Legendary Items

• Delsere’s Magnum Opus (Shoulders, Gloves, Chest, Legs, Boots, Helmet)
  • (2): Casting Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, Electrocute, Meteor, or Arcane Torrent also casts Slow Time at a target. This effect will not trigger if the target is already inside a Slow Time bubble. The cooldown of Teleport will reset while you’re inside bubbles generated from this set or cast by you. – This is a huge change. First, rather than reducing the cooldown of Slow Time, Slow Time will be auto-cast on a target which pretty much means you can place these almost anywhere. The other part that is a major change is resetting the Teleport cooldown. So now this set should become competitive with Firebirds in terms of speed without forcing one to use Illusionist as a passive to gimmick Teleport’s reset.
  • (4): You take 75% reduced damage while you have a Slow Time active. Allies inside your Slow Time gain half benefit. – This is a pretty nice boost in damage reduction and may make Delsere’s Wizards desirable in group play in helping parties create a defensive buff.
  • (6): Enemies affected by your Slow Time and for 5 seconds after exiting take 12,500% increased damage from your Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Explosive Blast, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, and Wave of Force abilities. – No real change here. Arcane Orb will probably be your main source of damage especially with the Sanctified Power related to Arcane Orb.

• Crown of the Primus (head/cube): Slow Time gains the effect of every rune and permanently follows you. – The major change here is that Slow Time will be around you at all times. This will be pretty big as you almost can teleport as often as you have Slow Time up. In this case, that means, you’ll have 15 seconds to be able to zip around the screen.

• Unstable Scepter (weapon/cube): The damage of Arcane Orb is increased by 378% and its explosion triggers an additional time. (Wizard Only) [350 – 450]% – Boosts your Arcane Orb damage and causes it to explode twice.

• Triumvirate (offhand): Your Signature Spells increase the damage of Arcane Orb by 375% for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. (Wizard Only) [300 – 400]% – You’ll probably be using an ability like Magic Missile to help auto-cast your Frozen/Arcane Orb.

• The Shame of Delsere (belt): Your Signature Spells attack 50% faster and restore 9 Arcane Power. (Wizard Only) [9 – 12] – Since you’ll be using a Signature Spell to bolster your Arcane Orb damage and possibly help auto-cast Frozen Orb, you will want this belt to boost the rate of casting your spells and to help restore Arcane Power.

• Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer (bracers) – Increases the potency of your shields by 85%. (Wizard Only) [75 – 100]% – More defense for this build.
• Focus/Restraint (rings): You’ll probably be casting a Signature Spell and periodically your Arcane Orb in some combination. So these rings make the best pairing for this build.

• Squirt’s Necklace (amulet): While not taking damage, damage dealt is increased by up to 100% and damage taken is increased by up to 50%. – I can’t see any other amulet in this spot. You could use the Endless Walk set instead but I think you’ll have enough defense and your shields should prevent the downtime on the damage boost here.

• Wizardspike (weapon/cube): Performing an attack has a 25% chance to hurl a Frozen Orb. Arcane Orb deals 329% increased damage. (Wizard Only) [300 – 350]% – Boost the number of Arcane Orbs you can hurl effectively.

• Halo of Karini (ring/cube) – You take 74% less damage for 5 seconds after your Storm Armor electrocutes an enemy more than 15 yards away. (Wizard Only) [60 – 80]% – Another defensive item that synergizes well with this build.

Sanctified Power

You have two choices here.

Arcane Orb now periodically spawns up to four orbiting charges that will generate an additional orb when cast. All charges from the Arcane Orb rune now detonate at the same time.

This one seems like the natural choice since you will gain more Arcane Orbs. I’m not sure if the ones spawned by Wizardspike also will influence this ability. But I think this power will be quite good for this build. The other power is:

Magic Missile fires 20 missiles and gains the effect of the Seeker rune.

This one might not seem as good but I’m wondering if the additional missiles cast here will help produce more Frozen Orbs. If that’s the case, then this will be a really solid Sanctified Power to use too.

Legendary Gems

• Bane of the Trapped – No surprise here given that you’re already employing CC everywhere.

• Zei’s Stone of Vengeance – You’re mostly going to be doing ranged damage. But the stun from the secondary will also help trigger your Bane of the Trapped damage.

• Bane of the Stricken – To help with your single target damage.

Active Skills

• Magic Missile: Glacial Spike – You’re going to be doing primarily cold damage and this helps add to the CC effect of everything else you’re doing. Also, with Time Stop and The Shame of Delsere, you should be attacking quite rapidly to frequently trigger more Frozen Orbs.
• Arcane Orb: Frozen Orb – You’ll be throwing one in on your own to help trigger the Focus/Restraint damage boost.
• Slow Time – You gain all Runes once you obtain Crown of the Primus but Time Shell or Time Warp might be good starter runes until you can obtain the Crown.
• Teleport: Safe Passage – Since Slow Time will be resetting Teleport for you, you just need to make sure you arrive safely.
• Magic Weapon: Deflection – For your shields
• Storm Armor: Power of the Storm – Boost your defense from Halo of Karini

Passive Skills

• Galvanizing Ward – More shields that augment your Magic Weapon: Deflection buff.
• Audacity – Since your Slow Time will follow you around, you can effectively teleport onto packs of mobs and explode them within your bubble while this increases your damage.
• Evocation – Slow Time is still on a cooldown so you probably will want to use this to help cast it in empty areas to keep your teleport up.
• Unwavering Will – Decent boost to resistance and damage.

