Why no Litany of the Undaunted Builds? (patch 2.6.4)

[Knutsanity 15]

For me I find the HoK and its 80% dmg reduction, combined with the Ice blast and its short cooldown extremely effective for defence. I ice blast when they surround me and then they all die before the short freeze is over. With manalds heal instead of HoK in the ring slot of the cube you lose very valuable defence. You'd need those bracers with 11% dmg reduction for each enemy stunned, you'd need to know the paralysis counts as stun, and you'd need to find out it's easy to stun a tonne of enemies when using enough lightning, energy twisters and anything else lightning. Then the 11% per could turn into crazy 200% dmg reduction around mobs of enemies very quickly for all we know and make up for HoK and then some. But against RG's you'd be screwed. The percentage of paraysis doesn't seem good enough for one enemy at a time. The good news is it's easy to get familiar with all the RG's, their attacks, and to use your evading abilities effectively and never get hit when they are the only ones you have to watch at the time. So I think it could work ok. 

But for me, unless Manalds Heal goes really well with twister, all while still getting to channel, then Meteor should be quite a bit better. Again, even or almost as good against giant mobs, and much better against small amount of enemies or RG's. 

https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/wizard-lightning-archon-build-with-manald-heal-and-tal-rasha-vyr-sets-patch-2-6-4-season-16

That's the Manalds heal build for inspiration. The energy armour becomes viable, and is the best one by far for armours, now that you wouldn't be using HoK. If you don't need AP regeneration then it has a good lightning channelling option, if you do, you'd have to find room for the lightning generating skill, which would help a lot for the paralysis I imagine anyway. That last twister rune I bet helps alot with that too. It would be too detrimental to include the star fire weapon. Deathwish and Etched sigil are the reason the meteor builds are the best. You could use what they have there in the build for skills replacing archon with twister, and a lightning rune. The extra manalds heal dmg could make the much closer race than i thought, between meteor and twister, and put it in favour of twister. But that armour with the shield tells me your max life would have to be pretty high for it to work against good high lvl enemies. 

Another option to explore if you really like twister. Though the toughness sounds very suspect. But hey wizards just have that issue man so *filtered* it maybe. I'd find room for electrocute, and use the rune chain lightning where it jumps to 10 enemies. The paralysis passive doesn't care how light the dmg is, and the Manald heal more than makes up for any lack of. The more you hit with any lightning the better. Maybe the 6 skills could be Electrocute, Arcane Torrent, Energy Twister, your favorite armour, teleport and magic weapon. Slow time is nice too for defence if you don't like teleport. I hated those type of fast uncontrollable movements for a while, especially in co op with a friend, the screen doesn't need us separating very far, it constricts our movement when we mess that up. Dangerous. But now I can't live without them getting used to them, and having little control issues with them. So good for defensive re positioning and movement speed. A combo of channelling, twisters and manald heal could be incredible, I want to try it now, aha. just fire a twister or lightning out as much as possible while keeping channelling going otherwise. Or maybe the electrocute isn't needed to get more out of manald heal and is a waste, even better, just channel away with the occasional extra twister put out there besides the free ones, with the occasional electrocute for the twisters lightning charges. Think of LoN dmg X Twister Dmg X channel dmg, in combo with LoN X Manalds X Channel. Can imagine the sight is something to behold. 

 Manald Heal cube instead of HoK

 Ancient Parthan Defenders (In cube of course, since you can now wear aquila cuirass without fire dmg build. Or cube the bonus for twister and wear these) If someone could let us know how these work with paralysis that would be cool. If it's easy to have lots of enemies paralysed a lot of the time It could be great. Or would it stun all targets in the twister storm, so the whole screen of enemies at once, since they are maybe all currently taking lightning dmg? That would render the dmg reduction mute. Given the lack of bonus when they wake up, and no need for it when they are stunned. Worth a test on lower lvls if you wanted to try. 

Paralysis

Arcane Torrent Static Discharge

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Knutsanity

[Knutsanity 15]

LoN Heaven's Fury - one I want to try and have most pieces ancient for. 

