[Wizard] Basic stating for wizards starting inferno

[TehVoyager]

Hey. My Wizard just recently started act 1 inferno. I was getting rolled hard by anything that moved. I wanted to know WHY.

So, after a pot of coffee, and some searching of the official forums, I found some decent information regarding wizards for inferno.


First off, your first couple stat priorities are as follows:

Int>+resist all>+%life=+vit>X. X being your preference of Attack speed, Crit hit / damage, and other stats.

You want to end up with between 20k and 30k health. Preferably closer to 30K.
You want at least 350 resists. Higher without sacrificing DPS is better.
The stating you take after that is based more on your chosen build and play style than anything else.

When looking for gear, I did the following:

Armor by type. Look for Int+80, +resist all then whatever type of beneficial third stat I wanted for that gear. Put in a ridiculously high buyout, minimum level cap of 59.

Sort by buyout, lowest first.

For the following item types:

Helm: get a helm with a socket. You can put an Amethyst in there and get +%life from it.

Gloves, rings, amulet: you'll probably want to get +int +attack speed (rings, ammy, gloves) or +int +x-y damage (rings and ammys). I still can’t find what to use when looking for +x-y damage, as an option for it doesn’t appear to exist.

Boots: 12% movement speed. Period. Get 12% ims or don’t buy boots. The movement speed it great.

Offhand: I personally chose a shield. It’s a bit of a damage loss, but a survivability gain. If you are really good with kiting you can go with an orb/source offhand.

Weapon: strip all modifiers. Go with pure DPS first, as its cheaper. If you get a weapon with no stats other than +x-y damage, +%damage but has 700DPS, it’s going to be a better upgrade than a weapon with 400 DPS and 75 int. try to get attack speed.

Good other stats (above the stating listed above) are +health from globes, +crit hit / crit damage, +globe pickup range, +life (from hit, from kill, steal).


The build I’m using at the moment is Wizard - Game Guide - Diablo III

I have about 21k hp, 440 resists with prismatic armor up, 21k dps, and my rings, ammy and weapon all have +14% IAS on them (~56% IAS. idk if there’s a cap on it.) my weapons DPS is about 640dps.


If you have additional information to contribute or want to contradict something I’ve said, feel free. I love a good discussion.

[Aikeelu]

Hey! I agree with you in some facts but there's other points that I dont like

First at all, the most important stat on a wizard isnt int, its Movement Speed! With 23~25% ( 25 is the cap ) and a decent attack speed you can kite almost everything. For this I suggest you to get Boj Anglers ( boots ), Unity ( ring ) and Lacuni Prowlers ( bracers ). They 3 have mov speed, IAS and INT

When you have a decent mov speed, then you can focus on your damage which means INT+IAS. You should aim for at least 2+ attacks per second

The offhand, never use a shield! you're losing A LOT of dps to get a poor defense, pick a offhand with 350-400 max damage, int, some vit and if possible Shock Pulse Increased Damage ( This one with Piercing Orb should be your main skill to spam )

I guess 250 resist are enough for Inferno with Force Armor rune, 30-40k HP

Here's my builds and stats, I full cleared Inferno a few days ago with just skipping the damns Soul rippers :P

The base I use for kite
Wizard - Game Guide - Diablo III

Diablo Inferno, I post this build cause its the one that i change the most
Wizard - Game Guide - Diablo III

My stats ( For some fights I lower my dps to increase HP, so the force armor absorv more damage )
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/9418/statswiz.png

I hope it helps and btw sorry for my english! :P

[TehVoyager]

Problem is, alot of people (me included) cant afford Boj Avengers, Unity and Lacuni Prowlers because there all listed in the 7+ Million gold range. hell, i had 1.6 mil before i dropped gold into my gear for inferno. it was the most gold i had had so far in this game. i see items listed for 50 million and all i can think is people buying gold or some crazy crap.

