1761

You can indeed dual-wield wands. I glanced through the guide and it seems that’s what he’s advocating. Of course, that means you’ll be giving up the block chance and resists that are typically found on shields, but that’s what he says.

I personally wouldn’t obsess over the +1 wands - for the first 10 levels or so they are OP, but once your gems level up some, the added power is less and less important. That said, if you can get +1 to fire gems or +1 to gems in a wand, certainly go for it.

As for getting the specific 3L and 4L items you need, there are 2 ways to go about doing it: find a 3L or 4L white item and either make it magic (blue) or rare (yellow) using orbs. If it’s white, the first thing I do is use 4 blacksmith or armorsmith items to make the item 20% quality. Then make it magic or rare. If you make it blue, use that other orb that adds a property to a magic item. If you don’t like the properties, just use Alteration orbs on it until it has one or two things you like (if it ends up with one property, use that orb that adds an additional property again). Use Chromatic Orbs to get the colors you want. If you do this you probably won’t end up with any +1 to gems on the wand though.

Alternatively, if you find a nice item with too few sockets, use Jeweler’s Orbs to get more sockets on it, then Fusings to link them up.

Note that when people craft like this, it is completely possible you’ll blow through 10+ orbs to get the result you want.

As I play, I keep and throw good yellow items and 4L items (or items with 5+ sockets) into bank tabs so when I need to upgrade a piece of gear, I can often go to the bank and craft something.

Oh yeah, the masters can also craft stuff on your gear too, so if you have an item that’s almost perfect, they can sometimes add that last stat to it.

1762

RIP the latest Incinerate Templar in A2C. I thought it would be a good idea to go into this corrupted ruin, but I ran into a dude who threw down 3 freezing totems and I could not get away before freezing to death. Oh well!

I also found one of the worst Tempests I’ve seen - Freezing Tempest of Poison - freezes you in place and also drops permanent blobs of poison on the ground. I typically walk through ground junk, as it doesn’t do much when your resists are maxed, but I looked up and noticed I was on about 25% health after walking through some of those patches. Man was that annoying!

1763

Ouch, Charlatan; that sounds uber-icky.

Thanks for advice on dual-wands. I could have sworn I tried it but it wouldn’t let me, but I’m guessing some stat wasn’t high enough for the wands I was trying (or maybe it was scepters; I’ll have to check).

And yeah, I have been doing the crafting thing and yep, it can blow through orbs like a sailor on shore leave.

1764

You can’t wield wands with melee weapons, which scepters/daggers are. So dual wands or dual weapons are your options.

1765

Ah, ok! That explains it. Thanks!

1766

More newbish questions for me and my level 19 summoning Witch:

  1. I see I can trade in 3 Greater Mana Flasks for the next bigger one. Is a bigger flask always better, assuming no magical properties?

  2. I never seem to have enough Scrolls of Wisdom to ID yellow things. At the end of a run, I’ll often just gather white stuff to sell for wisdom scraps. Is there a better way to collect Wisdom scrolls? (Part of the trouble is that some of my gear is still blue, so I have to ID some blue stuff to see if it’s an upgrade.)

  3. I have a level 4 rare wand that still seems better than anything I’ve looted. Is this unusual?

  4. I’ve read that I should pick up and ID only yellows, unless I need a blue to upgrade, or I see an item with sockets I could use – a lot of sockets, or, I suppose, a lot of blue sockets for my witch. Does that sound about right?

  5. Summoner-specific question: I’m wondering how I’ll cope with single-target fights where I can’t farm corpses to heal my minions. Hasn’t been an issue yet, but I imagine it will be.

This is a cool game! A surprising amount of innovation. Even the potions have a new twist – instead of gathering stacks of potions, you equip a few, and they refill as you kill stuff. Great idea.

1767

I’m no expert by any means, but I’ve had these same questions over the time I’ve played the game.

Bigger flasks seem to nearly always be better, all other things (magical properties) being equal. At the high end it seems there is some trade off between amount restored and rapidity of restoration, but I’m not 100% sure about that. In general, at the levels I’ve been playing at (to the mid 40s) bigger is better.

Wisdom scrolls accumulate over time, especially after you stop having to ID everything to see if it’s an upgrade. My stash is chock full of them. Since I started using a loot filter, too, it makes it quite a bit easier to just gather what I need rather than everything; I don’t ID a lot of crap that falls because I don’t even pick it up. Some might say ID all the blues, but I think that applies if you’re looking for something specific; if you’re a wand user, there’s little need to ID a one-socket blue two-handed sword (or even pick it up in the first place).

I’ve kept using rares or uniques many, many levels beyond their nominal item level. It’s about the relevant stats and bonuses, rarely about stuff like absolute physical DPS.

Sockets, as I’m learning, are crucial. Not just number, but links and colors. You can indeed craft your way around some blockages like not the right color, not enough sockets, not the right links, but it’s expensive and hit or miss. Always be on the lookout for the links, colors, and numbers of sockets you need.

Eventually, can’t recall when, you get an ability call Desecrate, which casts an AoE damage area on the ground which also spawns three corpses (I think it’s three). You can them summon them as Zombies. Handy. Also, use the spell totem + summon skeletons trick. Very handy.

And yeah, it’s a very cool game even for putzes like me.

1768

I used a level 18 or so wand until 68 on my summoner. You’re fine ;)

Check out Summon Raging Spirits. It’s a nice single target damage boost that gets all your minion buffs.