Active Skills

Punish  Fury rune, 15% increased crit chance after blocking w/ Hardened senses.    3Heaven's Fury Blessed Ground4Akarat's Champion Prophet   Iron Skin Steel Skin3 1Judgment Debilitate (Or blind, as long as you get the HF bonus) Steed Charge Endurance , though the terrifying holy damage chains one is so fun it should cause self reflection. Either way. This is a movement speed and defensive get out of trouble addition. If less worried about mobility, and more defence, which is fair for this tank style block build, use 1Laws of Justice Decaying Strength   Passive Skills Hold Your GroundFinery Heavenly StrengthHoly CauseIndestructibleRenewal 5 (Hellfire amulet, ancient with one of these passives, good luck) of these 6 sounds good to me, Hold your ground and Heavenly strength are the necessities, on hardcore Indestructible too. Renewal, finery and Holy cause were my last 3 choices, will depend if I want offence, regeneration or toughness or which combination at certain points.  This puts your Block chance at 15% Punish + 30% Hold your Ground + min 10% shield (max 20 unless extra primary roll 30) = 55% need to punish every 5 seconds, easy enough.  Can replace a skill for + 50% block chance for 4 seconds after provoke, huge, maybe replace the block chance helmet you can make in the blacksmith, and block chance roll on Shield. With 11% from helmet and 30% on shield, a constant 85% is fine. Enough is enough, can be balanced many ways, maybe you want a different Passive and generator skill can be changed too, but provokes block chance is only 4 seconds at a time. At 50% cool down reduction that's only 40% of the time. This is not a resource spending build, I believe the Heaven's Fury rune Fires of Heaven that comes shooting out of your shield when you block is free of charge. With that in mind, those are my skill, rune and passive choices, and this is my gear.    Helm: The Helm of Rule (Made in Blacksmith, 11% Block Chance) Socket (cooldown gem), vit, str,  Shoulders:  Pauldrons of the Skeleton King str, toughness Gloves: St. Archew's Gage str, vit, both crits Chest:  Aquila Cuirass str, toughness Belt:  The Witching Hour SO many options, angel hair braid for block chance(My choice if under 85% block chance), use falling sword instead because you are cooler than me and still gain judgement debilitate, create a chaos field, reduce cooldowns, reduce melee dmg. Pants:  Swamp Land Waders with 20% Holy dmg% Boots: Illusory Boots str, toughness Bracers:  Bracer of Fury with 20% holy dmg %, crit chance Amulet:  Hellfire Amulet of Strength with 20% holy dmg %, suitable passive, 100% crit dmg, 10% crit chance, socket.  Ring 1:   The Wailing Host socket, crit chance Ring 2:  Litany of the Undauntedsocket, crit chance Weapon:  Fate of the Fell Ranged dmg, dmg 10%, Str, vit, socket gift crit dmg.  Offhand: Ivory Tower  Block chance of at least 20%, crit chance.  3.2. Legendary Gems Legendary Gem 1:  Bane of the Trapped Legendary Gem 2:  Esoteric Alteration Legendary Gem 3:  Bane of the Stricken 3.3. Kanai's Cube Weapon Slot: Shield of Fury Armor Slot:  Leoric's Crown  Jewelry Slot: Justice Lantern never ideal to not get to wear it I know. miss the extra block chance.  Build is in need of 50% cooldown reduction, which the armour slot in the cube should help supply. I left room on the gear for more. Being in AK Ch is huge for everything, and Iron Skin is huge for defence, debilitate is huge for offence with the bracer stipulation that also goes against the shield block stipulation. In need of close too 50% Crit chance, and 400%+ crit dmg, which I left a bit of room for. My dual wielding monk is at 602% crit dmg, yes I'm proud of myself. Only 37.5% Chance, but I can replace vitality with crit chance on my amulet if I get another one with that option one day.  Over all the Offence looks great with the great Heaven's Fury skill dmg, + 9750% LoN Bonus at max.  Defence looks great with the 52% dmg reduction of LoN, 50% Aquilla, 50ish % from justice lantern. 50% for 7 seconds with Iron Skin, Amazing armour of Ak Ch.  I'm not sure how it compete's with the Akkhans version. But with cooldowns it should come close. CoE and more time in ak Ch shouldn't make up for the 1500% to 9750% dmg difference. The 20%dmg pants should help too. Defensively over all cooldowns for Iron Skin and all the skills should help make it almost even, but worse. How do you guys find the need to get hit for the free fires of heaven, combined with the need for immobilising and blind? Imagine it's just a less powerful bonus blocking Heaven's Fury and not something easy to accomplish, getting it to add the control impairing bonus? But also very helpful for the shield of fury bonus stacking? Thoughts? I'm a bit of a ways away from this build, ancient wise a few pieces, so could be soon, could be forever.  but it looks good to me on paper. I tried it briefly a while back but it wasn't near optimised and the LoN wasn't buffed so it paled in comparison to my thorns invoker. So I didn't even end up learning the play style and got scared away after almost dying. Silly to ask maybe, but I don't play by myself so time for tests is limited, it's all about carnage. I'll do it either way in time.  Edit** Tried out an initial build. Nowhere near optimised. A few less important items missing. But all ancients except 1. No Caldessans, 1k Paragon. But yeah not great. Need more defence, and it's hard to kill off small amounts of enemies. Dirty scragglers. Massive potential damage though, really fun skill and build. I'll probably enjoy working on it and see how it works going forward. But it's miles behind my thorns build for now. It's not the build for the almost never that I play solo though, I learned.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Knutsanity

[Knutsanity 15]

My mistake on the helmets, Andariel's Visage rolls with 15-20% dmg types as well. Doesn't say it does, but it does. I had 2 already and had never noticed. Had a physical and an arcane. Found a fire one after putting together my LoN Meteor wizard. Neat can get a tonne of dmg type % on these LoN builds. Helmet, bracers, amulet, pants, gloves if cold or fire, chest if fire, and lots of weapons that won't be as good as the ones with legendary abilities for the most part. But for fire I can do 120% one day, 58% for now. 

https://us.diablo3.com/en/item/andariels-visage-Unique_Helm_003_p2

It's an amazing build. My best yet of all 7 classes. Not even near fully optimised yet, missing 2 ancients, and another 1 that needs to change, all of them can get much higher and more fitting rolls too. Except my primal Magefist, which I'd like crit dmg instead of resist all, but I can always just not worry about resistances otherwise now, as I slowly get better gear. My Hellfire amulet is ancient with the death cheat passive and great rolls too, would just prefer crit chance% over vitality but other than that phenomenal high rolls. Zero Caldessan recipes so far. Got up to GR 94 in a hurry in a co op GR. It's a breeze. Way more dmg than my previous best, thorns crusader. The defence was much better than expected too. With no Caldessan's and just reaching 1K Paragon today I'm thrilled with the build. 

