Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Icewraith]

To do:
-4 Min T13 rift
-45 Sec Belial
-Run one last set of bounties
-Cube ALL the things!

Edit: The Icy Veins "speedfarm" Shadow DH build feels like at best it can only speedfarm up to T11-12. I had a bunch of ancient gear (but two bad gems) and got rocked in T13. Might be worth a shot trying it at the lower levels, if it really is that fast it might still be worth it.

[Psyren]

Season ends 12/30! I thought I'd have more time

I'm confident I can get the stash tab within the next week though. I'm 4/6 GR55 and 5/8 Set Mastery. For Belial I'll probably join T13 bounties until I find one with him as the target, then tag along with the P1000 bots to kill him.

[Icewraith]

Season ends 12/30! I thought I'd have more time

I'm confident I can get the stash tab within the next week though. I'm 4/6 GR55 and 5/8 Set Mastery. For Belial I'll probably join T13 bounties until I find one with him as the target, then tag along with the P1000 bots to kill him.

I actually completed the entire season journey! There's a season journey community that is pretty helpful in terms of getting the last few things knocked off. IDK if one P1000 bot + you will do Belial in the time limit. (I also don't see a lot of people running T13 bounties, there's usually ~4 people in T13 and ~40 people in TX public bounty games) You lose a lot of time to the first couple phases and the transformation. It took my group of 4 P700ish people two tries to pull it off. The trick is you send a runner to the fight entrance and the other three go out and look for a frenzy or power shrine. The runner town portals and then teleports to the group once they've found a shrine. Pop the shrine (take off your Nemesis bracers first to save time), the runner teleports back to town, takes the portal back to the fight entrance, and starts the Belial encounter.

The group was also helpful with the T13 4 minute run. On our second or third try we got the Jail map and split up.

[Psyren]

Thanks for the shrine/pylon tip, that's pretty brilliant. In fact, I might even be able to use that solo. I'll also try the community you mentioned.

I did actually clear the T13 rift one already, just happened to get lucky in a regular old farming room. I'm using Sunwuko as my main build now and that build is able to run Nemesis for farming, so we hit a rift with a bunch of pylons and that was all she wrote.

What I'm focusing on now are mastering the last couple of set dungeons for my second conquest, only 3 to go.

[Icewraith]

Thanks for the shrine/pylon tip, that's pretty brilliant. In fact, I might even be able to use that solo. I'll also try the community you mentioned.

I did actually clear the T13 rift one already, just happened to get lucky in a regular old farming room. I'm using Sunwuko as my main build now and that build is able to run Nemesis for farming, so we hit a rift with a bunch of pylons and that was all she wrote.

What I'm focusing on now are mastering the last couple of set dungeons for my second conquest, only 3 to go.

I did GR 75 Solo, 6 sets at GR55, and Boss Mode. If you've got one set with gems at GR75, GR55 is cake (as long as the gems transfer).

[Lord Torath]

Wow. I'm just hoping to reach P400 this season with my Hardcore wizard. I'm at 382 right now, and I've completed chapter 5 of the Season Journey, with 3 of the requirements done for chapter 6.

I now have a complete sets of Vyr's set, Firebird's Finery, Tal Rasha's Elements, and Delsere's Magnum Opus. My favorite in Tal Rasha. I've tried Icy Veins's Firebird-Archon build, but it was weird. The only time you were igniting things was when you were in Archon form. The rest of the time you were freezing things.

Next Season I think I'll focus on my non-hardcore Crusader, and try to get that extra storage tab.

[Psyren]

Stash tab get! I did the 6 sets GR 55 and "Curses!"

I actually got Cursed Peat twice in a row. The first time I failed (349! UGH!) because I forgot to swap some of my defensive runes for max dps and resource gain (e.g. running Desert Shroud instead of Insight). I was kicking myself, but since I came so close I decided to just spam games until I got it. Lo and behold, it showed up in the very next game I made, and remembering to reconfigure my setup properly, I easily cleared it with 365.

Given that the only benefit to the final chapter is a portrait frame, I decided to just skip it.

...

