The quality of these videos surpasses many other channels I see covering this game, amazing job Archon! I look forward to seeing more of your videos in the future! I was kinda blown away when I saw that 2h Hammer on your Wiz, I might have to try that..
Awesome guide. Love how it takes you through exactly what skills you should use at what point, and kind of leaves some room for choice on our part as to what we do exactly.
This video was hands down THE most helpful one of it's kind. I was in nightmare and was dying so fast I was very disheartened about wizards. Following your changes I am now doing great well on the way to 41 and surprisingly easy with the new gear and skill changes. The only changes I made where location of skills ( to fit my play style) and instead of Teleport I use both Mirror Image and Diamond Skin. Magic missile is great to use while your power regenerates from disintegrate.
I love how versatile the wizard is. You have a ridiculous amount of options for a great build. I used your diamond skin, hydra, mirror image combo from your hell video to beat Diablo on my first try. I have almost no incentive to try out the other characters haha. Amazingly thorough video btw, keep them coming man!
Hey I just want to say I don't normally watch videos but servers were down but this video was awesome and informative, so thanks for the info... I can't believe my build was so far off! thanks!! for doing these vids! you are really helping people!
Thanks Rickster! I was surprised too... spent too much time using low dps wands with lots of intelligence before realizing how important weapon damage is
Your guide was really helpful,i was really really strugling with mobs,and your build choices were awesome,i liked the step by step guide,as it made me see a lot of more options,and how to use them.I am level 40,and i have magic missile and blizzard,then archon hydra diamond skin and energy armor,and i am doing really fine now :) venom hydra is awesome,i put it in front while kiting them through a blizzard,then it just kills them,it is just awesome :) so really thank you :D
Sweet build. I'm in Act 2 of NM with my Wizard and I'm using a Frost Venom build. Venom Hydra and Blizzard are my mains and Electrocute w/ Lightning Blast Rune for when I run out of Mana. Cold Blood, Galvanising Ward and Paralysis(Elec w/ LB's high atk rate works wonders with this) are my Passives.
they did a really good job making sure that 1 particular build isn't the "best" build. You can really customize and do what you want to do and build your own strategy. There's so many variations of what's possible and most of them are legitimate.
What kind of DPS are we suppose to be shooting at on a Survivability Build? I'm currently stuck at 44k damage with only 19k life. I don't think this class can stack Survivability and DPS to be effective. I mean I know Barbarians rocking 29k damage with way more life but they can double stack armor and stack resist like crazy. So if I have to drop DPS for Survivability what is the point when another class will just be better?
No, you're right. This would work well in Act 1, but you wouldn't want it past then. Like the annotation at the beginning of the video points out, I now have other videos showing the builds I've been using for Act 2 and 3 =)
i'm not even a third of the way through the video and i need to comment and thank you for it already!! i'm definitely going to be buying really great armour and weapons when the real money AH opens because, i'm dying alot, and i'm on normal difficulty, about level 23 i think! this is actually the first pc game i've ever really played haha i genuinely do need the tips, i'm clearly a noob! :P thank you!!
More vitality always helps, but I feel that armor and resistances help more in the higher difficulties. When taking high damage continuously, it's hard to keep finding health globes to stay topped off if you just stack vitality. Stacking damage mitigation keeps you from getting that low, and makes it easier to stay at full health. I haven't seen much theory-crafting on it yet, tho, this is just my own experience.
I think it's mostly good. I would replace your last skill with Venom Hydra, for sure. I would replace Prodigy with Illusionist... or, you could free up a passive by replacing Orb with Blizzard, and getting rid of Temporal Flux. And if you find yourself dieing in 1 or 2 hits, replace Prismatic Armor with Force Armor.
So true! After my armor and resistances I only take 10 - 15% damage. (minus another 20% for melee attacks). Try playing inferno without at least 400 resistances and 4000 armor, and you'll understand why they're important =P
Yes. Although, 25 vs. 18-20 might not be worth the sacrifice, as you get some bonuses from having an off-hand. I've always done best with 2h weapons though, as they tend to have almost twice the dps.
