CDR / LoH Wizard Equipment Setup

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Phoenix
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CDR / LoH Wizard Equipment Setup

Postby Phoenix » 07 Sep 2012, 15:43

I've been having trouble surviving A3 Inferno (first act to drop iLvl 63 items.) So I decided to drop some cash on a completely different build for my Wizard. A Cool-Down Reduction wizard build is created around the Passive skill "Critical Mass" (critical hits have a chance to reduce the cooldown on your spells by 1 sec.) In addition its become clear to me that stacking Resists isn't enough to survive later Inferno. Pretty much everyone is recommending Life on Hit (LoH) builds, so I'll jump on that bandwagon too.

My rough target is to get >25% crit from items, while spending 200k-400k on new items.

Since, not every item can have every stat (specifically LoH and +Crit are limited to a few items each with some overlap.) Also since, getting more than 3-4 "affixes" on a given item causes it price to jump rapidly. I will be planning the affixes needed for a given item slot (parentheses indicate "nice to haves"):

Gloves: Int, Crit, LoH, AttackSpeed
Bracers: Int, RA, Crit

Main Hand: DPS, Int, LoH, Socket
Amulet: Int, Crit, LoH, (DPS)
Ringx2: Int, RA, LoH/(Crit) {These are expensive with 4 affixes!)

Head: Int, Vit, RA, Socket
Shoulders: Int, Vit, RA
Chest: Int, Vit, RA, Sockets
Waist: Int, Vit, RA
Pants: Int, Vit, RA
Boots: Int, Vit, RA, MoveSpeed

This analysis is based on this website:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/commen ... look-chart

There's a good chance there are errors in this chart, or that I missed something. Also, there are Unique items that contain bonuses in non-standard slots. If you see an error or know of a cheap unique item that could help improve this build.
WoW/SWG/EVE/DAoC/DikuMUD --> Galos/Qasim/Dregian/Meridin
Discord --> PhoenixMT#5467, Steam --> PhoenixMT

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Phoenix
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Re: CDR / LoH Wizard Equipment Setup

Postby Phoenix » 07 Sep 2012, 15:43

After investing about 1M gold I'm at (equipment totals, not character stats):
1484 Int
387 RA
555 Vit
1180 LoH
26% Crit

This is a huge hit to my HP (55k --> 30k), RA(800-->700), and DPS (25k --> 20k).

There are two styles of play with this build Melee (with Blades) and Ranged (with Lightning Piercing Orbs). Then using a mix of Diamond Skin, Blizzard, Frost Nova, Slow Time, Meteor, and Energy Twister (Storm Chaser) for proc'ing crits and using high-power cooldown based powers.

I played with it very briefly this morning before heading out to school (Melee style, A2.9). It was definitely better than my Melee before, but I'm not yet sold. Pretty damn sure my resists are too low to do A3. We'll see tonight.
WoW/SWG/EVE/DAoC/DikuMUD --> Galos/Qasim/Dregian/Meridin
Discord --> PhoenixMT#5467, Steam --> PhoenixMT

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Phoenix
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Re: CDR / LoH Wizard Equipment Setup

Postby Phoenix » 24 Sep 2012, 14:04

So a quick update. Character Sheet Stats:
~1000 LoH
~30% Crit
20k DPS
Took me through A2 pretty well.

Current Character Sheet Stats:
22.5k DPS
1290 RA (buffed)
1650 Int
7780 armor
1150 LoH
34k hp
+120% Crit Dam
29% Crit Chance

I've managed to kill A3 Grom with slightly lower stats than listed above. Better yet I can do probably 4of5 elite packs with no worries in early A3. Unfortunately, my DPS is really lagging at this point and its quite a slog.

So my next goal is to upgrade my DPS. As pointed out by a friend of Taze (Toad), +crit dam is very effective once you have a high crit rate. In fact, upto crit_chance/10 is better than crit for damage. Obviously it doesn't help you proc cooldown reductions however, so I don't really recommend stacking it until you get over 30% crit rate.

After two up/side-grades to my equipement and swapping shield for source, I can alternate between:
22.6k --> 34.6k DPS
1250 --> 1100 RA
7780 --> 6200 armor
1150 --> 625 LoH (!!!)
Giving me some flexibility in moving quickly and dealing with PITA-affix elites.

Its getting to the point where an real upgrade costs a sold 1M gold and there's really no "spare" affix-slots on my equipment.

I also find that I "earn" a large portion of my gold and "progress" in the game to playing the AH. I only occasionally straight up buy an item and resell it for more than I paid. However, for any item above about 200-300k I find that sniping auctions with bids saves me 30%-80% off of buyout pricing. Once I've done that, when I recycle items back onto the auction house after using them, I usually get nearly all my money back. Even in spite of the massive deflation of item prices going on right now.
WoW/SWG/EVE/DAoC/DikuMUD --> Galos/Qasim/Dregian/Meridin
Discord --> PhoenixMT#5467, Steam --> PhoenixMT


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