Post by Amos on Sept 7, 2014 22:05:48 GMT -5
Hey guys I'm posting up a wip on a seasons guide and would really value your opinions. I would like it to be a solid guide that makes sense and more importantly one that works so people can hop in follow it to whichever degree they wish and plow through the levels in no time while having fun.
**Note: This is not about power leveling, and not about exploits to level up super fast. This guide is just about regular normal play solo and in team. So comments like just get a lvl 70 to power level you with that chest that grants 3x xp are not what i'm after - post such comments at your own peril and face my aussie wanker cunt cussing in mumble and be shamed in front of your peers for being a nonce.
so without further ado - here be'eth the guide:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seasons are upon us and going from 0 to Hero can be annoying but it can also be loads of fun. This guide is here to help you pick skills, builds and streamline your progression so that you can get the maximum out of those initial tedious levels. I will try to cover some handy tips on group organization, when to use mats and artisans, how to really get your bank up so that when you hit 70 you will be in the best possible position for crafting, rerolls and upgrading. I will highlight seasonal wizard items and with community input update with builds around said items.
This is only a guide, not a strict method so you can change things up as they suite you and tailor the guide to your game play as you go.
Contents:
1. Groups and group tips
2. Artisans and artisan tips
3. Resources and mats, gold, stash tips
4. Leveling strategy and tips
5. Gear and crafting tips
6. Skills
7. Builds
8. Post 70 gearing up?
9. Seasonal Wizard items (per season)
1. Groups
Feel free to run this in groups or as a solo it doesn't really matter, just be aware that you may have to drop the difficulty down a level or 2 if you have a 3 or 4 man party. Also all the steps in this guide can be done in party or in solo, preferably party as it's more fun and you have to really co-ordinate due to your teams lack of gear and abilities. So although solo is good because you can go at your own pace parties are super fun and will likely get you to 70 much faster, just keep an eye out on your difficulty setting.
Group Tip: Organization
If you will be going all the way with a group or at least most of the way get your group on teamspeak, raidcall, skype, mumble or any voice communication system your group has/will use. It will make it alot easier to coordinate your attacks and defenses.
eg. When I was running with some clan mates we were hopelessly under geared so while on mumble we were able to get our frost nova's to go off one after another and essentially create a perma freeze for a little bit until we downed the mobs. This sort of coordination will work great for black holes and other such abilities too. So get a mic, find a chat system and let the good times roll.
2. Artisans
Don't worry about your artisans, you will not need them in the initial stages of play, and they are mostly just a waste of gold and mats that you will need later on when you start hitting some walls. The blacksmith will be your major focus as you go because he can unsocket for you through salvage and craft when you hit gear walls. The mystic will compliment him around the mid game.
Teach plans and designs to your artisans as you get them, their level doesn't matter, you can teach them regardless and they will be there when you need them.
Make sure you have your blacksmith show all plans available not just highest usable. You can craft a higher level item and reroll level reduction with the mystic to really help you along.
Artisan Tip: when to level artisans!
Blacksmith: Level up to 10 @ lvl30. Level him to max @ lvl70 or lvl63 if you desperately need him and have enough Deaths Breath handy.
Jeweler: Level him to max @ lvl70. You don't need him basically, just sell all the gems you don't use and salvage items with gems in them to get the gem if you need to resocket it into other gear. Don't worry about perfect gem combo's while leveling.
Mystic: Level her to max @ lvl 40-50. Be careful not to reroll too many things, because you will need your mats for crafting legendary plans or weapons if able. (she doesn't need DB's as far as I am aware).
3. Resources
You will have no gold and no mats to start and as you level there will be a bit of a jugling act so that you can maintain high gold amounts and good mat amounts for the times you will need them on your way to 70. The big thing here is that mats from 0-60 are basically usless once you go past 61 so the idea here is to keep enough mats so you can craft and reroll only if needed same goes for gems.