We also have Season 9 info: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20407576

It turns out that if you already have all 4 bonus stash tabs (in other words, you should have two full pages of stash) then this season will have no mechanical rewards, only cosmetic, so it's safe to skip. I missed S7 myself so I'm one tab short, ergo I may participate, though I'm a bit burned out from this season. However, the Gift is the set I used to finish off this season (Sunwuko) which is also excellent at speed-farming, so hopefully it won't take me as long this time.

[Lord Torath]

Stash tab get! I did the 6 sets GR 55 and "Curses!"
<snip>
...

We also have Season 9 info: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20407576

It turns out that if you already have all 4 bonus stash tabs (in other words, you should have two full pages of stash) then this season will have no mechanical rewards, only cosmetic, so it's safe to skip. I missed S7 myself so I'm one tab short, ergo I may participate, though I'm a bit burned out from this season. However, the Gift is the set I used to finish off this season (Sunwuko) which is also excellent at speed-farming, so hopefully it won't take me as long this time.

Congrats on the added stash tab! I don't know that I'll ever get another one of those. I'd love another tab, but I'm too casual a player to reach those milestones.

Regarding Season 9: Thorns of the Invoker? Seriously? That is probably my least-favorite set for the Crusader. Maybe I'll stick with mage and get Firebird's Finery again. Creating a seasonal character just long enough to get the pet isn't too hard...

[Lord Torath]

I broke 400 Paragons! And I have 6 Rank 25 Ease of Use gems. Still no weapon better than my Ancient Starfire wand with poor-to-middling stats...Banes of the Powerful, Trapped, and Stricken up to rank 34. And my hardcore wizard is currently playing on Torment IX. Passed GR43.

I've been playing since October 2015, and my non-seasonal characters have 650-ish paragon levels. I got another 270 paragons this season, plus the 400 Hardcore paragons (to join the 170 non-seasonal hardcore paragons I've earned previously. So probably around 450 total HC once the season ends Friday night). So obviously a very casual player.

[Psyren]

I topped out at GR70 this time. If I had been able to focus on just one class, found ancient weapons for it and kept at it with the gems and Caldesann's upgrades I'd probably be able to hit 75 for that conquest, but I was so relieved to defeat Conqueror in time that I just deflated afterward.

I've decided I am doing S9, which should get me the final bonus stash tab that I'm missing (at least, the final one before the necro drops next year, and the tabs he comes with.) With that one, I'll have two stash tabs per class, hopefully plenty of storage for all the builds swirling around in my noggin.

If I can knock out the season quickly enough, I may give hardcore a try. If so Torath, let me know if you're interested in having a running buddy or two. (I may be able to convince the BF to come along, but no promises.)

[Lord Torath]

Word of advice when running Hardcore: Don't tag along with anyone more than 5 (pre-paragon) levels above you. They can tag along with you, no problem, but tagging along with them will just get you killed. Frost Pulses, Thunder Storms, Molten or Frozen elites, all can kill you before you have a chance to react if the dungeon is too many levels above you.

You can let your high-level friend run on ahead, and stay back in the fully-cleared regions if you really want to. It's kind of boring though. If you do decide to do that, don't try to fight anything that might pop out at you (say, from a broken barrel, or a loose stone). Run for your buddy and let him know you're in trouble. If there's only one and it's slow moving, you might be able to take it out without dying. Don't try it with two or more, though.

[Psyren]

Helped the bf get his Curses, so now we're both set - just in time!

Thanks for the advice Torath. I don't think I'll be doing any PL-ing on the HC toon - will stick to Master or Hard for leveling probably, even if it's slower. But, I do think I can get higher than GR45 without dying with the builds I have in mind. We'll see!

[Lord Torath]

I've cleared HC GR45 just this week, finishing in just about half the allotted time. Using Tal Rasha with Focus & Restraint, and the Shoulders and Boots from Firebird plus Unstable Anomaly.

I've swapped out my ice/storm/energy armor (I experimented with all three) for Familiar - Ancient Guardian, using that to trigger the arcane meteors, allowing me to save Teleport-Calamity for when I really need it. Of course, Familiar doesn't count as an attack to triggering the +750% damage from Tal Rasha's full set, so I need to teleport to get that started. But I can usually maintain it by swapping between Disintegrate (convergence) and Electrocute. I still miss my Hydra, though. But there aren't enough skill slots to fit it in and still keep Teleport to escape otherwise deadly situations.

