Yes yes Mad1Lee, I know - the entire d2j wiz forum knows that you always recommend the same 2 items to all wiz, regardless of whether or not they are in the top 1% (and many of those wizzes are): mass-vit bt pants and stormcrow helm, maybe because you use them yourself Frankly these are good budget items, especially the stormcrow which I recommend to many wizzes as well. But for end-game, depending on the setup, mempo is often better and I think you will find this to be the general case if you decide to move towards the 300k dps range. There's a saying, 'there's more than one way to skin a cat', which I think may apply here. I guess everybody is just entitled to their own opinion ^^

This post was edited by ElijahBailey on Apr 8 2013 08:44am

I agree about BT pants, I personally hate them and as soon as I get loh somewhere else, I will change them for high int depth diggers.

As for stormcrow, I find it to be better than mempo at all times, simply because 9/6 mempo is just 10k more damage than top stormcrow, but mempo forces you to use apoc source, which will lose about 15k damage to an Int chantodo. Having said that, let's not forget about 4% elites, which is already 12k damage if you have 300k unbuffed. Not to mention the boost from 8% if you ever go to dagger/ apoc triumvirate to break the dps cap chantodo wands limit cm wizards. A thing that mempo simply won't allow even trying, since you need 2 apoc items. Mempo is great life and ehp of course, but let's not forget about stormcrow's loh.

Yup drake22 but it's not just comparing 1 item (stormcrow vs mempo) or even 2 items (stormcrow + int/vit nonapoc source vs mempo and apoc source) but it's actually a multi-way comparison of several items. Because quite unfortunately, stormcrow has no aps (and no socket for %life!). So this involves several other items, with a stormcrow you are trading off on aps elsewhere (with mempo, trading off on getting loh elsewhere), making it difficult to use crafted bracers which can be >>> lacuni's (ofc you can then use inna pants with huge ehp drop and no loh but it's a whole other story).

Anyway, I have a stormcrow with near-perfect rolls and have a stormcrow setup with fairly godly nonapoc source, etc. as well. All I'm missing for it to be better than my mempo setup is....a godly dagger. Unfortunately there's like all of half a dozen daggers available on the US that I would need in order to break the current dps barrier while maintaining breakpoints, ehp etc. and they are all owned and never for sale. So...mempo

This post was edited by ElijahBailey on Apr 8 2013 09:22am

You could also go for double int/6cc lacuni that should surpass crafted bracers, and then get all res somewhere else such as a ring

I hope new patch will open interesting options, but at same time I hope my gear won't get completely devalued

This post was edited by Drake22 on Apr 8 2013 09:26am

Mmm I was just going to say perhaps one way to look at it is sc+nonapoc force+lacuni vs mempo+apoc force+crafted bracers but I realize its not complete since it doesn't cover the loh aspect. Oh wells.
Not sure if double int lacs are better though, pretty sure they lose out in dps to a 300+int roll bracer but it could be close. Crafted bracers can be 330int/200 vit/6cc etc. ofc with possible max ar/armor etc. rolls as well, not including other rolls like str/dex (and lets not forget %dmg reduction for melee, ranged, elite I think as well) for more godly ehp boost which can be huge. Looking forward to next patch, maybe they will let us roll archon helms with the best of both sc/mempo

This post was edited by ElijahBailey on Apr 8 2013 09:33am

just checked on d3up,

180 int 9 ias 6 cc lacuni would give me 16.5k dps
330 int 6 cc rare bracers would be +13.6k

of course possible ehp is another story

also by going mempo/rare bracers, i guess you take inna pants for 24 ms? So all the nice ehp from helm and bracers gets crippled there.

This post was edited by Drake22 on Apr 8 2013 09:35am

I checked d3up as well, you're right, 180int lacs edge out crafted bracers by a small bit for me too, ~1-2k dps! But no way I would buy those (ok maybe if they were super cheap)...too glass-cannon, hehe.
In regards to movement speed - well as a wiz running standard SNS, I don't need need 24ms. I'm always just teleporting - some guy once said 'real cmwiz doesn't walk', haha. So I use a decent pair of balanced dps/ehp rare pants instead of inna's.

This post was edited by ElijahBailey on Apr 8 2013 09:41am

I wish I had billions to test all setups. Mempo is a godly piece, don't get me wrong, ehp on it is unrivaled. But in terms of utility/effective dps Storm Crow is far superior, not to mention it's like 30 times cheaper. Does any of you guys use meteor setup? Damn, why are you all on US.

This post was edited by Mad1Lee on Apr 8 2013 09:44am

@Elijah fair enough i just enjoy movement speed in general, shame it's capped, otherwise I'd use inna/lacuni/boots at same time. Probably Tyrael Might as well..

@Mad1Lee im on eu

This post was edited by Drake22 on Apr 8 2013 09:46am

interesting conversation.


the crazy thing about the CM wiz is the build in itself. play style and mechanics is pretty static.

the build requires for so many pieces to accompany another almost perfectly for it to work.

keeping sustain at the required amount and maintaining eHP vs aps vs DPS can be frustrating.

don't make the same mistake as i did and buyout hundreds of millions in gear that end up not benefitting you. have a plan, know what you want to attain with your wizard.

personally, i never wanted to settle for running storm crow (as viable as it is) due to the lack of mitigation from that piece alone. it forced me to have to spend an uncomfortable amount on all my other pieces but in the end i'm happy with what i've got and it WORKS, that's what's most important. i had always thought in the end-game that inna's pants were the way to go, but without enough Loh on other pieces you really can't make it work. unless you're one of those 350k+ unbuffed damage CMs blood magic alone will not help.

not sure where i'm going with this but you guys are definitely on the right track with your thought process. use online calculators as much as you can, and find guys that have seen the ropes during their CM journeys and let them share experiences (me). my budget was high so i was able to bite the bullet for many and test out a ridiculous amount of builds. if it's within the realm of CM, you name it, i've probably tried it.



GL HF and hurry up and build a gg CM so i can pwn ubers with you using my monk