CURSE YOU, ISP!

Currently spending my time on the DiabloFans forums because my stupid ISP is giving me hell.

I'm not saying ancient aliens did it, but...

LEARN TO READ: Because Quitting Halfway Could Kill You (Or At Least Make You Open To Humiliation)

Another brilliant example of a forum poster who lives by the adage TL;DR.

Wizards and the Conjuration School: Why It Sucks And Rocks At The Same Time

If you've ever played a wizard to 60 and above in D3, there's probably 3 spells that have made a near-permanent home in your skill slots. To be exact, these would be Magic Weapon, Familiar (the Sparkflint one to be exact), and an Armor Spell (of any type). The benefits of these three spells are incredible - increased dps for two to five minutes, or some other kind of defensive advantage. All it takes is 25 AP at one pop, and you're good for the next 120 seconds or so. No wonder most people use it.

How do I know that most people use it, you ask? A quick look at the skills used by the top 500 Heroscore players (according to DiabloProgress) shows you the breakdowns. While this obviously doesn't cover every single D3 player, seeing the skills chosen by the top 500 is at least indicative of what skills players trend to. Magic Weapon is at the top of the pack with a whopping 73% usage, with an Armor spell (Energy Armor) in fourth, closely followed by the Familiar spell. Breaking this down further, we see that Blood Magic and Force Weapon are the most used runes for MW, Sparkflint the ONLY rune of choice for Familiar, and Pinpoint Barrier the overwhelming winner in the Energy Armor category.

"The prosecution would like to submit the following evidence..."

In a side note, Storm Armor makes a healthy showing at number 8 in the list. Ice Armor is number 20, however, showing that most people care about the dps gains provided by the other Armor spells. The prevailing Wizard dogma is "kill it before it kills you", and apparently even the incredible 12% melee damage reduction isn't enough to interest many players in it (As a personal disclaimer, this is one of my personal favorite armor spells, as it's saved me more times than I can count and is a cheap way to trigger Cold-Blooded).

With all these spells providing a good duration of free dps, it's clear why many people would use them, probably all at the same time. All three spells are near mandatory for Archon farming specs, while even CMWW and SNS builds carry at least 1 Armor spell each. One could, if I may, argue that they're almost too good.

You tell 'em, brother!

And that brings me to the next point - why they suck. One is that there's almost no reason not to pack them - common wisdom would say that, if you pack 1 signature spell, 1 AP spender, and 1 ohcrap button of your choice, that leaves 3 slots for MW, Familiar, and an Armor spell. In fact, before Monster Power, I had all three spells for nearly every one of my builds. In other words, they worsen diversity because apart from sacrificing a slot, there's no other downside to using them. They'll mostly be on, they only take a second and a nominal AP cost, they're basically 3 passive slots you swapped for active slots. Which leads me to the next reason they suck - they're BORING.

The Conjuration school has rough equivalents with a couple of the other classes, that is the Barbarian Tactics and the Monk mantras. Every barb has a shout, usually Battle Rage, although a lot of people use War Cry as well (and Threatening Shout is at least represented on DiabloProgress as well at number 16). And every monk uses a Mantra of some kind. But what makes them different and more interesting than the Conjuration school?

In the case of the Barb, using the shouts is a significant decision. War Cry and Threatening Shout restore Fury and have cooldowns, meaning it's better to save casting them when you need them rather than just refreshing them each time the cd is up (especially in the case of a party). While Battle Rage has no cooldown, it costs 20 Fury, usually a significant sum since it actually takes effort to gain Fury. In the case of monks, Mantras have a bonus effect each time it is cast, which is also a significant decision since Spirit is an equally precious resource (We all know there's really only one Mantra worth casting... maybe a second if you're a two-handed weapon monk... but that's a different discussion).

