Arcane kiting, an alternative to Blizzard/Hydra

[Kinmaul]

If you are playing solo past Act 1 Inferno then your build needs to incorporate some kind of kiting due to the damage that mobs deal out. A current favorite spec is Blizzard/Hydra kiting and it was a build that I tried myself, but found it lacking for a number of reasons.

1. Venom Hydra is amazing dps if you can get mobs to stay in the same relative spot. When kiting stuff around with Blizzard/Hydra you often times do not get many puddles to stack up.

2. Your main AP spender is Blizzard which means you can’t really afford to be spamming another non-signature skill. Blizzard does a decent job slowing, but the damage isn’t the greatest and you constantly have to be recasting it as you kite.

3. While kiting you are spamming Hydra/Blizzard and maybe another signature spell. The problem with signature spells is that their damage is low because they are free.

Bottom line the build wasn’t putting out the damage I wanted. I could easily stay alive, but I felt there had to be a quicker way to burn down mobs. Taking ideas from various sources I put together a build I’m pretty happy with. I’m sure there are other people out there using it and I’m not claiming to have invented it. However I haven’t seen it put down on paper yet myself so I figured I would pass it along and see what you guys think.

Here’s the build and I’ll break things down skill by skill:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...RSO!dXU!ccYaZY

Magic Missle – Seeker
Charged Blast is more damage, but I find while kiting it’s easy to have your shots miss (and a missed shot is zero damage). Seeker still puts out respectable damage, never misses, and is something to use when you lack AP for Arcane Orb. It will also shoot mobs around corners with your Hydra which is very handy.

Arcane Orb – Celestial Orb
When kiting mobs have a natural tendency to form a line and the 100% pierce effect means that usually you can hit more things with the rune as opposed to it blowing up on the first mob it hits. Another great thing about this rune is that it allows you to deal with shielding mobs and invulnerable minions. Your orb will travel through the entire pack dealing damage to any non-immune mobs. Another neat thing about this rune is that if the mob you are hitting is next to a wall you will deal double damage: one hit as the orb passes by and another when it explodes upon impact with the wall.

Teleport – Fracture
Hands down the best defensive ability in the game. Not only do you get the escape mechanism, but the mirror images it produces are immune to damage so they last the full duration.

Hydra – Arcane Hydra
This is your AoE slow that is much cheaper than Blizzard and 100 times smarter. As you move through an area cast it ahead of you and it will start firing on mobs as soon as they agro which is often sooner than you could even target them with Blizzard. Since it’s so cheap you can keep this up while kiting and still have AP available to use Arcane Orb. Yes, Venom Hydra is more dps than Arcane Hydra, but the synergy with this build means you are able to do higher overall dps with Arcane Hydra. I’ve tried Venom out with this build and it doesn’t work as well in my opinion.

Magic Weapon- Force Weapon
More damage, not much else to say.

Energy Armor – Force Armor
Still a great skill as long as you have decent vit/armor/resists. If you want to trade survivability for damage you could swap to Pinpoint Barrier for 5% more crit, but I only do that in Act 1. I’ve found I die a lot more in Act 2 without Force Armor.

Illusionist
Best passive in the game for a Wizard. With this and Force Armor your Teleport comes off cd exactly when you need it to, when you get hit. As long as you are not one shot you can always get out of a dangerous situation.

Astral Presence
Arcane Orb is very expensive and Force armor reduces your AP pool to 80. This skill offsets that penalty plus increases your regen which means more Arcane Orbs.

Temporal Flux
Since all of your damage is Arcane with this build everything you do puts on the 30% snare.

Gearing
Here’s generally what I look out for on gear:

1. Your weapon should be a slow 2h weapon with a socket. The higher weapon damage on 2h weapons means it’s the superior choice for Arcane Orb. Put your best green gem in your weapon to increase Crit damage.

2. Crit Chance and Crit damage: If you are unaware currently any dot/channeled spell cannot crit. At low levels this isn’t a big deal because a crit on a small number isn’t a huge difference. However crit damage is percentage based so as you hit harder your bonus damage from criticals gets massive. There’s also affixes on high level gear that further increases your crit damage. Crit chance and crit damage are amazing stats for this build because all of your skills have the ability to produce critical strikes, something that Venom Hydra cannot do.

3. Runspeed: The more the better; at the absolute minimum have at least 10% on your boots. If you want to exceed the 12% runspeed from your boots the cheapest item, at this time, are the legendary legs called Hammer Jammers. You can pick up an additional 6-7% runspeed for less than a million gold, all other alternatives are much more expensive. If you have gold to spend keep in mind that the max runspeed you can get from items is 25%, anything past that is wasted. I know a lot of people say they get a long fine with no runspeed at all, but once you start playing at 18-19% movement speed it's a substantial difference.

