First build ideas

[poroboszcz]

I know it's far to early to really plan anything, but with the all wizard's skills revealed many of you have probably thought about some build concepts. If I was about to make a char now I'd probably go with a blizzard/magic missle hybrid. Here it goes (assuming we'll have abuot 100 skill points to spend):

Main active skills: Blizzard, Tornado, Magic Missle
Main passive skills: Storm Power, Epic Storms, Arcane Power, Improved Magic Missle and Spell Speed
Supporting active skills: Teleport, Slow Time, Temporal Armor

That's 81 points altogether. The rest goes between:

Lightning speed or Arcane Speed (whichever makes the Magic Missle faster)
Empowered Magic (more damage)
Penetrating Spells (for lower res and additional damage)
Arcane Armor (to boost Temporal Armor effect)
Damage Resistance (for safety, especially useful at the beginning when no gosu items are avaliable)

The idea behind this build is to use two elements, have massive damage blizzard, tornado and fast, spammable magic missle. May also work in PvP.

What are your ideas?

[konfeta]

Clearly, the Alpha-Omega build

LAZER WIZARD!

[Sylvanite]

We don't really know how many skill points it will take to max out active skills. We do know that the 0/1 that is listed for many of them is only for the demo, and one skill is not all you will be putting in to the skills in the final version.

I am also of the opinion that we will be getting more than one skill point per level. With passive skills going up to 15, plus active skills taking more than one, along with the byebye of attribute points, I think they will give us more skill points to spend...I mean....just getting to pick one skill point per level and thats your only benefit from leveling? Blizzard will not make leveling that lame. At least two.

That said, my first build will be melee wizard.

Something along the lines of:

Active Skills: Magic Weapon, Hydra, Mirror Image, Temporal Armor, Slow Time

Passives: Some mix of Damage Resistant, Weapon Mastery, Conjured Health, Conjured Power, Magical Impact, Slowing Strikes, Armor Piercing, Arcane Armor

'chant up with Magic Weapon, Temporal Armor, drop a hydra in the pack, run in, slow time, beat down.

[melianor]

I agree with Sylvanite about the speculation on how many skillpoints are distributed per level. Should be more than 1, looking at the ranks available, but we know nothing about that yet. So i think we should limit our build suggestions to the skills we would like to have in the build.

Variation on the Melee wizard

Storm Tree: Lethal Energy
Arcane Tree: Slow Time
Conjuring Tree: Damage Resistance, Mirror Image, Conjured Armor, Conjured Health, Weapon Mastery, Magic Weapon, Slowing Strikes, Armor Piercing

This is more melee oriented, leaving Hydra out and relying on melee skills and protection, using Conjured Armor to block.

Magical Weapon as enchant only arrives a bit late in the game possibly, so here is a point to find out what and how physical damage can be efficiently dealt until then.

[NKlint]

I think 2 points per level is a good number.

Currently it would take 172 points to max out Storm (7 points in Active Spells - 165 points in the Boosters) 177 points to max out Arcane (7 points in Active Spells - 170 points in the Boosters) and 187 points to max out arcane (7 points in Active Spells - 180 in the Boosters) The Total skill points needed to max out every skill in the current Skill tree is 536 points. You can use 21 points to get all of the skills, but you'd also need to use at least 17 points in each line (96 points) to get those 21 skills, though I wouldn't recommend that. If you gain 2 points per skill and start with zero points you'll have 198 points at level 100 with no unnaturally gained points (meaning no points from quests, or whatnot)

One could have all 21 spells, and have the other 33 points distributed into some skills which would get you to the next higher tier at level 28 - if you like the jack of all trades thing...

Anyway, if one got 2 skill points per level... Then at level 10 one could devote 1 point in each of the tree's Spells and meet the requisites to enter the advanced trees.

Storm Tree at level 10 could look something like...

1/1 Charged Bolt (1)
1/1 Storm Armor (2)
1/1 Frost Nova (2)
1/1 Ray of Frost (3)
1/1 Electrocute (3)
1/1 Blizzard (4)
1/1 Tornado (4)

and the requisites

1/15 Empowered Magic (1)
2/15 Lightning Speed (1)
2/15 Static Charge (2)
2/15 Deep Freeze (2)
1/15 Improved Charged Bolt (3)
1/15 Static Residue (3)
1/15 Lethal Energy (3)

Tier 4 Skills which don't require points in them to use the Tier 4 Spells

1/15 Storm Power (4)
0/15 Epic Storms (4)

Arcane Tree at level 10 could look something like...

