2 Wizard Builds

[Elfik]

I’ve got a couple builds of active skills for discussion, but I’m not yet sure about passives.

If any of you have already thought of these builds or similar ones then feel free to take credit.

Here’s my diamond skin build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...akjVSi!!bYZcaa

Magic Missile (golden) -> Attunement
This is for whenever I need arcane power.

Arcane Torrent (indigo ) -> Cascade
This is a skill I like, and the rune choice is what I felt would deal the most damage (I probably won’t be using MM that much so disruption isn’t that great). This skill is used as an alternate damage-dealer when enemies are immune to the following skill...

Ray of Frost (crimson) -> Snow Blast
This is my main damage dealer. It’s meant to be powered up by continuous use, which unfortunately requires the wizard to stand still.

Diamond Skin (obsidian) -> Crystal Shell
This is an important tactic to do several different things. First, it can save me from dying, and give me a chance to find somewhere safe to teleport to (I don’t necessarily make good decisions instantly you know!). Second, it can allow me to finish off the threatening enemies with a powered up ray of frost. Third, it can allow me to charge up arcane power and prepare for my next series of attacks. Also the reason I chose crystal shell is that I want it to be as failsafe as possible for 5 seconds, so I have something I can count on, even though on average the 15 second duration might be better.

Slow Time (alabaster) -> Stretch Time
This is an important utility skill for three obvious reasons. It does three things, and they all help me use my stay on the spot spells of ray of frost or arcane torrent.

Teleport (alabaster) -> Wormhole
Also obvious; it’s an escape skill.

Here’s my Meteor build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...OSi!aYb!ZcZZaa

Electrocute (crimson) -> Ball Lightning
This skill is there to do an alternate type of damage if there are fire immunes. Thus I want to maximize the damage of this somewhat weak skill. Good thing is, it’s spammable.

Arcane Torrent (obsidian) -> Arcane Mines
This time around I wanted to try the arcane mines variation. It’s there to “layer” on the damage, but also the slow effect makes meteor easier to use.

Meteor (crimson) -> Molten Impact
My main damage dealer, maximized for damage. If golden rune becomes viable I would consider that. Comet looks interesting as well.

Familiar (crimson) -> Sparkflint
I was seriously considering golden rune as 3 AP per second no matter what you’re doing sounds pretty good. However, sparkflint synergizes much better with electrocute.

Slow Time (alabaster) -> Stretch Time
A necessity because of the 90% slower projectiles. Less time dodging projectiles means more time casting.

Teleport (alabaster) -> Wormhole
A necessary escape skill. It’s preferable to diamond skin because of the lower cooldown, and because it’s nice to be able to move fast.

I have picked passives for this one, you can see them if you check the link.

What do you think of these builds?

PS From what I've been seeing, alabaster and crimson runes will be in high demand for wizards.

PPS I'm not sold on the armour skills. I'd rather either dodge everything, or have diamond skin if I know I'm going to get hurt. Maybe I'm looking at them in the wrong way?

[RaxX]

Have you looked into Indigo Meteor over Crimson Meteor?

"Meteor Shower -> Unleash a volley of 11 smaller meteors that each strike for 225% weapon damage as Fire."

We don't know how fast this "volley" is, or if the base cast speed of Meteor is affected by this rune or not. If not, the total damage per cast would be higher than Molten Impact, since:

(225% * 11) > (788% + 114%)

However, if the volley speed is slow, the sheer burst damage of Molten Impact might come out ahead..

[Scorch Hellfire]

RaxX, I think the problem with that metor shower rune is that it will probably be spread over a large area so instead of a smaller concentrated area with high damage it basically turns it into a fire blizzard...

As for your builds, Elfik, I would definitely use Evocation in the first one as you have three cooldown abilities that you want up as much as possible... If you aren't going to use an armor then I would consider prodigy, arcane dynamo, or astral presence for those other 2 slots...

Personally I will probably always be using one of the armors, but you are right that you can go without if you are good enough at dodging damage... In fact, two of them are more about the backlash damage/slowing effect than they are about giving you tons of survivability although golden runed ice armor with galvanizing ward will probably be pretty nice in higher difficulty levels for dealing with melee monsters... However, I think energy armor with the indigo rune (the one that increases your max ap by 40) seems like a no-brainer all around boost for almost every situation for any style of wizard so I will being going for it as soon as I can...

[Elfik]

Yeah I'll have to test all the armours in game, but energy armour does look like a nice passive boost in survivability. Personally I would go with the crimson rune for resistances.

