My primary issue with Vyr’s is how it’s used to work with the Archon skill. Outside of giving you all Archon runes and boosting damage/resistance/attack speed, the set doesn’t make Archon anymore pleasant to play. The gist of the build is to build stacks while in Archon form. Once Archon ends, you lose everything. You can retain some stacks with the Swami hat as well as starting with stacks from Fazula’s Improbable Chain. Yet the key to making the set work outside of these items and the Chantodo’s set is Obsidian Ring of the Zodaic because you’re trying to ensure Archon stays up.

In some ways, the build reminds me a bit of the Crusdader Akkhan’s set where you try to maintain near 100% uptime on Akarat’s Prophet. However, Akarat’s Prophet doesn’t make a Crusader suffer from a severe problem centered around their skill. On the other hand, Archon violates a simple UI principal which makes the set/build punishing in that you swap between one UI to another. Worse yet, the UI you receive from Archon is set in stone and there’s no way to customize it, which makes the play style unbearable.

Essentially, in this scenario what you’re getting are two separate sets of keybindings. Depending on your non-Archon setup, your abilities might not neatly lineup with your Archon ones. Most wizards for instance will probably use Teleport for movement so that lines up. However, the keybinding for teleport will always be 3 for Archon (I believe). If you’re like me where you set your teleport up for 1, then you’re screwed because your mapping now is messed up.

Well, you might argue that the easy solution here is to just remap your teleport to 3. But in my case, I use all movements boosts for my characters on 1. Also, my fingers are mapped to 1 when it comes to movement boosts. Why should I rebind and relearn a movement boost for a build that sucks? It’s just better to ditch the build/gear and find a better set.

Also, you have the useless Slow Time ability which follows you around upon activation. This ability makes no sense. Why not just automatically invoke the Slow Time rather than force the user to turn it on/off? Why wouldn’t the user want Slow Time most of the time 99% of the time? Wouldn’t it be far better to just keep Slow Time up the entire time and remove the keybinding to not confuse the user further?

Some people might just believe that I’m “bad” because I’m unable to re-learn a few keys in a game. That’s not the point. The point I’m trying to make is that the goal of the set in making Archon the centerpiece in a build is self-neutralizing due to both poor UI and bad item synergy. If Archon is the centerpiece of the build, then why not just make Archon permanent? By this point, permanent Archon doesn’t make the wizard over powered since there’s enough gear and builds to share the spotlight. Having permanent Archon at least would resolve the issue of poor UI in having to constantly switch between one set of keybindings to another while avoiding being driven to a narrow corridor of gearing.

An alternative to this situation is simply redesigning Archon to have a similar effect of Akarat’s Prophet, where Archon simply buffs the skills on the wizard’s toolbar. You could get a similar effect where you just buff up certain popular skills or skills that resemble what Archon uses to retain the Archon metaphor. In this manner, all you’re really doing as a wizard is trying to keep Archon up rather than going through a schizophrenic mindset of one style of play to another in an awkward fashion.

Now, I want to point out that the Witch Doctor’s chicken build via Manajuma’s isn’t really the same. The chicken build works because you only have two ideas to worry about when switching into the chicken. Most people just opt for blowing things up so the switch isn’t as mentally taxing as Archon. Also, the cooldown on Hex isn’t as punishing as Archon.

At any rate, I’m just going to junk my Vyr’s gear once I find DMO or Tal Rasha. I might give Vyr’s another go once I get better gear, but I still think that Archon or Vyr’s need to be redesigned for the reasons stated.

The post Diablo 3: Why Vyr’s/Archon Is An Unpleasant Build/Skill appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The Vyr’s build centers around the Archon ability. With the two set bonus, you gain all the runes to Archon and that’s what starts to make the set. The four piece bonus has been revamped to increase your attack speed, resistances and armor per stack, where stacks is defined as the number of enemies you kill while in Archon form. The six piece bonus, which now includes shoulders and a helmet, gives you stacks when you hit with an Archon ability. As the damage scales based on your stacks, it’s important to keep up your stacks.

To compliment the set, the Chantodo’s Resolve set has been redesigned as well. While in Archon form, you will expel a Wave of Destruction, dealing 350% weapon damage to enemies within 30 yards. And while not in Archon form, you can stack up to 20 itmes 350% weapon damage to the Wave of Destruction. So in other words, you have a method to compensate when Archon is on cooldown to do damage.

There are two more key items to use with this set. One item is [d3]The Swami[/d3], where the bonuses from Archon stacks now last for 15-20 seconds after Archon expires. Also, you will find the new seasonal [d3]Fazula’s Improbable Chain[/d3] which you automatically start with 40-50 Archon stacks when entering Archon form.

Most people I’ve seen who use this set often compliment it with the [d3]Focus[/d3] and [d3]Restraint[/d3] Bastion of Will rings for the damage increase. Your amulet slot can be anything but probably will end up being a Hellfire Amulet or a damage immunity amulet.

For the Cubed items, you probably will end up going with The Swami. Weapon-wise, there’s not a lot of really stand out choices. The obvious one is [d3]The Furnace[/d3] but beyond that you can go with [d3]Aether Walker[/d3], [d3]Wand of Woh[/d3] or perhaps the [d3]Light of Grace[/d3]. The Wand of Woh I don’t think is that great here since the effect has been diminished (and I’m not sure if any of the other abilities you use in Archon trigger it). That leaves the Aether Walker for freebie teleports or the Light of Grace for the piercing Frost Ray. I haven’t tried Light of Grace but the idea of having the piercing effect is that you’ll most likely using Frost Ray when you’re out of Archon form. So that provides more DPS in allowing you to hit more enemies.

Truthfully, I’m not a huge fan of the Bastion of Will being used with this set since Archon doesn’t really focus as much on generation as it does on cooldown. Pretty much you’ll be using a generator like Magic Missile when you’re out of Archon form so keeping up your damage will be difficult as you switch in an out of Archon.

Your ring slot pretty much has to be [d3]Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac[/d3] because you will have to find ways to maintain your Archon form. Your stat priority will be on cooldown for your shoulder, hands and weapon/offhand slots. And you’ll probably want to prioritize a Gogok of Swiftness to help continue reducing your cooldown to keep Archon up.

Game play-wise, your goal is to maintain Archon form as much as possible while keeping your stacks up for damage boost. Since your main ability is a channeled one spender, you probably can use a Taeguk for the armor/damage boost. You will have a traveling Slow Time bubble for additional defensive capabilities. Anytime you swap back into Archon, you should push that thing up immediately. More than likely you’ll want to be in melee range so your Chantodo’s set can damage the area around you. Also, your explosive blast ability requires melee range.

For myself, I wasn’t all that happy with the play style. I think it felt a bit awkward and far slower than the Delsere-Tal Rasha 3/5 set. The game play requires a lot of management on your end when it comes to Archon form and keeping your stacks up. It might work out as a reasonable damage build for groups but solo-wise it feels klunky and doesn’t output as much damage as a Delsere-Tal Rasha. Perhaps, the missing component for myself was the seasonal belt since I was testing this build on non-season. But there definitely was something missing to make me truly enjoy this build. I definitely wouldn’t suggest using this build in a non-seasonal setting though compared to Delsere-Tal Rasha.

Every second while in Archon form you expel a Wave of Destruction, dealing 350% weapon damage to enemies within 30 yards
Every time you hit with an attack while not in Archon form, 350% weapon damage is added to the Wave of Destruction, stacking up to 20 times

The post Diablo 3: Vyr’s Archon Wizard Build for Patch 2.3 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.