1/1 Magic Missile (1)
1/1 Wave of Force (2)
1/1 Disintegrate (2)
1/1 Arcane Orb (3)
1/1 Slow Time (3)
1/1 Teleport (4)
1/1 Temporal Armor (4)

and the requisites

1/15 Arcane Power (1)
2/15 Penetrating Spells (1)
1/15 Efficient Magics (1)
1/15 Arcane Speed (2)
1/15 Arcane Weakness (2)
1/15 Arcane Armor (2)
1/15 Improved Magic Missile (3)
1/15 Mana Recovery (3)
1/15 Arcane Distortion (3)

Tier 4 Skills which don't require points in them to use the Tier 4 Spells

0/15 Greater Mana (4)
0/15 Mana Burst (4)
1/5 Runic Might (4)

Conjuring Tree at level 10 could look something like...

1/1 Spectral Blade (1)
1/1 Stone Skin (2)
1/1 Mirror Image (2)
1/1 Meteor Storm (3)
1/1 Acid Cloud (3)
1/1 Magic Weapon (4)
1/1 Hydra (4)

and the requisites

1/15 Spell Speed (1)
2/15 Damage Resistance (1)
1/15 Conjured Armor (2)
1/15 Conjured Health (2)
2/15 Weapon Mastery (2)
1/15 Improved Spectral Blade (3)
0/15 Conjured Power (3)
1/15 Conjured Duration (3)
1/15 Duplicate Conjuring (3)

Tier 4 Skills which don't require points in them to use the Tier 4 Spells

1/15 Armor Piercing
0/15 Slowing Strikes
0/15 Magical Impact

The distribution of points to the requisites doesn't really matter, I think, but I just included all of them for the sake of completeness... However You would be level 10 and you could unlock all the spells from a single Tree, and betweem level 86 (to master storm) 90 (to master Conjuring) and 95 (to master Arcane) before you would master, or max out, a single Tree.


__________________________________________________ ___________________________


As for my Build Suggestion...

I'd go for a combination of Arcane and Storm - as a Pure Caster. Maxed out at level 100 I'd have 198 points to play with...

Arcane:
10/15 Penetrating Spells (1) Reduces resistances foes have to your spells.
10/15 Efficient Magics (1) Reduces Mana cost of Spells
10/15 Arcane Armor (2) Increases armor rating while an armor spell is active.
1/1 Slow Time (3)
4/15 Mana Recovery (3) Grants a chance for Mana orbs to drop (I think) & Orbs grand more mana
1/1 Teleport (4)
1/1 Temporal Armor (4) Cancels all damage taken once every 6 seconds.
5/5 Runic Might (4) Enhances the effects of all runes.
10/15 Greater Mana (4) Increases Maximum Mana

Storm:
15/15 Empowered Magic (1) Willpower has a greater effect on Spell Damage
10/15 Lightning Speed (1) Reduces Casting Time of Spells
1/1 Charged Bolt (1)
15/15 Thunderstruck (1) Increases the chance for a Critical Hit with Lightning Damage (Stun)
1/1 Storm Armor (2) Damages attacking foes with Lightning.
10/15 Power Armor (2) Increases the lightning damage to foes for Storm Armor
15/15 Deep Freeze (2) Increases the chance for a Critical Hit with Cold Damage (Freeze)
1/1 Frost Nova (2)
1/1 Ray of Frost (3)
15/15 Lethal Energy (3) Increases the chance for a Critical Hit for Melee and Spells
15/15 Static Residue (3) Foes hit with Lightning damage harm nearby foes with lightning damage for 3 seconds.
15/15 Improved Charged Bolt (3) Increases the Number of bolts released with the Charged Bolt Spell
1/1 Blizzard (4)
1/1 Tornado (4)
15/15 Epic Storms (4) Greater Range for Blizzard area of effect and release more Tornados Simultaneously
15/15 Storm Power (4) Increase Damage from Cold and Lightning spells.

198 points total.

[Angel_of_Wrath]

Ooo, really tough to say at this point, but definitely something with meteor since it's my favourite. I would lean towards the melee wizard - it seems like it could be alot of fun with some slow time, mirror image and dropping meteors on heads. :thumbup:

I don't think builds are going to be all the effective long term with one or two points in each skill. I would be picking a group of skills that complement each other and the chosen playstyle, then pump the talents that boost those skills. May have to totally forgo the Storm tree in order to pump melee and fire skills. Burn baby burn. With all the skills and runes, there will definitely be some cool char builds coming out of the first few weeks.

