Been playing around with the calculator looking for fun and viable melee builds for a while now. Just thought energy twister combined with knockbacks sounded like it could really synergies and be fun to play aswell (you knock the monsters backwards into your moving twister). So here's the build i came up with:
45% knockback to all enemies in front of you just sounded too nice to not take advantage of (Spectral Blade). Dont know if Magic Weapon's knockback works with SB, but the damage does hopefully atleast.
The giant energy twister sounds cool, which i can pull off every time i have full mana, giving me 5 normal ones and a giant one.
Further supported by wave of force, with even more knockbacks to nearby monsters from the rune. 5 seconds cooldown on frost nova will help out if i get surrounded.
If i regenerate mana too slowly, which i might, i will swap out temporal flux for prodigy.
Now obviously this is a aoe heavy build and i will probably have problems facing bosses, but then i can just change out the build for something more suitable, for example:
Anything that gives variety to classes is very welcome imo, be it old or new skills. Gives the game much more replayability and options for the player. Just because something was one way in the past doesnt mean it should be like that forever. Maybe thats why they made the wizard and not just remade the sorc.
Anything that gives variety to the arcetype of the wizard, melee skills do not.
Even the D2 variant was more mage archetype than the d3 variant...
I mean in d2 you enhanced your weapon with fire magic, d3, you enhance it with... physical?
I dont see why you would deny many people the joy of playing the character they want to, just cause you dont see it fit with your own vision of how the wizard should be. The graphics of SB does seem very fitting with the wizard theme, no matter what kind of damage it deals. By all means its a fantasy creation and there are many examples of wizards also being physical (Lord of the Rings, Conan etc.)
Spectral Blade (Alabaster Healing Blades) in conjunction with Frost Nova (Alabaster Deep Freeze) to heal
Energy Armor (Crimson Prismatic Armor) and Teleport (Obsidian Safe Passage) for survivability, as well as Teleport's inherent mobility.
Mostly physical damage dealt. Sources are from Spectral Blade and Wave of Force (Crimson Forceful Wave). Here, I assume Spectral Blade deals physical weapon damage as there are no explicit "deals arcane damage equals to 35% of weapon damage on hit".
Speaking of Wave of Force, the crimson rune will reduce the knockback, since I don't want mobs to be knocked away from me.
Evocation, since I have 3 spells with cooldowns.
No AP generation, since I don't have AP-heavy spells. However, if during playtime, I find that I struggle for AP, I will swap out Arcane Dynamo in favor of either Prodigy or Astral Presence.
Currently, I see this build having difficulties with single targets during boss fights. I chose Frost Nova over Slow Time because crits. I was considering Arcane Orb (Obsidian Arcane Orbit) instead of Wave of Force, but I won't have the AP to sustain it. Energy Armor was chosen instead of other armor for resists. I purposely forgo "clutch" spells since I rely on skills to avoid being swamped (teleport helps too).
I welcome criticism.
[Edit:] Grammar
Nice build. I played around with something similiar. The only thing you could change is adding +40% precision to your energy armor further increasing your crit chance. Tho that +180% magic res. is probably gonna help you alot in the later stages of the game.
Anything that gives variety to classes is very welcome imo, be it old or new skills. Gives the game much more replayability and options for the player. Just because something was one way in the past doesnt mean it should be like that forever. Maybe thats why they made the wizard and not just remade the sorc.
no, those changes are over Ubi, now its just fine tuning any major changes will come with the first content patch. Now it's just making sure all the game features work and stress testing the servers. It would take a major class change to make melee wizards viable.
They were more viable in d2 because of ES 95%DR + 20ish PDR/MDR = 0 damage taken with Warmth and Enchant you were lulululing. Enchant could also buff others that played with you. The only thing u feared were Mana drain mobs, but u just let ur merc clean those up.
They wont do better around this time, you can already see it. You could make an effective CBQ (close quart combat) Wizard to be effective, but if you actually have to swing your weapon to deal damage, once, you've failed.
They would need a RADICAL change to Magic Weapon and Spectral blade. Radical skill changes wont come this far in development, it would push the release back, all they can do is tweak numbers slightly and move some stuff around.
Magic Weapon is goddamn useless in its current state.
Your opinion on Magic Weapon being useless is fine and all. But saying things cant change at this stage of development is just bs. Look at what they are doing to the DH just as we post this. I dont think we can rule ahnything out before we try the game. Or maybe you have tried it since you appearently know how it all works out. As someone else said said we dont know how strong melee weapons will be for wizards. If they are strong you could use arcane orbit or chain reaction (or both) before you go into battle and at the same time deal damage with your melee weapon, which could deal quite alot of damage TOGETHER. But we dont know. And yes melee wizards probably wont be as good as ranged wizards, but the potential for good melee wizard builds is there.
People blew the DH changes out of proportion, they changed the Cost of the abilities, to help with spamming since DH we're sitting on no hatred with some builds (which is bad) and they changed the lvl at which get some skills, they shuffled skills around and tweaked costs of skills. No skill EFFECT was changed.
