[3.8] Guide to Min-Maxing Physical Wanders (Standard League)

Seriously probably the best written guide I have seen on the forums. More in-depth and informative then any other guide. Would recommend this guide over any other physical wanderer guide for standard players on the forum :). 100% complete! Make more guides in the future :)

:D

The amulet section has been revised and updated. Apologies to the owner of Horror Braid for any inconvenience caused.

Hi, want to know if there is a budget version of the build for Betrayal

"

FrvZenet wrote:

Hi, want to know if there is a budget version of the build for Betrayal

Hi, I do not suggest making phys wander in Betrayal league. You will get much better damage with ele wander. Good enough gear just doesnt exist in temp league for it to be worth it.

Awesome guide, cool to finally see something geared towards min-maxers! Have you thought about creating a guide for a bow character as well? I’ve been using your guide as a rough template for my TS/barrage character as there aren’t a lot of differences between the two builds (I.e. phys to cold conversion, similar gear, etc). Just curious as to your thoughts on how you would optimize for a bow instead of a wander.

"

alex355game wrote:

Awesome guide, cool to finally see something geared towards min-maxers! Have you thought about creating a guide for a bow character as well? I’ve been using your guide as a rough template for my TS/barrage character as there aren’t a lot of differences between the two builds (I.e. phys to cold conversion, similar gear, etc). Just curious as to your thoughts on how you would optimize for a bow instead of a wander.

Thanks for your comments.

I was thinking about writing a bow guide too but since there's too many similarities between the two build archetypes I figured it would be pretty much a recycling of what I've discussed here. There are a couple differences worth noting though.

In terms of gear, the only differences are the bow (Tempest Thunder), quiver (Horror Spike by Casta or Brood Bite by Mai - both are identical) and rare jewels. The difference in damage between GG abyss jewels and GG rare jewels is much smaller for bowyers than for wanders because bows have so much flat damage already so the flat damage on abyss jewels aren't as important. You could go with pretty much a full non-abyss rare jewel setup in the tree. Bows naturally have less attack speed than wands, so attack speed rolls on jewels are valued much more than crit multi up to a certain point. If you are striving for rare jewels there are several good combinations, but the "BIS" rare jewel should have: %attack speed with bows + %maximum life and 2 of the following 3 mods: %attack speed (best), %crit multi (very good), or %proj damage (worst, but not by much). A jewel like this would cost from 15-40 ex is my guess but may take time to find in std. On temp leagues you can prob find them much more easily and at much lower prices (5-10 ex). Very good bow abyss jewels on the other hand are pretty much identical to wander ones (swap out flat wand phys for flat bow phys), you can read the abyss jewel section on my guide and that'll provide you with all the information on finding the best combinations of bow abyss jewels.

As for the tree, bowyers don't go to the top of the tree, so they can't get Alchemist, which means a 3rd projectile from Dying Sun is impossible to get. Therefore, you should socket a rare jewel instead of Conqueror's Potency when using headhunter. If you prefer a mirrored rare belt, don't prioritize %flask effect, because you can't get +3 from dying sun even if you tried. This means Nemesis Tether is not the ideal mirrored belt for bowyers. There are several options for bow build mirrored belts. I think previously the best was Plague Clasp but recently Mai Cedere crafted a new belt Vortex Lash, which provides more dps (the 12% attributes frees up 1 passive point previously allocated for +30 str node) with a slight drawback being loss of 15% flask duration but I think the tradeoff is worth it.

https://pastebin.com/QtfDfB72

This pastebin is from Mai's mirror service shop and I think is pretty much an optimized POB for bowyers; One adjustment I would make is to path towards scion jewel socket for Unnatural Instinct by dropping maybe a few damage/life nodes.

One last thing to cover is the triple T1 resists helm vs unique helm. If you plan on sticking to Rats Nest or Starkonja then this doesn't really pertain to you, but if you want a source of triple T1 resists, I believe Mai has recently crafted a set of helm and boots that together provide a lot of life + 2 abyssal sockets + 3x T1 resists (to maintain wise oak balance). This combination will provide more total damage/life than a mirrored rare helm + bubonic trails but with a heftier price tag since you would need to mirror boots also.

If you have any other questions lmk.

Appreciate your reply. I took another look at Mai’s shop but could not find the helmet + boots that you mentioned. His newest helmet Hypnotic Corona only provides T1 fire and lightning resist unfortunately.

One thing I wanted to ask you was about your mana reserves. I’m running just HoI + Hatred + Enlighten 4 and I find myself out of mana occasionally. How are you able to sustain your attacks with such a low mana pool?

"

alex355game wrote:

Appreciate your reply. I took another look at Mai’s shop but could not find the helmet + boots that you mentioned. His newest helmet Hypnotic Corona only provides T1 fire and lightning resist unfortunately.

One thing I wanted to ask you was about your mana reserves. I’m running just HoI + Hatred + Enlighten 4 and I find myself out of mana occasionally. How are you able to sustain your attacks with such a low mana pool?

I think currently he only has the helm listed for sale, because the boots still need a benchcraft that won't be available til 3.6. My mistake. I meant to say that his set is almost completed.


To the best of my knowledge, his helm will provide T1 fire + light res and the boots will provide T1 cold res which is why u kinda need to buy them as a set to maintain wise oak balance, but each gearpiece has 1 abyss jewel slot and % life + ton of flat life + 35% movespeed. The most groundbreaking thing though is that his boots will have 1% life regen on it, which will enable you to use blood rage without messing up your Damage on Full Life gem. When all this is factored in, Mai's new mirrored helm + boots > bubonics + mirrored tri res helm in terms of both dps and life.

I've never really had an issue with mana. My guess would be that you aren't managing your vinktar usage properly, because with vinktar up, any secondary projectile from your tshot that hits any monster pretty much guarantees that you will leech back to full mana. So unless you keep firing even after all nearby mobs are dead or your vinktar isn't up, you shouldn't have a problem. If you are struggling with keeping vinktar constantly up though, I suggest you take a single mana leech node from the Essence Sap cluster and that should fix most your issues.

I think it's probably still better to craft %life regen on a flask and use bubonic trail right?

aka

Though to balance res I'd have to use instead of another grim nail. Are there any mirror rings with t1 cold instead of all res?