You want just enough vitality so you're not dieing, but not so much that it waters down your healing and other stats. I'm about to make a video about a build with force armor and 15k - 20k health that's been working well for me. DPS isn't the ONLY stat that matters.. but it's by far the most important. However there are some stats that are only found on weapons (or only in significant amounts on weapons) such as life per hit and life steal. Pick stats that fit your build =)
Ya, I think so.. we're trying to decide if we want to just give out our battle-tags, or only message people who want to play with us. What act are you in right now? Class? Level?
I currently have enough damage for act 2.5, but I do find that my defensive stats are lack-lustre. My armour is fine, but something is amiss. Energy armour is a double edge sword. It makes glass-cannoning more practical but scales awfully initially with defensive stats. The only benefit for stacking defence is for 'ticking' damage. You will need bucket loads of health/damage reduction to affect burst damage.
Armor reduces damage from ALL sources, as do resists (thanks to physical resist). On end-game gear, armor is a great stat to have on every piece of gear if you can attain it without sacrificing int/vit, or if your resists have diminished to the point that some additional armor would mitigate more damage that what the additional resists would.
Awesome! Any idea if Dreadnaught is going to be doing one of these for barbarians? I know he has one uploaded now but it would be great for an inferno one.
All your spell damage is based on your weapon damage. 2h have higher weapon damage than 1h (and it's hard to find off-hands that compensate for that difference). Intelligence and other stats help to multiply that damage, but your base weapon damage is the most important factor.
I've been using a build with force armor (about to make a video about it)... however, it can only absorb up to 100% of your health now (they still haven't updated the tooltip)... so you still want a lot of defense (glass cannon will get you killed come Act 2)
Great Video!, going to try out some of you suggestions for my wiz (45). Have a friend playing a WD, do you know of a similar video that covers gear/skills/leveling for that class?
I am currently using a wizard with a legendary dagger called wizardspike. I buff as much attack speed as possible, so daggers are the best choice for me as they have the highest base weapon attack speed. There are wands on the AH with as much as 1100 DPS but the price is unfeasable at the moment. If you want to do a lot of criticals buff attack speed as well as crit. chance and damage. If you go for life steal you want to focus on AOE and high damage to hit as many mobs as possible with each att
Thank you very much for this guide. I would like to ask for some suggestions for multiplayer, however. Currently I'm leveling up and playing with my friend's Barbarian. I was keeping an array of defensive cooldowns to help him out but was finding my damage was falling behind. He uses the ability that pulls creatures in to him so I was using Force Wave, Frost Nova, Slow Time. It's difficult to balance damage vs utility/defense and I wonder what you might suggest for this.
Diamond skin is a really good skill until you get to inferno... when suddenly 21k damage isn't that much anymore. I use teleport now, and mirror image on act 3 and 4 (with the illusionist passive)
Going back to what archon said, as you get to level 60 i tended to look for anything that had resistance. right now on my xbox console my mage one point at the most had 700-800 resistance where everything was reduced by 77% percent. Then I fell in the loop of trying to do more damage. now im only at 68% reduction. I can't find the combo i had.
Wow, thanks for the info, and yea i know what you mean orbs might help out but, i always thought if its not in the wizard class it doesnt contribute to me...
I'm not sure how far you've been in Inferno yet, but in Act 3 or 4, if you have no resistances or extra armor and only 20k health, energy armor isn't going to do anything. If you get hit, you're dead. You can't avoid all damage, and eventually you need to get enough armor and resistances to take 1 or 2 hits.
I think kiting is just AWESOME and fun, I play with friends alot , and just running around with 6 blues behind me is just fuckin hilarious xD after some time you get into a kind of route, I have been running around with 6 blues for like 10 mins sometimes, my friends always die when I come with the pack, lol. Just something making Diablo 3 more fun ! xD (hell) Very good video btw ! :)
I like more offensive so i have: Meteor,blizzard,magic weapon,magic missile,frost nova and disintegrate and passive skills:glass cannon and prodigy and i am lvl 27 and dps 380 and armor 700 and health around 700.I know it is pretty offensive but i use it on team so got any tips on what to chance on harder modes and do this work later in the game with team? And sorry for bad english.
