Diablo 3 Wizard Inferno General Guide

Diablo 3 Wizard Inferno General Guide by Arktem

Ok, time to clear up a lot of misinformation that is going around the forums.

My experience includes Diablo 2 Hardcore for 5+ year, WoW Hardmode Raiding for 5+ Years, (US 4th), and currently Act 4 Inferno running mostly Magic Find runs.

For those wanting a Video of how this works, or just want to chill and watch a stream, my stream page is located below.

www.twitch.tv/ArkD3/

Many of the things you see in this “Guide” will change. Before you say “This will not work because of X mob”, Well duh. Diablo is not WoW, there is no “Cookie Cutter” spec. Much of what you do will be dependent on what Act you are on, whether or not you are solo, and probably the biggest factor… what the mob you are facing is.

Strengths
High Damage
High Mobility
If played right you shouldn’t get hit very often
Able to kill about 80% of the packs you come across
Doesn’t require much gear

Weaknesses
Glass Cannon
Some mobs simply aren’t possible to kill.

Specs –

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#alQSOR!XYT!cYYZYb

Basic spec, that is useful for any and all situations. Some people prefer to replace Blizzard with Arcane Orb + Temporal Flux. Both are 100% viable, and both have their pros and cons.

Blizzard gives you a lot more control over mobs, basically it’s the “Safe Route”.

Arcane Orb gives you more Damage, but you have to be much more careful.

Everything else should basically stay the same in nearly all situations. Diamond skin, while very strong early on, loses a lot of it’s usefulness simply because it does not scale. The only time it can be useful is for Reflect Damage mobs, which can easily be dealt with by having a few extra pieces with + Life on Hit (Note, this isn’t % Life Steal), and swapping to them when the need arises.

Talents and Ability Breakdown

Magic Missile [Seeker] – Magic missile is a strong, semi hard hitting ability that when combined with the seeker glyph completely changes how you can kite. Because of MM ability to “Bend” around corners, you can then go from a straight kite path to a kiting path that involves lots and lots of turns. This is highly effective as many mobs abilities are just as limited as your own when it comes to corners.

Many people have asked why not use the Penetrating Blast Glyph instead of seeker. My reasoning is that even though PB can be very useful, the ability of Seeker to go around corners is far more valuable, and even though PB can indeed increase your AoE damage, if you really need a damage increase you are much better off just simply changing to another spell entirely.

Blizzard [Stark Winter] – Blizzard is your kiting ability. The 60% slow it provides basically means you never have to worry about a mob getting to you, with the exception of a few “Fast” mobs or obviously the annoying ones who are naturally extremely fast (Lashers).

Another good option for the Blizzard glyph is Snowbound. In my personal experience I found that the AoE without SW was simply too small to keep the mobs slowed for any length of time and I was forced to constantly be spamming Blizzard to make sure mobs were slowed. With Stark, I can cast 1 Blizzard every 4-5 seconds generally, which give me more time to kite/Cast MM/Hydra which are higher Damage spells.

Magic Weapon [Force Weapon] – Pretty simple, the more damage the better. Magic Weapon is currently “Bugged” in that it actually double dips and gives you more than just 10%(15% with force) damage.

I find MW to be far superior to Familiar Sparkflint because even though Spark looks like it would give more damage. The truth is that because you have no control over the aim of the Familiar, a lot of the damage is gone to waste. If it followed your abilities, in this case MM curves, then it would be far more valuable.

Teleport [Fracture] – Teleport is definitely not what it was in D2. But even with a long cooldown it is still the strongest “Escape” spell we have. As you progress further in acts you will notice mobs doing significantly more damage. I find Teleport to be far more useful than say Diamond Skin, simply because Diamond Skin does not scale.  Not to mention it’s always better to avoid an attack than to simply absorb some of it.

Fracture could be considered personal preference, but the only other option is Wormhole, and I don’t really need to teleport 2-4 times really. I don’t want to get to far away from mobs if I am kiting them. Not to mention the only thing that really kills me are Projectiles, and Images are really nice for Absorbing those.

Energy Armor [Force Armor] – Without EA you will not be able to survive 1 hit from anything past Act 1. Pure and simple. It’s possible to reach a point with resistance that Prismatic Armor Glyph could become more useful than Force, but that is very high in resistance, which most people are not currently capable of doing (Myself included).