If you've played a Wizard, then you know AP is a dime a dozen. We get ten points of it a SECOND just by standing around and scratching our heads. And we haven't even begun to talk about AP on crit items or Astral Presence. The Conjuration skills are such no brainers that I end up casting them by absent-minded mistake even when I'm playing different classes.

Ok, then, so what can be done about this state of affairs? As a matter of fact, we have a couple of options.

HELL TO PAY: There needs to be a significant consequence to use the Conjuration spells. I'm not saying nerf them to the ground (unless we want another wave of wizards to ragequit en masse right behind the melee demon hunters), but rather that they incur a cost that would at least influence the user's choices. Let's look at Energy Armor - it lowers the maximum AP by 20 in all runes except one, and yet it's still the number 4 spell on the DiabloProgress list. This means that despite the drawback, people are still willing to use it. Why not do something similar to the other spells, then? If you consider that the Conjuration spells last a long time, wouldn't it make sense that they're a constant drain on a Wizard's resources? 

Even Gandalf knew running out of AP was a bad thing

I'm proposing that each Conjuration spell cast, apart from its AP cost, reduces maximum Arcane Power by 5. Force Armor would reduce it by 25 instead, considering how desired it is. What this means is that, if you used all three Conjuration spells at the same time, your total AP is reduced by 15 (or thereabouts, again assuming you're not using Force Armor). Or maybe each Conjuration spell could, instead, reduce Arcane Power GENERATION by 1 point each, affecting both AP regen and AP on crit. This would make choosing such spells an actual choice, instead of a no-brainer.

GIV 'UM SUM FLASH, BOYZ: But wait - doesn't the above idea just nerf the Conjuration spells to the ground? Whatever happened to making them more interesting? Well, we can do that too - for example, with the Armor spells, why not make them have an effect when they're cast?

But wait - isn't that just a cheap knockoff of the monk Mantras? Sure it would be... if the effect was a buff. We all know from Blizzard's lore overview that Wizards are supposed to be rebellious, flamboyant, and lacking in finesee... in game terms, pure hoses of demon-crunching Dee Pee Ess. So make the Armor cast effect reflect that - when casting an Armor spell, it releases a large area effect wave of X% weapon damage of the corresponding element (ice, lightning, and arcane damage depending on the Armor spell). The damage should not be comparable to actual AP spenders, but rather, give you an incentive to refresh your Armor spell in the middle of combat instead of out of it. Furthermore, the cast effect would be able to proc the corresponding passives (Cold Blooded, Temporal Flux, and Paralysis, which badly needs another source of lightning damage).

ME AND MY LITTLE FRIEND: Familiar these days is pretty much a single rune spell. Sparkflint is just that damn good - no one really cares about Vigoron's bonus hp regen (which is the red headed stepchild of life regain anyway) or Cannoneer's AOE effect. That 12 percent bonus, no-questions-asked boost to dps just makes Sparkflint the only choice. But then what do we do? Nerfing Sparkflint is just asking for trouble and forum flames. So... here's a thought... why not BUFF the other runes?

Some familiars have ALL the luck

A simple fix would involve looking at WHY Sparkflint is so good - that 12% bonus dps. Why not give a small amount of that to the baseline Familiar effect, say, a 5% dps bonus? If Arcanot gave you bonus 2 AP regen a second AND a 5% damage increase, wouldn't you start looking at it some more? Sparkflint would still be the best choice for raw dps, but the other familiar runes would then offer flexibility without being a dps loss. One would imagine this makes them a LOT more attractive.

I GOT THE MAGIC STICK: Magic Weapon suffers from the same problem as the Armor spells - once cast, it just sits there and adds to your dps. Even worse, its rune diversity suffers because there's only real 2 real choices for the rune; Blood Magic and Force Weapon. The reason behind this isn't even because the other runes are a loss of dps - it's because they can't proc anything. Electrify can't even proc Paralysis, which is downright silly, while Venom not only has zero proc coefficient, it uses an element that isn't supported by any Wizard passive and just feels downright out of place. Conduit, on the other hand, gives much too little AP to make it worth using.

