More exp better drops higher monster level for higher affix

i'm asking how MELEE wizards will rise to the top "as they benefit from players8"

why isn't it: wizards will rise to the top "as they benefit from players8"
or: well-geared players will rise to the top "as they benefit from players8"

Well, melee wizards are fast, especially at the top end where they have the survivability of a melee wizard and the dps that top-end gear brings. 24MS + a teleport/wormhole that is almost permanently available gives melee wizards a lot of speed. Having monster levels helps in these ways:

- The biggest reason for melee wizards lagging behind archon is the windup -- freeze, twister, EB -- half the time I spend on elite battles is on this portion. Short fuse solves the EB windup, but replaces it with poorer sustained damage and cancels ET/FN casts. These couple of seconds simply means Archon kills faster than a melee wizard, even if the melee wizard has higher sustained damage with storm armour, high IAS/ET casts and an EB chain. Higher monster levels lessens the percentage of each elite fight that is spent on the windup, and allows the melee wizard to exercise its sustained dps output while maintaining a perma-freeze lock.
- WW barbs got hit badly save the very top end gear, and the same applies for Archon. High monster HP means that Archon isn't sustainable, and tornadoes don't pack the dps to kill monsters with vastly increased HP to the extent that the barb can constantly exercise its superior MS over the wizard. The more time spent in fights and not traversing open areas while tele is on cd, the more the melee wizard benefits.
- EB chains currently one-shot most white mobs. That means that imperfectly timed EB triggers result in a tele/wormhole chain broken as EB has a low coefficient for APoC/CM. Increased monster health means the monster will survive a mistimed EB chain and allow ET procs to reset teleport cds and for AP to be regained.
- FN reduces variance, which is important in longer fights where a bunch of synchronised Occultist fireballs can spell death for Archon. Melee wizards have much less of an issue with this, especially with the CC buffs.

It's a combination of longer fights allowing the melee wizard's advantages to shine through CC and EB chains and Archon/WW barbs being nerfed by monster hp increasing and actual nerfs to tornado proc rates.

what does having 24ms have to do with anything? can't an archon just equip lacuni's or inna's temp?

as an archon wiz, i wormhole to a cluster of mobs, Arcane Destruction, and pick up any stragglers that're within my Disintegrate's range. then i right click archon off my Buff bar, and repeat.
once i find a cluster, i drop a few energy twisters, and voila, i Arcane Destruction them again.

rinse and repeat.

~

i see your point about sustained DPS. i wonder if elite packs will take longer than 15 seconds to kill with archon.

i'd retract my statement about perma-freeze. won't FN have DR now? i know it'll be fine for packs with less HP, but i guess we'll have to see how much HP the max level mobs will have.

currently, one right click with archon will one-shot most white mobs. and i can do this at a range. i wonder how much time is spent walking/teleporting to the next cluster to EB them.

yikes @ occultist fireballs. i always try to dodge them. but i see your point about melee wizards having less trouble with this, as they have more EHP with DS & FN. however, since i haven't used a CM-EB build in over a month, how well do you fare when they start running? are your proc coefficients sufficient enough to have sustained dps vs one mob?

This post was edited by GetFrozty on Sep 21 2012 08:30am

Bloop bloop

Slow time archon is what I might start

Was good before better now especially with missile ward

That was a general statement to say that melee wizards have mobility when specced, not that it is specific to them.

It really depends on how much mobs are buffed at the highest level. The more their hp goes up, the worse it is for Archon wizards who actually want to stay in Archon.

The CC changes are actually a buff until the elite resistances cap at 65%, which they already are at right now. White mobs are completely irrelevant to the discussion, and even if they were, shocking aspect + stormchaser = a huge number of procs, more than enough to perma-stun elites now. That is definitely going to be enough to perma-stun any mobs post 1.05.

That point you raise about range is exactly another reason why Archon kills faster right now. Even as a geared melee wizard, I'd have no problems admitting that. Note that one-shotting white mobs isn't likely at max levels, and any ratio of travel time:fight time is going to be weighted towards the latter even more, which really benefits the melee wizard by eroding the advantages of an Archon build over melee.

For melee wizards using prismatic, they'd have trouble. I did when I was on prismatic as well -- kiters gave issues not from insufficient SC procs, but because SC isn't reliable against kiters and EB is terrible unless there is a lock. Shocking aspect solves all those issues by giving a lot more procs and dps on twisters.

yep. I wonder if it'll just be a flat multiplier for HP, as it is now. which they're also reducing to 70%.

okay, i'll reread the blogpost about CC & DR. i wasn't aware that shocking aspect had a proc coefficient. what is it? (if you know offhand. otherwise, i'll just google it).

how much apoc do you currently have? i may have to replace my vit chantodo's for once with apoc, for impending changes. i normally have no issues with getting archon back up, because i have a utility wand that i swap to between archon uptimes.

yes, that's what i meant. sc isn't effective against kiters (read: CM will not trigger on kiters)

tl;dr without the filler:
1) how much apoc do you think is necessary for maximum CC, ET(SC), and EB?
2) what's the proc coefficient for shocking aspect?
3) how much EHP unbuffed do you have? (a relink to your diabloprogress will suffice)

i currently sit at 174k/335k (dps/ehp) unbuffed. i wonder which category will need improvement first, for the impending patch

Sorry I was a bit confusing with SA. SA itself has no LOH/CM procs. What I was talking about was the dps aspect of SA, which is procced by SC. Sorry for the confusion. In any case, as long as you have a 45+% crit c and good APS, perma-freeze is never an issue.

1) You would want at least 18, but any SA build needs 2+ APS minimum. Crit C and IAS are more important than crit d.
3) 570ish K. SA burns through mobs, but you take a lot of damage along the way. I can increase dps further by changing crystal shell for shards, but that lowers survivability a lot. Try SA with the vanilla melee setup first. It works very well, but still doesn't beat Archon right now.

bolded: naw, you need apoc.
18? i have 0 atm. have you tried with less than 18? how much of a difference would, let's say, 10 make?

are you ever in danger with 570? i'm still deciding whether i should get a Blackthorne's Jousting with 250+ vit and 70 ar, or a regular 150+int, 250+vit, 70+ AR pants with 2 OS.

can i get a link to some of u guys profiles who have GG chars? I'm at like 117k dps and 4000 armor/500allresis unbuffed, j/w what gear i have to upgrade.