[Lord Torath]

Well, Season's over. Now comes the fun part: Trying to condense 12 tabs of gear into 6.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, Season's over. Now comes the fun part: Trying to condense 12 tabs of gear into 6.

Erm... I have less than three tabs of gear. In fact, I don't think I've even purchased all the tabs available for sale yet, just because I haven't needed them.

[Psyren]

Well, Season's over. Now comes the fun part: Trying to condense 12 tabs of gear into 6.

We set aside a couple of hours on NYEE to take care of that as well. I did mange to consolidate and clear the inbox fully (9 tabs now, one more season will get me to the full 10, which is apparently the maximum until the necro finally drops) but now I need to reorder and organize things and that's going to take another few days.

My total non-season paragon is now 755, so only a few more until I have every category but Primary full!

Erm... I have less than three tabs of gear. In fact, I don't think I've even purchased all the tabs available for sale yet, just because I haven't needed them.

If you stick to the premade/net builds for one or two classes then yes, you won't need much space at all. But for me, with so many unique legendaries (and ancients for potential LoN builds) across all 5 classes, plus two sets of model poses/animations for each by gender, space is definitely at a premium

[Krazzman]

I decided to go with a Witch Doctor since I found the Monk quite boring and the Demonhunter way to frail. I don't care for Crusaders and that would leave me with Wizard, Barbarian and Witchhunter.

As such I think going for a Petclass now might be "cooler".

[Lord Torath]

My total non-season paragon is now 755, so only a few more until I have every category but Primary full!

Mine is at 653 regular, and 446 Hardcore. My seasonal wizard picked up about 254 paragons, while my hardcore seasonal earned 406 paragons. For a net gain of 9 paragons and 40 hardcore paragons.

I've got one tab dedicated to gems, another to crafting materials, follower gear, potions, and dyes and such. That leaves two tabs for my wizard gear and two tabs for my crusader gear. Not a lot of space if you want to have a variety of builds available.

[Derjuin]

I think out of all the seasonal stuff I found, I'm actually only keeping some APDs and the stuff my seasonal crusader had on. The rest is junk or worse duplicates. The next season, though, I have no idea what to roll. Have they announced the gift sets yet?

Wizard, I guess. The rest of the sets don't interest me in the least... bleh. Maybe I will try Hardcore this time, since the wizard 2 piece is like a bonus cheat death.

[Istarial]

Mine is at 653 regular, and 446 Hardcore. My seasonal wizard picked up about 254 paragons, while my hardcore seasonal earned 406 paragons. For a net gain of 9 paragons and 40 hardcore paragons.

I've got one tab dedicated to gems, another to crafting materials, follower gear, potions, and dyes and such. That leaves two tabs for my wizard gear and two tabs for my crusader gear. Not a lot of space if you want to have a variety of builds available.

I feel your pain. 10 stash tabs full, inventories of half my characters full. 2 tabs of crafting mats and gems, and 2 tabs of gear for DH and crusader, a tab for barb, WD, wizard and monk, with more squirrled away in their inventories.

Sob.

I guess at that amount of gear per class, the two extra tabs from necro might just about be a net gain in room.

[Psyren]

Wizard, I guess. The rest of the sets don't interest me in the least... bleh. Maybe I will try Hardcore this time, since the wizard 2 piece is like a bonus cheat death.

That reminds me - hey Torath, if you do both softcore and hardcore in a single season, do you get a second Gift for the HC toon? Or do you only get one per season across all character types?

I decided to go with a Witch Doctor since I found the Monk quite boring and the Demonhunter way to frail. I don't care for Crusaders and that would leave me with Wizard, Barbarian and Witchhunter.

As such I think going for a Petclass now might be "cooler".

This is a little ironic considering their Gift this season is easily the least pet-centric build they have

But if you don't mind using it to farm up the rest...

I've got one tab dedicated to gems, another to crafting materials, follower gear, potions, and dyes and such. That leaves two tabs for my wizard gear and two tabs for my crusader gear. Not a lot of space if you want to have a variety of builds available.