As a very experienced wizard who beat inferno months ago i can tell you guys that there are many good builds. This game is uniqe in that you rarly see identical builds among players. That being said there are skills you just cant do without, the most important being energy armor with the force armor rune. This is a must for any build. And combining diamond skin with teleport is NOT a waste, not even close. Also, venom hydra is extremly powerfull. Msg me if you desperatly need tips ^_^
ermm sorry if this is a stupid question but im not understanding how you have 2 conjuration skills.. i thought you can only have one of each time like conjuration master primary etc etc
hey i have one that seems to work really good for act 1 wardener and butcher farm run. teleport, magic weapon, diamond skin, illusionist. hydra and that orb attack. it works good with me. try it.
I just made an awsome build atleasst for how I play...mirror image/diamond skin/magic weapon/energy armor/arcane missle/disinigrate.....blur/temporal rift/i forgot the name but the armor passive buff
My 1 hand weapon has 702 dps with 100+intel, 100+vitality, crit dmg and att speed and your 752. What is the best between a 702 dps + and off hand and your 752 2 hands?
Is vitality worth having on my gear? i'm level 54 now and my aim from about level 30ish was to get int gear with good vital bonuses and load myself with as much hp as possible, is this completely unnecessary? should i just be looking for armor gear if i want to live
i prefer instead of magic wapon the pet skill with the first rune it gives you +12 % dmg and shoots everytime you shoot a skill, and hit for 20 % of your dmg
So on console you don't get to just swap abilities to whatever you want you only get certain choices for each spot unless I just haven't figured that out yet so some of these builds won't work
Next you need to make a video on how to make money in the AH. I've never had more then 200k and am sure I'm underselling stuff as there is no FREE guide on how to make AH money.
I have a question to anyone, my diamond skin with crystal shell only absorbs 7902, and give me 15804 instead of 21706.79? sorry if this is a noob question and the answer is because of my gear or something.. it just has me puzzled. cheers for the help
I'm lvl 27 (I think? :L) and I used to die like so often >.< Now I use an AoE build with Shock Pulse and and pretty high dps, and I sit at around 1.7k health, I just sit there with Disintergrate blasting out until everything dies with my Templar healing me, and if I run out of mana and Diamond Skin+Prism is on CD, I just spam Shock Pulse until everything dies xD Oh the joys of being a Wizard x)
![[Diablo 3] The Gear I Needed To Solo Inferno](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/biTiSCJKOzY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Awesome Wizard Inferno Build - Act 2 - Skills and Gear [Diablo 3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gHK7htQN6TU/mqdefault.jpg)
The quality of these videos surpasses many other channels I see covering this game, amazing job Archon! I look forward to seeing more of your videos in the future! I was kinda blown away when I saw that 2h Hammer on your Wiz, I might have to try that..
Awesome guide. Love how it takes you through exactly what skills you should use at what point, and kind of leaves some room for choice on our part as to what we do exactly.
This video was hands down THE most helpful one of it's kind. I was in nightmare and was dying so fast I was very disheartened about wizards. Following your changes I am now doing great well on the way to 41 and surprisingly easy with the new gear and skill changes. The only changes I made where location of skills ( to fit my play style) and instead of Teleport I use both Mirror Image and Diamond Skin. Magic missile is great to use while your power regenerates from disintegrate.
Love your videos, we need to get this channel known to the world ASAP.
wow... big thank you! i was rolling a wizard and was strugglling with the elite mobs. That was really helpful!
This is one of the best build videos ive seen for the wizard, you are very professional sir.
I love how versatile the wizard is. You have a ridiculous amount of options for a great build. I used your diamond skin, hydra, mirror image combo from your hell video to beat Diablo on my first try. I have almost no incentive to try out the other characters haha. Amazingly thorough video btw, keep them coming man!
Hey I just want to say I don't normally watch videos but servers were down but this video was awesome and informative, so thanks for the info... I can't believe my build was so far off! thanks!! for doing these vids! you are really helping people!
Thanks Rickster! I was surprised too... spent too much time using low dps wands with lots of intelligence before realizing how important weapon damage is
Your guide was really helpful,i was really really strugling with mobs,and your build choices were awesome,i liked the step by step guide,as it made me see a lot of more options,and how to use them.I am level 40,and i have magic missile and blizzard,then archon hydra diamond skin and energy armor,and i am doing really fine now :) venom hydra is awesome,i put it in front while kiting them through a blizzard,then it just kills them,it is just awesome :) so really thank you :D
Sweet build. I'm in Act 2 of NM with my Wizard and I'm using a Frost Venom build. Venom Hydra and Blizzard are my mains and Electrocute w/ Lightning Blast Rune for when I run out of Mana. Cold Blood, Galvanising Ward and Paralysis(Elec w/ LB's high atk rate works wonders with this) are my Passives.
