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Rispetto's stationary glass cannon (Ray of Frost) build guide:
This is a build designed for 5 NV stack farming (including bosses). It is not a regular build in the sense of 'high manouverability' and 'fast attacks'. It's designed for high sustained damage and does well over long periods of time as it has excellent AP management.
A)
First of all let's cover those minor things that seem to dispute alot. I'll put them in list form (I'll list the theorycraft (aka why) under it).
1) Two-handed weapons are better (especially) for this build.
2) IAS is detrimental (especially) for this build.
3) Having a small bit of survivability is crucial for this build.
4) Familiar is better than magic weapon (especially) for this build.
5) This is a crit hit and crit damage build. It is extremely crucial to your success.
Theorycrafting behind this:
1) As stated in the link at the very bottom of the guide 2h weapons are designed to do more damage overall and have better AP management. Why? Because in this build the main ability is Ray of Frost (called RoF herein) which does rapid succession damage (meaning it isn't a damage spike, it's completely smooth and continuous no matter what weapon you use). Which leads me to the next point;
2) The only thing effected by IAS and higher weapon speeds in this build is the amount of AP your abilities use. If you do more damage with IAS (I've never noticed any) then it is completely useless as it just burns your AP which is not what you want.
3) Survivability (aka not getting 1 hit by minions) is fairly crucial because (as I explain later in the post) kiting is only half the battle with this build. It's more dedicated to slowing the target(s) and having a window of opportunity to lay down serious fire.
4) Magic weapon + force weapon only increases your overall damage by 15% while Familiar increases your damage by 12% and also has a secondary attack of 20% weapon damage. Also Familiar actually attacks faster with slower weapons (as I prove in a video which will be linked at the bottom of the page). Let's assume that the attack speed of the Familiar was equal for slower and faster weapons, it would be better to have a higher hitting weapon as the familiar will do more damage per hit while sustaining the same attack speed. The fact it attacks faster with slower weapons only makes this even more efficient.
The reason people use Magic Weapon over Familiar is because they like to see their DPS meter skyrocket when they activate the ability. If you're one of the people that would rather have your dps meter (called DPS herein) be higher instead of your pure damage (called Pure DPS herein) which is what actually matters just so you can tell people you do more damage.. just close this page and stop reading. There's no point in trying to teach the blind to read.
5) Seeing as how Crit Hit & Damage is most effective for abilities that attack more often and can then 'fish' more often for a crit, RoF is therefor perfect seeing as how RoF is not effected by weapon speed etc and is instead just always a fast attacking ability (bascially its a large amount of very small amounts of damage compared to slow powerful attacks such as shock pulse). Thankfully Blizzard clumped damage together when displaying it over a target (once every second) instead of (like WoW) showing you all the small hits. Because of this you can tell when an ability has crit more often. An example is currentily while writing this guide my wizard has 40k dps (with familiar up, of course) while my pure dps is in and around 100k when my crit hit is above average, while my pure dps is around 50k to 70k when an average amount of crits.
B)
My current build link will be posted at the very bottom. Please read this before continuing on as I am about to talk about why I chose these abilities and how you should use them.
LCick - Ray of Frost (Cold Blood): Pretty obvious. It's an RoF build. Just to clear something up; RoF does apply a cold behaviour that activates Cold Blooded. Because of this the first hit with RoF will be weaker than the following ones (if the target is not already slowed by Blizzard) as the following hits will be effected by the 20% damage boost.
RClick - Teleport (Reversal): Extremely effective at out-manouvering enemies. I use reversal because I find using Wormhole is useless (aside from getting places quickly) as you'll usually end up teleporting out of range of the enemies. Reversal also allows me to kite enemies far from the reversal point then re-use the ability for extreme kite effectiveness. Just make sure you don't right click too many times (as I've done many times) and end up back at square 1.