The good news is that dyes are going away - dyeing items will be done at the Mystic next patch, just like transmogs, and you can even preview what items will look like before dyeing them.

I feel your pain. 10 stash tabs full, inventories of half my characters full. 2 tabs of crafting mats and gems, and 2 tabs of gear for DH and crusader, a tab for barb, WD, wizard and monk, with more squirrled away in their inventories.

Sob.

I guess at that amount of gear per class, the two extra tabs from necro might just about be a net gain in room.

I know that feel. I even have a tab that is full of nothing but Puzzle Rings and Bovine Halberds. If only you could do Cow rooms like in D2 to properly bestow your wealth on the masses...

[Lord Torath]

That reminds me - hey Torath, if you do both softcore and hardcore in a single season, do you get a second Gift for the HC toon? Or do you only get one per season across all character types?

Sadly, no. You only get the one Gift (in three separate installments). Although I've never tried earning the gift with a regular seasonal and claiming the gift with my hardcore, which might be worth trying. Your HC and regular seasonal stash mailboxes are different, though, so don't hold your breath too hard.

The good news is that dyes are going away - dyeing items will be done at the Mystic next patch, just like transmorgs, and you can even preview what items will look like before dyeing them.

Well, that will free up a whopping 3 boxes for me. Vanishing (for headgear - yes, I like to be able to see my characters' faces, as impracticle as that may be), Purity, and Dye Remover.

I finally have a decent amount of Hard Core Forgotten Soul (for e definition of "decent" that allows for about 10 reforgings), so now I just need to run a bunch of Bounties to get enough of the Act materials. And a good bit of luck.

I'm still using an Ancient Starfire wand with middling stats with the Etched Sigil as a source (and the Furnace in Kanai's Cube). What's a good one-hander for a Tal Rasha's Elements build? Assuming I can find one and reforge it to an ancient legendary?

[Icewraith]

I just finished up the post-season gear condense.

I barely have any additional space, but only two characters have their actual bags full of gear (one is full of F+R I still need to consolidate, the other is full of Puzzle Rings and Bovine Bardiches I need to use or salvage).

How I did it: 1: Don't care about HC. 2: Get everything to 70.

The great thing about a level 70 character is that it can wear all the gear you're hoarding for a different build. I got everything to 70, and so now each character is wearing (more or less) a full class set plus whatever relevant supporting equipment I had. So instead of wearing one class set and storing the other three + ancients in the stash- so that's three sets of gear per class- now I'm wearing two and storing two plus ancients.

Spoiler: The details on how I did it:

Show

I mainly play solo and don't beg for powerlevels, and I have a character that cleared GR 75. So I took advantage of a horrible case of insomnia, and ran 3-4 minute T55-60 GRs until I had 4 Gems of Ease at level 25. Then I reduced the level requirements on a Leoric's Crown that I had already rerolled the primary stat on, a Leoric's Ring that I rerolled the primary stat to a socket, and a Goldwrap (that I subsequently rerolled the primary stat on and had no skill or class specific bonuses). I grabbed an Ancient Bovine Bardiche with a good damage roll and bad primary stat, then socketed it using one of the 12-ish gifts from previous seasons. I threw a level 50 Boon of the Hoarder in the ring, and set each character's cube to Furnace, Custerian Wristguards, Avarice Band. I filled out the Paragon Points (I'm over 800 after this last Season consolidate). Then I leveled (in order) the Crusader (1), Barbarian (50ish), and Monk (8) that had previously been sitting around like D2-style mules with gear in their bags... on T6. After ~level 55 (which doesn't take very long), I dropped it down to T4. Halfway through leveling the Crusader I remembered that Hellfire Amulets don't have level requirements. I didn't have a Hellfire Amulet for the Monk and I noticed while crafting one that the Hellfire ring also exists, doesn't have level requirements, and has an even better XP bonus than Leoric's Ring and facepalmed.

The entire thing took about three and a half hours (4:30 AM, when I gave up on trying to sleep, to a little after 8 AM), a chunk of which I spent switching to other characters to burn blood shards and also loading my new level 70 characters up with gear (and checking Icy-Veins to see what the recommended set-up was for each set and if I had any of the supporting pieces) to finish off the rift they were working on when they hit the level cap. With the gear I had set up, the time spent leveling each character was comparable to time being speedrun by someone else and considerably less boring. I also picked up a couple Ancient pieces and Paragon Levels while farming out the Gems of Ease, and got a couple of the things I was after with Blood Shards, so all in all I think it was worth it.

