Melee Wizard Build

[AngryEddie]

Been toying around with a melee wizard build. Gear required for the build is high vitality, int, health regeneration, and damage reflection.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...jTS!YTf!aZbaba

You'll be up and close to monsters dealing damage with spectral blade with bleed rune.

However, a significant damage source will be diamond skill (mirror skin rune +50% reflect damage) and storm armor (enhanced by strike back rune and Galvanizing Ward passive skill, +91% damage on hit). I included Arcane Dynamo in the build, assuming it will increase storm armor or diamond skin for +75% damage for the duration.

Magic weapon with rune grants +15% weapon damage. Glass Canon passive +15% damage and Familiar w/ sparkflint rune give another +12% damage for +27% total total. Again, assuming these enhance the damage reflection of storm armor and diamond skin.

Frost Nova will decreased cool down rune rounds out the abilities.

With a high amount of health, regeneration from Galvanizing Ward and items, and high damage reflection spells like diamond skin and storm armor, the idea is to let monsters pretty much kill themselves if you don't hack them to death with melee and frost nova.

Couple alterations that you can consider: Swap Arcane Dynamo for Paralysis. With 8% chance to stun on lightning damage, this complements storm armor well, especially against fast attackers.

[galzohar]

I still don't get what a "melee wizard" is, since you never really want to use a normal attack anymore and wizard has no real melee skills (though he has a few short-range ones). Gameplay-wise, there is no real difference between a wizard with a 1h or 2h melee weapon and a wizard with a wand+orb, bow or staff.

I'm still not sure what's up with magic weapon and familiar. If they only increase melee attack damage ("normal" attack that nobody uses) then they're pointless. If they increase all spell damage (as it is supposedly based on weapon damage) then they seem quite powerful and the magic weapon effects then don't make a lot of sense.

I'm waiting to see Blizzard explaining what the hell they meant when they said "melee wizard will be a viable option".

[Snerra]

I still don't get what a "melee wizard" is, [...]
I'm still not sure what's up with magic weapon and familiar. If they only increase melee attack damage ("normal" attack that nobody uses) then they're pointless. If they increase all spell damage (as it is supposedly based on weapon damage) then they seem quite powerful and the magic weapon effects then don't make a lot of sense.

Spectral Blade is as melee as it gets. It's almost identical to the barbarian's cleave. As for magic weapon and familiar, it's the latter: they increase weapon damage and the damage of your skills are based on your weapon damage.

As for the OP, there are unfortunately a few false assumptions in your build AngryEddie..

However, a significant damage source will be diamond skill (mirror skin rune +50% reflect damage) and storm armor (enhanced by strike back rune and Galvanizing Ward passive skill, +91% damage on hit). I included Arcane Dynamo in the build, assuming it will increase storm armor or diamond skin for +75% damage for the duration.

To me it sounds like Arcane Dynamo only works on a single direct attack. If so, this seems like a pretty useless passive for the build.

Magic weapon with rune grants +15% weapon damage. Glass Canon passive +15% damage and Familiar w/ sparkflint rune give another +12% damage for +27% total total. Again, assuming these enhance the damage reflection of storm armor and diamond skin.

Yeah, they don't enhance the damage of diamond skin, sorry. They should work with storm armor, though. Diamond skin only returns 50% of the damage monsters deal to you. It isn't affected by your weapon damage.

Couple alterations that you can consider: Swap Arcane Dynamo for Paralysis. With 8% chance to stun on lightning damage, this complements storm armor well, especially against fast attackers.

I think that could be worth a try. Sounds pretty cool. I doubt it works with Electrify (magic weapon rune), sadly. Could've been sweet.

Finally a few suggestions:

• I think your build is WAY too squishy for a melee wizard. And since you plan on getting hit a lot, glass Cannon just wont be a good idea on higher difficulties.
• I think you should take these three passives: Blur, Paralysis, Critical Mass (so you can keep frost nova/diamond skin up)
• Frost Nova seems counter to your idea, since you are planning on using thorns damage. I'd pick Slow Time(Time Warp) instead. Engage with slow time, and once it ends, put on diamond skin.
• I'm not a fan of the familiar. It's all right, but I think Explosive Blast would deal more damage. You have nothing else to spend AP on, so you can spam it in-between Spectral Blade.

That would give you something like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WgXhTS!aVg!aZbYba

Overall, I'm not sure how much I like thorns-based damage on wizards, considering how squishy they are. That's just my opinion, but you should try it, of course! It's all about trying for yourself. Experimentation is the biggest benefit of this skill system.

[Blitu]

Hi, interesting post, here's my idea of a wizard melee build:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...ZbY!faT!aZbabZ


I think Teleport is important in melee build in order to reach ranged mobs fast enough and evade critical situations.


The build has 4 defensive skills but they are combined with offensive runes:

• Slow time has Time warp that increases 20% the damage dealed to mobs in the bubble.
• Diamond skin has Mirror skin that reflects 50% of the damage absorbed.
• Ice armor has Jagged ice that deals 100% weapon cold damage to attackers.
• Teleport has Safe passage but it could be changed to Calamity if the damage taken is not too high.

Two passive skills are defensive and one offensive to improve the signature spell mechanic of the main skill Spectral blade.


