Avatar of Jaetch #1861
Jaetch #1861
Wizards and 2.1(1)Category: PTR FeedbackJune-26-2014 10:03 AM PDT (10 years ago) Go to Blizzard forum post
Bear in mind that the most recent version of this post reflects only the experience from the most recent iteration of Patch 2.1's PTR. As new content gets implemented and additional skills, items, etc. are tweaked, I will test things out and edit this thread accordingly.

Also, as I was writing this, I got really, really hungry, so if there's anything that makes absolutely no sense, please point it out to me so I can address it.

What is the philosophy behind the wizard class?
Master of the elements? So that would mean in the best case scenario, a wizard would have the option to go the Arcane route, Fire route, Cold route, or Lightning route without feeling he/she is limited in power. These routes, I should add, will reach the highest difficulties and beyond. That means a solo wizard should be able to hold his/her ground in Torment VI once he/she is well-geared and has invested plenty of time into the game and received his/her fair share of good fortune. This wizard should also be able to go deep into Greater Rifts without feeling he/she had sacrificed a great deal of power by being a wizard or by choosing a certain elemental spec.

But this is not the case right now.

In the live game, the most competitive end-game builds revolve around Fire or Arcane. Lightning and Cold are both distant seconds. If you wanted to play Lightning and Cold builds, you were advised not to do so unless you're simply looking to kill some time and have some fun, not to compete in fastest T6 Rift clear times, most Legendaries obtained per hour, etc.

There should be at least one build (preferably more) that is viable for end-game content for each type of element. This is an issue that not only plagues the wizard class, but all classes. But because the wizard is advertised to be a master of the elements, it's all the more important for players of the class to want to use different elements.

To start, this goal is held back by "mandatory" skills the wizard currently has to deal with, usually in the likes of Magic Weapon and some kind of armor, predominantly Energy Armor. The wizard does not do enough damage, thus Magic Weapon is slotted. The wizard also isn't very durable by default, thus Energy Armor (usually Prismatic) and Magic Weapon's Deflection are chosen. This is just the start of many problems that plague the class.

Issues with the wizard class
That brings us to a couple of other problems wizards have to deal with:
    1. Damage output
    2. Gear and skill synergies

In a vacuum dealing solely with the wizard class without looking at the other five classes, having some options in dishing out good damage would not be an issue. However, with the onset of Seasons and Greater Rifts, in addition to leaderboards that people from all over the world can see, there's no choice but to compare wizards with all the other classes. And by comparing the wizards with the other classes, build options are even more limited.

In the live game, the combination of Mirrorball with Magic Missile - Conflagrate is already a popular choice for many wizards because it's easy to set up and remains competitive in terms of damage. It's a Fire-based build. Some people throw in Archon and Vyr's, some others throw in Explosive Blast - Chain Reaction with Wand of Woh, others choose to use Blazing/Mammoth Hydras with Serpent's Sparker. In the current iteration of the PTR, for some reason players are being pushed to further pursue Fire-based builds with the improvements to Hydra and Magic Missile.

On the other hand, another competitive element in the live game is Arcane. The vast majority of Arcane-based builds centered around channeling spells in the likes of Arcane Torrent and Disintegrate. However, the current iteration of the PTR included an initial cost of 30 AP just to begin channeling. The remaining AP/s cost to maintain the channel is unchanged, making it more expensive overall to play a channeling spell. Why was there such a change? We don't know. But in the live game, it's difficult enough to build around a resource-intensive channeling spec, much more difficult to manage than the Mirrorball-MM spec.

Sure, the damage for the channeling spells were increased, but it's not worth the upfront cost, especially because of all the unavoidable damage the game throws at us. Inevitably, the player must move and break the channel. The upfront cost forces players to repeatedly spend 30 AP to restart a channel and the player will inevitably run out of AP simply from moving and/or victimized by unavoidable crowd control (fear, knockback, stun, etc.). For more info and discussion around the channeling spell change, visit PieHole's thread: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/13243694513

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Diablo III MVP | Forever a Wizard
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[Post edited two times, last edit by Jaetch#1861 at June-28-2014 11:08 PM PDT (10 years ago)]
Avatar of Nevalistis
Nevalistis
Wizards and 2.1(59)June-26-2014 12:01 PM PDT (10 years ago) Go to Blizzard forum post
Thanks for the constructive feedback, everyone. Please keep it up! Rest assured I'm going through not only this, but other threads, and collecting as much as I can to pass on (and for other classes as well).

It's certainly worth mentioning that this is just our first iteration of the 2.1 PTR. There are some features not yet implemented, such as Legendary Gems and activating Seasons for testing, and that goes for other upcoming class and item changes too.

I also want to call out that Greater Rifts are going to play a big part in helping us identify clear issues, as is your feedback on what you'd like to see. There's currently a bug that's allowing low level Greater Rifts to skew some of this data (and Leaderboards) which we have plans to address. We're looking into the details of this, so as soon as we have more information, we'll let you know!

Posted by: Jaetch

Do we dare talk about Firebird's Finery? That set was a laughingstock of 6-piece sets in the live game. It was slated to be revamped and all that's changed was increasing the damage from 300% over 5 seconds to 2000%. That is not a revamp. That is barely an improvement.


As a quick note, we're already taking a closer look at Firebird's Finery. This was our first pass and we agree that there's more room for work here. In this case, there's also the happenstance that a Fire focus just makes the most logical sense for this particular set ('cause, you know, Firebird's), and we acknowledge that Fire is already an incredibly strong element. You will likely see more iteration on this set in additional PTR patches, so stay tuned and be sure to keep letting us know what you think!
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