Also, I got the experience of making one normal attack with my Crusader, gaining 40 levels, and spawning a herd of murderous cows.

I think Blizzard's approximation of two stash tabs per available character class is mostly reasonable, but I think there should be at least one bonus tab for crafting mats, legendary gems, gems, potions, etc.

Also, I figured out a ridiculous Wizard build. 5 PC Tal Rasha + Nilfur's boots + cubed Etched Sigil + Wand of Woh + Orb of Infinite Depth + Endless Walk +cubed RoRG + CoE + Mantle of Channeling + cubed Hergbrash (that's the one with the huge Cost reduction on Channeling right?). Fire Disintegrate, Lightning Explosive Blast, Teleport (Calamity), damaging Frost Nova, Force Weapon (deflection), Lightning Blizzard. Passives: bonuses when you stand still, damage bonus when enemies are close, Illusionist, cheat death. Taeguk/Trapped/Powerful, Stricken if the build works out at higher GRs.

What this does better than the normal melee wand of woh wizard is you get more explosive blast (I think). The normal Wizard spams explosive blast and runs around. It uses the fire Explosive Blast rune with three smaller detonations and a 6 second base CD. The lightning Explosive Blast rune has a 3 sec base CD and hits twice as hard as one of the three mini-detonations.

It's not necessarily a better build, but it is different. I had a stroke of luck getting an Orb with 8% resource cost reduction, which seems to have been just enough to let me drop Power of the Storm for Lightning Blizzard and extra Arcane Power+ Regen passive for cheat death. Lightning Blizzard is there as something for sigil to cast while waiting for the 3s EB recharge (not sure if Sigil pays attention to CDR, but it does pay attention to base spell cooldowns) and because it buffs lightning damage. Mobility is a bit of an issue, there's no rooom for Aether Walker (not that I have one, or even Deathwish, which is what I was using before focusing on getting more EB and switching to Woh)- hence Illusionist. I have THREE Wohs and no Aether Walker.

Right now it's pretty comfortable on T12 (no ancient weapons, no caldensann's, not so great gems except Taeguk), I'm going to try it on T13 and then higher GRs, I expect I'll need to switch to Blood Bracer from Nemesis at some point. Or Krelm's- knockbacks and stuns really seem to mess the build up. This thing might start to work really well in higher GRs, where monster health gets huge. Or it might be too fragile to get there.

[Psyren]

Sadly, no. You only get the one Gift (in three separate installments).

Ugh must they make Hardcore as masochistic as they possibly can? I suppose I should be grateful you don't lose your stash and paragon too.

That changes my approach considerably. If I do HC at all, with no gift to boost me I'll likely end up using WD and using the pets as a safety buffer, and farming T4-T6 for a while.

I finally have a decent amount of Hard Core Forgotten Soul (for e definition of "decent" that allows for about 10 reforgings), so now I just need to run a bunch of Bounties to get enough of the Act materials. And a good bit of luck.

Don't forget the breakpoints; every 3 Torments increases the materials rewards by 1. In other words, T7, T8 and T9 all give you the same amount of mats in the reward caches, thus the speed boost you get by doing the lowest breakpoint in the set (T7) will outweigh the risk and marginal increases of running the other two. This is especially relevant in Hardcore, where split bounties on harder difficulties can get you killed.

I'm still using an Ancient Starfire wand with middling stats with the Etched Sigil as a source (and the Furnace in Kanai's Cube). What's a good one-hander for a Tal Rasha's Elements build? Assuming I can find one and reforge it to an ancient legendary?

It entirely depends on the skills your using to bring down the meteors. Wand of Woh is the best in slot, but if you're not using Explosive Blast then it would obviously be wasted. What build are you using / would you like to use?