RClick Alternative - Slow Time (Time Warp): I've found to also be effective if you have a group as it will increase an ally's damage as well as you own while eliminating the effectiveness of projectiles and again slowing enemies. Just to note I believe the hardcap on slow is 80%. Keep this in mind while altering this build.
Force - Blizzard (Snowbound): Very effective at keeping enemies at bay. As this is a 'stationary' glass cannon build it is very crucial that you can slow enemies, giving yourself time to lay down fire. It is also nice as it will increase your dps by *about* 5k. After using this build for some time you'll begin to realize that Blizzard is infact the only ability that really uses AP (RoF uses as much as you regenerate with Astral Presence activated) which allows you to spam the entire battlefield with it (be mindful of reflects damage units). Why I chose snowbound over Stark Winter? Because Stark Winter does not cover as much ground as Snowbound x2 does, as well as Snowbound allows you to change the shape of the overall effected area (I.E. casting two in a line, causing enemies to wak into more Blizzard as they come closer) rather than just one giant circle caused by Stark Winter.
Defensive - Diamond Skin (Crystal Shell): If you've played a Wizard in Inferno you know why I have this skill selected as it's extremely crucial to your survival (especially now that repairs are extremely expensive). Just try to remember you do 0 dps when you're dead!
Conjuration - Energy Armor (Prismatic Armor): This ability is rather annoying in the sense of needing to constantly keep it up, however the survivability is very key and very efficient (especially while soloing). When going into a group where I know we have a good tank I usually replace this with Magic Weapon for the added DPS to make myself a true glass cannon.
Conjuration - Familiar (Sparkflint): I've already gone into why this ability is better than Magic Weapon, but aside from that the dps provided by this ability is extremely crucial. 12% +DPS as well as the additional attack provided by the Familiar that does 20% Weapon Damage (called WD herein) is extremely efficient.
Passive - Glass Cannon: Pretty obvious why I chose this. Though it decreases resistances by -10%, the +15% increased damage across the board is well worth the hit to survivability.
Passive - Astral Presence: Counter-balances the negative AP from Energy Armor while setting your base AP regen to 12 (from 10) which makes RoF and Regen balance out so that you're not actually losing AP while using RoF (very helpful in boss fights). If you have +AP regen from an item or feel you don't want to use Astral Presence, I would switch to;
Passive (Alternative) - Blur: Very effective against units like 'Teleport', 'Waller', or 'Fast'. Having the increased damage reduction always helps.
Passive - Cold Blooded: Pretty obvious why I chose this. Increases cold damage done to targets who are frozen. Seeing as how 2/3 my damaging abilities are cold damage (RoF, Blizzard, Familiar attack) this passive is crucial to the build.
C)
The gear you select is (obviously) very important to the build, as it is with all builds on all characters.
I'm going to list off the most important stats as I (obviously) cannot link you pieces of gear that are BIS as everything is random and it comes down to how much you want to spend.
Please note that there is no such thing (in my mind) as 'stacking' one affix. You can lean towards a specific affix but in the end it really relies on a balance of the following;
1) Crit Hit %
2) Crit Damage %
3) Intellect
4) +Resistance to All Elements *
5) Vitality *
* 4 & 5 fall hand in hand. A good level of HP to be by Act 3 Inferno is rough 25k to 30k hp. For the rest just stack +Res All.
For a weapon try to get a high damage, slow attacking two hander. Forget stats (you'll end up spending a fortune on a decent wep with good stats).
At the time I'm writing this guide I have a 1289.2 dps weapon that cost me 100k gold (very cheap, I got lucky).
A good way I view the DPS ~ Int scale is (IMO) 200 Int provides about +100. So when looking at a weapon I divide the Int by 2 and apply that to the WD which gives me a good idea of what to choose from.
Thanks for reading. I hope this helps you.
