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Diablo 3 Witch Doctor Stats Guide – Primary Attributes

There are 4 primary attributes available in Diablo 3: Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Intelligence. Here is how these stats affect the Witch Doctor:
Strength: Each point of Strength increases your armor by 1.
Dexterity: Each point of Dexterity slightly increases your chance to dodge attacks.
Vitality: Each point of Vitality increases your maximum health.
Intelligence: Each point of Intelligence increases your damage by 1% and gives you 1 resistance point to all schools of magic. Below, I will elaborate on how Intelligence works.

Intelligence is the primary stat of the Witch Doctor (as well as Wizard) and as a result it increases the Witch Doctor’s damage. Each point of Intelligence increases the Witch Doctor’s damage by a flat 1% (not exponential).

The way it works is that your ability damage is calculated based on your weapon damage and the skill you are using. This is then multiplied by your Intelligence in order to calculate your extra damage. Let us use Flaming Dart as an example:
Flaming Dart deals 160% Weapon damage.
If your weapon damage is 100-200, then Flaming Dart’s base ability damage is 160-320 damage.
This base damage is then multiplied by the bonus offered by your Intelligence attribute. If you have 100 intelligence, this is increased by 100%, bringing the damage of Flaming Dart up to 320-640.

If your increase your Intelligence to 200, your bonus is 200%, bringing the damage of Flaming Dart from 160-320 to 480-960.
If you increase your Intelligence to 300, the bonus is 300%, bringing the damage of Flaming Dart to 640-1280.

Note that as you increase your Intelligence more and more, the relationship is flat and based on your weapon damage rather than your previous Intelligence. This mean that Intelligence has relative diminishing returns. For example, imagine you had 10000 Intelligence. This would increase your damage in the flaming Dart example to 16160-32320 damage. Your next extra point of Intelligence will not increase your overall damage by 1%, but rather increases the bonus multiplier of the ability’s damage by an extra 1%.

The point of this discussion is that while Intelligence is very important, the more Intelligence you get, the more valuable your other stats which increase your damage become. For example, if you have low weapon damage and low intelligence, 5% increased attack speed does very little for your total damage. An extra 20 Intelligence at level 5 increases your damage far more than 5% increased attack speed or even 5% critical hit rate.

However, in end-game gear with massive amounts of Intelligence, that 5% extra increase in attack speed or critical hit rate would represent a much larger buff than 20 Intelligence. In order to deal a lot of damage as a Witch Doctor, you need not only a lot of Intelligence but also weapon damage and other secondary stats.

Diablo 3 Wizard Primary Stats

There are four primary attributes in Diablo 3: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality. Out of these four, the only important stats for the Wizard are Intelligence and Vitality.

Each point of Intelligence increases your damage by 1%. This is a flat relationship. For example, if your weapon damage is 100-200 and you use Arcane Orb (which deals 175% weapon damage), your Arcane Orb’s damage is then 175-350. This is then multiplied by (Intelligence * .01 + 1).

So, if your intelligence is 900, it would be 900*.01+1, or 10. When multiplied by your Arcane Orb’s damage, this would make Arcane Orb deal 10 times more damage, or 1750-3500 damage. This of course would be reduced by whatever your enemy’s armor and resistance, but at least you get a general idea of how Intelligence works in Diablo 3 for the Wizard.

Furthermore, Intelligence also increases your resistances to elements by a certain amount. It seems that each point of Intelligence yields .1% resistance points to all schools of magic. In other words, with 100 Intelligence, your resistances to all spells increase by 10 points.

Resistance points reduce the amount of damage you take from spells based on level. The higher your level, the more resistance points required to gain percentage points of damage mitigation from magic. Since the Wizard uses Intelligence for damage, it naturally gains good defense against magic through this mechanic.

As a side note, Witch Doctor also uses Intelligence as its primary stat. Witch Doctor gear with “Wizard stats” is valuable on the Auction House.

more to come...

This post has been edited by onibaru: Apr 25 2012, 11:14 AM

Other D3 Wizard Primary Stats

In addition to Intelligence, the other important primary Diablo 3 Wizard stat is Vitality. Vitality increases the maximum health of your class. As a Wizard, you have less defense than other classes but have a lot of ways to avoid getting hit in combat. However, sometimes getting hit is unavoidable, such as when an enemy draws you in or teleports to you.

