So... about "progression"

[theredviola]

I played through D3 and RoS progressing through the difficulties and am currently on Master (which I am quite impressed with myself because I usually don't like dungeon crawls but I enjoy this one, that and I'm not great with the "heavy math" that comes with latter difficulties). I'm going through seeing very, VERY little usable gear and even when it's close and I try to modify it, I drain myself of vials or other reagents just trying to roll better stats. Okay, I figure, how about I just try Torment 1?

HA.

Yeah, blue mobs look at me and I explode. So my question is this; for a solo player (build linked below), am I just playing "the waiting game" with good drops on Master, or am I missing a step somewhere? (Probably involving heavy and/or complicated maths).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/R.../hero/14004452

P.S. Yes, I'm playing on Adventure/Bounty mode and going to rifts on Master. I tried grinding on normal to save time, but I still get horrible drops at a rate that's only slightly faster than what I grind at now but far less gold and xp.

[Deleted]

First you'll want to figure out a spec you'll use. For example, a Frozen Orb spec, or maybe an Arcane Torrent spec. Yours is a bit all over the place. You can find more about specs by googling. Secondly, you'll definitely want to get better, and smarter gear. Your gear is pretty bad still.

Get a decent 1H with preferably +damage%, intelligence and a socket. Put as high an emerald in that socket as you can afford. You'll want "trifecta" rings, amulet and gloves, meaning intelligence, critical hit chance, critical hit damage, and attack speed (or average damage with rings, not sure about that with wizards.) Amulets can have up to +15% with the element you use (+20% on legendary amulets), so you want to get an intelligence, +% element, critical hit chance, critical hit damage.

You'll want a source with as high an average damage as possible, and intelligence, +4 arcane on crit, critical hit chance and +skill% if it can roll any skills you're using (it should be able to.) On your shoulders, chest, pants and boots you'll want a +skill% as well, if you can get it. Other than that, get intelligence, vitality and life%/armor. You'll need at least 300-400K health to run T1 comfortably, depending on your damage of course. On your chest you'll want to have 3 sockets and on your pants 2. Boots can have the +12% speed, but that's not absolutely necessary. On your helmet you'll want critical hit chance, intelligence, and possibly a socket and skill. On your bracers you'll be looking for the +15% element, critical hit chance, and intelligence/vitality.

Armor is more important for you than resist all as far as defensive stats go; armor reduces all damage from all sources, and being a wizard your resistances will be high already. Legendary items can roll all these affixes higher, and there'll be some that can roll better ones, for example +20% to element in helmet (Andariel) and so on. However, those should be your guideline.

I put my paragon points in intelligence, critical hit chance > critical hit damage > attack speed > CDR, regeneration > armor > life > resist, LoH > area > RCR > gold. Not sure if they could be better but works for me right now, and I'm only on my second stat anyway.

Wizard is a bit of a kite machine if poorly geared, but the arcane spec might be something for you to try out, as it's main spell requires you to stand still. Here's what I use as my arcane spec:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...gS!YUTS!YaaYcZ

Seeker Missile as my free spell, build up Dynamo with it to 5 stacks.
Disruption Torrent as my spender, +15% damage and a very nice spell. Build up Dynamo to 5 stacks and blast away.
Arcane Hydra to get as much -80% slowdowns on monsters as possible, and also it deals nice damage. Build up Dynamo to 5 stacks and drop the Hydra.
Fracture Teleport as a defensive spell always; you can move from shit and drop two decoys who also cast spells (although not sure if they even do damage.)
Slow Time with Stretch Time. This is a secondary defensive spell I'm currently using, which also gives me +10% IAS so higher damage. This can be switched for something else.
Force Weapon for the +20% damage.

Glass Cannon for the +15% damage.
Temporal Flux for the -80% slows. It's awesome, since everything deals arcane.
Arcane Dynamo to get the +60% damage on Hydra and Torrents.
Unwavering Will to get +10% damage and some toughness when casting Torrent. Could also be switched out, depending on how you play.

Currently I'm running a cold spec just for fun as I've got some +cold damage% items.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...NS!YcXW!ZcYYZZ

It's still a WIP and I'm just trying out stuff, but it's a fun change of pace.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure why you're saying that D3 involves heavy math. Yes, the mechanics behind everything has a lot of calculations but most of that has been figured out by the theorycrafting community. All you need to do read the conclusions and be free to improved your game.