Your info is for wizards well and far into inferno. and in that sense, its valid. once you're farming Inferno you can afford to get into that type of gear, and with 60k dps (im assuming Glass cannon, Force Weapon, Sparkflint for that screenie) you dont have to worry so much about defenses because you can kill most anyhting before it has a chance to hit you.

my info is for a wizard who has JUST cleared hell mode, and is working toward there first clear of act 1 in inferno.

i mean, damn, if you have those three US server and are feeling generous i'll gladly take your advice, but for now i have what i have, and most people starting inferno are more likly to be in my boat than yours. we diddnt have enough time to PL up through inferno with the FA 4.7k build or the critmass builds and farm inferno ponies for retarded amounts of gold. (please understand im not being spiteful with this comment, im just stating fact. most legit players starting inferno are not going to have 75 mil lying around for best in slot items.)

also, i did state farther down in the thread that players should at the very least get 12% IMS boots, so we are in partial agreement there.

[Aikeelu]

I never used the both builds ( FA and critmass ) cause i knew they was going to be nerfed soon so is better practice without them and play legit oh and i finished the staff for the ponies like a hour ago so neither this, just farmed a lot some known places as the goblin on act2 or chests on act4 till the gear was enough to solo

Atm im playing on EU and idk how is the AH on US but, at least here, if you camp well the AH you can find cheap unity/boj/lacunis, i got bojs for 590k, unity 580k and lacuni was the most expensive for 2kk, they're not the best ones but are enough good, its just matter to search everytime you can on the AH. Also bought them all before Justwait ( wizard from Method ) start using them so they wasnt that famous, maybe it matters lol. Anyway of course dont buy that shit for 50M! people is crazy putting items on AH and you can get good ones for less than 1M or spend max 2-3m if they're awesome and it really upgrade your gear

Yay, the screen was buffed but without full dps gear, but you always need to worry about defense, just saying that with 200-250 resist is enough for me :P

The best suggestion to everyone progresing on Inferno is the build:

Use the venom hydra, its a perfect skill, great Aoe, great damage on bosses.
As your main skill, try Shock Pulse ( Piercing Orb ), its awesome, nearly deals as much damage as magic missile on a line, plus you can use the passive Paralyze to stun everything
Teleport Wormhole + Illusionist works amazing, you can scape from anything
Energy armor with force armor rune when you have a decent hp pool is also awesome
Blizzard with 60% slow for kite or Frost Nova with Cold Snap can save you many times

And watch streams guys, you'll learn a lot from watching other people!

PD: Nice signature man! played feral as main for too long and fire kitten was awesome

[sunshoes]

If you have additional information to contribute or want to contradict something I’ve said, feel free. I love a good discussion.

Alright I'll bite.

• Resist is less important as a Wiz/DH, and completely unnecessary in Act 1/2. You're sacrificing a lot of damage and life by having that much resist.
• Any wizard that would need a guide would benefit much more from force armor. Prismatic armor is just silly in act 1/2 anyways, it's no harder than hell Act 1 if you have the right build.
• IMS, IAS, and CSD seem quite understated in that priority list.
• Starting inferno with no Diamond Skin?
• TF build without arcane hydra?
• TF build without celestial orb?
• TF build without split/seeker?
• Attunement in inferno?
• Glass Cannon and no Force Armor?
• A shield will not save you with 21k hp and no Force Armor.
• A 2h can be a great alternative to someone starting inferno with a solid build and force armor because 1) they won't be getting killed in 1 hit if they have even a reasonable amount of hp and 2) 2h as CHEAP compared to comparable 1h, at least in the US.
  

  minimum level cap of 59.

• I wouldn't underestimate 54-58 armor, especially jewelry.

Tbh the build seems to be for a 4-person group that already has another wizard (except without hydra, why?), whereas the itemization is geared towards someone struggling in Act 3 with a DH partner that always outlives them.

[madara99]

I play wizard aswell and i cleared whole inferno but diablo himself. I can agree to sunshoes and aikeelu. I play without any noticeable +resi all ( some basics cant be avoided due to random stats, got around 170-220).
I have 55k dmg and 42k hp, but when I played through inferno those numbers werent that high of course. All I missed was Movement speed, its really important since youre kiting all the time from end act2 to act4. my personal build is

#Magic weap - Force weap
# Diamond skin or teleport - depending on what you feel like.
#energy armor - force armor
# venom hydra (shit is just too insane to not use it)
# piercing orb or magic missile (seeker or charged)
# blizzard (stark blizzard) or arcane orb ( reduced cost).