4. Int/Vit/Resist all: While you are not a tank you are going to take damage from time to time and you need to be able to survive 1-2 hits.

5. Life Regen - You need at least a little bit of life regen or damage reflection packs will be a nightmare to deal with. This is the main reason I run with the Templar duing solo play; his passive life regen and heals are not amazing, but they are enough to keep you alive as you kite reflection packs.

6. Increased Attack Speed (IAS): Artifically inflates the damage on your character sheet. At 100 AP you can, at most, spam Arcane Orb three times before running dry (70 for the first two and you’ll regen the 5 AP needed for the third). This means you don’t need a ton of IAS to dump your AP. It’s not hurting anything being on your gear, but crit chance and crit damage will give you more bang for your buck.

General Gameplay Strategy
Always keep Arcane Hydra up in front of you. It will start shooting things before you can see them which gives you warning and slows packs down immediately. Launch your Arcane Orbs and start to kite if needed. As I kite I prefer to recast my Hydra slightly ahead of me so that it continues to fire and keeps the mobs snared. As your AP regens continue to fire off Arcane Orbs and mix in Arcane Missles if you have extra time to cast, but not enough AP for an Orb. Use teleport when needed and if you see you are about to get hit preemptively start jamming on your tele hotkey. This will make it so you port the second the hit registers which can be a life-saver.

Group Play
If you are in a good group where someone else is bringing a lot of control (a DH spamming traps, another wizard who is using Blizzard, a great tank, etc...) then you can deal more damage with Venom Hydra since you won't need your Arcane Hydra to handle the crowd control. Even though it is incapable of crits the damage Venom Hydra deals is insane once you get a few pools stacked in the same spot. If you are solo I highly recommend you stick with Arcane Hydra as it can be tricky to keep everything snared without it. Also when things are not properly slowed Venom Hyrda loses a lot of damage potential since it's impossible to get the pools to stack.

Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the read. I know it is long, but I figured if I was going to do this I might as well do it right. I'm also open to comments and suggestions to make the build even better. Best of luck in Inferno!

[ysuol]

So how does this work out for you?
I just did first quest in a2 and I must say, generally monsters run as fast as i am (unless they're dogs that jump on me), even though I have 12% frw on boots. Which means if I stop to cast they catch up. I must say it doesn't look like they get the 30% snare, looks less, not sure if it is the case or just seems to me.
An addition, I never actually tested but they say with a fast weapon you cast faster, does not only mean you can cast quickly in repetition but also it takes less time to cast the spell (so one can resume running faster). If this is true it can mean life or death, but I did not have enough gold to try it (using a 0.9 speed 2 hander as well). So I guess I am farming some gold to buy an 1h and a source with losing the least damage possible (this means 1-2m gold to replace my 200k worth 990 dps 110 int 2hander).

[mickptd]

Act 2 is MUCH harder than act 1.

For act 1 I don't even use a teleport and kill every thing easy. For act 2 you need teleport/fracture, thats for sure. If you add illusionist passive to it and can manage 1-2 hits from mobs, you can do almost everything.

Tried act 3 today. mobs are much easier than act2 but hit much harder...i think for act 3 you need about 30k dps/35k hp/400 all res/5k armor.

[Kinmaul]

So how does this work out for you?
I just did first quest in a2 and I must say, generally monsters run as fast as i am (unless they're dogs that jump on me), even though I have 12% frw on boots. Which means if I stop to cast they catch up. I must say it doesn't look like they get the 30% snare, looks less, not sure if it is the case or just seems to me.
An addition, I never actually tested but they say with a fast weapon you cast faster, does not only mean you can cast quickly in repetition but also it takes less time to cast the spell (so one can resume running faster). If this is true it can mean life or death, but I did not have enough gold to try it (using a 0.9 speed 2 hander as well). So I guess I am farming some gold to buy an 1h and a source with losing the least damage possible (this means 1-2m gold to replace my 200k worth 990 dps 110 int 2hander).

Things definately get snared, are you sure you have Temporal Flux?

Also you need to make sure you have good gear if you are trying Act 2. Clearing Act 1 once doesn't mean that Act 2 is doable. I'm at 36k damage, 25k life and I still have to be on my A-game or even trash packs can smash my face in.

[Graydagger]

Looks good, but I'm uncomfortable about dropping Glass Cannon. Also, I have a similar build, but I use Arcane Torrent with Disruption for my main dps skill. The +15% Arcane dmg buff is very good for dps. I also use Mirror Image with Simulacrum, two of your copies with your health is really useful.