Mats/gold Tip: When to melt, when to sell
lvl 00-33 - Salvage all items for mats. Remember to scan all items for potential upgrades before you salvage.
lvl 33-60 - Sell all items, you should have enough mats for some crafting/reroll if you need it.
lvl 61-67 - Salvage everything
lvl 68-70 - Salvage or sell, look at your gold/mat numbers, if you have loads of gold then salvage if you are running low on gold then sell. (You can do this from lvl 0 but I find it's just too much thinking lol)
Collect everything, whites, blues, rares you will want them all. Remember to pop armor and weapon racks for the white items as your crafting will need them more then you think. Another handy idea might be to sell on 1 run and salvage on the next and alternate in that way, same again for caches, salvage 1 bounty and sell the next bounty until you get the bag. with a 50/50 approach you should be covered for everything in the late game.
Gems Tip:
All gems below lvl 61 are essentially useless, just socket topaz everywhere you can. Don't worry about upgrading them or resocketing items with better gems.
If you have an awesome chest and you drop some gems that are a few levels above your current gems in socket, don't worry. Just keep your old gems in there and when a better chest drop with sockets you can socket your better gems into that.
Like was mentioned in the Artisans section, salvage socketed items to get gems out when the item is no longer of use.
When you hit lvl 61 sell all your old gems for gold, you will not need them and there is no point upgrading them.
Stash Tips:
You shouldn't be hoarding much on your trip to 70 so you shouldn't need much stash space. Just buy a couple extra blocks so that you have room for gems and mats. Unlocking the whole first tab is a good idea if you have the gold but i wouldn't go any further then that. If you have too many gems just sell the lower ranked ones if you only want to keep a minimal stash to save gold for the more important things.
After lvl70 when you have gold to burn feel free to unlock as much as is needed, but then again you can unlock everything as it suites you at any level if you really want to.
4. Leveling
Step 1. Forget about bounties and rifts for now, hit up the story mode and select T1 (torment) difficulty and play thought the initial part up to Leah, have a chat with her kill some zombies and read all the books available; Leah's room; Decards room; Slaughtered Calf doorway. You can talk with the Capitan if you like for the wrenched mothers quest.
Congrats you should now be level 3-5 and have some utility skills at your disposal.
Tip:
Do not bother with buying from merchants at this stage, you likely won't be able to afford it and there are better things to do. The wretched mothers quest is optional, you can go ahead and finish it off if you like and then jump into bounties but honestly bounties and rifts are where it's all at.
Stock up on potions! The one thing thats really worth spending money on in the very early levels
Step 2. Having a couple levels and skills now lets start some bounties in adventure mode. Keep to T1 if you are able, also don't worry about farming cache legs and things you don't need that so much at this point. Instead focus on bounties where you have a blood shards bonus as you will want to collect them from the get go for when you hit lvl 70. Do enough bounties to acquire 20-25 rift keystone fragments, then it's on to step 3.
Step 3. So you have got your keystones, leveled up a fair bit and have some gear it's time to start clearing rifts and really leveling. Once again stick to T1 unless your getting owned in a 4 man or have had the worst gear drop. You should be able to hit lvl70 in about 20-25 rifts (based on solo mostly so faster for groups I bet). GG
Bloodshards Tip:
Don't spend them! If you hit 500 bloodshards before you hit lvl70 then spend a few on armor and off hand if you like, but try to maintain a 400+ amount of shards for when you hit lvl70.
5. Gear
To begin with gear will mostly be whatever you find, but slowly you will start to be able to tailor gear.
Here I will point out the level break points for crafting that I found most useful and some tips and tricks to look out for to get you past gear walls as fast as possible
Gear Tip: Weapon
lvl 0-20 - 1h with shield is good
lvl 20+ - 2h all the way
The biggest thing with gear will be 2handers - these are epic for leveling. They allow easy perma channel and even ap regen during channel. 2handers for the win people. Yes there are good 1h and offhand combo's but you should be leveling fast enough to invalidate gear/weapon combo's in short time. So 2h weapons simplify this and live longer.