My Vitality is much higher than most seem to like it, about 8500, about 1.7 Mil Total life. I didn't need the Astral Presence passive for resources anymore, put on Galvanising Wizard and my shield from it just wouldn't go away until around GR 90. I practically have to try to die to accomplish it. At about 2.2 Billion defence at max, close to 2 Bill without Teaguk going. Very easy build to maintain top offence and defence. I just have to notice if the shield is gone. Then react accordingly, and most of all make sure I stay back and keep the HoK dmg reduction bonus going. My shield doesn't leave at all when I have that. I should stay back anyway, especially with my Zei's Stone of Vengeance on. But I was having fun marvelling at how hard it is to die and tanking it up for no apparent reason most of the day. I'll replace the Zei's with a B o t Stricken anyway as it's getting harder, taking longer to kill and the 25% dmg secondary bonus for bosses. 
Just wanted to implement the changes and clean up the build. 

[Knutsanity 15]

Beautiful easy play style, and tonnes of offence and defence. 

Active Skills
Arcane Torrent Flame Ward- I use Incinerate with fire rune, but doesn't matter, fire is better thoughTeleport Safe Passage, I use the one where you can do 2 in a row for movement speed reasons, but your call1Meteor Meteor Shower2Magic Weapon Ignite- I use force weapon for doubling dmg% to 20%, but your call 3Frost Nova Cold snap- Increase length, decrease cooldown, but your call 4Storm Armor Power of the Storm
Passive Skills
BlurUnwavering WillUnstable Anomaly Illusionist And a fifth for hellfire, Galvanising Wizard. If you don't take dmg for 5 seconds you gain a shield for 60% of your life.  Audacity, because I haven't needed illusionist yet, so I don't think you need both that and Galva Wiz with the others.  Also Hardcore is different, better safe right, but other dmg passives work just fine. I've over done the defence for better safe reasons for now. To max the build maybe chose another dmg one with audacity and just play well to avoid death. But it's a balance. If you can tank you can channel non stop too, so there is that.

3.1. Gear Setup

• Helm: Andariel's Visage - Fire dmg, socket (Life%), Int, Vit
• Shoulders:   Mantle of Channeling 
• Gloves:  Magefist fire dmg, Crit ch
• Chest:  Cindercoat fire dmg
• Belt:  Hergbrash's Binding
• Pants:  Swamp Land Waders fire dmg
• Boots:  Nilfur's Boast Meteor dmg%
• Bracers:  Nemesis Bracers fire dmg
• Amulet:  Hellfire Amulet of Intelligence you have enough fire dmg, and more important things to get. Socket, Int, Crit ch, crit dmg. 
• Ring 1:  Litany of the Undaunted socket
• Ring 2:  The Wailing Host socket
• Weapon:  Deathwish Int, dmg%, dmg range, vit, socket gift(crit dmg)
• Offhand:  Etched Sigil Crit Ch, Meteor dmg %
• As with all builds almost. Crit chance on gloves, amulet and off hand is a must, to take advantage of the higher 10% max. Crit dmg on amulet for the higher 100% max as well. Makes finding the balance with all other needs so much more possible while still having enough crit ch and dmg. 
  
  More than enough room left over to reach 50% crit chance, and over 400% crit dmg. The defence is amazing for a wizard. The 80% dmg reduction of HoK, the 52% dmg reduction of LoN, 50% for Aquila Cuirass, combined with the blur and Galvanising Wizard passives is huge. I suggest higher emphasis on total life if using galvanising Wizard, because you can be a tank. Combined with the frost nova and teleport you are way too safe for a wizard. No need for cooldown or resource reduction. Lots of room for Int, Vit, Life %, Fire dmg, Armour, resist all, Meteor dmg % and crits. Can include AP resource gaining with Magic weapon rune or etched sigil roll, but I haven't needed either yet. 

3.2. Legendary Gems

• Legendary Gem 1:  Bane of the Stricken
• Legendary Gem 2:  Taeguk
• Legendary Gem 3: I'm using   Esoteric Alteration, but I may change too  Bane of the Trapped or  Bane of the Powerful , for different defence, more offence, a mix of both, but probably to elite dmg which is huge for meteor. 

3.3. Kanai's Cube

• Weapon Slot:  The Grand Vizier
• Armor Slot:  Aquila Cuirass
• Jewelry Slot:  Halo of Karini
  
   

Edited February 24, 2019 by Knutsanity

[Valks 2,375]

Damn, I guess I can really eat my words on those 4-man LoN builds. I'm getting Deadset to put up a LoN build for Meteor ASAP!

EDIT: We've got multiple LoN builds in the works and they'll be live soon hopefully!

[Knutsanity 15]

15 hours ago, Blainie said:

Damn, I guess I can really eat my words on those 4-man LoN builds. I'm getting Deadset to put up a LoN build for Meteor ASAP!

EDIT: We've got multiple LoN builds in the works and they'll be live soon hopefully!

Awesome. I'm curious why it's better in particular for 4 man as opposed to 1 or 2. Whether this build or others. If there is a general reason. I can't confirm, but I'd be surprised if this isn't better when equally fully optimised, than the tal rasha or firebird versions as far as meteor goes. Solo, co op or 3 or 4 man. It could just better suit me, my play style or lack thereof, but it seems to equal offence other than the season of G, and much better defence. 

[dojiijii 0]

Hi Aaronsan, great post. I started playing D3 around a month ago, I also use the Legacy of Nightmares set, and my primary character is a wizard with a similar build. I use Disintegrate (because I can't stand the short range or damage delay of Arcane Torrent) with the 15% damage boost rune, and the passive that slows enemies damaged by Arcane, which activates the Bane of the Trapped buff at long range. For my Etched Sigil activated spender, I used to use Blizzard with the freeze rune for crowd control/freezing bosses (I used it even before I discovered Etched Sigil), but after GR level ~70-75 elites just ignore the freeze effect so I switched to Meteor for more damage. I have 13 ancient items (though several pieces don't really have synergy with the build), and have peaked at GR 85 so far. I expect I could get to GR 90 or 95 with better gear, or maybe more with primal ancients.