Right now it's pretty comfortable on T12 (no ancient weapons, no caldensann's, not so great gems except Taeguk), I'm going to try it on T13 and then higher GRs, I expect I'll need to switch to Blood Bracer from Nemesis at some point. Or Krelm's- knockbacks and stuns really seem to mess the build up. This thing might start to work really well in higher GRs, where monster health gets huge. Or it might be too fragile to get there.

I'm a big fan of experimentation so I'm glad you're having fun For me personally though, I'd rather have Etched Sigil in a long-range build since the channeling spells like you to stand still.

You shouldn't need an ancient weapon for T13 though, at least none of my own T13 builds have needed one.

[Lord Torath]

My primary attack is Electrocute – Chain Lighting, and my Secondary is Disintegrate – Convergence (Fire). #1 is Blizzard – Frozen Solid (Cold); #2 is Meteor – Swarm/Shower (7 Fire impacts), #3 is Familiar – Ancient Guardian (Arcane and some protection), #4 is Teleport – Calamity for escaping otherwise-certain death. Passives are Unstable Anomaly (escape Death), Audacity (extra damage at close range), and two others I can’t quite recall just now.

I’ve got Firebird’s Finery on my shoulders and toes, Tal Rasha’s Elements on Head, Chest, Legs, Neck, and Hands, Haberdashes’ Belt (can’t remember the real name, but reduces channeling costs), and my forearms vary between Nemesis Bracers, non-ancient Ancient Parthan Defenders, and the bracers that increase your shield’s effectiveness (good for when I was running with a rank 25 Wildebeast Gizzard). My rings are Focus and Restraint, and I’ve got Banes of the Powerful, Trapped, and Stricken at Rank 38 each (plus 8 Gems of Ease at rank 25 safely stashed back at camp for power leveling in case I die – plus two back-up level 70 HC wizards). Kanai’s Cube has The Furnace, Channeling Pauldrons (or whatever they’re called), and the RoRG.

My primary attack is Disintegrate, traded off with Electrocute to keep Tal Rasha’s damage boost going. I usually teleport immediately on entering a new area to start Tal Rasha’s 8-second damage boost, cast a Blizzard on a near-by group of baddies, and then switch between Disintegrate and Electrocute for my main damage dealers, letting my Etched Sigil call down blizzards and meteor swarms once a second. I regularly have cold, fire, and electrical damage going off, triggering those meteors from Tal Rasha. I picked Familiar – Ancient Guardian to trigger the arcane meteor without having to use my Teleport, allowing me to save it for escapes – very important on Hard Core. I like Blizzard – Frozen Solid better than Frost Nova for defense, partly because Blizzard doesn’t have a cool-down, so it’s always ready. I still keep Teleport with Calamity (instead of, say, Wormhole for greater range) because Familiar won’t trigger the Tal Rasha damage boost.

I’ve cleared GR55 with this build, although I triggered both of my Escape Deaths doing it, which was rather nervous-making…

I keep thinking it might be fun to use Ray of Frost instead of Disintegrate, letting my Blizzard become Apocalypse. Ray of Frost does more damage and costs less, but requires another slot (the source that lets Ray of Frost pierce), which means I can’t use The Furnace if I also want The Etched Sigil working.

Is Disintegrate considered under-powered compared to Explosive Blast?

I used to really love my Force Hydra combined with the Temporal Anomaly passive, slowing everyone hit by force damage, but I moved away from that to take Teleport. And I used to take Energy Armor instead of Familiar, but Energy Armor won’t trigger Tal Rasha meteors.

[Icewraith]

Ugh must they make Hardcore as masochistic as they possibly can? I suppose I should be grateful you don't lose your stash and paragon too.

That changes my approach considerably. If I do HC at all, with no gift to boost me I'll likely end up using WD and using the pets as a safety buffer, and farming T4-T6 for a while.



Don't forget the breakpoints; every 3 Torments increases the materials rewards by 1. In other words, T7, T8 and T9 all give you the same amount of mats in the reward caches, thus the speed boost you get by doing the lowest breakpoint in the set (T7) will outweigh the risk and marginal increases of running the other two. This is especially relevant in Hardcore, where split bounties on harder difficulties can get you killed.



It entirely depends on the skills your using to bring down the meteors. Wand of Woh is the best in slot, but if you're not using Explosive Blast then it would obviously be wasted. What build are you using / would you like to use?



