you can use a signature spell to deal with most encounters – all you need is to find some other skill that gives you better AOE damage (and it’s not going to be a channeling skill with this 30 AP casting cost).
I can already see it where the eventual solution to more wizards moving to Magic Missile (once more players get decent Mirrored Ball sources), will be to nerf Magic Missile along with its proc rate instead of making the other skills which they continually make underwhelming/worse, actually better. That’s the kind of expectation I have been conditioned to given how most every decent build with the class, has been nerfed into oblivion (that’s not how players should be made to be felt but this is what this development team is good at – nerfing a whole lot more than fixing the underlying issues which results in them having to nerf-a-lot.
Digressing, Energy Twister was once widely used for its Wicked Wind rune before the Critical Mass passive was removed. The skill rune was mainly used to proc Critical Mass as a means to reduce the cooldown on the key skills such as Diamond Skin, Frost Nova, Teleport, and Explosive Blast. Wicked Wind saw its proc rate reduced to almost nothing as a means to offset the skill spamming (the rest of the Energy Twister runes were pretty much useless from a efficiency point of view) but players still managed to get it to work with high enough crit chance and attack speed to hit certain breakpoints.After Critical Mass was removed in patch 2.0, Energy Twister was something that I hardly saw anyone use. Why? Pretty lousy damage considering that most of the runes means that the twisters will usually miss their targets (that is unless you use the 2-handed staff, Valthek’s Rebuke which makes all Energy Twisters travel in a straight line – the problem is you give up far too much average damage and other key stats from an offhand source). The lone exception being Wicked Wind where the twisters remain stationary (but you then have a paltry 743% weapon damage over 6 seconds along with a 3.1% proc rate).
As noted, Energy Twister/Raging Storm was buffed significantly. It has a 35 AP cost and each twister does 3200% weapon damage over 6 seconds (this is an increase from the current 1935%) whenever two twisters collide. The individual twisters themselves were increased to 1525% weapon damage from 1000% over 6 seconds. The proc coefficient isn’t that much different compared to either of the two Disintegrate runes that I used (Entropy and Intensify which both have a 16.7% proc rate versus 15.6% for Raging Storm). In areas with a decent amount of mob density, the twisters I cast off do a pretty good job at hitting targets and taking them out. And even if it still misses, the increased damage from the ones it does hit, makes the skill worth using now IF one has the support gear. And if I cast out at least 4 twisters (the max I can spam off with 150 AP in my orb), I can usually get two of those twisters to collide for the increased 3200% weapon damage.
In actual game play though, I can often times cast off more since I do have a small amount of APoC on my Mirror Ball. I find Raging Storm (with this increased damage) extremely effective against elite packs since several twisters end up stacking (their paths get blocked up by the mob and 2 twisters inevitable collide). What really makes a difference is I also spam off Mirror Images/Mocking Demise since I use the incoming damage to continually proc Illusionist. The legendary effect on the Arhmage’s Vicalyke wizard hat means that there are times when my mirror images multiply when the previous ones die.
The synergy works very well against elite packs as the mirror images cast out spells (while it’s at 10% of the damage I put out, it’s extra damage whichever way you look at it), constantly die with a chance to multiply (meaning more extra cast spells), exploding dealing out 309% arcane damage in the process, stunning enemies, and also serving as an initial crowd control mechanism. Taken along with a Moonlight Ward (which adds extra arcane damage from the shards), I found that it’s an extremely fun build to play.
On live, my main wizard (using Disintegrate) was really just effective up to solo T4 (but not very efficient). Solo T4 on the PTR with the above is easy now (and highly farmable) so I’ll need to test the jump to solo T5 (my eHP is the weak spot but I don’t want to give up Ice Armor/Crystallize for Prismatic Energy Armor where I’d also lose 20 AP and some crowd control).
UPDATE: I’m able to do solo T5 without much issues (the only slow point is against mobs with extra health) without giving up Ice Armor. I also did a quick check out of Disintegrate/Intensify and Arcane Torrent/Cascade and while my gear actually allows me to do T5, I have to really manage my game play due to how quickly AP becomes an issue; the tedium after several runs will make playing that way rather annoying. I’ll be posting a video of highlights running the build through a T5 rift as well as short clips of playing those channeling builds.
I’m also looking at the huge damage increases to hydras. Myself, I’ve always been a hydra fan even when it sucked for many when the perma-freeze CM wizard was the way to go. It’s also unsurprising that I’ve yet to find a Serpent’s Sparker on live. I personally just like the hydra play style that is involved when it comes to the wizard class. If these numbers end up sticking to the actual patch, I’m going to definitely want to find a decent Serpent’s Sparker.
But these new numbers basically tells me that all they are doing is throwing larger numbers out there and seeing how it plays. With a well rolled Serpent’s Sparker, the buffed numbers in this first PTR patch might end up being too good. There just doesn’t really seem to be any sound methodology behind many of these numbers because these are the kind of buffs that hydras should have seen back in 1.0.4 and later.
And yes, I do realize this is PTR (public test realm) where nothing is final. However, I no longer trust these developers because as noted, there really does not seem to be any methodology to the buffed numbers (where as testing progresses, the amounts are normally reduced back to underwhelming again). The initial channeling cost one is just mind boggling though that I wonder what was going through Don Vu’s head….