passive: glass cannon, arcane dynamo (5 stacks then hydra. with enough IAS it stacks very fast) and astral presence or galvanizing ward (3rd is no must have, chose what u like. if you go for teleport, illusionist is the way to go)

You only get trouble, when you have no space to kit e.g. when big elite pack camp dungeon entrance or when very hard elite pack crosses your way (which probably 99% of ppl cannot beat anyway without block tricks or beeing DH).

ps: when I thought about buying Boj Anglers I stumbled upon zunimassas journey (WD set boots). They have about equal stats, but in addition they add 5-6% to poison damage. You think hydra would benefit from that ? If so, I'd go for WD set Boots instead Boj.

[rdw]

You dont need to worry about resists as a wiz, you wont be able to handle the hits on act4 anyway so getting a decent HP + Force Armor and you should be able to handle 3 hits ( not mentioning Crystal Skin )

That should be enough to survive mobs like "horrors" that pop in your back, you MUST play with patience and calm, clear every room and know where and how to kite.

My build:
Wizard - Game Guide - Diablo III

36k hp
66k dps

[TehVoyager]

Two people so far have said that i have Undervalued Improved Movement speed. im guessing they looked at the top where i list the few top survivabilty traits, then started responding. please, read the entirity of my post and you will see this about halfway down:

Boots: 12% movement speed. Period. Get 12% ims or don’t buy boots. The movement speed it great.

As i told Aikeelu, this guide is for people who just completed hell and want to know what they will need for inferno. i understand that hitting the 25% IMS cap is great, but 12% can get you by just fine to start. 25% is not REQUIRED. its a nice benefit above and beyond. i would however call the 12% on the boots, as i said, necessessary.

I never used the both builds ( FA and critmass ) cause i knew they was going to be nerfed soon so is better practice without them and play legit oh and i finished the staff for the ponies like a hour ago so neither this, just farmed a lot some known places as the goblin on act2 or chests on act4 till the gear was enough to solo

Atm im playing on EU and idk how is the AH on US but, at least here, if you camp well the AH you can find cheap unity/boj/lacunis, i got bojs for 590k, unity 580k and lacuni was the most expensive for 2kk, they're not the best ones but are enough good, its just matter to search everytime you can on the AH. Also bought them all before Justwait ( wizard from Method ) start using them so they wasnt that famous, maybe it matters lol. Anyway of course dont buy that shit for 50M! people is crazy putting items on AH and you can get good ones for less than 1M or spend max 2-3m if they're awesome and it really upgrade your gear

Yay, the screen was buffed but without full dps gear, but you always need to worry about defense, just saying that with 200-250 resist is enough for me :P

The best suggestion to everyone progresing on Inferno is the build:

Use the venom hydra, its a perfect skill, great Aoe, great damage on bosses.
As your main skill, try Shock Pulse ( Piercing Orb ), its awesome, nearly deals as much damage as magic missile on a line, plus you can use the passive Paralyze to stun everything
Teleport Wormhole + Illusionist works amazing, you can scape from anything
Energy armor with force armor rune when you have a decent hp pool is also awesome
Blizzard with 60% slow for kite or Frost Nova with Cold Snap can save you many times

And watch streams guys, you'll learn a lot from watching other people!

PD: Nice signature man! played feral as main for too long and fire kitten was awesome

I'm glad to hear that you are another one of those people who refused to use the semi-exploitive builds, and wanted to progress legitimatly. good on you

on US i cant find a pair of Boj with int for less than 2-3 mil. besides, i allready have decent 12%ims boots.

Lacuni and Unity are also both expensive or really, REALLY crappy. and im not going to trade off decent statted gear for bad gear simply to get another ~14% IMS.

i understand the value of Venom hydra for some bosses (Belial) but others just move around too damn much. i find myself kiting around a LOT more using a Blizzydra build.

i dont like piercing orb. the occilation makes it annoying to aim, expecially on the go. if i were to use a skill other than my Attuned Magic missle, it would be Electrocute with chain lightning, or with Living Lightning. and my MM and Arcane orb both have the ability to slow mobs from Temporal Flux.

regarding illusionist, i havnt found a need for it yet to be honest. i just dont get hit enough by elites for it to matter. i alternate between frost nova and teleport to get me out of any situation thats actuailly damgerous. the only packs i have problems with are Fast on naturally fast creatures, Mortar, and Invunrable minions. most other combonations i do pretty well against.