[Azbaz]

Looks like a good build. I've played a lot with Temporal Flux and Arcane Orb/Magic Missile, but I've always used Venom Hydra. Like ysuol said I still have a problem with mobs catching up to me when I fire off an Arcane Orb, but maybe switching to Arcane Hydra will make things easier. I've found that Blizzard is superior in solo games while the damage from Arcane Orb is a better choice in co-op games. But I'll try Arcane Hydra tonight in a solo game and see if it works for me.

[KillEmAll]

Just wanted to give my experience on this build: I've tried this out for an hour or two, but i'm only in A3 Hell haha. Current stats are 17K health, 6.5k DPS (with buffs). It's a lot more fun than blizzard/poision kiting, and works way better for fast mobs. I do miss mirror image with the 5 copy thing though, i basically have to play more carefully, but illusionist makes it ok. I'm also using the Force Armor rune that increases your mana and regen rate, so I can (with some item buffs) shoot about 5 orbs at once, so mobs and stuff just get obliterated.

It doesn't feel like things are slowed down by arcane the way they were with blizzard though, i.e. there's no real visual feedback (or at least not that I've noticed, too much going on onscreen). This is a bit of an issue when kiting mobs as I don't have speedboots (I'm so close to 60 I don't wanna buy anything yet, but I will if I have to), but I don't mind dying a bit here and there to save some money for now.

[Kinmaul]

@KillEmAll
The slow from Temporal Flux is a grey graphic around the mob's feet; it kinda looks like a circle. Not having speed boots makes a pretty significant difference in your ability to kite. You can probably pick up a pair of boots with +10-12% runspeed and terrible stats to hold you over until you hit 60 (it shouldn't set you back too much). The ability to kite effectively will greatly outweigh any damage/hp you lose from not having great stats on your boots.

@Graydagger
There really isn't a passive you can swap out for Glass Cannon. If you drop Illusionist/Temporal Flux you WILL die a lot more and your damage while dead is zero. If you drop Astral Presence it will significantly cut down on the number of Orbs you can cast which will hurt your dps more than losing the 15% damage. I tried out Arcane Torrent and I liked the damage and the synergy with Arcane Hydra and Magic Missle. However since it's a channeled skill its not that great for kiting. If you have a good group where you can plant and cast a majority of the time Torrent might be a better choice. If you are solo, or are having to kite a lot with your group then Orb will give you more damage on the move.

[melianor]

Kinmaul, thanks for the idea for that post. I am using that build at the moment in HELL Act1, without any additional runspeed and it works out nicely. I don't have the piercing orb yet, still the play style and theme are satisfactory.

The slow from Temporal Flux is absolutely satisfying and i seem to be dealing a lot better with elite champion packs. I think it's more down to personal play style preference in the end, though having 2 skills, that are able to slow mobs, instead of just one, is a really good advantage.

Like you said, it's not possible to spam Arcane Orb as often as Blizzard, but the damage with added slow pretty much makes up for it. What i did not have a look at though is the ability of Arcane Hydra to actually slow. Also i am not using Energy Armor as off yet, instead still having Archon for Elites and Bosses, but that might change as i progress through the acts.

I think i will go ahead and make a thread about a completely first themed build, but i will still need to test this in hell first, since i only used it in NM and there it's still like you can practically play with everything you like.

[Kinmaul]

I agree that you can do pretty much anything and be succcessful pre-inferno. You can use this build at any point in the game succesfully, but it doesn't really "take off" until the end-game when you can get your crit chance and crit damage up. Right now my damage is at 37.5k but the real pain comes from having 29.5% crit and 142% crit damage (I wish both were higher). The crit damage stat is actually misleading because you start at 50% crit damage base which is really 150% damage (the damage is multiplied by 1.5). So 142% crit damage translates into 242% extra damage (2.42 multiplier) when you crit. Seeing your Arcane Missles crit for ~70k and your Arcane orb blow through a pack dealing ~110k crits all over the place is extremely satisfying. Also while I haven't crunched the numbers I'm confident that Arcane Hydra will actually outscale Venom Hydra with the proper gear due to the fact that Venom cannot crit.

Edit:
Did some testing today since yet another debate came up about what skills can crit and what cannot. To my suprise, I was actually able to get Blizzard, Ray of Frost, and Disintegrate to all proc Critical Mass. Previously I was in the camp that assumed that these skills could not crit, but it appears that information is false. The bug isn't that they can't crit, but rather its a display issue where their crits are in white txt instead of the typical yellow. Also if you only have "Display Critical Hit Damage" check in your options the crits for these skills will not appear as well. However I can assure you that they do crit. Venom Hydra most definately does not crit, but as everyone knows the pools do stack as long as you keep the mobs in the same spot.

Going to update my guide to reflect this. It does make Blizzard a little better than I though, but it still doesn't scale very well with crit chance/crit damage since the tool-tip damage is divided up into individual ticks.