It's multiplicative? Lol wut.
But how do Wizards reach the four elements? I'm guessing Lightning/Frost Armour + Magic Missile + Hydra + Blizzard?
Fire hydra, ice blizzard (reduced cost most likely ? or the one that freezes), arcane meteor, and then you have several options for lightning
The armors don't give damage buff stacks. Hydra only gives the stack when you place it, not on its attacks, so you'd need to use it every 4-5 seconds or so. I can't really recommend using a hydra because of this, but it can work. (Note that they all do trigger meteors on hit). I also don't like using the arcane meteor because it uses up all your resource, and if it triggers the Tal Rasha meteor the second will be doing damage based on having 0 arcane power. Might as well use a signature skill and get the buffed star pact without the resource cost so you can use the resource on other stuff (or even just use a less expensive spell).
I used Electrocute - Forked Lightning, Magic Missile - Split, Shock Pulse - Explosive Bolts, and Meteor - Thunder Crash.
Basically I would just rotate my skills in the order of Shock Pulse -> Forked Lightning -> Meteor -> Magic Missile -> spam Meteor until damage buff wears off.
The reasoning for this is you want to use the skills that do more damage at the end when you have more damage buff stacks. This is including the Meteor procs from the set. So I do cold -> fire -> lightning -> arcane. Arcane is last because the arcane meteor does way more damage than anything else. Lightning is before it because it's a double meteor (one from using the skill, one from proc). Fire and cold are just less damage so they go earlier. I also only use the one arcane power spender so I can save all my resource for meteors.
I'm pretty sure this isn't optimal by any means, but it was working out well for me. Tons of fun too.
So any indication if Tal will replace firebirds yet or not?
There is way to run 6 piece firebirds 4 piece tal set bonus or vice versa, dont know if its worth it in the patch.
I tried running 6 piece Tal Rasha and 4 piece Firebird but the only way I could get it to work was to use a 1H weapon + source. Didn't seem worth giving up the 2H weapon, especially if you can get the staff that reduces the cost of meteors. I didn't try the other way around but that also doesn't seem worth the effort.
Personally I was getting better results from Tal Rasha on PTR than I was with Firebird on live, but I think I have better overall gear on PTR so it's not really a fair comparison. I do have to say that Tal Rasha is so much more fun (Firebird bores me) so there's that.