As for my sig, my main IS a feral, but i spend most of my time in bear, tanking with my face.

Alright I'll bite.

• Resist is less important as a Wiz/DH, and completely unnecessary in Act 1/2. You're sacrificing a lot of damage and life by having that much resist.
• Any wizard that would need a guide would benefit much more from force armor. Prismatic armor is just silly in act 1/2 anyways, it's no harder than hell Act 1 if you have the right build.
• IMS, IAS, and CSD seem quite understated in that priority list.
• Starting inferno with no Diamond Skin?
• TF build without arcane hydra?
• TF build without celestial orb?
• TF build without split/seeker?
• Attunement in inferno?
• Glass Cannon and no Force Armor?
• A shield will not save you with 21k hp and no Force Armor.
• A 2h can be a great alternative to someone starting inferno with a solid build and force armor because 1) they won't be getting killed in 1 hit if they have even a reasonable amount of hp and 2) 2h as CHEAP compared to comparable 1h, at least in the US.
• I wouldn't underestimate 54-58 armor, especially jewelry.

Tbh the build seems to be for a 4-person group that already has another wizard (except without hydra, why?), whereas the itemization is geared towards someone struggling in Act 3 with a DH partner that always outlives them.

• i found resists to help alot, even in act 1. prior to getting myself set up as described in the op, i was getting rolled hard by elites and rares. now i roll them.
• Personal prefrence.
• CSD? i probably know what you mean, but i dont know the acronym for it.
• Diamond skin is build related, and builds are entirely personal prefrence. i've now cleared act 1 inferno with no Diamond skin. had no trouble with any boss except the butcher, and my issue with him wasnt taking too much damage, it was running into his enrage timer.
• Temp flux procs perfectly well off MM and AO.
• I happen to like Tap the Source. spamming orbs can be quite beneficial when rushed by a large amount of mobs (the little spiders in the cave for example.
• MM with attunement lets me regen AP faster, to spam more orbs. again, personal prefrence.
• yes attumment in inferno. again, personal prefrence.seriously do you have something to talk about other than the build? the topic of the thread is STATING not BUILDS. good god.
• Yes Glass Cannon with no Force armor. Prismatic makes up the resists loss nicely. again, personal prefrence.seriously do you have something to talk about other than the build? the topic of the thread is STATING not BUILDS. good god.
• Lay off the force armor. again, personal prefrence.seriously do you have something to talk about other than the build? the topic of the thread is STATING not BUILDS. good god.
• This i actuailly agree with. i picked up a 1100DPS 2h axe with +20% IAS for around 34,000 (yeah, wasnt turning that down. damn.) and using it is nice. i still get 1.8 APS with it.
• Armor isnt a bad stat, but compared to +all resists, +life, +vit, +int, +ias, +ims, +crit hit/damage, +damage (%, min or max, x-y damage) its not somehting im going to look for.

A lot of your discussion seems based on my build as apposed to the stating. and so you know, i've now killed all of Act 1 inferno with this build, and had 5 stack of nef the whole time. i only had to skip 2 packs (and a third that got pulled while trying to kite a troublesome horde/jailor/invuln minion/mortar pack out of the way so i could continue to the end of the dungeon. they would have been an easy blue pack to kill.)

i've excluded hydra as it doesnt fit well with the style of kiting i use. i find a wall/building/vegegation patch and kite mobs around it. i find most of the time the mobs are out of the hydra's range or out of the poision puddles before much damage can be dropped on the mob.

and the itemization works for a beginner in inferno who's looking to clear act1 with nef valor for loot to continue into act 2. it works, thats the big thing here for me.

i'll try to record some videos tonight fraps and D3 on my older machine seems to stutter my game a bit. perhaps i'll turn the quality down on the video and game and see if i can get it working, and put Diablo 3 to high priority in the task manager to see if i can get a good solid record of my skele king and butcher kills. i'll do a video of my kite style too.

