Wizard Blizzard XP Farming Guide

Blizzard XP farming wizard to hit around 115 M XP/hr (Got around 38.5 M in 20 min of continuous play). This build and route will not net you any demonic essences and probably low loot too so if those are your goals this is not the right build.

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Very similar to the normal blizzard build that’s been circulating around but with 1 major change. Frost nova with deep freeze takes the place of spectral blades because we’ll be skipping elites. Frost nova provides some protection for you against tougher mobs and best of all gives you 15% CrC to generate more CM procs and more APoC procs.

As for the passives I ran astral presence since the density of crater 2 isn’t always as good as shown in the video. For the less dense runs the extra AP regen and ability to store more AP after encountering a mob (you tend to overfill you AP on the scorpion swarms) to increase the consistency of the run. If I had max AP on 2 items and more CrC I would probably go for GC (if I had enough EHP) or blur (if I was lacking EHP).

Build in Action

Very similar to normal blizzard except you’ll be skipping elites. Crater 2 runs work best for wizards since KD2 doors and pathing is too annoying.

Here’s a peak 160M run as an example of it in action. It also includes the gear and my AH tab to show you what I paid for it at the end. Note that in that video I forgot to actually equip my scoundrel which is why he died instantly so I actually missed out on another 3% CrC and 12% XP bonus.

There’s a bit of a learning curve to using frost nova properly, but you shouldn’t have too much of an issue keeping the buff up most of the time whenever you actually have mobs to hit.

Gearing

This is where it differs from the standard blizzard build the most.

General Idea: Don’t worry too much about sheet DPS. Get a hard hitting spear or mace. Stack Int, CrC, ChD and %Elemental. Don’t waste money on IAS unless it’s free. Generally speaking EHP will be more of a limiting factor than DPS since we plan on scaling the damage of blizzard up a lot.

I have 53k sheet with scoundrel. Buffed I’m 91k with 1.2 APS which means my weapon dmg is 76k. 9 s Blizzard will deal 765% dmg and is multiplied by 20% for cold blooded and 29% from frostburns. The total damage from blizzard is 900k or 1035k to demons over 9 sec. Of course mobs won’t always stand in your blizzard the full 9 sec so to determine your max MP you need to cast it on some blood clan dudes and see if they die or not.

I could actually kill stuff on MP6 but the problem was getting enough EHP to match that! I managed to get to 350k within this budget and dropped down to MP5, but I would actually prefer going a bit more since I have to be extremely attentive with this EHP. If you want to play a bit more comfortably I would suggest maybe spending a bit more and hitting 450k+ EHP.

Here are my following gearing choices:

• Shoulders: I went for EHP rares on this piece, getting All res, High Vit, High life% with a bit of int.
• Gloves: Frostburns. Dirt cheap for what they do. If you’re patient you can find 6/30 ones for ~50k. I ended up getting 5/29 for that price.
• Rings: One is going to be your hellfire ring. The other is probably going to be one that provides CrC, ChD and some All res or armor. CrC because we need more procs, ChD since it’s one of our best damage scalers (with the 15% buffed CrC) and defense because we want EHP.
• Weapon: This piece is pretty important and investing a lot of gold into it pays great dividends. Make sure you get a slow black damage mace or spear. The base damage scales great with the % elemental we’re going for. You also want to get as much ChD as well on here. I wouldn’t search for int, but for me this one just happened to have it. I found that going skorn is not worth it. You need the APoC, CrC, blizzard duration and tele reduction on oculus. LoK is a GREAT way to get life return since LoH and LS are both expensive.
• Helm: I went balanced for this piece. Ideally you’d want max AP, APoC, CrC and a socket. APoC is mandatory here. Max AP is great because the density in Crater 2 isn’t always that consistent. Without max AP you only have enough AP for 4 teleports and 1 wormhole. Max AP gives you enough AP to cast your frost nova as well, but I went for astral presence at this budget level to make up for my lack of Max AP and lower CrC. After getting those stats get more defense.
• Chest: Tyreals all the way. The bonus vs demons is nice but we’re mainly going for the MS boost. You want to get as much EHP as you can after that.
• Belt: I also go defensive on this piece. I originally went Innas but felt that the extra DPS wasn’t worth it since hitting the EHP requirements was too hard.
• Pants: Definitely go defensive here. Tons of vit since pants roll up to 300. Try to get All res and armor too.
• Boots: I went for Zunis here. Try not to be noob like me and get yourself an 8% one (d’oh!). All res is too expensive here so I went for armor instead. In retrospect getting ice climbers is a better choice because I still want more EHP and can sacrifice a bit of damage.
• Amulet: Tals is great. We don’t need to get anything other than 6% and high Int/Vit. All res or armor is also needed to help boost EHP Bracers: Another EHP item (seeing a trend here?), but with the caveat that we want 4.5+ CrC.
• Oculus: Not an EHP piece! You want to get pretty good avg damage. Elite dmg means nothing here. Blizzard duration of 2-3 is needed. Teleport reduction of 3+ is needed. It always rolls APoC so yay!

Why not SoJ? Yes it has up to 2 blizzard duration, but 1 sec is only an 11% increase and 2 is 22% increase in DPS if you have a 3 oculus and by 9 seconds a lot of mobs start moving out of your blizzards AoE already. It also has 6% elemental, but we can easily make up for that with other stats. Most importantly it doesn’t provide EHP!