In these situations, you need a big health pool to survive, particularly if you are not using the Diamond Skin skill. With this in mind, your best primary stats to stack as a Wizard are Intelligence and Vitality.

Dexterity slightly increases your chance to dodge attacks whereas each point of Strength grants an additional 1 armor. These stats are horrible inefficient for the Wizard though so do not consider the bonus armor and dodge from these stats worth it. The best way to gain armor as a Wizard is to equip a shield and the best way to get Dodge is to use equipment which has +chance to dodge on it rather than through Strength or Dexterity respectively.


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Added on April 25, 2012, 11:35 amDiablo 3 Wizard Stats Guide – Secondary Stats

In addition to your secondary stats, there is a variety of secondary stats which are useful for the Wizard. Below, we will talk about these stats in detail:

+Damage. +Damage is a stat that is found on Rings and Amulets. It adds an incredible amount to your overall DPS, particularly when used on a fast weapon like a Wand. For example, if your Wand attacks 2 times per second, then +10-20 damage will actually be +20-40 DPS for your Wand. If you have a slow 2-handed weapon that only attacks once per second, that +10-20 damage will be +10-20 DPS for your 2-handed weapon.

Increased Chance to Critically Hit. Many Wizard abilities and passive skills rely on critical hit. Increasing your critical hit not only increases your DPS but increases the chance for these skills to proc.

Bonus Damage to Critical Hits. Gear which increases the damage bonus of your critical attacks becomes incredibly useful, particularly as your gear becomes stronger.

Increased Attack Speed. Attack Speed increases your attack rate and hence your damage, but you should know that this is not always the case with Wizard. Sometimes a slow weapon with a lot of Arcane Power regeneration or reduction abilities can allow you to play the Wizard in such a way that you rarely if ever have to use Signature Spells. However, this same increase in attack speed can be used to generate extra Arcane Power if you are using skills like Attunement and Prodigy which cause your Signature spells to restore Arcane Power on hit. For the most part, this is still a good stat to get but as you add on a lot of it you will have to be careful when managing your Arcane Power, particularly if you are using a fast weapon like a Wand.

Resistances. Gear that adds resistances can make you take a lot less damage from magic as a Wizard, particularly when combined with the resistance bonus that you get from equipment.

Damage Dealt is Converted to Life. This is a needed stat for the Wizard since the Wizard has no native healing abilities. Naturally, you only want as much as you need to stay topped off at health, but this stat is really good at adding to your survivability.

+Arcane Power Regeneration or Refund From Crits. Anything that increases the rate of your Arcane Power generation or gives you Arcane Power when you critically hit will indirectly add to your damage as extra Arcane Power means extra attacks. It is as simple as that.

+Monster Experience or +%Experience. These stats are particularly good, but you have to replace your +Experience stats more frequently then increases in %Experience. For example, getting +20 total extra Experience Points per monster kill at level 6 will be a huge deal and let you level about 20-30% faster, but +20 Experience Points per monster kill at level 30 will mean very little to your leveling speed.

+Gold Find / Magic Find. Both of these stats will help you earn more items. +Gold is useful for paying for your crafter to level up as well as for earning more gold to buy a particularly good item or recipe off the Auction House. +Magic Find is useful for finding magic items to use as crafting materials or for finding particularly rare and useful items. Both stats are good, especially when you start building a farming set. Be sure not to sacrifice too much damage (Intelligence) or Health (Vitality) to build this set though or your slower kill speed and lowered survivability may hurt your capacity to gather items.

There are other secondary stats that are useful for the Wizard as well, but these are the ones you want to focus on for leveling up and farming.

Diablo 3 Wizard Stats Guide

By following the strategies and maximizing the stats recommended in this D3 Wizard stats guide, you will deal more damage, have more survivability, and ultimately level up or farm items faster in Diablo 3.



This post has been edited by onibaru: Apr 25 2012, 11:43 AM

Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Guide

In this Diablo 3 Wizard leveling guide, you will be getting the best general tips and strategies for leveling up your Wizard quickly and easily in Diablo 3.

The focus of this D3 Wiz leveling guide will be tips and strategies for leveling quickly. The key is to be doing level-appropriate content, performing the most experience-efficient tasks, having the right equipment, and using the right builds.

Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Tips – Experience Points System

The most important thing for speed leveling in Diablo 3 is to fight against level-appropriate enemies. Here is how it works:

Each enemy has a “base” amount of experience points. Big, hard to kill enemies tend to offer more experience points than weaker, swarming enemies. Swarming enemies still tend to award more experience for taking out the whole pack than larger enemies.
The base amount of experience points is then based off of a comparison of your level to the enemy’s level. You get a small amount of bonus points for fighting enemies up to three levels higher than you, and you get a small experience penalty for fighting enemies 2-3 levels lower than you.
Once you get to be 4+ levels above an enemy, the experience point penalty you experience is massive. Once you are 10 levels above an enemy you no longer get experience points for defeating that enemy.
This applies to gear which adds monster experience per kill as well. If you have +100 experience earned per kill, this +100 experience is applied to enemies of equal level. This bonus experience can be penalized if you are a higher level than an opponent. For example if you are 5 levels higher than an enemy, you will not get anywhere near +100 bonus experience for taking it out, regardless of gear.

As a result, the sweet spot for experience points is for your enemies’ level is +/- three levels. If you fight enemies that are four levels higher than you, you do not earn any extra bonus experience points for this and your killing speed will be slower due to the high level of the enemy.

Furthermore, damage mitigation is based on level, so if you are fighting enemies that are a much higher level than you, you will deal less damage. As a result, I prefer to find enemies that are within two levels, particularly fighting down a level or two so that you are a level or two higher than an opponent.

Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Guide – Bosses & Quests

Another reason you want to fight enemies around your level is that by progressing through the game and taking out bosses and completing quests, you will earn large amounts of experience points. For example, taking out the Skeleton King in Act 1 gives you just over 5,000 experience points, which is the equivalent of taking out ~75 regular enemies that are of the Skeleton King’s level.

As a result, you as a Wizard leveling up in Diablo 3, you should stick to questing through acts and difficulty modes which feature monsters that are about your level. This seems to be the fastest all-around way to level up. Farming bosses for the bonus experience points from quest completion general is more efficient than taking our hordes of enemies, unless fighting your way to those bosses does not involve fighting many enemies.

The most important thing though is fighting level-appropriate enemies. Here are the level ranges your Wizard should be for each difficulty mode:

Normal: Levels 1-29
Nightmare: Levels 30-50
Hell: Levels 50-60
Inferno: Level 60 only

With that in mind, progressing through the game is straight-forward. However, you can level up quicker by using the right builds and the right equipment. This will allow you to kill enemies faster and hence level up quicker.

Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Guide – Builds

The builds section is at least as long as this D3 Wizard leveling guide. A quick summary is that for solo play i recommend grabbing one skill for AoE damage, one skill for single-target damage, one Signature spell (no Arcane Power cost), one Armor, and two escape abilities.

For group play, you can ditch your Signature spell and escape abilities and focus entirely on buffing your own damage and the group’s damage. Other classes in the group will be able to buff your armor and survivability as well, allowing you to ditch the Armor spell as well should you choose to do so.

Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Tips – Equipment

Equipment for the Wizard is very simple: max out Damage, Intelligence, and Vitality. Damage and Intelligence are the easiest ways to increase the strength of your skills and Vitality is the easiest way to increase your survivability.

If you are having trouble with living or your gear is under-par, consider using a shield. If your survivability is good, I recommend using a nice, slow two-handed weapon rather than using a Wand and an Orb.

The reason for this is that while slower 2-handed weapons might have slightly lower damage than a Wand/Orb combo, slower 2-handed weapons make the most out of Arcane Power regeneration. Think about it this way:

Two-handed Maces in particular are the best since they have a default attack speed of .90 attacks per second. This means that you can cast 9 spells in 10 seconds. When you channel Ray of Frost then, you will spend 180 Arcane Power over 10 seconds (9 * 20 = 180).

Given your default Arcane Power regeneration is 10 per second, you will generate 100 Arcane Power during those 10 seconds. This means that you can channel Ray of Frost for 10 seconds straight with a two-handed Mace and only spend 80 net Arcane Power.