Looking at your gear, it just seems like you just lack priorities and a descent build. That is what D3 gearing, in principle, is about; prioritizing. First and foremost, you do not need legendary gear to reach T1, particularly as a wizard. All rares is easily sufficient, and you don't even need to invest heavily into rerolling. You're doing the right thing farming master, instead of normal.

Normal just has such a dreadful droprates and low returns that it really is not worth it. As long as you are clearing the rifts fast and efficiently, stick to the highest difficult you can.

For your gear...

i) Lose the 2H. I tried long and in vain to make 2Hs work for my wizard. Get a descent 1H, off-hand, and put a socket into the weapon. This is a must-have; socket on a weapon and the highest green gem you have. It is that good.

ii) For gloves, rings, and amulet, focus on stats like crit damage, crit chance, elemental dmg, and IAS. These are items that you want to focus principally only offensive stats with. Reduced cooldown (or CDR for short) is kk as well; it will depends largely on your drops.

iii) Focus your build and gear on just one type of elemental damage, unless your gear suggests otherwise. E.g. you have fire damage on your amulet, which would be great, but you are using disintegrate, which is arcane. Be mindful what the different runes say, because many runes purposefully changes the elemental type of your ability. So either reroll the fire dmg to arcane, or switch to a fire build. There is another thread where several people, myself included, listed a few arcane builds, but you can also visit the wizard reddit page, for fire builds, and a lot more information in general.

For T1, you do not need that much elemental damage, if any. Aim to get some on your bracers and amulet, for starts. If you can craft, reaper's wraps, aughild, ashera, and born sets are good pieces for early and even later progression.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...d-arcane-build
http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo3Wizards/

iv) Get movement speed on your boots; your goal should be to invest all your Core paragon points to movement speed, to improve your clearing speed. I cannot emphasize how important that is. Once you reach high enough on paragon levels (200 to be precise) you can omit the movement speed stat on the boots and get something else instead, because a that point you will be at maximum 25% from just paragon levels.

v) Get more all resist. Wizards get a lot of AR from intelligence, but you should still get some on your gear as well. Your goal is to reach T1 for now, where you can begin farming for torment only legendaries. You can check your resistances in your character sheet, by clicking the Details button and you should aim to have them be ~500.

[Deleted]

Get movement speed on your boots; your goal should be to invest all your Core paragon points to movement speed, to improve your clearing speed. I cannot emphasize how important that is. Once you reach high enough on paragon levels (200 to be precise) you can omit the movement speed stat on the boots and get something else instead, because a that point you will be at maximum 25% from just paragon levels.

Honestly, if you're running solo, and especially before having really good gear, then movement speed is definitely not on the top of the list, especially if you're using Teleport. The time it takes to go from pack to pack is insignificant compared to killing stuff. That's assuming, of course, that you're playing on a difficulty level where the monsters pose any challenge; if you're just running super easy mode where you facemelt elites in 3 seconds then perhaps running speed might be an idea, but if it takes a while to kill shit then the few yards running between casting spells isn't going to make much of a difference, at least not between 12% and 25%. You'd have to be running in exact, straight lines all the time not to lose the advantage you've gained by having a few percent extra.

Spending 50 paragon points just to get 25% running speed means you'll lose out on 250 main stat. That's like 20000+ damage. Being able to kill shit at a decent pace and surviving are definitely priorities over the speed of movement. That's how I see it, anyway.

Get more all resist. Wizards get a lot of AR from intelligence, but you should still get some on your gear as well. Your goal is to reach T1 for now, where you can begin farming for torment only legendaries. You can check your resistances in your character sheet, by clicking the Details button and you should aim to have them be ~500.

He'll have 800-900+ in all resistances, plus any AR/single resists from his gear, with that much intelligence. I believe armor is superior, though, because you can have armor and a single resist on an item, but not all resists and a single resist, as those are mutually exclusive, but only when you get a piece that has armor and that off resist, and assuming that off resist is the one you need the most. Could be mistaken, though.

[Deleted]

Honestly, if you're running solo, and especially before having really good gear, then movement speed is definitely not on the top of the list, especially if you're using Teleport.