Links:
Blue post on 2h vs 1h: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3424908246
Familiar vs MW: http://youtu.be/5jpePVy5bXo
Current Build: http://d3db.com/calculator/i/wizard/2439
This is a build designed for 5 NV stack farming (including bosses). It is not a regular build in the sense of 'high manouverability' and 'fast attacks'. It's designed for high sustained damage and does well over long periods of time as it has excellent AP management.
A)
First of all let's cover those minor things that seem to dispute alot. I'll put them in list form (I'll list the theorycraft (aka why) under it).
1) Two-handed weapons are better (especially) for this build.
2) IAS is detrimental (especially) for this build.
3) Having a small bit of survivability is crucial for this build.
4) Familiar is better than magic weapon (especially) for this build.
5) This is a crit hit and crit damage build. It is extremely crucial to your success.
Theorycrafting behind this:
1) As stated in the link at the very bottom of the guide 2h weapons are designed to do more damage overall and have better AP management. Why? Because in this build the main ability is Ray of Frost (called RoF herein) which does rapid succession damage (meaning it isn't a damage spike, it's completely smooth and continuous no matter what weapon you use). Which leads me to the next point;
2) The only thing effected by IAS and higher weapon speeds in this build is the amount of AP your abilities use. If you do more damage with IAS (I've never noticed any) then it is completely useless as it just burns your AP which is not what you want.
3) Survivability (aka not getting 1 hit by minions) is fairly crucial because (as I explain later in the post) kiting is only half the battle with this build. It's more dedicated to slowing the target(s) and having a window of opportunity to lay down serious fire.
4) Magic weapon + force weapon only increases your overall damage by 15% while Familiar increases your damage by 12% and also has a secondary attack of 20% weapon damage. Also Familiar actually attacks faster with slower weapons (as I prove in a video which will be linked at the bottom of the page). Let's assume that the attack speed of the Familiar was equal for slower and faster weapons, it would be better to have a higher hitting weapon as the familiar will do more damage per hit while sustaining the same attack speed. The fact it attacks faster with slower weapons only makes this even more efficient.
The reason people use Magic Weapon over Familiar is because they like to see their DPS meter skyrocket when they activate the ability. If you're one of the people that would rather have your dps meter (called DPS herein) be higher instead of your pure damage (called Pure DPS herein) which is what actually matters just so you can tell people you do more damage.. just close this page and stop reading. There's no point in trying to teach the blind to read.
5) Seeing as how Crit Hit & Damage is most effective for abilities that attack more often and can then 'fish' more often for a crit, RoF is therefor perfect seeing as how RoF is not effected by weapon speed etc and is instead just always a fast attacking ability (bascially its a large amount of very small amounts of damage compared to slow powerful attacks such as shock pulse). Thankfully Blizzard clumped damage together when displaying it over a target (once every second) instead of (like WoW) showing you all the small hits. Because of this you can tell when an ability has crit more often. An example is currentily while writing this guide my wizard has 40k dps (with familiar up, of course) while my pure dps is in and around 100k when my crit hit is above average, while my pure dps is around 50k to 70k when an average amount of crits.
B)
My current build link will be posted at the very bottom. Please read this before continuing on as I am about to talk about why I chose these abilities and how you should use them.
LCick - Ray of Frost (Cold Blood): Pretty obvious. It's an RoF build. Just to clear something up; RoF does apply a cold behaviour that activates Cold Blooded. Because of this the first hit with RoF will be weaker than the following ones (if the target is not already slowed by Blizzard) as the following hits will be effected by the 20% damage boost.
RClick - Teleport (Reversal): Extremely effective at out-manouvering enemies. I use reversal because I find using Wormhole is useless (aside from getting places quickly) as you'll usually end up teleporting out of range of the enemies. Reversal also allows me to kite enemies far from the reversal point then re-use the ability for extreme kite effectiveness. Just make sure you don't right click too many times (as I've done many times) and end up back at square 1.