The lvl needed to use this build is quite high…55, but can be reduced to 42 by changing the passive skill Arcane dynamo. Good options are Illusionist or Evocation.


By the way, as this build doesn’t use arcane power (only for buffing and teleport), Slow time could be changed to a ranged skill, could be very usefull in some situations.

[galzohar]

So really the only thing your "melee" wizard is doing different than a "normal" wizard is that it uses spectral blade for a signature skill, and maybe tries to make up for it with some defensive skills? Since most of your damage should come from arcane power spenders anyway, I really don't see what's so special about "melee" wizard.

Not that I'm saying spectral blade is bad (though tbh I wasn't impressed by it), but that this really is the same as any other build that uses short range spells.

If magic weapon an familiar work the way you say they do, they're just as good for the "melee" wizard as they are for any other wizard.

[jjmalove]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...Magetank-Build

That is my idea for a melee wizard. It is much more focused on survivability and crowd control over damage, but is also meant for group play not solo.

As for your build, I would be a little worried about the higher difficulties. Diamond Skin w/ Crystal Shield WILL still fall off before 6 seconds, that is how much damage monsters do in inferno. The thorns is, imo, much less important than the extra shield. YMMV =)

Magic Weapon is kind of hard to justify, I had to give it up after thinking about it. Not only is it a pretty small improvement, it makes your gameplay even more stale. I know for me I'm already using an armor, so using weapon puts me down to a whopping 4 active skills, which is a little lame (especially since 1 of those 4 is diamond armor).

Familiar is kind of the same way. Its a little boring and isn't really that strong.

I'm not saying copy my build, but perhaps try more active skills than weapon and familiar.

[Friedrich Halbarenz]

Since we're playing a little show and tell, here's my battlemage -

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Ogd!aXf!abaZZb

The primary design philosophy is "kill everything stone dead." Oh, and Energy Armor + Blur + Galvanizing Ward as my defense. The skill layout was designed so that my active attacks would be on my mouse buttons, Force Wave/Slow Time are on my index and middle fingers, and my support skills are on my ring and pinky. My fool-proof battle plan:

1. Walk up to mobs and slap them around with Spectral Blade
2. Pop Force Wave and Arcane Nova for crowd control
3. When needed, do the Neo and slow time for more damage/mob gimping
4. ???
5. Profit!

On a more serious note, I am questioning of some of the choices taken by OP, and others. I'd rather not take the path of "let the bad guys hit me and kill themselves with thorns damage." Taking Glass Cannon (when you're expecting mobs to pound on you to do some or a good deal of your damage) seems rather counterintuitive. And on top of that, I'm not really sure if flashes of insight would interact with reactive armor spells the way you are hoping. I'd rather kill the monsters at Step 1 and never progress to Step 2 and allow them to get damage on me.

Anyway, everyone's build is their own. Report back on D3 Day if the build is any good.

[HardRock]

I still don't get what a "melee wizard" is

A Wizard that uses many short ranged PBAoE attacks. A skill doesn't actually have to use your weapon in its animation to be considered a melee skill in my opinion. Skills like Hammer of the Ancients and Spectral Blade or Rend and the Cloud of Bats rune of Firebats are fundamentally the same and have similar gameplay.

Gameplay-wise, there is no real difference between a wizard with a 1h or 2h melee weapon and a wizard with a wand+orb, bow or staff.

The weapon may be irrelevant, but skill and gear selection in general definitely isn't. I'm fairly sure that you'll have to adjust your playstyle if you want to stay in melee range with a class that doesn't have an innate 30% damage reduction and wasn't really designed to be optimal for this role.

[galzohar]

Except all wizard skills have at least some range. None require you to be in melee range. Sure, if you want to use those short-range skills you'll likely need more survivability, but in that case you'd better make sure those short-range skills actually make up for it in damage, or else the whole concept is pointless. And again, in any case, it's not really "melee".

Also, using only spectral blade (strongest of signature skills due to being very short range) doesn't make sense, since the spenders are still way more powerful - Even the ranged ones. There is a reason some spells actually cost arcane power. Use at least one of them that you can spam - It'll be worth it almost no matter which one you pick.

[HardRock]

Except all wizard skills have at least some range. None require you to be in melee range. Sure, if you want to use those short-range skills you'll likely need more survivability, but in that case you'd better make sure those short-range skills actually make up for it in damage, or else the whole concept is pointless. And again, in any case, it's not really "melee".

Sure, everything has at a short range. The melee range is a fixed 8 yards with any weapon. There are many skills that have a similar range with certain rune effects. Just look at Arcane Orbit, Sleet Storm, Reactive Armor or any of the runes for Explosive Blast. It's seems perfectly viable to me to build a melee Wizard. Some of these skills have a slightly larger reach than your melee range, but you won't notice a 4 yard difference.

Also, using only spectral blade (strongest of signature skills due to being very short range) doesn't make sense, since the spenders are still way more powerful - Even the ranged ones. There is a reason some spells actually cost arcane power. Use at least one of them that you can spam - It'll be worth it almost no matter which one you pick.

I agree, although I don't know why you bring this up. I never said that you should spam only Spectral Blade. SB is logical choice, when you're building your Wizard with close quarters combat in mind and the rest of your skills will have a short range as well.