Nevermind. I managed to get through phase 2, afterwhich I was back to the place with 2 healing wells. I used one of them twice… that’s how long this took. I guess I’m off to hell.
BTW, the exp bonus for this Q was about twice what I got for the first Q in act 4, Iskatu. And Iskatu gave about 3x the exp of Asmodan and takes about 1/10 the time. That’s why I kept running Iskatu so many times. I don’t think he can be beat on an exp-per-time rate, at least not in act4 NM.
Oh, so you haven’t turned on elective mode? In your settings, if you turn on elective mode, you can choose your skills from whatever category you want, so you can have multiple defensive skills, and put them on whichever button you choose.
I was happy as a clam when I found out I could do this. Be careful, though; occasionally I’ll be clicking away in a gigantic pile of demons and drag a skill off my bar, at which point I inevitably die.
You can just use the hot keys (1, 2, 3 or 4) and not click on the bar.
I guess I knew about elective mode because I was keeping up to date with D3 news, but this is one thing that Blizzard should flash at the users with red neon light.
I will swap out Explosive Blast with something else; I can’t never seem to time the skill right. Why not try Mirror Images - they make good decoy and help you to live a longer. Hydra is a good choice too since it lets you do damage while you kite. I haven’t figured out if Venom or Lightning is better.
If you’re fighting Diablo, why not swap out Electrocute with Magic Missile/Seeker (or Magic Missile/Charged) since you have only one target.
Re: Disintegrate, I stop using that after reaching NM since it requires you to stand still, which is a large liability, and it’s damage output (155%) is not helpful in the face of imminent doom. I start using Arcane Orb with the expanded radius runestone. Once I can use Celestial Orb (piercing Arcane Orb) I use that exclusively. It works far better than any variant of Disintegrate.
If you think you need to buff up your defenses, try looking for gear that gives you more resistance. I was having around ~3K armor when in NM, and around ~250 resistances to all. At higher levels you will need to beef up resistances as well.
As of this morning, I have 168 and some change in paypal thanks to RMAH. All the gear I have gotten rid of in the past on the GAH I throw on the RMAH. A drop upgraded my sword, from 980 to 1090 something and sold my old one for… $100. That is simply mind boggling.
I started with just putting the money into blizzbucks but when that got to a point I wouldn’t ever spend (around 100) I linked with paypal and off I went.
I found most items “sweet” selling points
Boots/movement speed
Anything dex/with crit hit or damage etc.
I sold absolutely everything with IAS I had stored away since todays patch will break that. For the most part the auctions are 3-20$ and people buy them.
Once you have enough blizzbucks from selling gear just refresh every few minutes on an item you want, or just every time you hit the menus. I got my demon hunter a solid socketed rare high 900s bow for 2.50. And sold the old high 800 no socketed bow for 8$.
I encourage everyone to use the RMAH, no need to deposit a dime, just sale enough [del]crap[/del] quality merchandise to fund your upgrades or thank your SO for allowing you time to play by taking them out on a RMAH funded dinner. 
It has paid for my game, plus some and for that I am giggity 
Oh, I know that and use the hot keys, but sometimes I get to clicking on enemies in a crowd and my cursor gets all hysterical and flies over my skill bar while I’m fighting, and then an errant click and drag tosses my primary skill out into the crowd, where it flutters to the ground (I assume) and lies there useless among the blood and brains.
The program is still telling me I have to wait three days to use the real money auction house. It’s been a lot longer than three days. Any idea what’s up with this?
So I joined my first public game last night - Act II/Hell. I wasn’t really all that interested in MP until I made it through Hell, but thought I’d give it a shot (especially after I read that MP has individual item drops, which eliminates every thing I hated about MP in D2, all in one fell swoop). Good times - got through about 4 quests. The only frustrating thing was running into an invincible minions pack, and my party mates not noticing.
It also made me realize that maybe my 600 dps x-bow that I bought for 25k gold was an absolute steal, and that Elemental Arrow is absurd.
You’re using almost all crowd control skills against a single boss. That’s the problem:
Electrocute is a crowd control spell. No good for Diablo.
Disintegrate seems good at first but it is also pretty much a crowd control beam as it tears thru every mob in front of you. Don’t need for Diablo.
Explosive blast is also crowd control, and you have to get next to the mob to really use it, which is a no no for wiz boss fights.
Here is how you can beat him pretty easily:
Pick the passive that boosts Cold Damage, can’t remember the name.
Choose Ray of Frost instead of Disintegrate. Ray of Frost not only drinks HP but it also GREATLY slows the mob.
Blizzard with Snowbound (if you have that rune unlocked. Can’t remember which level that one comes from). If not then just go with whichever rune you like.
Get rid of explosive blast and pick up venom hydra.
Throw hydra, cast blizzard, run around in tight circle around Diablo while venom stacks and drains his HP to nothing very quickly. Keep casting Blizz on him. If you get a chance hit him with Ray of Frost. The hydra alone can kill him pretty quickly. Keep circling towards the 2 health bowls on the sides. Bottom line is you want to keep him standing on or around the hydra while the venom stacks and pulls all his HP out of him.
Ultimately your build is not suitable for any bosses due to all the crowd control in there. As a LVL 53 Wiz you should be obliterating Diablo without any difficulty. Try to switch to the targeted attacks I’ve mentioned and you’ll destroy him on your first try.
I get the same message.
As an alternate strategy, I’ve found that mirror image is very effective against the big D, at least pre-Hell (Hell Diablo blows away the images too fast); gives you seven or eight seconds pretty much unmolested to blaze away with your right-click attack.
The energy shield rune (Force Armor) makes phase 3 pretty easy if you can get through phase 2 (which is where I got stalled out on Hell-Belial until I broke down and bought a better weapon on the AH).
The official patch notes are up. Biggest nerf I see is all over the Demon Hunters. Attack speed/nether tentacles/added boss affixes seem to be aimed right at them.
Back to Ball Lightning(or maybe Frost Arrow) then I suppose. Can’t say the Nether Tentacles nerf surprise me though, it was kind of broken.
Thanks for all of the advice. I’m going to have to figure out this Elective Mode and try Diablo again when the servers are back up. (Every Tuesday morning, huh?)
I think the only bug fix that might hurt me is
It’s always hard to tell with patch notes that use words like “properly”, since who knows what they consider “proper”? But it’s possible that this might kill my trick of Sharpshooter/Caltrops.
Oh, and a bunch of things in Inferno are going to get harder (Siegebreaker with Reflect Damage is going to be pretty much impossible for me), but I don’t mind that so much: Inferno is supposed to be crazy hard.
On the plus side, there are a bunch of annoying little things they’re fixing, and they’re finally fixing the Lyceum! I can get my exploration achievements! Now they just need to fix the Battlefield Reports lorebook in A3.
Glad I’m not alone at least.
Annoying patch notes, and I didn’t use NT (and relatively less dependence on IAS than most, as well). I like breaking things and magic find, though, and they don’t seem to like that.
OK, I turned on Elective Mode, changed stuff around, and fought Diablo again. Changing from a Crowd Control build to a Boss Build is even more complicated now.
Two things that I’ve noticed that I don’t remember reading in the release notes.
1.) When you redo a quest you no longer get the Exp bonus.
2.) My followers have all been taken back to lvl 13. WTF is up with that? I’ve only played the game through twice now, and I was a good ways through Act 1 NM when I realized that I could go grab a follower before I unlocked them questwise. It lead to a strange situation where I had 2 templars following me, one looking for his armor and the other with gear that I gave him. But I don’t remember their levels being way behind mine.