Gear Tip: Armor
lvl0-42 - focus on int, vit, life regen, xp bonus
lvl42-60 - look at adding in all res/armor, skill % damage bonus
lvl42+ legendary items - look for %elemental and chc/chd to compliment int, vit rolls.
lvl61+ - int, vit, %elemental, chc, chd, skill % bonus. Sockets can be used for all res over int/vit
Gear Tip: Crafting
lvl 30 - craft weapons, check at every 10 levels for possible weapon crafting upgrades if drops have been very poor for you.
lvl 40+ - craft armor if you need it
lvl 50-60 - craft and reroll like a maniac. These mats will be useless after lvl60 so make the most of the mats during these harder stages of the game to get you through the 40's and 50's nice and fast. Sell all these mats after lvl 63. Just don't spend all your gold because you will need it come lvl 70, so balance your habbits folks.
Tip:
Legendary and set armor will give significant bonuses to %elemental damage and your main stats so they are worth looking out for and crafting over rares. Unfortunately this can be drop dependent.
Tip:
The mystic can compliment your crafts. If you get a good %elemental and cc legendary bracer but no main stat then she can reroll for main stat for example. This will save you mats instead of endless crafts if your low.
6. Skills
This will just be a basic rundown of skill progression cherry picking the choice skills and paths i feel are best for managing T1 all the way from 0 to hero. There are obviously many avenues that you can take but for me these were the fastest and least death intensive skill choices which might be good for Hardcore players too.
lvl 1-5: MM, RoF, FN combo
lvl 6: MM:Charged Blast (upgrade)
lvl 7: RoF:CB (upgrade)
lvl 8: Dimond Skin (New skill drop it into your bar asap)
lvl 9: SP:Explosive bolts (optional for a change of pace)
lvl 10: Blur (New passive, enable it asap)
lvl 12: FN:Shatter (optional but you might as well)
lvl 13: MM:Glacial Spike (upgrade)
lvl 14: Ice Armor, DS:Crystal shell (skill and upgrade)
lvl 15: RoF:Numb (optional rune change)
lvl 18: FN:Coldsnap (upgrade, use asap)
lvl 20: Evocation, MW (new passive and skill use asap)
lvl 21+22: Ice Armor:Chilling Aura, Familiar, Tp (lots of new stuff fit in as you like)
lvl24+25: Astral Presence, Mirror Image (worth dropping Evo for Astral unles you go heavy images)
lvl 26: TP:Safe Passage (upgrade, ery useful)
lvl27: MW:Electrify (good for extra aoe dps)
lvl 28: EA, RoF:Black Ice (skill and rune upgrade for dps/mit)
lvl 30: F:Spark Flint, Cold Bblooded (dps style upgrades 3rd passive unlocked!)
lvl 32: WoF: Arcane Attunement (new rune and very handy in arcane builds as they start to become viable now)
lvl 34-36: Conflag, Meteor, Dis:Convergence, Archon (lots of fire dps skills unlocked here)
lvl 47: TS:Point of no Return! (rune upgrade)
lvl 61: Black hole (new skill)
lvl 65: Event horizon (mop up of all affixes)
lvl 70: Final passive unlocks yay!
7. Builds.
In this section I will just highlight some of the builds that I find are very good while leveling as they are mostly based on crowd control so that you can tackle the higher torments level/s with low dps. Yes it might take a bit longer to kill but the xp rewards are good and really T1 ain't that bad folks.
Of course you can feel free to change and modify as you please again these are just guidelines and what worked for me, if you feel like you can handle loosing some cc style skills for more dps skills because you dropped a nice piece of gear then go for it you will kill faster and level quicker.