Build details aside, LoN builds have been my favorite builds to play, due to the freedom they offer. Someone mentioned that the only measure of a build is GR numbers or whether it can farm, etc. I disagree completely; I play the game to have fun, and when I tried using the set builds I felt like I was playing in a straitjacket. I got to GR 100 with a Barbarian Might of the Earth build on the first day I put it together, and though it's more effective than my Wizard build (or the Barbarian LoN Frenzy build I used to collect the set pieces), I just find it repetitive and boring. Ditto the other spammy buff upkeep set builds I've tried. I'm still collecting gear and plan to try all the sets to see if they're fun, but based on what I've seen my hopes are low.

As others have mentioned here, the highest GRs will only be reached by set builds, so for the sake of variety I hope Blizzard buffs LoN, either the damage/defensive perks, or perhaps allowing it to be used with the 2-piece but not 4- or 6- piece bonuses, something like that. LoN builds allow for enormous creativity, and when you discover something that works it's so much more rewarding than using a pre-built "cookie-cutter" set build to reach a high GR. So I hope you keep exploring, and use the freedom of LoN to change things up and see what you can do! If you want to use an aggressive playstyle, LoN allows for it. If you'd prefer a more tactical playstyle, LoN allows for it.

Happy looting!

Edited February 27, 2019 by dojiijii

[Knutsanity 15]

So I'm up to 97 with my meteor. 98 we came up just short in co op. Got 2 caldessan recipe's now. 1050 Paragon. Could likely do 99 or 100 in solo, even higher, but am in danger of dying and need to settle into playing well instead of tanking now. 

I'm trying this Lightning twister build soon I think. There is 3 bracer options, of which 2 can we used. So depending on how well it stuns, the stun bracer is a good option, or if not then the shield potency. It's damage looks way better than the meteor build to me. If it stuns the large groups well, it's toughness is even better for hordes. If not, then it's worse. And much worse for rift guardians, but I'm not so worried about only 1 attacker to look out for at a time, so I'll try it. the 15 % stun of lightning skills, the screen full of lightning I'll be doing, and manalds heal sounds like a fun combo. I may get rid of electrocute for frost nova if I don't need it for extra attempts at stunning and procing manalds heal. The twister and arcane torrent may be enough, even with wasted twister charges from the rune. Lots of arcane options to replace the belt as well, with witching hour or whatever, using an etched sigil roll, magic weapon rune, or astral presence. 

If the stun and manalds heal doesn't work out to great, you could always go back to Halo of Karini for the ring, and storm armour. But if that happens, the meteor build would be better, or a different twister rune/ elemental dmg as well. 

https://www.d3planner.com/867577991

[aaronsan 0]

On 2/24/2019 at 4:27 AM, Blainie said:

Damn, I guess I can really eat my words on those 4-man LoN builds. I'm getting Deadset to put up a LoN build for Meteor ASAP!

EDIT: We've got multiple LoN builds in the works and they'll be live soon hopefully!

You mean I made a difference?  Awesome!  XD

[dojiijii 0]

22 hours ago, aaronsan said:

You mean I made a difference?  Awesome!  XD

Now if Blizzard would  just up the drop rate for Ancients so we can actually put these builds together before the season ends...

[aaronsan 0]

Looks like Crusader Blessed Shield might work well too.  There are 2 flail buffs, one shield buff, and one bracer buff, so that should make the damage soar.  Still trying to assemble all the ancient legendary gear but I'll get there and report back.  Being vague here in the interests of time and getting back to farming.  The freedom of the LoN is really appealing, I think people will really like this.  You aren't restricted to set skills, you are only restricted to the full set of legendary-boosted skills. OK back to work.  Once I have all the blessed shield gear I'll post again.

[CalamityJ 2]

@Knutsanity With the wizard LoN Meteor build, have u tried using Crown of the Primus and swap in Slow Time? Slow time with all the runes active is quite a force and with only a 12 sec cooldown. 

It can really help on the defensive side. 25% more dmg reduction & 15% damage dealt. Slowing incoming projectiles and enemies within the bubble. A good synergy with frost nova with the 5sec stun effect from the point of no return rune: first enemies got the stun and when they get closer, use frost nova. Also a good synergy with bane of the trapped gem for using a control impairing effect on enemies,  

I swapped out Teleport for it, haven't needed it with good positioning. Without teleport and no Illusory boots, i recommend the Kulle-aid potion so you can escape wallers in real need.

The loss of Andariel's visage for fire dmg aint a big loss when putting 15% meteor dmg on the crown.

Optional is using Evocation as a 5th passive to further reduce Frost Nova and Slow time cooldowns.

[Knutsanity 15]

13 hours ago, CalamityJ said:

@Knutsanity With the wizard LoN Meteor build, have u tried using Crown of the Primus and swap in Slow Time? Slow time with all the runes active is quite a force and with only a 12 sec cooldown. 

It can really help on the defensive side. 25% more dmg reduction & 15% damage dealt. Slowing incoming projectiles and enemies within the bubble. A good synergy with frost nova with the 5sec stun effect from the point of no return rune: first enemies got the stun and when they get closer, use frost nova. Also a good synergy with bane of the trapped gem for using a control impairing effect on enemies,  

I swapped out Teleport for it, haven't needed it with good positioning. Without teleport and no Illusory boots, i recommend the Kulle-aid potion so you can escape wallers in real need.

The loss of Andariel's visage for fire dmg aint a big loss when putting 15% meteor dmg on the crown.