So what’s the message here? Get a good offensive weapon, offhand and frostburn. After that get EHP, APoC and CrC. In terms of EHP the one thing that I didn’t get that I wanted to was %melee and ranged reduction on chest, bracers and amulet. Those pieces are extremely cost effective at mitigation but are pretty rare.

Conclusion

With proper gearing and not worrying too much about sheet DPS, blizzard wiz can get very competitive XP/hr on a budget.

Happy farming!

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Wizard - Disintegrate – Patch 1.0.8 Ready

Even if Patch 1.0.8 is still in the works, the Public Test Realm gave everyone a pretty good idea of how things will change. This new Diablo 3 solo Inferno build has been tested and so far it looks very promising and ready for the upcoming patch. It has been thought out to provide an alternative to Wizards that got bored of the standard Critical Mass build which seems to be used by everyone.

Build diversity has been a problem but this time around, there is something new to look at. Disintegrate will become a more viable spell and combined with a slow weapon it can truly provide enough sustain in terms of Arcane Power drain and damage output but before we get into the details we need to have a quick look at the skill setup.

Here is the key mapping as suggested by Archon:

Left Mouse Button – Disintegrate with the Convergence rune
Right Mouse Button – Blizzard with the Frozen Solid rune
…
Action Key 1 – Magic Weapon with the Blood Magic rune
Action Key 2 – Teleport with the Wormhole rune
Action Key 3 – Familiar with the Arcanot rune
Action Key 4 – Storm Armor with the Power of the Storm rune
…
Passive Skill 1: Cold Blooded
Passive Skill 2: Astral Presence
Passive Skill 3: Temporal Flux

Wizzard Solo Inferno Disintegrate

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The Mechanics Of The Build:

Using this particular Inferno Wizard build to solo acts 1 to 4 will prove to be very effective in terms of damage output despite its base 170% weapon damage. The skill’s destructive force is enhanced by the combination of Blizzard and the Cold Blooded passive. Blizzard will provide a 6 second window in which the targets will receive 20% more damage. This is pretty much all there is about damaging spells. The rest of the skills used in the build are meant to help with sustain.

Just like with the any kind of channeling spell, Disintegrate can make a full orb of Arcane Power to vanish but there are ways to counter this. The skill works just like the Monk Tempest Rush. Weapon attack speed will determine how fast it will consume arcane power. A slower weapon means a slower drain but it will also tick less frequent. On the other hand, slow weapons tend to have a higher base damage which in the end translates into the same DPS but a slower Arcane Power drain. Familiar and Storm Armor will help reduce the cost of Disintegrate and improve the regen rate of AP. Last but not least, Astral Presence will also contribute by adding some more Arcane Power regeneration.

Survivability is another issue that needs to be looked at. The traditional Wizard Critical Mass build provides a lot of CC which makes it very difficult to die. This Disintegrate build focuses mostly on slowing abilities which should be enough to kite monsters and stay away from melee range. Magic weapon will provide some Life Steal but some Life on Hit will be required.

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Wizard Solo Inferno – Black Ice

As it turns, Wizard seem a bit left on the outside when it comes to builds. The next Wizard solo Inferno build provides a rather fun alternative to the dull critical mass build. Almost all the players encountered in public games use the Critical Mass build and it has turned into a boring site. Wizard owners will surely appreciate this new skill setup. The name of the build itself sounds fun and interesting. Based on the Ray of Frost skill using the Black Ice rune, the new setup relies on three main abilities. Obviously, Ray of Frost is the first one but it is combined with Blizzard and Familiar. How these abilities will be used will be detailed below. For now, the skill setup needs to be detailed.

Let’s look at the skill setup for the build:

Left Mouse Button – Ray of Flost with the Black Ice rune
Right Mouse Button – Blizzard with the Stark Winter rune
…
Action Key 1 – Storm Armor with the Scramble rune
Action Key 2 – Magic Weapon with the Blood Magic rune
Action Key 3 – Familiar with the Sparkflint rune
Action Key 4 – Hydra with the Frost Hydra rune
…
Passive Skill 1: Cold Blooded
Passive Skill 2: Astral Presence
Passive Skill 3: Power Hungry

Check it out here.

The Mechanics Of The Build

It all starts with the main skill that gives the name to the build. Ray of Frost is a great ability that provides long range attacks and a reasonable minion slowing effect. The Black Ice rune adds an additional effect that makes it very efficient against packs of mobs, dealing significant amounts of damage. However, being a channeled spell, its Arcane Power cost is affected by weapon speed. This means that fast weapons are not a great pick for this build. They will drain Arcane Power too fast.

The second core ability, Blizzard, comes more like a damaging utility spell. Ray of Frost only slows the first mob it hits and when it dies it leaves a black pool that does damage to everyone standing in it. The longer they stay in there the better. This is why Blizzard is used. To help with the crowd control and make the most out of these damaging poodles.

All other skills serve more of a utility purpose. Magic Weapon and Familiar are used to boost the damage output while Hydra provides a target for the mob packs, keeping the Wizard safe from harm.
The passive skills used for this solo inferno Wizard build do not provide much damage mitigation. In fact they were picked only to increase DPS.

In terms of gear, the standard selection will work. This means that the core stats are still critical hit chance, critical hit damage and life on hit. If possible, some Arcane Power on crit will help as well. Weapon selections should be limited to very slow weapons to help maintain a decent Arcane Power regen, otherwise, the build is not sustainable. In theory, the gear cost for this Wizard build should not be that expensive and will not require a lot of gold but enough with the talk. Blow there is a video showing the Wizard solo inferno build in action.

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