It was foretold that one day, devs who could buff the magic weapon runes might reveal themselves

Apart from allowing it to proc and buffing some of the effects, there are other ways to make Magic Weapon more interesting. Does anyone remember the Sorceress' Enchant spell from Diablo 2? What if the secondary effects from the Magic Weapon spell (lifesteal, knockback, DoT, resource gain, aoe lightning) applied to your ENTIRE party? It might require some numbers tweaking (granting an entire party 1.5% lifesteal might turn out to be too good), but doing this would actually give the Wizard some co-op viability, instead of just being the dps glass cannon.

There should be a ton of ideas out there on how to make the Conjuration school more interesting. I'm not saying my suggestions are the best ones, but I hope they're a start. Maybe this'll get people thinking about concrete, positive proposals for these spells.

THE STATE OF PLAY: Whatever happened to the Shielded Crusader?

Whatever did happen to shields? I remember in the pre-Monster Power patches, a good sacred shield with mainstat, vit, ARes and crit would fetch MILLIONS on the open market. Everybody needed one - even decked out CMWW wizards would discreetly stash a board in their bags, just in case they ran across something seriously life threatening.

"Look at teh shield wearing noob LAWL"

Now? Sword and board is basically a thing of the past, gone the way of the dodo, dial-up internet, and Dennis Rodman. Except probably in high level Hardcore play, there's just no call for using a shield anymore. How did we get to this state of affairs?

MOAR PEW PEW, LESS QQ: The advent of increased drop rates was one of the factors in lowering the popularity of the shield. Back in Ye Olde Daeys of the early Diablo 3 patches, the shield represented the best option for survivability and possibly increased damage output. In those days, dropping a quiver or a mojo that actually had the correct mainstat AND vit was the equivalent of winning 4 numbers at the Powerball, never mind having it drop with crit and a useful skill mod. Furthermore, all such offhand items were class restricted, meaning your fresh 60 witch doctor could drop a Tal Rasha's orb and do nothing but weep or sell it at the AH. On the other hand, EVERYONE can use a shield, and those dropped everywhere, like roaches in an episode of Billy The Exterminator. 

Better drop rates put paid to the glory days of the shield. A bottom-of-the-barrel Dead Man's Legacy has  MINIMUM guaranteed stats of 170 Dex AND Vit, not to mention the free hate regen, 9 crit minimum and skill mod. At the time of this writing, that particular quiver would cost you, oh, 20k gold. To look anything like that, a shield would probably have to use 3 mods (mainstat, vit, and a mainstat+vit roll) to get there, and roll near perfect +crit. It can get a skill mod, but it's highly unlikely the skill will match the mainstat, and it can't even roll hate regen. And I haven't even started talking about, say, a Thing of the Deep or a Triumvirate, both of which are similar options for their respective classes.

According to D3MaxStats, rare shields can only roll 2 offensive stats - crit chance and bonus damage vs. elites. The rest of its mod table is filled with all sorts of defensive affixes, not to mention clogged up with such great options like Thorns and bonus exp. On the other hand, a random rare source or mojo will come with a damage bonus, which is a huge boost to your dps when paired with a crit mod. It can also roll bonus damage vs. elites, as well as some indirect damage aids like AP on crit and Max AP. A quiver, on the other hand, replaces the bonus damage with IAS, which amounts to the same thing on your sheet. With that in mind, you can begin to see why shields generally languish in the dusty back shelf of the AH.

Well put, señor Gold Hat

DIE LESS, NOOB: The other side of the coin that flattened shields is the changed gameplay of Diablo 3. This portion can be summed up in three factors - Monster Power, lower death penalties, and efficiency.

