Critical Mass Melee Wizard

[cheerupemokid10]

Like I said before, 17k health, 13k dps, and 35 crit and she still holds up really, really well for A1 and pretty darn well in A2. Just have to literally mash the crap outta the buttons and be ready to GTFO/GTFB on those "tough" mobs. Haven't taken it to A3 yet as I'm still leveling my last two alts to 60 (46 WD and 28 Barb).

It takes some getting used to, but with ~300k I switched around a lot of my gear to be running well in A1/2. Nothing loaded with MF or top stats, but enough to get by for sure.

Still, repair costs are exceptional for me. Anyone else notice similar issues? Depending on the group I play with, it's around 20k for an A1 run of just the end, warden to butcher. More if I'm doing a longer run, etc.

[magicrectangle]

Been doing Cydea + Azmodan runs lately, they take about 10 minutes, you get 7-8 elites and 2 bosses. You almost always get 5 elites before Cydea (you can go grab a quick one anywhere else in the act if you don't), and then you've got back to back boss drops. It is probably still better loot/hour to do act clears, but I don't think this is much worse, and it can be done in bite-sized chunks.

I made a video of a run, as an example. And of course since I was recording it went poorly and I died like an idiot on trash due to frost nova fat finger. But hey, why pretend I always play perfect? Might as well show that sometimes you die, so here's the video:

<****** class="restrain" title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xvKSezAI-vE?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0">

[magicrectangle]

Still, repair costs are exceptional for me. Anyone else notice similar issues? Depending on the group I play with, it's around 20k for an A1 run of just the end, warden to butcher. More if I'm doing a longer run, etc.

I just noticed this statement, and it is kind of confusing. I can do an entire a3 clear and, if I haven't died, have at most a 10k repair bill. Do you just mean you die more with this build or...?

Frost nova lockdown means you don't really get hit that much, so not really a lot of "natural" wear and tear on your items compared to melee builds for other classes.

[iThinman]

Finally broke down and respec'd a bit for act3 and can now successfully run up to and including ghom. Dropped about 8k dps and 200LoH to replace my wand with one with ap on crit to bring my total up to 26.

Sitting at 29dps, 22hp, 3277 armor, 45/140crit, 718ar 849fire unbuffed, 386LoH, 26ap on crit

The drop in LoH from 588 seems to be my biggest, yet small, issue at this point but I can bring that up a little with a ring if I can give up a little ar, haven't tested yet.

Find higher level garbage on a regular basis now finally.

[microlab]

A nice guide, man. I am interested in your gear, but the picture in this link has too low resulotion, could you add another one , pls?

For an example, you can see my gear here:
[COLOR=#e99c01]http://s12.postimage.org/gtdv5cowd/wizgear.jpg[/COLOR]
It is by no means perfect, but it is pretty good and should illustrate gear priorities.

[magicrectangle]

I dunno why postimage apparently resized it, uploaded it to imageshack instead.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/4462/wizgear.jpg

[AlienOne]

This is a fantastic guide. I really appreciate you making it. I literally went from dying every 30 seconds with my own shoddy "this is a cool build" to dying "occasionally" with a build based off of this guide.

Just grouped with some people that really appreciated me being on the team--thanks to you!

[Kinmaul]

The only thing I would suggest is adding in a section about a shield vs source. If your RA/armor isn't the greatest then dropping a shield for a source can be suicide. I speak from personal experience because I recently started playing my wizard again and his gear is currently lacking in the defense department. Obviously your end-game plan should be boost your gear to a point where you can use the source because it's a lot more damage, but as long as you can get 18-20 ap on crit from your hat/wand you won't run into AP issues using a shield.

[magicrectangle]

I added a blurb about shield vs source to the gear priorities section, good suggestion.

[MrNajsman]

I haven't been able to get a lockdown on champions, they come out of freeze to fast. Is the trick to mash the crap out of the skill buttons? I'm still trying to time the skills and plan ahead and my frost Nova is still on cooldown when they start to attack again. Have 31/29 crit/AoC