I disagree. For one thing, you should not be using teleport unless you are clearly overgearing the content. Otherwise, taking movement speed, and another defensive / offensive ability will give you more returns, compared to what you get from the main stat, which, in the grand scheme of things, is not a lot. Instead taking free movement speed buff will let you close the distance between packs, and avoid a lot of things while fighting them; frozen, plagued, etc.

Eventually you will only take movement speed and replace that stat on your boots for armor, resist, or maybe skill damage. Only after that will you want to focus on getting main stat from paragon levels.

That's assuming, of course, that you're playing on a difficulty level where the monsters pose any challenge

That is precisely the point, if you want to be really progressive, you can play at a more difficult level, but in general, it is almost never efficient enough to increase the difficulty before it is really easy and fast. I still keep farming T4 on my crusader, for example, although I could clear in T5, simply because the risks are still slightly too high and may end up costing too much in clearing speed. I get more done in T4, and that is the pattern you should be following in a grinding game like D3.

Efficiency, as unfortunate as it sometimes is, is everything in D3. You need to be able to run a lot in as little time as possible, and movement speed is paramount for that. Not only that, without max movement speed, you will be hard pressed to keep up in public games and lootsharing runs with others who already have 25%.

He'll have 800-900+ in all resistances, plus any AR/single resists from his gear, with that much intelligence. I believe armor is superior, though, because you can have armor and a single resist on an item, but not all resists and a single resist, as those are mutually exclusive, but only when you get a piece that has armor and that off resist, and assuming that off resist is the one you need the most. Could be mistaken, though.

Quite possibly yes; I only quickly checked his gear and he only had two pieces with AR, and since he says he is getting demolished by blues in T1, I extrapolated that his AR might be low. Depending how low it is, it might be easier to get more mitigation out of just by increasing it first; but yes, he should of course balance both armor and AR.

My suggestion was just simple first-aid to his problem, which is to get into and survive in T1.

[Deleted]

I disagree. For one thing, you should not be using teleport unless you are clearly overgearing the content. Otherwise, taking movement speed, and another defensive / offensive ability will give you more returns, compared to what you get from the main stat, which, in the grand scheme of things, is not a lot. Instead taking free movement speed buff will let you close the distance between packs, and avoid a lot of things while fighting them; frozen, plagued, etc.

Eventually you will only take movement speed and replace that stat on your boots for armor, resist, or maybe skill damage. Only after that will you want to focus on getting main stat from paragon levels.

Well, you might be right about the speed vs main stat. Admittedly, 250 main stat isn't that much more damage.

Teleport with Fracture, however, is a defensive spell (as you mentioned there about getting another defensive ability.) You get out of jails and over walls with it, and out of bad situations of frozen, plagued and so on, and it drops two decoys which can save your life. I've been using it on my wizard since the first day in 2012 and I'm not switching it out for anything. I guess I just like the options in mobility and survivability it gives. Also, since I personally don't like to play on a difficulty level where I can't die and where there's no challenge, it makes sense to have a lifesaver ability, and I'd much rather have this one than any of the other ones.

But I mean, if I wanted to play for efficiency and nothing else, I would be doing Diablo 3 easymode and be carried by three other people in multiplayer, then be showered with free sets and legendaries and get free blood shards from RIF. What's more efficient than getting all your gear for free and have other people do the work for you, you know? I just personally like a more challenging game, where I feel like I've just worked for what I've gotten, where it took a bit of time and effort to kill shit, instead of just mindlessly running around and see everything fall down dead without me even touching them. It's just a sad, sorry state of things Diablo 3 is in right now, where effort and difficulty isn't being rewarded at all really. We went from inferno being completely asinine on day 1 to people running easymode now because that's how you get most gear for the time you put in.

So yeah... I might not be the best person to give advice since I'm not an expert in this easymode bullshit that are the light speed multiplayer clears - which is where running speed would be imperative. I mean, I don't try to slog through an impossible difficulty, but I do like dying every now and then, because that tells me I'm at least having to try a little bit.

I digress, though. The point was that for me, running speed hasn't really been that big of an issue because of elite kills taking more than three seconds.