Wow that made the game a ton better... that's freaking awesome thanks
they did a really good job making sure that 1 particular build isn't the "best" build. You can really customize and do what you want to do and build your own strategy. There's so many variations of what's possible and most of them are legitimate.
thank you for reviewing the force armor. I really didn't understand what that did.
What kind of DPS are we suppose to be shooting at on a Survivability Build? I'm currently stuck at 44k damage with only 19k life. I don't think this class can stack Survivability and DPS to be effective. I mean I know Barbarians rocking 29k damage with way more life but they can double stack armor and stack resist like crazy. So if I have to drop DPS for Survivability what is the point when another class will just be better?
That sounds like it could work really well, I'll have to give it a try. Thanks!
No, you're right. This would work well in Act 1, but you wouldn't want it past then. Like the annotation at the beginning of the video points out, I now have other videos showing the builds I've been using for Act 2 and 3 =)
i'm not even a third of the way through the video and i need to comment and thank you for it already!! i'm definitely going to be buying really great armour and weapons when the real money AH opens because, i'm dying alot, and i'm on normal difficulty, about level 23 i think! this is actually the first pc game i've ever really played haha i genuinely do need the tips, i'm clearly a noob! :P thank you!!
This is great and really helpful. Keep up the good work = )
Thanks McDougal... I won't be able to keep posting this often, but we'll make sure to have at least 1 video each week =)
More vitality always helps, but I feel that armor and resistances help more in the higher difficulties. When taking high damage continuously, it's hard to keep finding health globes to stay topped off if you just stack vitality. Stacking damage mitigation keeps you from getting that low, and makes it easier to stay at full health. I haven't seen much theory-crafting on it yet, tho, this is just my own experience.
I think it's mostly good. I would replace your last skill with Venom Hydra, for sure. I would replace Prodigy with Illusionist... or, you could free up a passive by replacing Orb with Blizzard, and getting rid of Temporal Flux. And if you find yourself dieing in 1 or 2 hits, replace Prismatic Armor with Force Armor.
So true! After my armor and resistances I only take 10 - 15% damage. (minus another 20% for melee attacks). Try playing inferno without at least 400 resistances and 4000 armor, and you'll understand why they're important =P
Yes. Although, 25 vs. 18-20 might not be worth the sacrifice, as you get some bonuses from having an off-hand. I've always done best with 2h weapons though, as they tend to have almost twice the dps.
I agree, kiting can be fun... however, it's rarely time-efficient if you can avoid it :)
Ya, there are a few boss fights that it's good for, but not worth losing Nephelam for (unless you're just trying to progress).
You want just enough vitality so you're not dieing, but not so much that it waters down your healing and other stats. I'm about to make a video about a build with force armor and 15k - 20k health that's been working well for me.
DPS isn't the ONLY stat that matters.. but it's by far the most important. However there are some stats that are only found on weapons (or only in significant amounts on weapons) such as life per hit and life steal. Pick stats that fit your build =)
Ya, I think so.. we're trying to decide if we want to just give out our battle-tags, or only message people who want to play with us. What act are you in right now? Class? Level?
I currently have enough damage for act 2.5, but I do find that my defensive stats are lack-lustre. My armour is fine, but something is amiss.
Energy armour is a double edge sword. It makes glass-cannoning more practical but scales awfully initially with defensive stats. The only benefit for stacking defence is for 'ticking' damage. You will need bucket loads of health/damage reduction to affect burst damage.
Nice job as always! thx Keep it up!
Very good build tryid it today, have 1153 life regen. allmost never get killed. the only prob i have is to hit whit orb. hopefully i get better.
Armor reduces damage from ALL sources, as do resists (thanks to physical resist). On end-game gear, armor is a great stat to have on every piece of gear if you can attain it without sacrificing int/vit, or if your resists have diminished to the point that some additional armor would mitigate more damage that what the additional resists would.
Yo yo.. Excellent video man.. I'd like to ask what kind of gems do you use in inferno? INT or VIT?