Optional is using Evocation as a 5th passive to further reduce Frost Nova and Slow time cooldowns.

Thanks I hadn't considered that no, for a second but dismissed it. I'm not optimised in gear yet, still a dexterity nemesis bracer lol. Non ancient wailing host. And most of my ancients rolled decently appropriate stats but consistently low rolls. So I had a ways to go before tinkering. I also play co op only basically with a buddy, and may also end up switching characters for a bit. We don't have anyone else near as good as my Wizard right now. So it may be forever before I tinker some more. But that sounds like a real solid thought. 
My understanding is that after 60-80% you don't need a tonne more elemental dmg. Or that you should balance the dmgs as best you can. In the sense that 80% fire multiplies my dmg by 1.8. But if instead you had 40% fire and 40% meteor. You would multiply by 1.4, then 1.4 again. Which is closer to 2.0. So Throw in the extra 15% for Slow time dmg and you are really on to something. I have only 58% fire and 29% meteor I think right now. Would probably like more like 60 and 45. But with better gear I could accomplish that and still try the helmet. That's a good plan thank you. 
I Love the teleport for emergency situations. But it's worth a thought. Obviously no teleport frees up another passive. whichever I choose. Likely not evocation. The cooldowns for those 2 are enough to almost keep them going, using the rune for frost nova to increase the length and reduce the cooldown. I would be so much safer over all, all things being equal stats wise between the helmets, I do have an ancient I think in the stash. So 18% fire dmg vs 25% dmg reduction and 15% seperate dmg multiplier that is decently easy to apply where I want it, and 15% meteor. Loads of extra stun, slow, and changes the play style to a close range bane of the trapped style. 

I'm close enough to a tank it looks like I could probably make very good use of that change between the 97 ish I'm at and about 105. Which is awesome. But I bet after that I'll have to find room for teleport again on hardcore. I could think about casting slow time at range for RG's and staying back and safe, but in hordes I'd need the slow time for the dmg reduction. It's a risk if I don't use it well and get caught without teleport, but would help me get higher in levels for now if I do use it well. But I really don't use the build well in general yet. Thanks for the suggestion I'll likely try it out at the expense of either teleport, frost nova or even magic weapon since my wizard has surpassed our others. To at least get a feel for the option and how to take advantage of it. I had thought about it, but to be honest forgot how awesome the runes and the combo of all 5 would be and didn't think about it much. Haven't used the skill in a year, and remember I used to love it. Double checking the runes now I'm kind of eager to try that. 

I was also thinking about the star pact variation again for meteor. I used it earlier with my wizard, with tal rasha. You don't get the extra dmg it looked like to me for the free etched sigil meteors. Because they don't spend the arcane I'd imagine. But that with the incinerate rune that makes enemies take 15% increased dmg from arcane worked well, at the lower levels I was at. Think I didn't even have the 6 pc set. nor the deathwish. But I seem to like to only send 1 extra meteor at a time outside of the etched sigil, so I can make sure to spend most my time channelling to get full dmg out of the free ones and those. I don't even do that often enough. But if I switch to that one, and an arcane build, I can just add the powerful one when I need it, and or when I look like I'll do fine without the Aqila Cuirass buff for a moment. Which my shield is good for. Not that losing it 50% faster is an idea. Plus it seems 5 times better for rift guardians, who I'm also very comfortable losing my aquila cuirass and or shield for. 5 seconds isn't long for most of them when they are the only thing to watch out for. Although I'd then need the magic weapon arcane power gaining rune, or the astral presence passive, or etched sigil crit hits grant arcane roll. Sounds better for me except my awesome primal mage fists ? and the glove and chest can no longer help elementally. 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Knutsanity

[Knutsanity 15]

I even put a nice caldessan on those primal mage fists because I like to jump the gun. Although pretty well all my others look easily beatable so that didn't help. 

Curious what more experienced wizards think of the star pact, especially considering my play style where I don't often drop much extra meteors anyway. Could it be so much better combined with the incinerate 15% arcane dmg rune, than the meteor shower especially for single targets, that it's worth the loss of 2 items capable of elemental dmg (chest and gloves) and the reduced cost of the cindercoat as well? It would even open up a cube spot for me as well. I think I'll hit up the d3 planner. 

[CalamityJ 2]

A small note: you can play  long-range with this kind of Slow Time play: the damage reduction works on enemies within the bubble, you as a player do not have to be in the bubble. You only need to be in it for the increased attack speed, but that is only optional. With long range attacks you should also include Power Hungry as a passive for 30% xtra dmg. 

Passives i use (softcore): Power Hungry, Unwavering will, Galvanising Ward, Blur and Evocation. On hardcore the Evocation will of course be ditched out to include Unstable Anomaly. On softcore Evocation can be left out for Illusionist and switch out Magic weapon for Teleport. There is enough finetuning possible to fit one player's more personal playing style as a wizard, whether on softcore or hardcore.

Audacity is also optional for a more aggresive playstyle close range for lvl 70 speed rifts, to do extra damage close range as well as long range with Power Hungry.

 

 

[Knutsanity 15]

25 minutes ago, CalamityJ said:

A small note: you can play  long-range with this kind of Slow Time play: the damage reduction works on enemies within the bubble, you as a player do not have to be in the bubble. You only need to be in it for the increased attack speed, but that is only optional. With long range attacks you should also include Power Hungry as a passive for 30% xtra dmg. 

Passives i use (softcore): Power Hungry, Unwavering will, Galvanising Ward, Blur and Evocation. On hardcore the Evocation will of course be ditched out to include Unstable Anomaly. On softcore Evocation can be left out for Illusionist and switch out Magic weapon for Teleport. There is enough finetuning possible to fit one player's more personal playing style as a wizard, whether on softcore or hardcore.