Compare that to a Wand which deals 1.4 attacks per second. In 10 seconds, Ray of Frost will go off 14 times, which will cost you 280 Arcane Power. During this time, you regenerate 100 Arcane Power, for a net cost of 180 Arcane Power, more than twice the cost of a slower weapon!

In this situation, a .9 attacks per second weapon can channel Ray of Frost for about 12 seconds before running out of Arcane Power whereas a fast Wand can only channel for about 5 seconds before running out of Arcane Power. This makes two-handers superior for Wizards in terms of their damage output and Arcane Power efficiency.

You can learn more about the right stats and gear to get for your Wizard in the previously posted Wizard Stats guide.


Diablo 3 Wizard Leveling Guide

Leveling up your Wizard boils down to repeating level-appropriate boss quests in Diablo 3 in order to get the experience points not only for killing enemies but for completing big boss quests.

Using the right build and equipment will significantly increase your killing speed and hence your leveling speed, so be sure to keep these Diablo 3 Wizard leveling tips in mind so you pick the right build and gear for your character.

Diablo 3 Wizard Builds

The D3 Wizard has access to 25 different active skills with 5 different runes and 15 different passive skills, but you can only equip 6 active skills and 3 passive skills at a time.

These restrictions lead to the possibility of literally millions of different rune combinations and passive skills, but how can you truly know what the best builds are?

Basis for the Diablo 3 Wizard Builds List

Before we jump into builds, you should note that the best leveling builds are also the best farming builds, the primary difference being that once you are at level 60 and are farming content, you will have access to more abilities and runes.

Instead of separating builds based on leveling and farming (since the two are really one in the same), the builds will be instead separated into solo and group play.

When you are playing solo, you need both offensive and defensive skills in order to protect yourself. You need to be able to do it all and as such this build will be less offensively oriented.

When you are playing in groups, you can sit back at range and deal damage from a safe area. You will still need one or two escape abilities in order to deal with annoying enemies that teleport you or enemies that sneak up behind you, but you do not need to load up entirely on defense either.

If you are farming hard enemies, then you will want to stick to the solo build, but if you are farming easy enemies, you can drop some of the defense and go with the solo build.

With that said, lets look at some specifics below:
Diablo 3 Wizard Builds – Solo Play

Ray of Frost. Use the Snow Blast rune. This is your main Single-target damage ability.
Arcane Orb. Use with the Arcane Nova or Tap the Source rune. Tap the Source pairs well with Prism (see Diamond Skin).
Magic Missile. Start with Charged Blast and then change over to Attunement. This is your basic skill to use to regain arcane power when you are out. If your Arcane Power regeneration gets to be very good, you can replace this skill with the Familiar with the Arcanot rune for more Arcane Power and have no Signature skills.
Diamond Skin. Use the Prism rune. This allows you to cast Arcane Orbs for very cheap, particularly with Tap the Source. This makes Diamond Skin both a solid defensive skill as well as an offensive skill.
Energy Armor. Start with Pinpoint Barrier and move over to Prismatic Armor for more difficult game modes. This skill offers a large amount of defense.
Skill of choice. This could be Archon for dealing with tough encounters, Wave of Force to act as an escape when you are surrounded, Teleport to act as an escape or to travel quickly, or Familiar for the raw damage buff. The choice is yours as the previous 5 skills cover all of your basic needs.

For passive skills, I recommend Blur (nice defensive boost), Evocation (reduces cooldown on Diamond Skin, which in turn boosts damage by boosting up-time of Prism), and either Cold Blooded (huge damage increase for Ray of Frost) or Galvanizing Ward (for extra survivability). If your survivability is fine, you can swap out Blur or Evocation for Astral Presence as well.

This particular build is not very flashy but offers good killing power with high survivability. Ray of Frost is used against boss enemies whereas Arcane Orb is used to take out packs of enemies. Use Diamond Skin before engaging packs of tough enemies, as this allows you to cast Arcane Orb for a reduced cost 6 seconds in addition to protecting you from attacks.

Note that if you are able to survive with Astral Presence and the Familiar with the Arcanot rune, you can drop Magic Missile entirely. These two skills will give you an extra 4 Arcane Power regeneration per second, allowing you to use Ray of Frost and Arcane Orb virtually indefinitely when you pair them with Prism and Tap the Source (reduces Arcane Orb’s cost).

