I tried blizzard/venom before, but did not like it. I also tried an arcane build and even short range, spectral blades is such a satisfying animation! However once I got to Inferno Belial, Arcane's kiting began to tire me out. As for spectral blades, well I'm trying to overgear a barbarian at the moment too.
My stats are:
Act 3 Inferno
26k hp
1223 Intelligence
4258 armor ( buffed )
346 Physical Resist/ 180~ other resists
41% Crit ( 38% natural + Scoundrel )
256% Critical Strike Damage
19 Arcane restored on Critical Strike
I chose AD over Cold Blooded because I only have one major attack, and as far as I know the 75% extra heavily outweighs 20% damage from CB. As long as Magic Missile is a single target, it has a 100% chance to proc AD charges. I would like to change out Illusionist, but vortex mobs are kind of a jerk and despite Critical Mass processing a lot ( I can have permanent Frost Nova on a mob if there are 3+ mobs ) I don't like to take the chance I can't escape. Frost Nova could also be changed if you want a hydra or enchant weapon, but I believe it synergizes beautifully with Meteor.
If anyone wants to try the build, I believe that it's fairly viable at lower critical chance, I would guess 20-25% perhaps. However to be able to constantly spam meteor, Arcane Power restore on Critical Strike seems to be necessary.
diamond skin w/ crystal shell
teleport w/ fracture
energy armor w/ force armor
magic weapon w/ force weapon
arcane orb w/ the piercing rune
venom hydra
temporal flux, glass cannon, astral presence
24k dps (0.9 attack speed), 300-400 all res, about 32k hp. No idea about armor, can't check now. I am currently stuck on p2 Belial, but recently upgraded from 21k dps to 24k so I need to try him again.
I got past Hell Belial on the second attempt, I couldn't believe it. I would have done it the first time but got stupid in the corner. I got rid of WoF and put in Venom Hydra once I got to Act 3. Even though I gave up the oh **** button skill, VH is awesome. Park it in a doorway and stand back throwing Arcane Orb or piercing orb. I am still hesitant on giving up Ray of Frost for Blizzard though. I am really liking Nephalem Valor. Still ain't finding much, but getting more gold is always nice. Which sucks as anything good on the AH is crazy expensive now, so it doesn't matter. Over 150 hours played with this character and 1 unique item. I know they suck right now, but it still gets you up a little when you find one.
Changing out frost nova for Magic Weapon and WoF for Venom Hydra has really helped. I am only at around 8300 DPS with MW, but I can actually go against mobs now and not die, most of the time. I am actually liking Waller because the box themselves in with the Hydra.
This is a surprisingly effective build for both group play and solo'ing and I am currently in Act II Inferno, as of the time of this post. As you look at my build you were probably wondering I don't see any signature ability on any of his 6 skill slots. I'll explain why.
I was doing well in Hell right up until Act III right at the beginning of the Act. I was configured for a Shock Pulse/Piercing Orb (for CC with it's great oscillating and piercing ability) as my signature and I also was using Meteor/Starpact as my primary damage dealer (you can spam them with Starpact if you have enough Arcane and Arcane regen gear and with the right passives). While effective in parties, I was starting to get my **** pushed in while solo'ing or if I got swarmed by trash mobs (I didn't find Mirror Images or Teleport particularly impressive to effectively keep my Wiz alive) and started to lag out.
So then I tried to figure out a way to slow my enemies down effectively and keep them away. First I tried to use Magic Missile/Seeker and Arcane Orb/Celestial Orb as my primaries in effect with Temporal Flux passive (while a great passive this only slowed enemies down for 2 seconds and doesn't effectively cover a large AoE over a protracted amount of time in context with the Arcane cost). So then I tried the next thing on my agenda which was a Frost build and I never looked back. Blizzard while costly you don't really need it as your damaging ability. You use it to carpet bomb a large area and slow small and large mob packs combined effectively. Also the rune that allows you to freeze enemies 20% of the time is very party friendly. Also it's synergies with Ray of Frost, Cold Blooded and Frost Hydra).
So then I realized I don't really even require a signature ability, as I have a deep pool of Arcane thanks to gear and Arcane Presence and most enemies go down before I'm totally depleted of Arcane. My primary which is Ray of Frost is very cheap once I use Prism in conjunction with the Cold Blooded rune as it only costs 12 arcane per second while channeling and only 5 arcane when I activate Diamond skin, which at this point I am regenerating Arcane while using RoF. Also my Arcane regeneration and pool again mitigates me from running out of Arcane while dropping Blizzards periodically and also Frost Hydras for tertiary ranged damage.
Now of course this isn't a build without faults. I will eventually run out of Arcane in a constant sustained combat scenario of about 45+ seconds where I'll have to back off and let my Arcane regen. for 5-10 seconds. But having DS/Prism really helps mitigate Arcane usage. Also all the spells I use are cheap and I only have to cast Blizzard once ever 6 seconds after I've laid 2-3 down (just after casting DS/Prism). Also I don't have any true defensive ability other then Energy Armor which hurts my Arcane pool a bit as I prefer Prismatic Armor for the resistances in Inferno which are essential for Champion and Rare mob packs (Arcane, Poison/Defiler and Mortar traits grr!)
Also another good reason I went with no signatures, is the DPS is paltry for what I want in a primary (something fast with CC which is why I used piercing orb but it's only 105% of your weapon damage or Electrocute/Chain Lighting which is only 80% but works great for quickly mowing down small fast enemies) and also there is no true frost signature spell. There is a Fire, Arcane and Lightning option but no Frost, which is kind of lame. Not sure if this was intended or an oversight by Blizzard. With RoF it instantly chills and then once chilled i get 20% bonus from my Cold Blooded Passive ability, which also works with Frost Hydra and Blizzard as well.
One final thing. You can also use Frost Nova/Bone Chill (if you really don't want the extra damage from Force Weapon or if you don't want to use Energy Armor) to great effect if you also still somehow get swarmed (lag spike, teleporters, cagers, wallers). Not only will it give you time to get away but you will do 15% more damage to all that are hit for like 4 seconds which works great with Hydra and RoF.
I want the health rune for spectral blades but am not high enough yet. I want to work in Sleetstorm runed RoF later on but I also don't wanna lose any of my current skills to do it :/
For some reason it won't let me change it but I switched Wave of force for Arcane hydra cause I love hydra to much.
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