Efficiency is the new buzzword that defines much of the farming attitude in D3 nowadays. Before MP, it was an achievement to just be able to kill an elite in act 2, much less manage to survive a series of them. Nowadays, it's not IF you can kill them, it's how fast you can kill them. Shields have little place in such playstyles, especially in solo games. You've got no business doing the Alkaizer run if you need a shield to just get through the first 5 Neph stacks - better to grab as much dps and movespeed as you can and plow through everything. Monster Power ties into efficiency; if a particular MP setting is too hard to survive without a shield, you're better off just lowering the MP until you can pull it off with a real dps gear set. Despite the increased Exp and loot bonuses of the higher settings, it's generally agreed that faster killing earns better rewards in the long run than stubborn slogging through elites via high defense.

Lowered penalties for dying is the third factor - one of the big reasons for keeping a shield on circa 1.03 and below was that dying was just. A pain. In the neck. One careless mistake with elites could cost you all the gold you've earned on the run, not to mention having to fight the pack again at full hit points, not to mention the longer resurrection durations each time you took a dirt nap. The incentive to just not die was all-consuming. Now, that's all gone, and while that's a good thing in my opinion, it's helped to render the humble shield relegation to the vendor and salvage bin.

Yeah, I'd pay 100m for one of THOSE shields

So what are shields for nowadays? I've seen and heard of them used mostly on Hardcore, as well as Softcore Uber boss runs. Certainly in party boss runs, there's less incentive for sacrificing everything in exchange for hard dps, and it pays to persuade the barbarian or monk to strap on a shield. Having one party member, preferably a melee (with the inherent 30% melee damage reduction) have better survivability is a good idea against Ubers. This allows the other members to focus on dealing damage, and allows the shield user to serve as a hedge against accidents (read - running into Rakanoth's slice teleport). Basically, the shield using character is more likely to survive, and thus be able to raise any team mates that have fallen during the fight.

Still, this is a rather niche role, and let's face it - most Diablo 3 players couldn't care less about such tactics and just want to faceroll, especially if they're playing barbs to begin with. A possible solution would be to let shields roll another offensive stat at a smaller amount; hopefully this would close the damage gap from something like a 50% dps loss to something like a 15% - 20% loss, making it more attractive to players and promoting better build and gear diversity. Again, who knows - patches can change things drastically, and we may yet see shields come back to the forefront of gearing.

Holy Hellacious Batarangs, Batman!

At the end of my usual grind of runs, I decided to give the wizard a rest and took the demon hunter out for a spin. As usual, I had a bunch of odd ideas percolating in my mind; I'd just dropped a Nat's chestpiece with -Hatred to Impale. Now, Impale isn't my favorite skill in the world - it's basically a single target knockoff of Elemental Arrow with 250% the cost and only 170% of the damage - but I figured, whatever, might be more fun to use with some of that awful Hatred knocked off the cost. 

Short answer - it still blows hard for farming, and I probably wasn't going to try it against Ubers. So, here I was, after barely clearing Arreat Crater 2 with a pair of death repair bills to my name, and there was no way in hell I was going to go through the rest of the run with this sad excuse for a skill. So, I putzed around in town for a minute while Genie was selling off her rares, and since I was experimenting anyway, I gave a sigh, and slotted in Chakram into my right click.

At first I thought Chakram was like this...

I'm sure that every demon hunter who's hit 60 at this point picked up Chakram at level 12 and tried it. Heck, maybe they even gave it a second chance with each new rune they picked up. And I'm equally sure that after 5 minutes, they gave up on its inaccuracy and lack of range, and put Elemental Arrow/Multishot/Spike Trap back on. You could be standing two yards away from a Fallen, and the damn shuriken would just dodge him. Chakram was just AWFUL, and a waste of Hate.

So, here I am in Keep Depths 2, half-asleep, and just spamming Chakram: Twin Chakrams until I ran out of hatred... well, hey. I wasn't running out of hatred. Well, HEY... the damn things were critting for 200k EACH. Hell, they were actually HITTING something. Hmm...

... and then I realized it was like this!

