I’m so pleased with this wizard that I had to share a little. This is a lightning build, and it is very, very powerful.
Diablo 3 has traditionally not been very good to the wizard’s lightning abilities. The signature skills are more novel than useful, and the spenders have been woefully lacking in power. Come to think of it, Blizzard has ignored two elemental build possibilities if you include cold. It’s true that Archon is an arcane element, and they do offer the Vyr’s set for that focus. They also provide Firebird if you want to go all fire all the time. But lightning has been their real stepchild.
Enter the amazing legendary ring called Manald Heal. As you can see, the perk works with the wizard’s Paralysis passive and has a 15% chance to proc as much as 14,000 percent weapon damage. That . . . is . . . huge.
Let’s take a moment to examine how the build works.
https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/simmery-1600/hero/75622413
As you can see, Paralysis is chosen as one of the passives. The Manald Heal ring has been cubed so I can use the amazing properties of the Legacy of Nightmares ring set. Notice the perk: as long as LoN is your only set bonus, every ancient item you have confers 100% additional damage. That, folks, is a lot of hurt.
I have tried to raise my attack speed as much as possible. The synergy offered by the Shame of Delsere belt and the Gogok of Swiftness legendary gem is off the chain. I need this to increase the chance of that 15% proc, and it works. Arcane Torrent is also a fast skill (aided by the shoulders), and the hydras spit out lighting quite rapidly (two of them, thanks to the cubed Serpent’s Sparker). The Myken’s Ball of Hate source does its job nicely. There’s hardly ever a time when enemies aren’t paralyzed and taking immense doses of lightning damage.
For survivability, you can’t go wrong with the Aquila Cuirass, as long as you can keep your Arcane Power over 92%. This is helped along by the cubed belt. Also, since I can’t use Teleport, I have to rely on the extra health I get from the amethyst in Leoric’s Crown, but mainly I’m counting on the Deflection rune of Magic Weapon working in concert with the Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer. I’m pretty happy with the result. In fact, everything in this build contributes meaningfully to my protection and the humiliating zappery of monsters. (I’m still looking for an ancient pair of Tasker and Theo gloves – https://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/tasker-and-theo.)
If you feel inclined to bow down, I’ll understand.
Where’s the lightning wizard? Is he behind gender bent witch hat Elvis?
You have no understanding of fashion. That hat is the shiz. In fact, that whole outfit is the apotheosis of show-stopping glamor. If Madonna were still a thing, this is what she would wear to sell out a stadium in Tokyo or São Paulo.
The white signifies the purity of the wizard’s raison d’être: bringing death to the unclean, the mutant, the misappropriation of nature. As you know, in some Asian cultures white is associated with death. It also stands out against dark backgrounds. The wizard wants to be seen. She advertises her presence to armies of vile, misshapen aberrations, daring them to hurl themselves at her. All their rage comes to nothing, for, like waves of darkness, they crash headlong against the fierce White Rock, the intractable presence of Death.
Okay, I just liked the white.
I may go for more of an Elvis look. I think there are shoulders or chest pieces that sort of resemble upturned collars. I won’t be able to do bell bottoms. Not that I’d want to. If Elvis were alive, believe me: he would be wearing Wicked Witch boots with buckles on them.
For instruction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj8mHwvFxMc
LOL @ “Elvis would be wearing wicked witch belts with buckles on them.” 🙂
Also, Madonna thinks she’s still a thing.
This just in: it appears that Blizzard has nerfed the effectiveness of Paralysis + channeled skills (e.g., Arcane Torrent) by 25%. There’s also speculation that the signature skill Electrocute has also been nerfed. Apparently, this is to offset the increase in power of Hydras in the upcoming 2.5.0 patch. I don’t think this will affect me too much, since I have low paragon and only do Greater Rifts in the 50ish range. However, it threatens to knock the lightning/Archon wizard out of the top leaderboard spot. Advanced players believe that it will mean the difference between completing GR 104 and GR 102.
I can’t even . . .
Why would anyone want to do Greater Rifts in the 100 range? Monsters have so much health that you can only dent them when you herd them into huge “corrals” (difficult to do solo — you need support characters like barbarians for this). Plus, you don’t dare get hit, as every attack is a potential one-shot.
This level of play is incomprehensible to me. It’s so slow and dangerous I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do it apart from seeing their names at the top of a list.
Plus, to get to this level, you have to use Archon as part of your build. In case you don’t know, Archon is probably the worst uber skill in the game.
https://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/wizard/active/archon
(Sorry about any age gate you may encounter.)
The perks of Archon are undeniably powerful, but as with most uber skills, there’s a tremendous cooldown. You can get around this in various ways, but you’re still at great risk while waiting for Archon availability. You also have to worry about stack counts and lots of fiddly synergy with hard-to-find items. It’s so much trouble that I don’t bother with it.
So the takeaway is that Diablo 3 actually has two endgames. One is getting to the point where you can do Greater Rift 70 (especially if you’re a Seasons character). The other is breaking GR 100.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never see the second endgame.