Also you may notice a severe lack of arcane and lightning spec here, well there is a reason for that. Your basic arcane skills as far as primary dps spells and such are rather lackluster but don't worry in the final stages around lvl 50 arcane makes a big comeback. This goes doubly so for lightning, it has no main channeler and the other skills are either unlocked later or are just unfeasible compared to a nice cold cc build when your struggling to munch those mobs in T1. Lightning is probably the coolest element to play but it is the most gear restrictive, I mean seriously you need some heavy GG items to even run it at competitive levels and right now thats not our goal. Thats why I mostly focus on fire and cold builds with a heavy bias to cold at the beginning and middle. However YMMV
Build: Basic cold control (really the only thing available lol)
lvl 1-5
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZY
Build: Backing up the basics with some mit
lvl 10
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYX!Z
Build: More of the same from the above
lvl 14
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYXf!Z!Zaaa
Build: Again more of the same cold cc - but it starts to get more complicated from here
lvl 20
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYXfS!Zb!ZaZa
Build: Mobs are hitting harder now and you need more channel time and more kiting so this build adjusts for that
lvl 24
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYSQf!ZX!ZaZ..a
Build:
Going fire for a change of pace, sports better dps but can be very glassy, awesome to run if you have a cc tanker working for you. You can keep running your cold build, this one is here to show a more dps pathway.
lvl 27
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WeYTSc!ZX!aaZaaZ
**Note
From this point on it gets tricky as you can take many many options and routs. I'll highlight some of my choice picks for control and dps. In groups you can run both sorts of builds. Also note that you dont' have to change your build every few levels of progression. If a build works for you then roll with it till you hit a wall you dont' have to change buil every 2 levels adn likely your gear won't really allow it. These are more options and suggestions for alternate game play and to overcome perticular difficulty or gear walls you may encounter at this stage.
Build: Still sticking to the above theme of lvl 24 cold build but with more dps from 3rd passive. Strong on cc can push you to higher difficulties if you wish.
lvl 30
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYSQf!ZXW!ZbZaaa
Build: Here is a more arcane centric build to mix things up if you like. Nice dps but a bit of micro managing and can be glassy. If your constantly dropping arcane gear this might be the spec for you tho.
lvl 33
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aRYdTS!ZXW!ZZZbZa
Build: This builds looks to combine your cold cc with fire dps, very versatile and can waste mobs that were slowing you down previously due to lack of dps skills.
lvl 34
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aefjYP!ZWe!ZaZaZ
Build:
This is probably my most preferred build, a perma channel cold build, you might even be able to drop Power of the Storm and maintain perma channel to get a more defensive armor.
lvl 35
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZYTjSQ!ZXW!bZZaZa
Build: This is going more aggro, multi element and higher dps style skills, you have room to move on the 4rth bar skill as you can have cold snap or tp, anything you like basically. The idea is you try to kill trash and blow it up for aoe and when you run out of ap you pop an archon bomb. An idea might be to use AT: Flame Ward and focus more on fire (alt) if keeping gear in mind.
lvl 36
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WRfjmQ!ZXe!aZZaaa
alt: us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WefjmQ!ZXe!aaZaaa
Build: Now we are really into perma channel builds (as your gear should allow) and this one focuses on fire, so again good dps but low on cc. You should be able to regain ap while channeling allowing for meats and other things to be used for more dps.
lvl 36
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#eYTjmP!ZXe!aZZaa
Build: Point of no Return is ultra gg, strong cc and guess what it's arcane to boot lol so you have a strong arcane build finally. This can be significantly modified for either cold or fire perma channel abilities, but i just really liked the WoF buff
lvl 48
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#RdfgkY!ZXU!YbZYZZ
Build: Finally we get to the grand daddy mixing the best parts of cc with some respectable dps, this should take you all the way to 70 with little drama. Yes you can go fire or cold with some changes but you might as well have arcane % damage buffing your cc abilities too right.
lvl 61
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#RNOgkY!ZXh!Y.cYZZ
lvl 70: Congratulations you made it, now you can refer to all the mainstream lvl 70 builds out there, just farm away and do whatever you like. Most likely you will be rolling your lvl 61/65 build for a while, maybe give it more of a dps buff to go through T1 faster
lvl70 builds, guides, info here:
link to stickeys
Conclusion
So there you have it, a guide to seasons and leveling. I will try to keep this updated as patches come out and change things with the game. I hope it will help some folks out and maybe even give some ideas to the pro's out there.