Audacity is also optional for a more aggresive playstyle close range for lvl 70 speed rifts, to do extra damage close range as well as long range with Power Hungry.

 

 

Oh yeah, love this build for T 13. Actually this and the twisted sword one are easy peasy for lvl 80 even. Nevermind lvl 60 regular rifts. Got a lightning twisted sword/ static charge/ manalds heal/ gem helmet/ gold find/ boone of the hoarder/  those massacre gold gloves build started. It could use a lot of work and there is no need to do a GR in it but i tried an 80 and breezed through. This LoN is amazing for making just about unlimited speed farm/ gold  and gem find builds. I've never been a big low lvl GR speed farm kind of guy. Like to keep myself on my toes. Do the lvl that takes us about 5-8 minutes to complete if I both want to take it easy and upgrade low lvl leg gems. Like we should be trying GR 98 maybe a bit up from that next session, and when not pushing we'll settle in around 92-94. 
That long range makes sense. If my buddy can tank for me and take 25% less dmg from the RG that would be swell. Plus he'd get more attack speed and the RG would take 15% extra dmg. And you are right, the little tweaks and options for play style that are all fairly equal make this build even better. Between Legendary gems and passives and skill and rune selection you can make yourself quite comfortable and take advantage of your preferred play style. And I do very much appreciate the idea for slow time. Will reacquaint myself with it and go from there. On paper I'd say it looks better. If I like the safety net of teleport that much, it looks better than frost nova anyway. For defence as well as the clear offence. Think I'll start there. 

[Knutsanity 15]

https://www.d3planner.com/364491554
This sounds like it may be my new goal. Can only find room for 40% arcane dmg. But that is fine. Gain leorics crown buff, gain the extra defence while fighting elites from the gloves. I lose the extra 10% dmg from having to use the acrane power rune on magic weapon. I put the stats at 92% which is a bit of a high goal. Can replace bane of the powerful with zei's or trapped depending on close or ranged play style. I might consider not doing that though for the 15% dmg and dmg reduction vs elites. Vs RG's in co op with my buddies tank of a demon hunter I'd be best off with zei's, but otherwise and for most in solo I'm thinking not. If the magic weapon rune isn't enough to regenerate AP quickly I'll stick to fire. 
I'll stick with the fire build for now either way, try out the slow time addition and probably build towards this. 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Knutsanity

[CalamityJ 2]

for playstyle, i personally like the cooldown as low as possible for frost nova & slow time, and to position 2 to 3 time bubbles. In your gear setup for example you can swap out the amethyst in your helm and use a diamond instead to get 25% CDR. Along with Evocation you can get the cooldown down to 4 seconds for frost nova or something close to that, With a base 2 second freeze and base 5 second stun from slow time .... Little can or will touch you with a conservative playstyle. And whatever does comes through has galvanising ward first & lots of dmg reduction.

 

[Knutsanity 15]

Right, wasn't even thinking of the possibility of more than one slow time bubble. Was just thinking of being able to do one at a time, was looking at it like another would make the first disappear and just reset the clock. Like I said, been a while, I can picture it from way back then now. But that sounds great to be able to tackle large hordes, or a RG that escapes the bubble, to be able to lay down more. 
Galvanising wizard makes every bit of life worth 1.6X more essentially. So 1 mil is really 1.6 mil. So Vitality and Life % are huge, or 1.6X bigger. But it's about trying it out and balancing the build as I progress. The more offence and defence available through slow time with all runes, more often, sounds like it could be worth less total life, so I imagine I'll see. Could be plenty of room for more cooldown or damage at the price of total life. In the end I have a death perk and plenty of damage reduction. The death perk goes hand in hand with the 5 second shield re buff as well. So simply paying attention and adjusting for a minute if I use the death perk makes all kinds of offensive changes viable. Again even more explanations of the many ways to tinker with this build how we see fit. 
Playing co op, hardcore, and always being defensive leaning in general has me sort of holding back a bit. That and the DMG output of this build has us capable of a co op GR 98 at least, with a partner who is around GR 86 solo for dmg. So I might as well for now focus on defence while we slowly progress our others to catch up a bit. His demon Hunter has about 4 bil toughness, and can tank for me with 9 pets as well, has the 86 ish lvl offence too. So it's a great combo for me to be safe even with less emphasis on total life, and more on cooldown, slow time and damage. He can tank for me and help a bit with offence, plus his pets help us both, and I can stay back easier and hit still targets with crazy damage. I think I'll change a bit right away and try for GR 100 because it sounds like a cool Milestone. ?
Frost nova is real awesome protection, but slow time will help as well, and teleport can get me out of bad situations, worst case scenario type of scenarios. So I'll keep magic weapon, teleport and put in slow time for frost nova for now. I'll start with one at a time, and consider cooldown instead of life % for the helmet gem once I'm further along and if I switch from fire dmg. I can't switch from fire for now without regressing a lot, and won't have leoric's crown going yet until I do switch anyway, once I do I agree about the switch, the cooldown gem becomes much more effective and worthwhile. 
So you've been using the LoN meteor as well? How's that going for you? Or just helping me out and/or added slow time to a different meteor build?  