I fought a lot of bosses with more or less the skeletotem alone after my zombies got blown up. They get tougher over time, have no fear. Desecrate can help a lot too.

1769

Along the lines of stupid things not to do, don’t try to craft additional energy shield onto a piece of armor that doesn’t intrinsically have any energy shield. You get +whatever to…nothing. Doh.

1770

I’d say in the very beginning this is true, but later in the game you can have some tradeoffs. For example there are mana flasks that use only 4 or 5 charges, but don’t refill as much. If you’re using high mana regen and auras so don’t have a ton of of mana left over but your regen isn’t high enough to always keep up, one of these lower mana but low charge flasks can keep your flask basically permanently full and cover you when you get a particularly large pack and blow through your mana. Also, this allows you to keep the magic property of the flask basically permanently up; I often try to get this flask as anti-freeze/chill so I can largely ignore chilled ground issues.

At the very high end of life flasks also there is a tradeoff in terms of amount of total life returned / speed of life returned / charges used. If I recall correctly it’s the second, might be third, best flask that actually returns the most overall health and so people use that one for their instant potions as you take a 66% penalty on the total return for instant so you need that high base.

1771

+1 ele wants don’t fall off because you level to a point where they don’t matter honestly; they fall off because a 4l (or more) is typically a better setup than a 3L with +1 to the active skill gem. And because good caster weapons offer so many benefits. E.g. a lightning spell user will want to pick up a moonsorrow once they’re in the 60s (unless it got tier-shifted and costs to much; they typically go for 1-5c). While running whatever spell they are using in a 4L (or more), moon sorrow is giving +45-59% increased spell damage, +20-30% increased lightning damage, and +10% cast speed. That’s a pretty awesome pile of buffs, on top of a spell that’s got more supports linked.

As for dual wielding, for casters weapons are essentially just “buff sticks”. Dual weapon nodes on the passive tree are basically for melee users who want to increase damage/attack speed and maybe add some block while dual wielding. Completely irrelevant for casters. Use a second weapon or shield as circumstances and taste dictate!

1772

Kewl. Right now I’m running dual wands, each a 3L, for the Incinerate and the totem. Firestorm is on my gloves in a 3L (unique gloves that cast Temporal Chains automagically). But I will be needing 4Ls if I live that long for sure.

1773

Thanks for all the great answers to my questions about looting, flasks, etc. Very helpful. I’ll look out for Desecrate. The Wiki suggests it’s an Act II quest reward for the Witch (only).

I think I should have looked at Nissa’s wares more closely. The wiki suggests she sells a number of gems that might be useful to me, like totem and skeleton skills.

1774

It’s easy to miss them, because they’re on a separate tab in her vendor screen. That second tab only shows up once she has some gems to sell you. Same goes for similar vendors in later acts.

1775

For those struggling with Scrolls of Wisdom, keep in mind the vendor system:

I am usually swimming in Orbs of Trans on account of vendoring unidentified blues while farming/levelling.

1776

If you’re running short of Wisdom scrolls don’t bother identifying stuff you most certainly won’t use - for instance, for a magic user, don’t waste a scroll on the 2 handed weapons, or the pure evasion gear. Stuff like that. Just sell it unidentified. The scrolls do definitely start to pile up, but I noticed it’s not until the late 20s or 30s. There’s a tipping point where you go from always having to scavenge to get scrolls to leaving them lying around because you just don’t need many any more (maybe it has something to do with gear having to be better to even be considered as an upgrade).

In other news, rather than reroll a new character in Tempest, I decided to just play some of my toons in Standard… you know, for FUN! I’ve got a level 50-ish dual-flame totem Witch there. She found that unique chest piece that gives you a 3rd totem - but the downside is that when your totems expire, you get a random level 20 curse applied to yourself. In a hardcore league I’d never do that, but in Standard - why not! And I gotta say, it’s a blast having 3 totems. It obviously increases my DPS by 50%. I don’t even bother cursing enemies or doing anything much anymore. It’s quite entertaining. She’s died a couple of times but I don’t really care.

I also have my “Scionic flametank” which is the Incinerate Scion that has massive regeneration, and about 10 skills linked to “Cast When Damage Taken” gems. She’s level 50-ish too. Sadly, it seems that she died just when her build was about to turn the corner - after getting 4 or 5 more levels in Standard I’ve picked a few regeneration nodes and now she can stand toe-to-toe with almost any number of equal level mobs - her energy shield now regenerates faster than most mobs can damage her. I also love when the CWDT gems go off; it’s like a fireworks display (frost wall, firestorm, tempest shield, molten shield, couple of curses). She’s A3C and at the end of A3 she will add Chaos Inoculation. Doing this in hardcore would freak me out, but in Standard, I’ll just do it and see how it goes!

My sole remaining high level Tempest character is the “lazy Pally” who has Static Shock for his attack and relies on block reactive gems to deal some additional damage. I’m using him to do my daily Masters quests since I haven’t even seen most of the Masters in Standard yet.

1777

Is anyone playing this on Windows 10? I haven’t made the upgrade leap of faith yet, largely because my PC is purely a game machine, and I am loathe to trade gaming for hours or days of troubleshooting.

1778

I am, had no problems whatsoever, but I haven’t researched if others did.

In fact, of all the games I had installed, only Hearthstone threw a fit. Even that was quite fixable.

1779

Thanks for the feedback!

1780

Yeah no issues with Win 10 for me either.