If you have any cool things to add or noticed some oversights post up. If it helped you post up too. I would also love to hear your experiances leveling up and working though seasons, maybe we can make the guide even better.
Peace folks
**Note: This is not about power leveling, and not about exploits to level up super fast. This guide is just about regular normal play solo and in team. So comments like just get a lvl 70 to power level you with that chest that grants 3x xp are not what i'm after - post such comments at your own peril and face my aussie wanker cunt cussing in mumble and be shamed in front of your peers for being a nonce.
so without further ado - here be'eth the guide:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seasons are upon us and going from 0 to Hero can be annoying but it can also be loads of fun. This guide is here to help you pick skills, builds and streamline your progression so that you can get the maximum out of those initial tedious levels. I will try to cover some handy tips on group organization, when to use mats and artisans, how to really get your bank up so that when you hit 70 you will be in the best possible position for crafting, rerolls and upgrading. I will highlight seasonal wizard items and with community input update with builds around said items.
This is only a guide, not a strict method so you can change things up as they suite you and tailor the guide to your game play as you go.
Contents:
1. Groups and group tips
2. Artisans and artisan tips
3. Resources and mats, gold, stash tips
4. Leveling strategy and tips
5. Gear and crafting tips
6. Skills
7. Builds
8. Post 70 gearing up?
9. Seasonal Wizard items (per season)
1. Groups
Feel free to run this in groups or as a solo it doesn't really matter, just be aware that you may have to drop the difficulty down a level or 2 if you have a 3 or 4 man party. Also all the steps in this guide can be done in party or in solo, preferably party as it's more fun and you have to really co-ordinate due to your teams lack of gear and abilities. So although solo is good because you can go at your own pace parties are super fun and will likely get you to 70 much faster, just keep an eye out on your difficulty setting.
Group Tip: Organization
If you will be going all the way with a group or at least most of the way get your group on teamspeak, raidcall, skype, mumble or any voice communication system your group has/will use. It will make it alot easier to coordinate your attacks and defenses.
eg. When I was running with some clan mates we were hopelessly under geared so while on mumble we were able to get our frost nova's to go off one after another and essentially create a perma freeze for a little bit until we downed the mobs. This sort of coordination will work great for black holes and other such abilities too. So get a mic, find a chat system and let the good times roll.
2. Artisans
Don't worry about your artisans, you will not need them in the initial stages of play, and they are mostly just a waste of gold and mats that you will need later on when you start hitting some walls. The blacksmith will be your major focus as you go because he can unsocket for you through salvage and craft when you hit gear walls. The mystic will compliment him around the mid game.
Teach plans and designs to your artisans as you get them, their level doesn't matter, you can teach them regardless and they will be there when you need them.
Make sure you have your blacksmith show all plans available not just highest usable. You can craft a higher level item and reroll level reduction with the mystic to really help you along.
Artisan Tip: when to level artisans!
Blacksmith: Level up to 10 @ lvl30. Level him to max @ lvl70 or lvl63 if you desperately need him and have enough Deaths Breath handy.
Jeweler: Level him to max @ lvl70. You don't need him basically, just sell all the gems you don't use and salvage items with gems in them to get the gem if you need to resocket it into other gear. Don't worry about perfect gem combo's while leveling.
Mystic: Level her to max @ lvl 40-50. Be careful not to reroll too many things, because you will need your mats for crafting legendary plans or weapons if able. (she doesn't need DB's as far as I am aware).
3. Resources
You will have no gold and no mats to start and as you level there will be a bit of a jugling act so that you can maintain high gold amounts and good mat amounts for the times you will need them on your way to 70. The big thing here is that mats from 0-60 are basically usless once you go past 61 so the idea here is to keep enough mats so you can craft and reroll only if needed same goes for gems.