I'm a big fan of experimentation so I'm glad you're having fun For me personally though, I'd rather have Etched Sigil in a long-range build since the channeling spells like you to stand still.

You shouldn't need an ancient weapon for T13 though, at least none of my own T13 builds have needed one.

Long range spells is how I started and it LOOKS great (in fact, it's probably the embodiment of the Wizard archetype). In the initial stages I had Meteor, Blizzard, Arcane Orb, Black Hole, etc. all powered by Disintegrate. The problem was that Sigil-generated spells don't generate Tal Rasha stacks and when I killed things and had to move on my stacks usually dropped off or I showed up at the next fight on fumes. Once you get to 4 stacks you can stay there as long as you alternate between two attacks every 8 seconds.

Originally I just wanted to see it work, then I got the idea to stack all the skills (like Lightning Blizzard) that would give the meteors bonus damage due to element type. I thought it might have a place in group runs as a group damage amplifier with that one passive skill.

I shifted over to EB+Frost Nova when I figured out those were spells I could cast without interrupting my Disintegrate channel and had minimal Arcane Power costs. The normal build uses them for basically the same reason- it spams a signature spell and EB at the same time. Also in my initial test runs at T11, EB performed well. Frost Nova, EB, and Teleport:Calamity also cover the same area, which meant most of the meteors dropped in melee, which meant more focused damage and also that was where I wanted the monsters. I switched from Deathwish to Woh when I realized I could cast EB and have the sigil duplicate it while channeling Disintegrate. I had been using Unity and CoE in the cube while wearing Deathwish and Tal's orb. Wearing Woh (since it also has damage bonuses to EB on top of the cubable ability) meant switching to Deathwish in the cube, wearing sigil, dropping Unity for CoE and cubing RoRG, which made the build far too fragile. I already had the channeling belt in the cube so I couldn't switch to Aquila to compensate, even though my Arcane power usage was probably within Aquila's range. I didn't want to lose the Endless walk set, it works too well for channeling builds. I did some research and discovered Orb of Infinite Depth, which Kadala provided quickly enough and addressed the toughness problem and some of the damage loss from dropping Deathwish completely and putting Sigil in the cube. No Aether Walker and no room for Aether Walker plus noticeable mobility problems led to more CDR and Illusionist passive.

I think if you want a ranged Sigil build, Tal's is not the ideal set. You'd need to go Firebird or LoN. LoN would work particularly well (except no Endless Walk), you'd be able to run Deathwish + Sigil +cubed Aether Walker + Mantle of Channeling + Hergbrash + cubed CoE + Hellfire Amulet + Nilfur's + Aquila + Misc and drop boosted meteors while you channel disintegrate (or, if you get an Ancient Aether Walker, use Sigil and the Ray of Frost offhand with Cold Meteors + Frostburn). Only issue with an Arcane version is that as I understand it, Sigil-generated Arcane Meteors don't benefit from your AP. If you want to use Disintegrate, you're stuck with Fire damage.

I'm definitely still trying to figure out what to put in the last active skill slot. Sigil procs 1/second, so right now I've got Lightning Blizzard in there. I don't think there are any other 3s cooldown mana spending attacks, otherwise I'd put that in there and Sigil would (in theory) simply alternate between the two. But if my gear changes and as fights go longer I may need to go back to Power of the Storm for the resource cost reduction (however Sigil would always cast EB every 2 seconds if I have enough CDR or 3s if it doesn't pay attention to CDR). Before the build went melee I would have put Wave of Force here for the knockback + projectile deflection.

Come to think of it, I probably want an Arcane-based skill in there to deal damage and proc the meteor when I don't want to reposition. The damage gain from lining the Meteor up with CoE is probably worth a reposition, though. However, that's tied to a survival skill (even if I didn't need Calamity for the elemental damage, the stun is nice) so I don't necessarily have control of it in the first place. Maybe I want a Lightning or Fire based skill. Saving Frost Nova so that the Meteor lands during a CoE proc is something I'll have to learn.

@Lord Torath:
I'd say maybe don't use F+R in a Disintegrate build. Normally my solution would be to go Endless Walk instead, wear Mantle of Channeling, cube Hergbrash, and wear Tal Belt, but that costs you the 2PC firebird and you're HC. It also gets you a Ring slot (in exchange for your Amulet) for CoE and you could wear Nilfur's to buff your Meteors.