Awesome! Any idea if Dreadnaught is going to be doing one of these for barbarians? I know he has one uploaded now but it would be great for an inferno one.
this is why i watch because he actually looks at his subscribers
You have to turn on elective mode in the options menu... I wish blizz didn't hide it there =P
It would be really awesome (in lower difficulties) to be able to use diamond at the same time with archon :)
im running a similar build in act 3. killin it at the moment bro
All your spell damage is based on your weapon damage. 2h have higher weapon damage than 1h (and it's hard to find off-hands that compensate for that difference). Intelligence and other stats help to multiply that damage, but your base weapon damage is the most important factor.
I've been using a build with force armor (about to make a video about it)... however, it can only absorb up to 100% of your health now (they still haven't updated the tooltip)... so you still want a lot of defense (glass cannon will get you killed come Act 2)
Great Video!, going to try out some of you suggestions for my wiz (45). Have a friend playing a WD, do you know of a similar video that covers gear/skills/leveling for that class?
That sounds like it could work really well around that level. You're prolly gonna wanna lose glass cannon before going to Hell difficulty, however.
man I love the reversal rune to my teleport, I started using reversal, and I cannot remove teleport anymore :( it is AWESOME
I am currently using a wizard with a legendary dagger called wizardspike. I buff as much attack speed as possible, so daggers are the best choice for me as they have the highest base weapon attack speed. There are wands on the AH with as much as 1100 DPS but the price is unfeasable at the moment. If you want to do a lot of criticals buff attack speed as well as crit. chance and damage. If you go for life steal you want to focus on AOE and high damage to hit as many mobs as possible with each att
Thank you very much for this guide. I would like to ask for some suggestions for multiplayer, however. Currently I'm leveling up and playing with my friend's Barbarian. I was keeping an array of defensive cooldowns to help him out but was finding my damage was falling behind. He uses the ability that pulls creatures in to him so I was using Force Wave, Frost Nova, Slow Time. It's difficult to balance damage vs utility/defense and I wonder what you might suggest for this.
Diamond skin is a really good skill until you get to inferno... when suddenly 21k damage isn't that much anymore. I use teleport now, and mirror image on act 3 and 4 (with the illusionist passive)
Going back to what archon said, as you get to level 60 i tended to look for anything that had resistance. right now on my xbox console my mage one point at the most had 700-800 resistance where everything was reduced by 77% percent. Then I fell in the loop of trying to do more damage. now im only at 68% reduction. I can't find the combo i had.
Wow, thanks for the info, and yea i know what you mean orbs might help out but, i always thought if its not in the wizard class it doesnt contribute to me...
same here man,i use the same build and it's awsome
Welll after the patch, what items should i aim for ?? i heard attack speed is nerfed? what to buy now? High int items ?
I'm not sure how far you've been in Inferno yet, but in Act 3 or 4, if you have no resistances or extra armor and only 20k health, energy armor isn't going to do anything. If you get hit, you're dead. You can't avoid all damage, and eventually you need to get enough armor and resistances to take 1 or 2 hits.
Hi, I used 1 hand-weapon and ass of hand I use those spheres that give you +X-Y damage, as well as intelligence. You suggest 2H build for wizard?
Ya, I don't anticipate taking teleport off my build any time soon... it's pretty awesome
I like using the arcane mines and just having them follow my trail of mines. ^^
What is the best single-target rotation with your High-DPS bild. Disentegrate worse than ray of frost
As a wizard in nightmare mode, would you recommend a weapon that is a 2H that has more int/weapon damage or a 1h/off hand?
go to options-->gameplay, and check the "elective mode" option
Ya, ray of frost seems to be the best single target damage ability... if that's what you were asking...
I think kiting is just AWESOME and fun, I play with friends alot , and just running around with 6 blues behind me is just fuckin hilarious xD after some time you get into a kind of route, I have been running around with 6 blues for like 10 mins sometimes, my friends always die when I come with the pack, lol. Just something making Diablo 3 more fun ! xD (hell)
Very good video btw ! :)
I like more offensive so i have: Meteor,blizzard,magic weapon,magic missile,frost nova and disintegrate and passive skills:glass cannon and prodigy and i am lvl 27 and dps 380 and armor 700 and health around 700.I know it is pretty offensive but i use it on team so got any tips on what to chance on harder modes and do this work later in the game with team? And sorry for bad english.