Mats/gold Tip: When to melt, when to sell
lvl 00-33 - Salvage all items for mats. Remember to scan all items for potential upgrades before you salvage.
lvl 33-60 - Sell all items, you should have enough mats for some crafting/reroll if you need it.
lvl 61-67 - Salvage everything
lvl 68-70 - Salvage or sell, look at your gold/mat numbers, if you have loads of gold then salvage if you are running low on gold then sell. (You can do this from lvl 0 but I find it's just too much thinking lol)
Collect everything, whites, blues, rares you will want them all. Remember to pop armor and weapon racks for the white items as your crafting will need them more then you think. Another handy idea might be to sell on 1 run and salvage on the next and alternate in that way, same again for caches, salvage 1 bounty and sell the next bounty until you get the bag. with a 50/50 approach you should be covered for everything in the late game.
Gems Tip:
All gems below lvl 61 are essentially useless, just socket topaz everywhere you can. Don't worry about upgrading them or resocketing items with better gems.
If you have an awesome chest and you drop some gems that are a few levels above your current gems in socket, don't worry. Just keep your old gems in there and when a better chest drop with sockets you can socket your better gems into that.
Like was mentioned in the Artisans section, salvage socketed items to get gems out when the item is no longer of use.
When you hit lvl 61 sell all your old gems for gold, you will not need them and there is no point upgrading them.
Stash Tips:
You shouldn't be hoarding much on your trip to 70 so you shouldn't need much stash space. Just buy a couple extra blocks so that you have room for gems and mats. Unlocking the whole first tab is a good idea if you have the gold but i wouldn't go any further then that. If you have too many gems just sell the lower ranked ones if you only want to keep a minimal stash to save gold for the more important things.
After lvl70 when you have gold to burn feel free to unlock as much as is needed, but then again you can unlock everything as it suites you at any level if you really want to.
4. Leveling
Step 1. Forget about bounties and rifts for now, hit up the story mode and select T1 (torment) difficulty and play thought the initial part up to Leah, have a chat with her kill some zombies and read all the books available; Leah's room; Decards room; Slaughtered Calf doorway. You can talk with the Capitan if you like for the wrenched mothers quest.
Congrats you should now be level 3-5 and have some utility skills at your disposal.
Tip:
Do not bother with buying from merchants at this stage, you likely won't be able to afford it and there are better things to do. The wretched mothers quest is optional, you can go ahead and finish it off if you like and then jump into bounties but honestly bounties and rifts are where it's all at.
Stock up on potions! The one thing thats really worth spending money on in the very early levels
Step 2. Having a couple levels and skills now lets start some bounties in adventure mode. Keep to T1 if you are able, also don't worry about farming cache legs and things you don't need that so much at this point. Instead focus on bounties where you have a blood shards bonus as you will want to collect them from the get go for when you hit lvl 70. Do enough bounties to acquire 20-25 rift keystone fragments, then it's on to step 3.
Step 3. So you have got your keystones, leveled up a fair bit and have some gear it's time to start clearing rifts and really leveling. Once again stick to T1 unless your getting owned in a 4 man or have had the worst gear drop. You should be able to hit lvl70 in about 20-25 rifts (based on solo mostly so faster for groups I bet). GG
Bloodshards Tip:
Don't spend them! If you hit 500 bloodshards before you hit lvl70 then spend a few on armor and off hand if you like, but try to maintain a 400+ amount of shards for when you hit lvl70.
5. Gear
To begin with gear will mostly be whatever you find, but slowly you will start to be able to tailor gear.
Here I will point out the level break points for crafting that I found most useful and some tips and tricks to look out for to get you past gear walls as fast as possible
Gear Tip: Weapon
lvl 0-20 - 1h with shield is good
lvl 20+ - 2h all the way
The biggest thing with gear will be 2handers - these are epic for leveling. They allow easy perma channel and even ap regen during channel. 2handers for the win people. Yes there are good 1h and offhand combo's but you should be leveling fast enough to invalidate gear/weapon combo's in short time. So 2h weapons simplify this and live longer.