True, but its not like tweaking one or two skills is that big of a change either. Merely tweaking of numbers and not changing how the skills work. Anyways they might not need tweaking since we really dont know how well they will work. I dont see why blizzard would implement these skills if they are utterly useless. Also, that melee sorcs were barely viable in in d2, should rather give blizzard a lesson than to have them do the same again.
no, those changes are over Ubi, now its just fine tuning any major changes will come with the first content patch. Now it's just making sure all the game features work and stress testing the servers. It would take a major class change to make melee wizards viable.
They were more viable in d2 because of ES 95%DR + 20ish PDR/MDR = 0 damage taken with Warmth and Enchant you were lulululing. Enchant could also buff others that played with you. The only thing u feared were Mana drain mobs, but u just let ur merc clean those up.
They wont do better around this time, you can already see it. You could make an effective CBQ (close quart combat) Wizard to be effective, but if you actually have to swing your weapon to deal damage, once, you've failed.
They would need a RADICAL change to Magic Weapon and Spectral blade. Radical skill changes wont come this far in development, it would push the release back, all they can do is tweak numbers slightly and move some stuff around.
Magic Weapon is goddamn useless in its current state.
Your opinion on Magic Weapon being useless is fine and all. But saying things cant change at this stage of development is just bs. Look at what they are doing to the DH just as we post this. I dont think we can rule ahnything out before we try the game. Or maybe you have tried it since you appearently know how it all works out. As someone else said said we dont know how strong melee weapons will be for wizards. If they are strong you could use arcane orbit or chain reaction (or both) before you go into battle and at the same time deal damage with your melee weapon, which could deal quite alot of damage TOGETHER. But we dont know. And yes melee wizards probably wont be as good as ranged wizards, but the potential for good melee wizard builds is there.
I hope your right using SB, with MW, and Frost nova with crimson rune to get 110% damage while still having the appearance of melee could serve you well. This is the best combo I can think of: 24/7 diamond skin, 24/7 slow time effects, hp regen, frost/MW/SB combo where available for max damage (more than familiar with crimson would). It is also very precise with pinpoint barrier, but crimson for resists would be just as good really, you'll need a lot of survival gear but Prodigy/diamond skin/energy armor/slow time Miasma should make you a tough old bird. Below are the same links, I like Battle.net's calculator appearance better.
Diamond Skin 24/7 doesnt have to be as effective as you think it is in the long run. I dont see 2661 damage being that much, atleast over a 21 second period. I rather see this skill as an escape skill or to use when you take alot of burst damage in a short period. But i could be wrong.
Slow Time with Miasma really only helps if you are struggeling with killing monsters or are standing still for 24 seconds. Usually you will be moving forward, and the new mosters that you meet wont be affected by Slow Time (downtime is 14 seconds). Altho Miasma will be nice versus bosses. Imo Slow Time with Perpunity is better, because it allows you to recast Slow Time at new locations with only 3 seconds downtime.
Also, as you said yourself, Crimson Rune for Energy Armor would probably be better unless you take advantage of that +40% precision (for example making SB crits heal you for 100% of damage dealt).
What I want to know is will the runed effects for magic weapon effect spectral blade.
Did you read all the posts? We've come to the tentative conclusion that it will. It doesn't really make much sense otherwise. Procylon brought up a great point of how Barbs have skills that they can spam just like Spectral Blade which means they too have no reason to ever do an actual normal hit.
On a side note, yesterday on stream I saw a guy testing out a melee wizard. He figured out that the cast speed of Spectral IS influenced by the attack speed of the weapon you have equipped. Useful information imo. Also enforces the idea that it will proc melee hit effects.
Interesting. Wonder if increased cast speed or attack speed from items will make you cast SB faster (or maybe its both). If its only increased attack speed its kind of disturbing as you would have to chose which you would want to cast faster, SB or the rest of your spells.
This is supported by a few people that have played the beta and tried to figure out how it all works. 1 player had a weapon with poison on it. When he used SB he did not get any poison damage on his hits, but his physical damage from SB was higher than just the physical damage from his weapon. He therefor concluded that the extra DPS from the poison on his weapon were added into the total calculation.
Did he account for the extra dmg from his character's Attack attribute?
I am not 100% sure of this. I think there is somewhere you can see how much damage you do, included stats. Anyways since there have been a few people saying this it just seemed likely.
After reading 2 of ElectricEel's posts in another thread, and one of his here, I've decided to ignore anything that he takes the time to compose (which is most likely a rather long time, as most of his posts are unnecessarily lengthy).
That said, I understand your take on the weapon damage mechanic of Spectral Blade. It's clear to me that the damage of the spell, Spectral Blade, will be based off of weapon damage (as it clearly states). However, Magic Weapon clearly states that it grants 20% increased physical damage. Spectral Blade, as far as I'm concerned, is still a spell and says nothing about being physical damage, it only states that the damage that it does when cast, is based off of weapon damage.