I've come to the conclusion that Chakram is one of those skills that is completely worthless when you first pick it up. The key phrase here is, 'when you first pick it up'. At that point, demon hunters just don't have the IAS, the crit chance/crit damage, the passive bonus hate regen, much less the raw dps to make Chakram worth it.

Well, how do you make Chakram worth it? Well, what turns people off from it? The whole wonky way it moves is the main issue, since it's likely to whiff (and you really don't want to spend Hatred on a move that might not even hit). So, what's the solution? Flood the frigging map with Chakrams. It's one of those skills that really shines in a farm run, since it clears white mob groups really quickly, and deals enough base damage to be practical against elite packs. As long as you have at least 1 point of passive Hatred regen from a quiver or something, it'll drain your red bar real slow. If you pack in a Bat Companion and Shadow Power: Night Bane, you can pretty much use it as your left click.

"Buy a cloak with reduced Chakram Hatred cost, n00b."

But why use Chakram to begin with? Well, let's put it up against every demon hunter's bread and butter skill, the Elemental Arrow. They both have equal Hatred costs (10), while unruned Chakram deals 15% more weapon damage than the baseline Elemental Arrow. 15% isn't enough to move people away from things like Ball Lightning, however, since that skill barely requires any aiming. However, it's the Chakram runes that really matter here, and there are two standouts that every demon hunter should look at.

Obviously, some Chakram runes are better than others

Twin Chakrams: This fires a pair of Chakram, each one doing 114% weapon damage. Their path can best be described as a double helix kinda thing - at certain points during its flight, the pair will crisscross with each other. Monsters smack in the middle will take damage from BOTH Chakram, and both will always crit at the same time (I'm not one hundred percent sure on this, but during the whole run, each time a crisscross hit got a critical, it was always both Chakrams that got it). It takes a little getting used to positioning yourself to get the double hit, but it's not hard and it's worth it, since that works out to 228% weapon damage. To give you perspective, that's 3% more than the damage of a Cluster Arrow for a FIFTH of the hatred cost.
Razor Disk: This one is my personal favorite. Unlike the rest of the Chakram variants, this one has a predictable, consistent initial flight path, meaning that it goes in a straight line until the point where you clicked, upon which it begins to spiral. If you're used to the other Hatred spenders, this is the easiest rune to transition to Chakram with. You'll just need to get used to clicking right on or slightly behind the target. The initial flight is FAST, on par with Cluster Arrow, and the spiral flight path rips apart packed groups.

This demon hunter chose... poorly

Serpentine/Boomerang Runes: While both runes have a very impressive looking 230% damage modifier, these are some of the most unwieldy, awkward skills in the entire game. Serpentine is so slow, you will probably never hit anything that moves faster (or smaller) than a Demonic Tremor. The worst part about it is that most of the Serpentine chakram follow the same flight path, meaning that if you miss one, you'll miss ALL of them. Boomerang is a little easier to work with, but is gimped by its greatly reduced range (around 1/3 of the screen). It's not the fastest rune either, meaning that you'll easily get closed into melee while casting it, which you really don't want as a demon hunter.

Shuriken Cloud: The way this rune works is very different from the others; it lasts for 2 minutes and only affects nearby enemies. I don't consider this rune a true hatred spender, and I classify it differently from the other four mentioned above. Supposedly, this rune is used in melee dh builds, which I've never tried, so I'll defer discussion of this rune for another time.

In conclusion, Chakram is a decent alternative to Elemental Arrow as a Hatred spender. Give it a shot, get used to the unusual flight paths, and you might be pleasantly surprised. Oh, and don't forget... MAKE THEM FEAR THE NIGHT! -coughs-

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE: Dyes for legendaries have not been forgotten

Blizzard apparently remembered their promise some time back about looking into dyeing legendary gear, and we've got a blue post to confirm it's on its way.

No more hot purple Tal Rasha's for me, I hope!