[CalamityJ 2]

yes i have one LoN wizard as well since 2 weeks after trying a few other builds for wizards. by accident ending up the same route... still in bad need for an ancient magefist and swamp land waders though with fire %... wearing cindercoat, aquila in cube. it seems best to go with arcane torrent - flame ward instead of disintegrate cause of the xtra dmg reduction. slow time is really huge on higher grift, i swap it out for teleport on lower lvls or normal rifts. i do not have the best gear yet / not much caldessan (3 items with only lvl 70 gem used for it) and +150 int with paragon points till now. Still I can beat lvl 93 grift solo with ease, but from 94 onwards i seem to run out of time speedwise. surviving and killing, but not fast enough. even with nemesis bracers. I might need a higher base dmg deathwish. using witching hour belt for xtra dmg

and i only rolled evocation on an ancient hellfire amu so thats why i am using this passive. it does help out together with diamond in helm, but you might be right on higher vita for galvanising ward. some elites affixes are tough.

the star pact rune did not seem to work properly though tonight, i tried. did not aim well on enemies...

  

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by CalamityJ

[Knutsanity 15]

Cool, I tried the star pact a tiny bit too, seemed to interrupt my channelling (xbox1) more than the meteor shower, which I found odd. Was actually somewhat difficult to start channelling again before it hit with the ones i spent my arcane on. Was a nice thought, but if it interrupts teaguk to long, and doesn't get the channelling bonuses then it's worthless. Looked more powerful of course, good sign considering my gear wasn't switched up. But looked about as powerful as 3 or 4 of the 7 from meteor shower. Maybe better for single enemies but not enough to switch this all up. Hit for me fine, but yeah not switching that up. 
I'll consider flame ward but it's a thing I have for disintegrate. Since day 1. End game wise I suppose it's something I'll have to do though. 
How is witching hour working out. I haven't tested not wearing hergs binding for channelling cost reduction. Would for a decent witching hour or even a great other belt with chaos field blind or melee dmg reduction, can't seem to get one. Do you end up with any need for astral presence, a roll on gear or anything or is the cindercoat all you need to stay at full resource? Because I'm using nothing for generating arcane power. And I was curious how it would go when I finally get a decent belt. 
So I had an ancient Crown of the Primus, and it was quite a bit better rolled than my adr visage. Lucky me. So I of course tested it out. We immediately did a 98 with about a minute to spare. Seemed noticeably better, there was less need for my frost nova, and it was safer and a bit quicker. I didn't bother changing anything else up and we stayed there. But solo I could likely do 100-101, but it's hard to say. This is at paragon 1055 with 2 caldessans (lvl 94 and 95) and probably 8 or 9 ancients that could get much better, and one non ancient wailing host i'll never get an ancient of. However my deathwish and etched sigil legendary ability rolls are almost max. Both could be better otherwise, but because of those I'll be lucky find a better one. My hellfire rolled with unstable anomaly and great stats. Lucky me. This build can make use of 6 or 7 passives. I've used some that would only need 4. On softcore  and in general I would think frost nova is better than teleport. But that 1 time out of 20 that it isn't, I don't want to die on hardcore. So I think it ended up perfect to switch frost nova to slow time. And thanks for the awesome idea. 

We switched it up a bit, I finally got my necro up to 79 with his barb, and that was the last of our 7 each, 1 of each class, to get up past T 13 on hardcore. Only like 5 or so total deaths each, spread out enough to have different builds awaiting at 70. Patting myself and my buddy on the back sorry. Felt like work switching away. But now we'll settle in with our favourites and best, won't be long before I zero in with this build on playing better and incorporating more offence. 100 next time I break her out. Looks like some more paragon and you'll fly up to 100 too. Must be making like 6 paragon a grift now lol. I had flown up to 94 with this build even more poorly finished, but at way higher paragon. once your at an appropriate level for your build the little improvements from caldessans, paragon and better gear make a massive difference. 
 

[Knutsanity 15]

I think swamp land waders might be very rare for other classes, certainly not impossible. But I may end up going for a long while with the Witch doctor at some point to get them. 

[CalamityJ 2]

first  resource management. When wearing Cindercoat (got 27% reduction on my ancient w/ 20% fire dmg) and Power of the Storm rune from Storm armor, i can channel arcane torrent forever and keep aquila up without Astral Presence or anything else. No need for arcane power on crit, only +13 to maximum arcane power from 1 item. With disintegrate, which costs a bit more, you need something extra in resource reduction to keep it up going when using Convergence (to make it fire)... i can channel for about 6 seconds but then aquila bonus is gone. imho there is no need for Hergbrash, its better to use Witching Hour for dmg of String of ears for dmg reduction. To use Disintegrate maybe 1 item with extra resource reduction might do the trick.

I found it easier to maneuver around with Arcane Torrent to reposition myself only lightly and restart channeling without losing Taeguk. With Disintegrate it was harder though it does do more damage. Dunno why, but it seems to be more direct in dealing dmg while statwise arcane torrent in basic is higher... i am no pro player so dunno why). Maybe Disintegrate works better in combo with Teleport, havent tried that yet much on higher lvl's.

Best thing about Slow Time is, with proper placement, the 5 second stun effect. It really helps to keep on channeling and the slight delay for the meteors to drop down. Also to cast everything from a distance from start. I do see  myself using Audacity right now so for enemies who do get close range u got more dmg and use frost nova on them and pummel down meteors close range.

Question that i got: how important is de base dmg of your weapon/Deathwish: do all the multiplyers in the 1000's of percentages add all op from base weapon dmg? does intelligence works the same? 

I do have all items as an ancient since yesterday to gain maximum effect from LoN set.

