The big thing about Season 5 for Diablo 3 was how Wizards now have become one of the top classes in the game alongside Crusaders. One of the more popular builds is for DPS in 4 man groups which has become the season’s group meta. What has changed and what makes the Delsere’s such a high end build?
Previously, the Delsere’s set made Slow Time a damaging spell. Unfortunately, as a result, the other spells that were affected by Slow Time were not popular since they didn’t do as much damage, making the 6 set bonus somewhat worthless. Instead, you would combine Delsere’s in the previous seasons with Tal Rasha’s 5 piece for a reasonably powerful hybrid build.
The change removed the damaging effect of Slow Time and made it monsters caught in the bubble would receive a nasty debuff that would 2000% more damage from a few designated abilities. The two that have become really popular with this patch are Energy Twister and Explosive Blast, mostly due to the two new items introduced in the form of The Twisted Sword and the Orb of Infinite Depth.
The Twisted Sword is the primary item that has really skyrocketed Wizards this season due to the stacking damage that goes along with the Raging Storm rune from Energy Twister. Wizards can then generate near indefinite amounts of Energy Twisters from solo play using a combination of Hergbrash’s Binding and the Etched Seal, both which are new items. The Etched Seal causes the wizard’s channeled spells of Arcane Torrent, Disintegrate and Ray of Frost to have another spender cast along side. To ensure no Arcane Power is spent, Hergbrash’s Binding reduces the mentioned spells cost by a good deal. In solo play then, a Wizard merely channels Arcane Torrent to trigger Energy Twister, which causes a large amount of damage with the right gear.
In 4 man group play, the meta works where a barbarian and monk feed the Wizard health globes from the Solanium weapon, which help keep the wizard’s Arcane Power high along with the Reaper Wraps bracers and Power Hungry passive. The wizard can then simply spam cast Energy Twister while a witch doctor in the group keeps things paralyzed. Also, in that scenario, the aforementioned Orb of Infinite Depth is used to reduce damage via Explosive Blast. Those elements along with the Halo of Arlyse help keep the wizard alive and monsters consistently CC’d.
For myself, I’m playing the Wizard solo and still am lacking a Halo fo Arlyse for the CC. However, my build is slightly different in that I use a Gesture of Orpheus for the cubed weapon and an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. The idea here is that I want to ensure that I can toss out Slow Time very frequently. While the 2 set bonus does lower the cooldown of Slow Time, it simply does not feel enough for solo runs for me. Also, I’m not using the Furnace so I’m lacking some damage against elites.
Obviously, the popular build is not completely set in stone and there is definitely room for trying different things. For instance, you could swap out the Mantle of Channeling (which is what many people use for the armor cube spot) for a Crown of the Primus. In that situation, you would gain all the runes for Slow Time. Or you could go with Disintegrate rather than Arcane Torrent to get more range. Or you could replace the Ancient Parthan Defenders in your bracer slot for Ranslor’s Folly to cluster up enemies for Energy Twister.
Because I’m missing an item or two as well as gems, my experience with the build has been limited to a few hours on it thus far. Right now, I’m not all that happy with Arcane Torrent and am considering swapping out Illusionist for a different skill since I’m already using a Gesture of Orpheus and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. The game play reminds me of a less tanky and less pet oriented version of the Marauders just because you’re dumping debuff bubbles on enemies to do damage. However, a lot of the action ends up being in your face because of how you’re forced to channel Arcane Torrent. I think part of my isssue is missing that Halo of Arlyse. Not being able to freeze enemies makes my build a little tougher to manage mobs. Also, I suspect that the build I’m using is better off for high greater rifts.
On the other hand, one you trap an enemy in your bubble, it’s pretty much game over. The damage with this build is very high so you just need to position your bubble in the right spot while luring your enemies inside to get nuked.
My main complaint is that it feels a little slow. The older DMO + Tal Rasha was much more action oriented and far more fun. I like the older style because you would just zip around and drop Slow Time bubbles along with a few spells to trigger your meteors from Tal Rasha’s. It was a very high risk but high reward playstyle. The current meta for this build is kinda boring. One person in my group remarked that the 4 man meta is stupid. And when you look at what’s being done, it really is retarded.
I really wish they kept the damaging aspect of Slow Time and just bumped up the damage for that. Also, I wish that DelRasha makes a comeback in a future patch. Hybrid builds can be a lot of fun and I hope that we can see more of them.