Gear Tip: Armor
lvl0-42 - focus on int, vit, life regen, xp bonus
lvl42-60 - look at adding in all res/armor, skill % damage bonus
lvl42+ legendary items - look for %elemental and chc/chd to compliment int, vit rolls.
lvl61+ - int, vit, %elemental, chc, chd, skill % bonus. Sockets can be used for all res over int/vit
Gear Tip: Crafting
lvl 30 - craft weapons, check at every 10 levels for possible weapon crafting upgrades if drops have been very poor for you.
lvl 40+ - craft armor if you need it
lvl 50-60 - craft and reroll like a maniac. These mats will be useless after lvl60 so make the most of the mats during these harder stages of the game to get you through the 40's and 50's nice and fast. Sell all these mats after lvl 63. Just don't spend all your gold because you will need it come lvl 70, so balance your habbits folks.
Tip:
Legendary and set armor will give significant bonuses to %elemental damage and your main stats so they are worth looking out for and crafting over rares. Unfortunately this can be drop dependent.
Tip:
The mystic can compliment your crafts. If you get a good %elemental and cc legendary bracer but no main stat then she can reroll for main stat for example. This will save you mats instead of endless crafts if your low.
6. Skills
This will just be a basic rundown of skill progression cherry picking the choice skills and paths i feel are best for managing T1 all the way from 0 to hero. There are obviously many avenues that you can take but for me these were the fastest and least death intensive skill choices which might be good for Hardcore players too.
lvl 1-5: MM, RoF, FN combo
lvl 6: MM:Charged Blast (upgrade)
lvl 7: RoF:CB (upgrade)
lvl 8: Dimond Skin (New skill drop it into your bar asap)
lvl 9: SP:Explosive bolts (optional for a change of pace)
lvl 10: Blur (New passive, enable it asap)
lvl 12: FN:Shatter (optional but you might as well)
lvl 13: MM:Glacial Spike (upgrade)
lvl 14: Ice Armor, DS:Crystal shell (skill and upgrade)
lvl 15: RoF:Numb (optional rune change)
lvl 18: FN:Coldsnap (upgrade, use asap)
lvl 20: Evocation, MW (new passive and skill use asap)
lvl 21+22: Ice Armor:Chilling Aura, Familiar, Tp (lots of new stuff fit in as you like)
lvl24+25: Astral Presence, Mirror Image (worth dropping Evo for Astral unles you go heavy images)
lvl 26: TP:Safe Passage (upgrade, ery useful)
lvl27: MW:Electrify (good for extra aoe dps)
lvl 28: EA, RoF:Black Ice (skill and rune upgrade for dps/mit)
lvl 30: F:Spark Flint, Cold Bblooded (dps style upgrades 3rd passive unlocked!)
lvl 32: WoF: Arcane Attunement (new rune and very handy in arcane builds as they start to become viable now)
lvl 34-36: Conflag, Meteor, Dis:Convergence, Archon (lots of fire dps skills unlocked here)
lvl 47: TS:Point of no Return! (rune upgrade)
lvl 61: Black hole (new skill)
lvl 65: Event horizon (mop up of all affixes)
lvl 70: Final passive unlocks yay!
7. Builds.
In this section I will just highlight some of the builds that I find are very good while leveling as they are mostly based on crowd control so that you can tackle the higher torments level/s with low dps. Yes it might take a bit longer to kill but the xp rewards are good and really T1 ain't that bad folks.
Of course you can feel free to change and modify as you please again these are just guidelines and what worked for me, if you feel like you can handle loosing some cc style skills for more dps skills because you dropped a nice piece of gear then go for it you will kill faster and level quicker.