 

[Knutsanity 15]

Nice thank you. I find moving with teleport and the evade skill on xbox 1(it's a quick little dodge manuever you can easily aim, and I believe it's only on console) means taeguk can stay at full. I think they call it kiting. You stop channelling for the second, and I can just hold the channelling trigger down throughout and it restarts as soon as it can. Which is a second or so, and quick enough you don't miss out on many meteors with full bonuses, and taeguk doesn't reset. I think where i may have ran into issues with my small star pact test was that it didn't restart on it's own as quick, I had to let go of the channelling and re start it. Which is easy and fine but I was in a groove of muscle memory after ages of not worrying about that. 
Good to know about the belt, yeah I've been using the storm armour rune as well I should state, but I didn't think much of that because there is no other useful rune anyway. 
My ancient cindercoat has 18% fire, 27% fire skill resource reduction, it's the only ancient I've gotten since realising I should look out for it and keep it. Maybe my only ever, unless they came so badly rolled I didn't even think to keep one on hand. Certainly hope I didn't salvage them considering how obviously useful they are to any fire build that can fit them. Mine doesn't even have intelligence. Though the many non ancients I've gotten, and this ancient seem to want to come without sockets, which maybe made me salvage them. So not as good as yours. But should help me go with a better more useful belt once I find one if I switch to arcane torrent, thank you very much, I'll do just that. Yeah my disintegrate instantly kills T 13 medium sized enemies. Instantly, some elites before a meteor even comes down. Wild how much LoN effects everything on lower levels. 
Yeah the base weapon damage and the base dmg on off hand, rings and amulets (additive) is the first base for the multipliers. The rings and amulets have better offensive options IMO, but those weapons and offhands are a very important part of the equation. The higher the better for sure. All the skills are talking about those when saying % weapon dmg that they do. The range includes the base range in white at the bottom of the weapon stats, and the range rolled. I've slowly started learning the ranged roll is often the best thing to change. It can be 300 lower than max sometimes, which is often a bigger difference than changing 8% dmg into 10%, or other options. I don't think the total dmg showing at the top of the weapon stats is the modifier, because that includes attack speed%  and dmg % on the weapon and changes with those. Intelligence would be the third part of that equation I think. Think Weapon dmg(random NG from within the range)  x skill muliplication of WeaponDmg X Intelligence. You go after those things hard, and the set and legendary bonuses. The others like elemental dmg % that suits your main skill, the main skill dmg % and the extra passives, leg gems and crits should all be balanced as best you can. 6% extra crit ch matters that much less after a while, and matters more the more crit Dmg you have. So 100% crit dmg on your amulet when at 50% crit ch and 300% crit dmg, makes an extra 12% difference or so( 300- 400 is 25%, 50 % of the time). So your first 15% meteor, or 20% elemental dmg, and your second may be a bigger difference, but not your 3rd or 4th. So balancing between all the multipliers is key. Each passive is a separate modifier, each set bonus, each different dmg %. 

I agree entirely about the slow time and frost nova control effects. Incredible difference, and I'll miss frost nova. But will get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time against the wrong enemies at higher levels eventually without teleport. So It's a matter of slow time with all runes vs frost nova + 20% fire dmg for me. With that helmet slow time is far superior, especially given all the other fire dmg options. Don't get me wrong, you can tank and tank hard, I bet I could tank a couple extra levels with both Slow time and Frost Nova. But by lvl 102 ish I would absolutely need teleport here and there. My max toughness is up to 3.3 Billion right now and I still need it here and there. That's between lvl 95-98 just yesterday. Adding frost nova and dmg reduction from arcane torrent would be a plus, for sure, but not enough eventually. You may find this very soon as well, except once in a while needing teleport is less of an effect on softcore, it may only ruin grifts sometimes for you, and that may be fine. I think for me, with it and the passive resetting its cooldown when I take big enough damage, I can actually add even more offence to my build, and cooldown at the expense of some toughness, and just teleport all over the place any time I need to, and I should survive. Though on hardcore that will mean being careful and backing off, possibly ruining grifts, should I use a death cheat for a minute. But potential will be better. 

I think my plan is to switch to arcane torrent, get a great witching hour, switch my esoteric to a zei's, change one passive to an offensive one, likely the 30+ yards away one, and use the cooldown reduction gem instead life % in the helmet. In that order, as I play more alertly and better, one at a time, to gain incredible over all offensive improvement. Teleport, galvanising wizard, blur and unstable anomaly alone should help me avoid death. So I better shape up to really progress now. Maybe a some what slow process if I'm too careful, but if I can maximise my potential with my corpse lance build, I can certainly figure out this much simpler one and maximise it's potential. 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Knutsanity

[Knutsanity 15]

Here's two more I've worked on lately, what I'd like them to be, I've got decent ones going capable of GR lvl 80 or so right now. But they are further from ideal than my Wizard. 

https://www.d3planner.com/287291365

That's my corpse lance necro plan. LoN

https://www.d3planner.com/576450589

That's my gargantuan WD plan. LoN

Both are looking comparable on paper to it's set competitors as well, and this LoN is a potentially great starting build as well regardless of competition, once you've had enough playing time with a class of the same primary stat. These two were off to much better starts than they would've been after having a bunch of nice ancients in my stash from lots of wizard play. I got them both up to lvl 70 ages ago and played about 5 hours each at most. But when I went back to them after the update I was able to give them a great head start. Another 5 hrs each or so lately and they are not so far behind my others now. Despite little to no set pieces, I've even been salvaging the non ancient set pieces for now til I get closer to a full set I want to try with ancients. 

LoN is clearly great for speed farming as well. Pick your favourite legendary buffed skills, add a broken crown, boone of the hoarder, some money rolls and even goldskin and other money gear that can fit. Some classes have great movement speed options for gear or passives or skills. The LoN set is good enough to fit all that in at Torment 13 and with many legendary buffed skills, can be powerful and safe enough to fly through T 13 uber bosses and puzzle rings and everything else. While taking full advantage of them money and gem wise.