You could take a spell like Magic Missile (which we know is Arcane damage) and change the description to deal x% weapon damage. Regardless, it still remains Arcane damage. Just because the damage modifier is based on your weapon doesn't mean that the attack does physical damage.
All of this and I still have the feeling that Magic Weapon will compliment Spectral Blade as if it were a melee attack, simply because I think that is Blizzard's intentions. Yet it is still a little unclear, by the descriptions of the spells.
You are right about Spectral Blade probably being spell damage. Nontheless i think the damage boost from Magic Weapon adds to your overall weapon damage, which then is used to calculate the damage of SB.
I too think Blizzard intends SB and MW to work together, with all runeversions of MW. Dunno how lifesteal, knockback etc. will work. When you think about it, the most powerful weapons in the game will have some sort of additional effects other than the base damage of the weapon. Not taking advantage of these effects would make wizards using SB/MW feel very gimped.
Spectral Blade (SB) takes into account your weapon DPS and then spilts it's damage into 3 slashes of 35% of that damage. It doesnt matter if you have physical damage or fire or whatever on your weapon. And it will all come out as physical damage, unless your SB is runed to add bleed etc.
This is supported by a few people that have played the beta and tried to figure out how it all works. 1 player had a weapon with poison on it. When he used SB he did not get any poison damage on his hits, but his physical damage from SB was higher than just the physical damage from his weapon. He therefor concluded that the extra DPS from the poison on his weapon were added into the total calculation.
Im not sure about lifesteal, knockbacks etc. Im hoping these will be split into 35% of original chance and then added to each of SB's 3 slashes, even tho the description of SB doesnt say anything about this.
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#XWfcaQ!eZX!cccYbY
Now obviously this is a aoe heavy build and i will probably have problems facing bosses, but then i can just change out the build for something more suitable, for example:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#XWfcaQ!efX!ccZbbZ
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I dont see why you would deny many people the joy of playing the character they want to, just cause you dont see it fit with your own vision of how the wizard should be. The graphics of SB does seem very fitting with the wizard theme, no matter what kind of damage it deals. By all means its a fantasy creation and there are many examples of wizards also being physical (Lord of the Rings, Conan etc.)
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Nice build. I played around with something similiar. The only thing you could change is adding +40% precision to your energy armor further increasing your crit chance. Tho that +180% magic res. is probably gonna help you alot in the later stages of the game.
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True, but its not like tweaking one or two skills is that big of a change either. Merely tweaking of numbers and not changing how the skills work. Anyways they might not need tweaking since we really dont know how well they will work. I dont see why blizzard would implement these skills if they are utterly useless. Also, that melee sorcs were barely viable in in d2, should rather give blizzard a lesson than to have them do the same again.
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Your opinion on Magic Weapon being useless is fine and all. But saying things cant change at this stage of development is just bs. Look at what they are doing to the DH just as we post this. I dont think we can rule ahnything out before we try the game. Or maybe you have tried it since you appearently know how it all works out. As someone else said said we dont know how strong melee weapons will be for wizards. If they are strong you could use arcane orbit or chain reaction (or both) before you go into battle and at the same time deal damage with your melee weapon, which could deal quite alot of damage TOGETHER. But we dont know. And yes melee wizards probably wont be as good as ranged wizards, but the potential for good melee wizard builds is there.
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Just 2 things:
Also, as you said yourself, Crimson Rune for Energy Armor would probably be better unless you take advantage of that +40% precision (for example making SB crits heal you for 100% of damage dealt).
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Interesting. Wonder if increased cast speed or attack speed from items will make you cast SB faster (or maybe its both). If its only increased attack speed its kind of disturbing as you would have to chose which you would want to cast faster, SB or the rest of your spells.
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I am not 100% sure of this. I think there is somewhere you can see how much damage you do, included stats. Anyways since there have been a few people saying this it just seemed likely.
You are right about Spectral Blade probably being spell damage. Nontheless i think the damage boost from Magic Weapon adds to your overall weapon damage, which then is used to calculate the damage of SB.
I too think Blizzard intends SB and MW to work together, with all runeversions of MW. Dunno how lifesteal, knockback etc. will work. When you think about it, the most powerful weapons in the game will have some sort of additional effects other than the base damage of the weapon. Not taking advantage of these effects would make wizards using SB/MW feel very gimped.
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Spectral Blade (SB) takes into account your weapon DPS and then spilts it's damage into 3 slashes of 35% of that damage. It doesnt matter if you have physical damage or fire or whatever on your weapon. And it will all come out as physical damage, unless your SB is runed to add bleed etc.
This is supported by a few people that have played the beta and tried to figure out how it all works. 1 player had a weapon with poison on it. When he used SB he did not get any poison damage on his hits, but his physical damage from SB was higher than just the physical damage from his weapon. He therefor concluded that the extra DPS from the poison on his weapon were added into the total calculation.
Im not sure about lifesteal, knockbacks etc. Im hoping these will be split into 35% of original chance and then added to each of SB's 3 slashes, even tho the description of SB doesnt say anything about this.