Ice armour with golden rune looks like good melee protection but I would rather dodge melee if at all possible. Of course ennemies might just be too numerous or too fast to dodge melee all the time. In a group it becomes easier, so maybe the armours are more suited to solo play. But I just read that defense applies to all damage, so I guess Ice Armour isn't that different from energy armour after all.

Storm armour I agree is completely different. With alabaster it shock an ennemy every time you critical hit. It seems kind of like a passive damage booster. Kind of like the familiar. They have the same function.

The problem I'm having in taking skills that boost defenses or damage is that I don't have room for them. I need two good damage-dealers in case of immunities, plus I need a signature spell, and I need an escape skill (teleport), and slow time just seems more useful than any of the armours/familiar/hydra/diamond skin/frost nova/wave of force/etc.

The only reason not to use slow time is the cooldown. When going solo slow time may not be reliable enough, but in a group it seems like a must-have. If energy armour turns out to be really good as well, then the only choice left is what 2 damage-dealing spells to pick. Damage 1/Damage 2/Signature/Teleport/Slow Time/Energy Armour. Of course this disregards synergies.

As for passives on the first build I was thinking of using Evocation, Astral Presence, and Glass Cannon. Maybe Glass Cannon goes against my idea of using diamond skin, but the 20% increased damage should more than make up for it.

As for meteor shower, I want more concentrated damage, and I'm not sure if meteor shower provides it or not.

I also find that utilities with cooldowns are infinitely more interesting than passive buffs, and I'm glad the Wizard has a lot of them.

[Timesink]

The problem I'm having in taking skills that boost defenses or damage is that I don't have room for them. I need two good damage-dealers in case of immunities, plus I need a signature spell...

A few things to think about.

1. I was under the impression that immunities were going to be rare, if they exist at all?
2. If immunities are rare, I think you can get by with 1 offensive skill and 1 signature skill from a different school. If you run up against an immune monster, you just use your sig skill to kill it. Otherwise you use your sig skill to build mana/recharge and kill with your offensive skill.
3. This isn't to say you can't have two offensive skills + a signature skill if that is the flavor you want for your character. I just am not sure (unless immuities are common) that it is a requirement.

[Elfik]

In lieu of the discussion I have a revised build here:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...QSi!Ydf!ZZcZaa

This build uses signature + one other damage-dealing spell + 4 utility skills designed to keep my wizard alive. The signature skill is useful for attacking when low on AP, or for cold-immunes. If there aren't that many immunes, then I can rely on ray of frost most of the time. Only thing is I'm not sure energy armour synergizes that well with diamond skin, but I really like diamond skin. Maybe wave of force would fit better:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...cSi!Ydf!ZZcaaa

With evocation cooldowns are now:

Slow Time : 24 s
Wave of Force: 12 s
Diamond Skin: 20 s
Teleport: 12.8 s

Thus, the wizard can alternate between utilities fairly rapidly.
Maximum utility skill use per second = (1/24s + 1/12s + 1/20s +1/12.8s) = 0.253
So every ~4 or more seconds the wizard can use a utility skill. For example: WoF->DS->Tel->WoF->ST->Tel->DS...

EDIT: I just noticed a very similar build has been posted a while back by embolie:

forum link: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...745005&page=11

PvE:[Elfik: I couldn't get the link to work]

I will play hardcore.
This build focusses on being quite static...I will cloak myself in the bubble and shot or ray of frost for hardcore single target damage. When too many projectiles/enemies are closing in on me, Ill hit Wafe of Force and trigger a huge chain hit, while being able to build up high damage again.
When running out of mana, Ill start using Electrocute to build up my high arcane pool again to rinse and repeat above.
Teleport for positioning, of course. Whereas the rune effect is not quite sure for me yet.

I also might switch energy armor with diamond skin with a prism or crystal shell rune in order to have an 'oh-****'-button. Would include the Astral Presence passive in this case.

[Elfik]

I thought an ice-themed build would be cool:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...VZb!Vfg!aZacZa

I wanted a build with frost nova, and I thought why not use the alabaster ice armour? It would be really fun to proc frost nova, and considering that ice armour helps against melee, and I'm standing still using ray of frost, it's a good combo.

To further increase melee survivability, I took blur and unstable anomaly passives, plus I took evocation so I can cast frost nova even more often. I thought diamond skin would again be useful as it further increases survivability. Teleport as an escape. Magic missile with alabaster "seeker" is good for sniping from a distance, which might be necessary in some cases.

Finally, I've never played hardcore and I'm not sure I even want to. But if I did, I might use something like this:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...QOh!VgW!acaZac