Followers

I think Enchantress is the best choice here for her cheat death, increased armor/attack speed and cooldown reduction.

Final Thoughts

Really looking forward to giving this build a try. I’ve stayed away from Delsere’s Magnum Opus for a long time because every change seemed awkward after they shifted Slow Time from a damaging ability. I think these changes will make this build a lot faster and less squishy. It’s less about doing damage with this build but survivability in the way the changes are being presented.

The post Diablo 3: Patch 2.7.4 PTR Delsere’s Magnum Opus Slow Time/Arcane Orb Build for Season 27 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

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.

The post Diablo 3: Delsere’s Magnum Opus 2.0 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

What is this Del-Rasha build people are raving about? I mentioned it in a previous post but I wanted to go into detail here. This blog goes into the general gear and ideas for doing a reasonable version of this build.

Del-Rasha is a hybrid build that combines 3 pieces from the Delsere’s Magnum Opus Wizard/Slow Time set with 5 pieces of the Tal Rasha’s Elements set. The key to this build is the Kanai’s Cube where you can use a Ring of Royal Grandeur to allow for the mixing of both sets along with being able to still use Focus/Restraint and a few other items for some nice damage output. You will still be doing meteor damage through using a variety of elemental attacks that trigger your meteors. In that manner, you still will want to use [d3]Nilfurs Boast[/d3] for the increase in meteor damage.

Other key items in this build are the [d3]Gesture of Orpheus[/d3] to reduce your Slow Time cooldown, [d3]Crown of the Primus[/d3] for supplying your Slow Time with all runes and Reaper’s Wraps for a little bit of resource recuperation. For infinite teleport, you will want to use an [d3]Aether Walker[/d3], which will be your only arcane spender. Having both ensures that you can port around almost indefinitely.

In order to get Del-Rasha to work together, you are required to use the off-hand, amulet and belt from Tal-Rahsa’s set so that you can make room for the Delsere’s set. The only item that becomes a must-have for Delsere’s is [d3]Dashing Pauldrons of Despair[/d3] for the shoulders (since there are no Tal Rasha shoulder pieces).

Your main focus for this build in terms of gear stats is cooldown reduction. Most of your abilities will be cooldown intensive and you will want to ensure that Slow Time is up constantly. You can have some level of resource reduction just for Teleport, but it isn’t nearly as important.

For your legendary gems, you will want Bane of the Trapped, which works nicely with Slow Time and Black Hole, Zei’s Stone of Vengeance, for a little more CC and ranged damage boost and Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard for shielding and life regeneration.

Your active skills will be Shock Pulse: Piercing Orb, which helps lower the cooldown on your Slow Time, Slow Time: Time Warp (although the rune won’t matter due to the Crown of the Primus providing all runes), Teleport: Calamity for Arcane damage, Mirror Image: Duplicates as a defensive cooldown and as a mechanism to toss out more black holes and slow time spells, Magic Weapon: Ignite to help trigger the fire aspect of Tal Rasha’s and finally Black Hole: Absolute Zero to trigger the cold aspect.

For passives, you will go with Elemental Exposure, as this is a must-have for Tal Rasha’s, Arcane Dynamo for some boost in damage that works in conjunction with your Shock Pulse, Evocation for more cooldown reduction and of course Illusionist to trigger Mirror Images, Slow Time and Teleport (mostly Mirror Images) by taking 15% damage.

The way you play this build is teleport around and drop Slow Time bubbles around you. Use Shock Pulse to trigger both the lightning meteors as well as bringing down the cooldown of Slow Time. Generally, with my cooldown reduction I can get Slow Time to roughly 2 shots for every Shock Pulse. You want to get a little in the face of your enemies to take some damage when Mirror Image is on cooldown. If your Slow Time is on cooldown too, you can drop a Black Hole to further slow enemies then fire off a few Shock Pulses to plop another Slow Time bubble right above them.

I find this build to be the best wizard farming build due to the near infinite level of teleport. You should conserve your teleports for the most part and kill groups while hunting for Health Globes to regenerate your arcane power. If you find yourself resource starved, you could toss out Arcane Dynamo for Astral Presence since it increases your total arcane power and regeneration.

The thing I really like about this build is the raw speed. It’s not a hard build to gear, imo, and can still do a fair amount of damage. But I feel that speed is the key to efficiency in this game and it allows you to bypass mobs or areas that normally would hinder a higher damaging but slower build.

The post Diablo 3: Wizard Del-Rasha Build for Patch 2.3 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.