Also you may notice a severe lack of arcane and lightning spec here, well there is a reason for that. Your basic arcane skills as far as primary dps spells and such are rather lackluster but don't worry in the final stages around lvl 50 arcane makes a big comeback. This goes doubly so for lightning, it has no main channeler and the other skills are either unlocked later or are just unfeasible compared to a nice cold cc build when your struggling to munch those mobs in T1. Lightning is probably the coolest element to play but it is the most gear restrictive, I mean seriously you need some heavy GG items to even run it at competitive levels and right now thats not our goal. Thats why I mostly focus on fire and cold builds with a heavy bias to cold at the beginning and middle. However YMMV
Build: Basic cold control (really the only thing available lol)
lvl 1-5
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZY
Build: Backing up the basics with some mit
lvl 10
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYX!Z
Build: More of the same from the above
lvl 14
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYXf!Z!Zaaa
Build: Again more of the same cold cc - but it starts to get more complicated from here
lvl 20
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYXfS!Zb!ZaZa
Build: Mobs are hitting harder now and you need more channel time and more kiting so this build adjusts for that
lvl 24
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYSQf!ZX!ZaZ..a
Build:
Going fire for a change of pace, sports better dps but can be very glassy, awesome to run if you have a cc tanker working for you. You can keep running your cold build, this one is here to show a more dps pathway.
lvl 27
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WeYTSc!ZX!aaZaaZ
**Note
From this point on it gets tricky as you can take many many options and routs. I'll highlight some of my choice picks for control and dps. In groups you can run both sorts of builds. Also note that you dont' have to change your build every few levels of progression. If a build works for you then roll with it till you hit a wall you dont' have to change buil every 2 levels adn likely your gear won't really allow it. These are more options and suggestions for alternate game play and to overcome perticular difficulty or gear walls you may encounter at this stage.
Build: Still sticking to the above theme of lvl 24 cold build but with more dps from 3rd passive. Strong on cc can push you to higher difficulties if you wish.
lvl 30
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZYSQf!ZXW!ZbZaaa
Build: Here is a more arcane centric build to mix things up if you like. Nice dps but a bit of micro managing and can be glassy. If your constantly dropping arcane gear this might be the spec for you tho.
lvl 33
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aRYdTS!ZXW!ZZZbZa
Build: This builds looks to combine your cold cc with fire dps, very versatile and can waste mobs that were slowing you down previously due to lack of dps skills.
lvl 34
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aefjYP!ZWe!ZaZaZ
Build:
This is probably my most preferred build, a perma channel cold build, you might even be able to drop Power of the Storm and maintain perma channel to get a more defensive armor.
lvl 35
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZYTjSQ!ZXW!bZZaZa
Build: This is going more aggro, multi element and higher dps style skills, you have room to move on the 4rth bar skill as you can have cold snap or tp, anything you like basically. The idea is you try to kill trash and blow it up for aoe and when you run out of ap you pop an archon bomb. An idea might be to use AT: Flame Ward and focus more on fire (alt) if keeping gear in mind.
lvl 36
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WRfjmQ!ZXe!aZZaaa
alt: us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WefjmQ!ZXe!aaZaaa
Build: Now we are really into perma channel builds (as your gear should allow) and this one focuses on fire, so again good dps but low on cc. You should be able to regain ap while channeling allowing for meats and other things to be used for more dps.
lvl 36
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#eYTjmP!ZXe!aZZaa
Build: Point of no Return is ultra gg, strong cc and guess what it's arcane to boot lol so you have a strong arcane build finally. This can be significantly modified for either cold or fire perma channel abilities, but i just really liked the WoF buff
lvl 48
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#RdfgkY!ZXU!YbZYZZ
Build: Finally we get to the grand daddy mixing the best parts of cc with some respectable dps, this should take you all the way to 70 with little drama. Yes you can go fire or cold with some changes but you might as well have arcane % damage buffing your cc abilities too right.
lvl 61
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#RNOgkY!ZXh!Y.cYZZ
lvl 70: Congratulations you made it, now you can refer to all the mainstream lvl 70 builds out there, just farm away and do whatever you like. Most likely you will be rolling your lvl 61/65 build for a while, maybe give it more of a dps buff to go through T1 faster
lvl70 builds, guides, info here:
link to stickeys
Conclusion
So there you have it, a guide to seasons and leveling. I will try to keep this updated as patches come out and change things with the game. I hope it will help some folks out and maybe even give some ideas to the pro's out there.
If you have any cool things to add or noticed some oversights post up. If it helped you post up too. I would also love to hear your experiances leveling up and working though seasons, maybe we can make the guide even better.
Peace folks