Hydra [Venom] – Hydra is easily your biggest damage ability. Even with mobs moving out of the poison pools as long as you are keeping a high slow uptime, they should spend a second or two in the pools while you are kiting, which is more than enough damage to warrant using this ability.

Make sure you are recasting Hydra constantly so that it is always attacking the FRONT mob when kiting. That way the mobs following behind it will have to run through the first mobs poison pool.

Gear –

Boots – Every single boot you buy should have 12% movement speed. Nothing else matters.

Weapons

2h – Two Handed weapons are superior damage over 1h/oh Combo, but they have the disadvantage of being much slower animations.1h – Have the advantage of having much faster attack animations, which in a kite spec is extremely important.

I personally use a 1h/OH combo, but honestly it’s more from having found a really good one hander than any real preference. If you are with a group of friends more often than solo, then you should probably try getting your hands on a strong 2h.

Please note if you are not using a signature spell, which I  don’t personally recommend, then you should always go with a strong 2h if you can get your hands on one.

Stats –

Vitality – Vitality should be your number one stat early on. Being able to take 1 hit from mobs is essential, at least until you get used to things. I have found my “Sweet Spot” to be around 30k. Once there try and get All Resist, which will increase your Survivability far more than Vitality will.

All Resist – Your number 1 defensive stat. Far more important than Vitality, assuming you have around the 30k mark. Once you get a decent amount you will notice yourself dying a lot less.

IAS (Increased Attack Speed) – Far from useless as others seem to say. Anyone who has done testing with it knows the value of it. If you are not running a Signature Spell then IAS loses much of it’s value, but again there really is no reason not to have a signature spell.

With a signature spell, and more specifically a kite solo spec, IAS is a god send. Being able to cast spells while kiting, and not lose any movement time, is absolutely amazing. I would highly recommend this stat to anyone who primarily does Solo Kite strategies.

INT – More damage is always good, but it also has an increased advantage of giving us All Resist which is HIGHLY valuable.

Crit Chance – Now that the Critical Mass build has been nerfed crit has lost much of it’s appeal. With that said, once you reach about 15% crit, which isn’t very difficult, it has the bonus of making Crit Damage Highly valuable.

Crit Damage – With a semi decent Crit chance, 10-15% crit damage is a very good stat to have. With 15% crit the value of having an Emerald (+70% crit damage) greatly outweighs the DPS value of a single Ruby (Bonus damage).

Magic Find – Do not have any magic find stats on your main gear. Assuming of course you don’t have something better. Instead get together a strong Magic find set to keep in your bags at all times. When a boss/Last mob is about to die, swap really fast to your magic set.

Companions –

The thing you need to know about companions is that they will all die. A lot. Other than the few control spells, or in the case of Enchantress/Scoundrel the DPS increase, your companion will not do much for you in terms of damage (In Inferno of course). With that said you can do a few things to make sure your companion can do as much as possible. These things are true for all companions.

Stack Vitality
Pick the most defensive abilities your companion has

Templar – Templar is my current companion. The reason for this is that with his 1h/Shield combo he has the most potential out of any of the companions for Magic Find. Not to mention his shield gives him a bit more survivability. My Templars gear and stats are below.

http://i49.tinypic.com/fohbo5.png

Enchantress – Enchantress is my favorite companion, when I am not MF. She gives a lot of control over the battle in the form on Knockbacks and dazes. He second skill also gives you a constant 15% extra armor. Which is very nice.

Scoundrel – I really enjoy using scoundrel on my other toons, ones who don’t already have a 60% slow. I find that because I can already keep my mobs permanently slowed… I just don’t have any use for him. In this case I would much rather go with Enchantress.

Farming Spots –

*Save yourself some time and pain and get a friend to help you skip Act 2, or join a public game and try and power through it with other players.*

Act 1 – I personally skipped all of act 1 and went straight to act 3. I just don’t find the loot to be of any use, especially considering the AH. With that said many people choose to farm “The imprisoned Angel” and work their way towards Butcher.

Act 3 – Siege-breaker runs. First start a game on “Kill the Siege-breaker” and then teleport to Rakkis Crossing. This will give you “Tyrael” as a companion. Once you have him teleport to the Bridge of Korsikk. The mobs in this location are very easy to kite, as well as generally not having many “Bad Combos”. This is by far my favorite place to farm. Once you reach a 5 stack kill Siege-breaker.