[Deleted]

Teleport with Fracture, however, is a defensive spell (as you mentioned there about getting another defensive ability.) You get out of jails and over walls with it, and out of bad situations of frozen, plagued and so on, and it drops two decoys which can save your life.

True, it can just be a matter of preference. I just like to play by the principle that no matter what, I will be taking damage. Teleport is okey for getting out of sticky situations but it is not that good for avoiding packs that are able to drop a lot of different kinds of puddles, which is where movement speed shines. Also, I still maintain that teleport is also taking up a valuable spell slot.

Thinking that I can get high movement speed, with a 3 offensive / 1 defensive ability build, teleport just seems to take away space, particularly when the OP is just trying to break into T1. When his gear improves and he gets better and better at clearing T1, then sure, I would even encourage dropping something for better clearing speed.

But as such, I would, personally anyway, drop teleport in the very early progression.

But I mean, if I wanted to play for efficiency and nothing else, I would be doing Diablo 3 easymode and be carried by three other people in multiplayer, then be showered with free sets and legendaries and get free blood shards from RIF.

That is not what I was referring to. I play with a friend or two, occasionally, but we never have a full group and 99% of rest of my time in diablo consists of running solo rifts, albeit I do invite people from RiF, just so I don't need to spend anything but the minimum amount of keys myself (basically, open the first one myself, the rest are free).

When I say efficiency, I'm talking about solo efficiency, and even then I'm not talking about breaking records at 3-5 minutes. I generally get through one rift in ~10min, which I feel is the best I can do without special shenanigans, but I doubt I could even break 15min without max movement speed. When runs begin reaching higher than that, the shards / hour just slows down too much.

[Fhi]

Teleport is okey for getting out of sticky situations but it is not that good for avoiding packs that are able to drop a lot of different kinds of puddles, which is where movement speed shines. Also, I still maintain that teleport is also taking up a valuable spell slot.

I like movement speed for precisely this. Too many mobs can chain puddle. The sooner I can move out of frozens, the sooner I can kill them. If there's a puddle underneath me, 250 Intellect isn't going to help me much, 25% speed would.

That said, I don't think teleport and 25% speed is comparable -- they both serve different purposes. Teleport's strength is getting you over walls and mobs trying to corner you in tight hallways.

[Djuntas]

I'm sorry OP, but you have barely played the game

Here are my pro-tips to get loot:

JOIN A COMMUNITY CHANNEL! This is the biggest one! Group forms fast, and its always 9 out off 10 pretty damn fine speed. Bounuty split and rift communities...

Craft some gear quickly, I crafted my items inn like 5-6 hours farming mats inn co-op, easy stuff. Then farm bounties split normal. Do this for the next 15-30 hours played. Hope you get act1 bounty ring, so Augilds set + captains are even better to use.

Now start looking for torment1 rift groups, or even torment2-3 depending on the drops you got from bounty split. Again use community channels...

...And now its just RNG fest, hoping to get lucky. Come back once you're paragon 150-200 and complain on drops by then. Below p50 is nothing now days. Another good mark is 10-15k bloodshards farmed or 10k elite kills (you're like 3k now?)

Oh and use offical class forums for help on specs.

[theburned]

that sever on your follower?? whyy man whyyy its such a decent item just roll a decent off hand (the ray of frost pierce one perhaps) and you got a way better starting point. then when you can afford it you can roll socket on the weapon.

[Deleted]

that sever on your follower?? whyy man whyyy its such a decent item just roll a decent off hand (the ray of frost pierce one perhaps) and you got a way better starting point. then when you can afford it you can roll socket on the weapon.

Holy cow... I didn't even look down that far

Definitely a good weapon; just roll the vit into a socket, and you have a descent 1H.

[theredviola]

Wow, thank you all for the input! I'll start getting things sorted out with priorities and what not and get that weapon changed!

Update: Switched to a 1h and source (I can't swap stats on my Templar's Legendary because I don't have the mats yet, but I'll save for them. I only worry that I'll take a huge hit to my int by doing so). Also, I used to run a fire build, but then I got all this +disintegrate armor and decided to go that route. But I'm saving for that stat swap too to go +arcane. I rather like the build I'm running now, it's rather kity, but I don't mind it. I'll toy with some of the other builds you nice people have linked and try them for myself and see if they're my style. Again, thanks for all the tips!