[Apocalypse]

this thread is about a year too early so this time next year i will throw my plans out there, i expect to have at least 3 per char like i did with d2.

right away though the melee wizard strikes me as a build i really want to use

[demonchan]

for PvM I'd use Slow Time and an AoE Spell.

Arcane-Talents seem to be a must-have (Slow Time, Teleport, Mana Recovery).

The visuals of Blizzard and Meteorstrike are (imo) both outstanding. But I guess I'd go for Meteorstrike, because Slow Time already slows the enemys.
But on a second thought: Perhaps they'll be slowed twice with Blizzard (slow/freeze from Blizzard, slow from Slow Time)?

It's really hard to say at the moment, because we still don't know how many skillpoints we'll have and how many we can put in each skill. But slow time + AoE seems to be a good way.

[melianor]

*mumbles about making note to possibly ask Bashiok about the current standing on skill points for each level*

[poroboszcz]

I'm not sure if getting 2 skill points per level is a good idea. As stated above you would need 536 points to max out all the skills. In D2 you needed 600, yet you only got 1 skill point per level. Imho with 2 points things would be too easy. Having about 100 skill points + maybe some from quests seems just fine. It makes you to think more about balancing your build between different trees, offensive and deffensive skills or damage/speed/critical hit chance. With 200 points you would be able to max out almost half of all the skills. Way too easy, and further limiting the number of builds...

If they're gonna change the number of levels for active skills we should end up with about 600 skill points to max out everything, which seems just right.

[Sylvanite]

You're forgetting to add all the extra ranks beyond just one for active skills. It was only one in the demo. You're also forgetting tier 20 skills which arent in the tree yet. Its more in line with Melianor's number in the other thread she started devoted to the skill points debate.

[sdemon]

I think I will go for a complete DPS build. From what has been shown, the active spells that I will invest into:
Ray of Frost, Frost Nova, Electrocute, Blizzard, Time Stop, possibly Teleport, and one of the armors along the way. Hm, speaking of armors..


Arcane Armor
Passive Skill
Description: While your Storm Armor, Stone Armor, Stone Skin or Temporal Armor spells are active, your armor is increased by 20%.
Rank: 0/15


Okay, I see Stone Skin on the trees, but there's no Stone Armor? Or am I just blind? I wonder where it is and what it does..

Anyway, notice how the skills I named are all from 2 trees - Storm all the way, and more or less half way into Arcane. I hope there will be enough skill points in the game to get everything you would want from 1 and a half trees.
All the rest of the skill points i would bump into skills that increase damage, crit, crit damage, res lowering, etc for those active spells. I would not get any survivability spells other than Time Stop and possibly teleport, should there be enough skill points for it.

I mean, what's the point? If death is truly as forgiving as it was in the demo, then hell, might as well do as much damage as possible! :) Yay damage!

EDIT: The conj. tree has some very interesting dps enhancing skills, however. But I really like the selection of my active skill from the other trees.
Shrug, nothing is final. There's no telling if every passive skill will have a maximum of 15 points, active skills of 1 point, and if they're going to add tier 20 spells or just move around the existing ones into tier 20. Too much speculation at the moment, and stuff like this usually requires number crunching - something I am unwilling to do with skills that aren't even half finished and thought out.

[Riceyes]

Im just gonna go pure dmg on one skill. Then with the points left, ill just screw around with em. If I find one i like the best, ill rm.

[Lyrs]

Some anime character or other.

[fatwisconsinguy]

Personally I am really excited about the defensive capabilities of the wizard, especially since I play hardcore.

We still don't know how +skills will effect all the passives, but assuming it will be the same as D2 I will not do a single build without at least one or more points in the following skills:


A) Mirror Image
B) Conjured Armor
C) Conjured Health (probably maxed)
D) Stone Skin
E) Damage Resistant (probably maxed)
F) Wave of Force
G) Slow Time
H) Temporal Armor
I) Static Charge (% Dmg convert to mana)

These are amazing defensive abilities (in theory, of course) and I don't see me ever building a wizard build without at least 1 skill point in each of these skills.

[ribbonwing]

for my first build, i want to try to make a wizard that just missile spams. im not entirely sure it'll work, but that will be my first attempt.