Explosive blast is very powerful in an Etched Sigil build, but it also becomes dominating pretty quickly because the damage range is so short. It's also probably riskier. Wand of Woh can be a pain to find (apparently), and Orb of Infinite Depth is good enough that it basically comes with Wand of Woh. Trading the Furnace for Orb of Infinite Depth (IIRC it has some nice other bonuses so it should be worn instead of cubed, but I could be wrong) is a pretty solid win I think, since you also gain DR.

It's too bad you need three fire damage sources for Firebird 4pc, otherwise i'd say cube the Sigil, drop the Furnace, and wear the Firebird Orb since you're already using RoRG.

Technically you could use the Fire Familiar for an extra Fire damage source, but you'd be stuck using Calamity for the Meteor, which you want to avoid, and you don't gain the Arcane Familiar's defensive benefits.

[Psyren]

*snip*

I think if you want a ranged Sigil build, Tal's is not the set. You'd need to go Firebird or LoN. LoN would work particularly well (except no Endless Walk), you'd be able to run Deathwish + Sigil +cubed Aether Walker + Mantle of Channeling + Hergbrash + cubed CoE + Hellfire Amulet + Nilfur's + Aquila + Misc and drop boosted meteors while you channel disintegrate (or, if you get an Ancient Aether Walker, use Sigil and the Ray of Frost offhand with Cold Meteors + Frostburn). Only issue with an Arcane version is that as I understand it, Sigil-generated Arcane Meteors don't benefit from your AP. If you want to use Disintegrate, you're stuck with Fire damage.

The Sigil-generated Star Pacts did actually benefit from your AP total when Sigil was first released, though they may have since nerfed that. I agree though - the long-range version definitely works far better with Firebirds or LoN than with Tals. (Preferably LoN so I don't have to keep hunting for elites to set on fire, but either works.)

Come to think of it, I probably want an Arcane-based skill in there to deal damage and proc the meteor when I don't want to reposition. The damage gain from lining the Meteor up with CoE is probably worth a reposition, though. However, that's tied to a survival skill (even if I didn't need Calamity for the elemental damage, the stun is nice) so I don't necessarily have control of it in the first place. Maybe I want a Lightning or Fire based skill. Saving Frost Nova so that the Meteor lands during a CoE proc is something I'll have to learn.

I mean, you could, but the tals builds I've seen usually either use one element as the real workhorse (e.g. Flashfire) and don't worry too much about when the other meteors fall, or they don't bother with CoE at all (e.g. SpecTal Blade.) You might squeeze out a bit more dps by lining up the meteors with the ring's rotation perfectly, but it's almost as likely (at least to me) that you'll lose dps by focusing too much on that. Personally I think you're better off with Halo or Unity for the toughness boost; Certainly a HC character would be.

[Lord Torath]

Psyren & Icewraith: I'll have to go over your replies in more detail later. Gonna kill stuff with my wife now

The nice thing about Focus and Restraint is that if you're swapping between Electrocute and Disintegrate anyway to keep Tal Rasha's bonus going, it automatically keeps the F&R bonuses active as well.

[thirsting]

Woo! Litany of the Undaunted, finally, and it's ancient, too. (so presumably gets a bonus from itself?) Already had five or six other ancients and no sets found I'm willing to use at all in my hardcore solo wizard, so... party!

Unless I've been really unlucky, drop rate for this thing must be way lower than Wailing Host's, as that one has been dropping quite often and this might be my first LotU ever, in any mode.

[Krazzman]

This is a little ironic considering their Gift this season is easily the least pet-centric build they have

But if you don't mind using it to farm up the rest...

The good news is that dyes are going away - dyeing items will be done at the Mystic next patch, just like transmogs, and you can even preview what items will look like before dyeing them.

It is? Oh geez... haven't bothered to look for it and just thought about trying out Witch Doctor. Have played every other class so far (Wizard only till 60) and hope that this class really is fun in and on itself.

Dyes going away? Oh man... I just bought loads of them this season so my DH could always look shiny...