You dont need to worry about resists as a wiz, you wont be able to handle the hits on act4 anyway so getting a decent HP + Force Armor and you should be able to handle 3 hits ( not mentioning Crystal Skin )

That should be enough to survive mobs like "horrors" that pop in your back, you MUST play with patience and calm, clear every room and know where and how to kite.

My build:
Wizard - Game Guide - Diablo III

36k hp
66k dps

thank you for the input. again, this post isnt about established inferno wizards doing act 3 and 4. its about wizards who have just started act 1 of inferno and are learning the difficulty, and the build and stating works. i've proven it by doing act1 with the stating and build. but again, more information for wizards mid to late inferno is good.

[sunshoes]

• i found resists to help alot, even in act 1. prior to getting myself set up as described in the op, i was getting rolled hard by elites and rares. now i roll them.
• Personal prefrence.
• CSD? i probably know what you mean, but i dont know the acronym for it.
• Diamond skin is build related, and builds are entirely personal prefrence. i've now cleared act 1 inferno with no Diamond skin. had no trouble with any boss except the butcher, and my issue with him wasnt taking too much damage, it was running into his enrage timer.
• Temp flux procs perfectly well off MM and AO.
• I happen to like Tap the Source. spamming orbs can be quite beneficial when rushed by a large amount of mobs (the little spiders in the cave for example.
• MM with attunement lets me regen AP faster, to spam more orbs. again, personal prefrence.
• yes attumment in inferno. again, personal prefrence.seriously do you have something to talk about other than the build? the topic of the thread is STATING not BUILDS. good god.
• Yes Glass Cannon with no Force armor. Prismatic makes up the resists loss nicely. again, personal prefrence.seriously do you have something to talk about other than the build? the topic of the thread is STATING not BUILDS. good god.
• Lay off the force armor. again, personal prefrence.seriously do you have something to talk about other than the build? the topic of the thread is STATING not BUILDS. good god.
• This i actuailly agree with. i picked up a 1100DPS 2h axe with +20% IAS for around 34,000 (yeah, wasnt turning that down. damn.) and using it is nice. i still get 1.8 APS with it.
• Armor isnt a bad stat, but compared to +all resists, +life, +vit, +int, +ias, +ims, +crit hit/damage, +damage (%, min or max, x-y damage) its not somehting im going to look for.

• But +life/vit with force armor allows for all those +resist to go to damage. Of course it helps (stacking dex [dodge] helps a lot too) but it's wasted itemization.
• Again resists are a waste.
• Critical Strike Damage.
• But by the same logic you don't need Frost Nova and DS is more versatile.
• Hydra is the most powerful wizard ability, and AH with TF is an AoE slow that doesn't require you to cast while moving nor stop for MM/AO.
• Normal enemies shouldn't determine your build, elite packs should. Regardless CO will let you hit many more targets for a greater benefit from TF and increased overall damage.
• Unless you are using a blizzard build against slow enemies you aren't standing still against packs in inferno regardless.
• *
• To be blunt it doesn't matter what your stats are if your build sucks. *
• It's not personal preference it's worse. You could call stacking strength personal preference but it is still wrong. *
• I meant armor as in gear not the stat. 54-58 gear can be rolled to have powerful stats while being a lot cheaper than 60 gear.

* Don't be a child you asked for input and I gave you some. If your build isn't supposed to be part of your thread take it out of your post. Don't get sarcastic because people more knowledgeable than you critique your work. If you don't want help don't ask for it.

[rdw]

thank you for the input. again, this post isnt about established inferno wizards doing act 3 and 4. its about wizards who have just started act 1 of inferno and are learning the difficulty, and the build and stating works. i've proven it by doing act1 with the stating and build. but again, more information for wizards mid to late inferno is good.

I never said its a high end wizzy setup, its a SAFE build to deal easily with high damage mobs (ranged, elites and act4 ) , If you want to spend all your money and time to beat act1 and get steam rolled in other acts before creating a new and decent build you are doing it really well.

Few resists wont help you with some elite packs in act1 and if you dont have the necessary dps you will just die. Like any other act you must know how to kite ( except act2 where theres loads of ranged mobs and the insects ).

Get 12% move speed, decent dps, decent life and laugh @ act 1 and 2.

Just my 2 cents..