RClick Alternative - Slow Time (Time Warp): I've found to also be effective if you have a group as it will increase an ally's damage as well as you own while eliminating the effectiveness of projectiles and again slowing enemies. Just to note I believe the hardcap on slow is 80%. Keep this in mind while altering this build.
Force - Blizzard (Snowbound): Very effective at keeping enemies at bay. As this is a 'stationary' glass cannon build it is very crucial that you can slow enemies, giving yourself time to lay down fire. It is also nice as it will increase your dps by *about* 5k. After using this build for some time you'll begin to realize that Blizzard is infact the only ability that really uses AP (RoF uses as much as you regenerate with Astral Presence activated) which allows you to spam the entire battlefield with it (be mindful of reflects damage units). Why I chose snowbound over Stark Winter? Because Stark Winter does not cover as much ground as Snowbound x2 does, as well as Snowbound allows you to change the shape of the overall effected area (I.E. casting two in a line, causing enemies to wak into more Blizzard as they come closer) rather than just one giant circle caused by Stark Winter.
Defensive - Diamond Skin (Crystal Shell): If you've played a Wizard in Inferno you know why I have this skill selected as it's extremely crucial to your survival (especially now that repairs are extremely expensive). Just try to remember you do 0 dps when you're dead!
Conjuration - Energy Armor (Prismatic Armor): This ability is rather annoying in the sense of needing to constantly keep it up, however the survivability is very key and very efficient (especially while soloing). When going into a group where I know we have a good tank I usually replace this with Magic Weapon for the added DPS to make myself a true glass cannon.
Conjuration - Familiar (Sparkflint): I've already gone into why this ability is better than Magic Weapon, but aside from that the dps provided by this ability is extremely crucial. 12% +DPS as well as the additional attack provided by the Familiar that does 20% Weapon Damage (called WD herein) is extremely efficient.
Passive - Glass Cannon: Pretty obvious why I chose this. Though it decreases resistances by -10%, the +15% increased damage across the board is well worth the hit to survivability.
Passive - Astral Presence: Counter-balances the negative AP from Energy Armor while setting your base AP regen to 12 (from 10) which makes RoF and Regen balance out so that you're not actually losing AP while using RoF (very helpful in boss fights). If you have +AP regen from an item or feel you don't want to use Astral Presence, I would switch to;
Passive (Alternative) - Blur: Very effective against units like 'Teleport', 'Waller', or 'Fast'. Having the increased damage reduction always helps.
Passive - Cold Blooded: Pretty obvious why I chose this. Increases cold damage done to targets who are frozen. Seeing as how 2/3 my damaging abilities are cold damage (RoF, Blizzard, Familiar attack) this passive is crucial to the build.
C)
The gear you select is (obviously) very important to the build, as it is with all builds on all characters.
I'm going to list off the most important stats as I (obviously) cannot link you pieces of gear that are BIS as everything is random and it comes down to how much you want to spend.
Please note that there is no such thing (in my mind) as 'stacking' one affix. You can lean towards a specific affix but in the end it really relies on a balance of the following;
1) Crit Hit %
2) Crit Damage %
3) Intellect
4) +Resistance to All Elements *
5) Vitality *
* 4 & 5 fall hand in hand. A good level of HP to be by Act 3 Inferno is rough 25k to 30k hp. For the rest just stack +Res All.
For a weapon try to get a high damage, slow attacking two hander. Forget stats (you'll end up spending a fortune on a decent wep with good stats).
At the time I'm writing this guide I have a 1289.2 dps weapon that cost me 100k gold (very cheap, I got lucky).
A good way I view the DPS ~ Int scale is (IMO) 200 Int provides about +100. So when looking at a weapon I divide the Int by 2 and apply that to the WD which gives me a good idea of what to choose from.
Thanks for reading. I hope this helps you.
Links:
Blue post on 2h vs 1h: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3424908246
Familiar vs MW: http://youtu.be/5jpePVy5bXo
Current Build: http://d3db.com/calculator/i/wizard/2439