Thanks, Dragon!
Thanks Man! ... who eats pants... We have some awesome subscribers, and are really excited about the future of Inferno Friday =)
what is the best 1 handed wizard wep? should i just go for a good damage rare?
I mean that your High-DPS build has not any good single target ability and i need to switch disintegrage with ray of frost on any boss. Is it right?
diamond skin when you actually build the wizard with a lot of resists is awesome
This build is amazing, omg so OP
As a very experienced wizard who beat inferno months ago i can tell you guys that there are many good builds. This game is uniqe in that you rarly see identical builds among players. That being said there are skills you just cant do without, the most important being energy armor with the force armor rune. This is a must for any build. And combining diamond skin with teleport is NOT a waste, not even close. Also, venom hydra is extremly powerfull. Msg me if you desperatly need tips ^_^
ermm sorry if this is a stupid question but im not understanding how you have 2 conjuration skills.. i thought you can only have one of each time like conjuration master primary etc etc
How do you know when something is priced good in the auction house?
use the force armor rune on energy armor and keep glass cannon
How do you have saved skill sets like that, is it an addon? I don't have that button there that you do.
hey i have one that seems to work really good for act 1 wardener and butcher farm run.
teleport, magic weapon, diamond skin, illusionist. hydra and that orb attack.
it works good with me. try it.
Which are the best stats for a Blizzard Hydra Wizard?
I just made an awsome build atleasst for how I play...mirror image/diamond skin/magic weapon/energy armor/arcane missle/disinigrate.....blur/temporal rift/i forgot the name but the armor passive buff
My 1 hand weapon has 702 dps with 100+intel, 100+vitality, crit dmg and att speed and your 752. What is the best between a 702 dps + and off hand and your 752 2 hands?
i got rings and amulet with each hit adds health. use hydras and they just sit there healing you while you run around and kill with 60k + dmg
lvl 60 act 1 (completed) demon hunter currently working on wizard lvl 30+
Wait so even as a wizard i can use lets say a 2h sword with 25 damage, rather than a wand with lets say 18-20 damage?
Is vitality worth having on my gear? i'm level 54 now and my aim from about level 30ish was to get int gear with good vital bonuses and load myself with as much hp as possible, is this completely unnecessary? should i just be looking for armor gear if i want to live
Nice !!! Thanks
damn which build should i use, i got 13k health... and 50k dmg
How do you put what ever you want in any category???
i prefer instead of magic wapon the pet skill with the first rune it gives you +12 % dmg and shoots everytime you shoot a skill, and hit for 20 % of your dmg
awesome video!
what ever has the best stats/most dps on the wep is what anyone would equip, basically,he does more damage with the stats on the axe.
It's not on the menu screen. He's using the page on Diablo 3's official website that lets you make a build.
how can you use teleport and diamon skin at the same time?
So on console you don't get to just swap abilities to whatever you want you only get certain choices for each spot unless I just haven't figured that out yet so some of these builds won't work
@Alzure100 go to option and check off elective mode
Next you need to make a video on how to make money in the AH. I've never had more then 200k and am sure I'm underselling stuff as there is no FREE guide on how to make AH money.
I have a question to anyone, my diamond skin with crystal shell only absorbs 7902, and give me 15804 instead of 21706.79? sorry if this is a noob question and the answer is because of my gear or something.. it just has me puzzled. cheers for the help
Options menu, click Elective mode. Any skills in any slot!
I'm level 13 wizard, any suggestions on wats the best weapons to use. Thanks.
what abpout blizzard with snowbound?
Same question as Snusproject asked.
my armor is 6000, all res above 900, don't die much in act 1 and 2, but die easily in act 3&4 because my HP is 14k and dps is 31 :(
How the hell do you have 2 Defencive Spells and 2 Mastery Spells.
I'm lvl 27 (I think? :L) and I used to die like so often >.< Now I use an AoE build with Shock Pulse and and pretty high dps, and I sit at around 1.7k health, I just sit there with Disintergrate blasting out until everything dies with my Templar healing me, and if I run out of mana and Diamond Skin+Prism is on CD, I just spam Shock Pulse until everything dies xD Oh the joys of being a Wizard x)
force armour and stack life regen
is diabllo 3 free?