With that said, this only works with slower weapons; with fast weapons you will want to instead use Attunement with Magic Missile paired with the Prodigy rune instead of the Astral Presence rune. This will result in higher net damage and more Arcane Power regeneration.

Diablo 3 Wizard Builds – Group Play

When you are playing in a group, survivability becomes a lot less important whereas being able to buff the group becomes a lot more important. As such, our Diablo 3 Wizard build for group play ditches some of the survivability offered by the solo build in exchange for extra damage and buffs.

Ray of Frost. With the Snow Blast rune, this is still your number one damage dealer against single targets. No other ability comes close.
Arcane Orb. With the Tap the Source rune, this skill is basically free while Diamond Skin is up. Use it regularly.
Magic Weapon. This is a flat 10% enhanced damage and as such is a great buff. You can use the Conduit rune to get back extra Arcane Power or Force Weapon to boost the damage bonus to 15% extra damage.
Familiar. With the Sparkflint rune, this is another 12% bonus damage for you. When combined with Magic Weapon it will charge up your Ray of Frost and Arcane Orb.
Diamond Skin. With the Prism rune, Arcane Orb and Ray of Frost are basically free to use for 6 seconds. This is also your one escape in case you get surprised from behind.
Magic Missile -or- Hydra. See below on how Sparkflint works.

The passive skills I recommend are Astral Presence or Prodigy (extra Arcane Power), Cold Blooded (extra Frost damage), and Conflagration (bonus damage to enemies from all sources after taking fire damage).

There is a bit of an unknown here that is not yet resolved. The Wizard has a passive skill called Conflagration which increases the damage an enemy takes by 10% for 3 seconds after taking fire damage. This damage bonus is applied to everyone in your group, which makes it very useful for group play.

The problem with Conflagration is that the Wizard does not really have much in the way of Fire skills. The Sparkflint rune for the Familiar says the Familiar becomes “fiery” but does not state whether or not the damage dealt is Fire or Arcane damage. If it is Fire damage, this will allow your Familiar to apply the 10% damage buff from Conflagration while providing you with a 12% damage buff at the same time.

The point is, if Sparkflint applies Conflagration, you can get away with not using Hydra, as in this case your Familiar will apply Conflagration for you and your group. If Sparkflint does not apply this debuff, you will want to use an unruned Hydra or Hydra with the Mammoth Hydra rune. Regular Hydra is very good at applying Conflagration to single targets whereas Mammoth Hydra applies it to groups of enemies.

Should you not need Hydra, you can replace Hydra with a Signature spell like Magic Missile or Electrocute. Both of these will provide a nice damage boost. If you do decide to equip a Signature spell, I would recommend Magic Missile with the Attunement rune. This will let you recover Arcane Power quickly during boss fights. If you use a fast weapon you will need to go with Magic Missile / Attunement / Prodigy to keep your Arcane Power up.

The final thing to note is that if you choose Hydra, this build does not use a single Signature spell. The reason is because you should do most of your damage while Diamond Skin is active, as Diamond Skin reduces the cost of Arcane Orb to practically zero. Engagements with packs of enemies rarely last more than 6 seconds, so you can pop Diamond Skin, kill everything, then while Diamond Skin is on cooldown run towards the next pack of enemies.

The trick is to use a slow weapon. Using no Signature spells is not an option with a fast weapon and does not work well. Try to use a two-hand club or staff as this allows you to get away with Ray of Frost and Arcane Orb barely costing more Arcane Power than your regeneration rates.

Think about it this way: if you are regenerating 12 Arcane Power per second and your abilities cost 20 Arcane Power, if you use a slow staff which only attacks once per second, you will only be spending a “net” 8 Arcane Power when Diamond Skin is not active. When Diamond Skin is active, this drops to a net 1 Arcane Power cost.

This means that you spend almost no Arcane Power when playing with this build with a slow weapon; when there is kiting or downtime you can regenerate your Arcane Power. You can also get extra Arcane Power from gear.

Diablo 3 Wizard Builds Guide

By using the D3 Wizard builds outlined in this guide, you will have a lot of success with the Wizard. The solo builds offer both single-target and AoE damage combined with high survivability, whereas the group build build trades that survivability in order to increase your damage by a solid 30%+ while even allowing you to enhance the groups damage.