I personally don't understand the "melee wizard" bit.
What's the point of trying to tie yourself down to skills that are short or melee range only, when you can nuke from afar?
It seems logical that people wanting to melee effectively will make chars specifically for that purpose.
To each their own.
It really is just all about people wanting to work outside of the box. If people had the choice, they would be everything.
You have that completely backwards.
The wizard is an open book, and you can go many many different routes. A melee wizard discards those many routes and place themselves into a small box with very limited options.
That is the way flavour builds work. You give up a multitude of viable options to fulfill your desire to fight only a certain way.
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Do you want to get scammed? Perhaps a nice keylogger?
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
both the barbarian and the monk have the luxury of their primary stats reducing all, as in both physical and magical, incoming damage while intelligence only reduces magical.
Actually if you look at your stat sheet there is a physical resistance... and it's increased by + resistances.
That has to be the worst over generalization I have seen in a long time and I edit and mark papers for a university. You neglected to even account for skill differences. Your math of "lol they have 30% that means melee wiz not possible, lol" is sad. If you actually spent the time to consider the possibilities available to the wizard, you would see that it is not as one-sided as you posted it to be.
Let's go through your invalid points chronologically.
Nerfing Weapon Throw. This was made because the amount of damage possible (if you even attempted to try napkin math here, you'd see) was extremely high. They reduced the %weapon damage on almost all of the Barbarian's abilities, including weapon throw. I hardly see your case for there being no more throw barbarians.
Removing fundamentals. Again, not a very good argument. There are plenty of ways to play a melee DH. What is even more, we do not even know the itemization of D3 yet. A lot of builds that were viable in D2 only became viable because of the items. Quite a short sighted and thought lacking point.
Removing virtuoso = You want a wizard to only use their wands? I do not understand your point. This point made me think that you just want to play random and weird builds for no good apparent reason. While that is your prerogative you cannot expect every single off-shot build you come up with to be optimal or even efficient in killing the minions of D3.
Chakram nerf. So, your point about build diversity and viability loses me here. You think ONE skill should determine the viability of an entire subsection of a type of DH? Sounds like you're contradicting yourself here. A nerf to chakram, if we're following your logic, does not mean a nerf to all melee DHs, just one of the melee DHs YOU want to play.
I've already touched on the 30% thing, but to reiterate, what? The skill sets and rune choices of the other classes allow for similar mitigation. At a dps cost? Perhaps, but if you were to check any of the 'melee' abilities of those non-stereotypically melee classes, you would notice that the spells have a higher base damage anyways. I don't think you've even tried to think about this issue. Makes me sad.
That has to be the worst over generalization I have seen in a long time and I edit and mark papers for a university. You neglected to even account for skill differences. Your math of "lol they have 30% that means melee wiz not possible, lol" is sad. If you actually spent the time to consider the possibilities available to the wizard, you would see that it is not as one-sided as you posted it to be.
Let's go through your invalid points chronologically.
Nerfing Weapon Throw. This was made because the amount of damage possible (if you even attempted to try napkin math here, you'd see) was extremely high. They reduced the %weapon damage on almost all of the Barbarian's abilities, including weapon throw. I hardly see your case for there being no more throw barbarians.
Removing fundamentals. Again, not a very good argument. There are plenty of ways to play a melee DH. What is even more, we do not even know the itemization of D3 yet. A lot of builds that were viable in D2 only became viable because of the items. Quite a short sighted and thought lacking point.
Removing virtuoso = You want a wizard to only use their wands? I do not understand your point. This point made me think that you just want to play random and weird builds for no good apparent reason. While that is your prerogative you cannot expect every single off-shot build you come up with to be optimal or even efficient in killing the minions of D3.
Chakram nerf. So, your point about build diversity and viability loses me here. You think ONE skill should determine the viability of an entire subsection of a type of DH? Sounds like you're contradicting yourself here. A nerf to chakram, if we're following your logic, does not mean a nerf to all melee DHs, just one of the melee DHs YOU want to play.
I've already touched on the 30% thing, but to reiterate, what? The skill sets and rune choices of the other classes allow for similar mitigation. At a dps cost? Perhaps, but if you were to check any of the 'melee' abilities of those non-stereotypically melee classes, you would notice that the spells have a higher base damage anyways. I don't think you've even tried to think about this issue. Makes me sad.
That has to be the worst over generalization I have seen in a long time and I edit and mark papers for a university. You neglected to even account for skill differences. Your math of "lol they have 30% that means melee wiz not possible, lol" is sad. If you actually spent the time to consider the possibilities available to the wizard, you would see that it is not as one-sided as you posted it to be.
Let's go through your invalid points chronologically.
Nerfing Weapon Throw. This was made because the amount of damage possible (if you even attempted to try napkin math here, you'd see) was extremely high. They reduced the %weapon damage on almost all of the Barbarian's abilities, including weapon throw. I hardly see your case for there being no more throw barbarians.
Removing fundamentals. Again, not a very good argument. There are plenty of ways to play a melee DH. What is even more, we do not even know the itemization of D3 yet. A lot of builds that were viable in D2 only became viable because of the items. Quite a short sighted and thought lacking point.
Removing virtuoso = You want a wizard to only use their wands? I do not understand your point. This point made me think that you just want to play random and weird builds for no good apparent reason. While that is your prerogative you cannot expect every single off-shot build you come up with to be optimal or even efficient in killing the minions of D3.
Chakram nerf. So, your point about build diversity and viability loses me here. You think ONE skill should determine the viability of an entire subsection of a type of DH? Sounds like you're contradicting yourself here. A nerf to chakram, if we're following your logic, does not mean a nerf to all melee DHs, just one of the melee DHs YOU want to play.
I've already touched on the 30% thing, but to reiterate, what? The skill sets and rune choices of the other classes allow for similar mitigation. At a dps cost? Perhaps, but if you were to check any of the 'melee' abilities of those non-stereotypically melee classes, you would notice that the spells have a higher base damage anyways. I don't think you've even tried to think about this issue. Makes me sad.
Great post +1
I will just post a small comparison on the defensive stats of each of the 3 classes we're talking about.
Taking 1 defensive passive skill and one runed active buff that improces defense:
BARBARIAN:
+30% DR
+40% Armor (War Cry; Hardened Wrath rune)
+50% Armor (Though as Nails)
MONK*:
+30% DR
+15% Dodge (Mantra of Evasion)
+15% Dodge (The Guardian's Path)
+20% Armor (Hard Target Rune)
WIZARD:
+20% DR from melee (Blur)
+65% Armor (Energy Armor)
+40% All Resistances (Primatic Armor Rune)
Compared to barbarians the Wizard got only 10% less DR against melee attackers, 25% less Armor but got +40% Elemental Damage Resistances. Given the fact that melee wizards have medium range (even spectral blades hits enemies before they hit you) i think it's fairly balanced. Maybe the barbarian wins out but it's not by a gargantuan margin.
Compare to monk is an bit more difficult because of Dodge. I think we can consider 15% Dogde = 20% Armor in terms of final damage reduction, as those are the proportions in the Armor vs. Dodge trade-off found in Mantra of evasion runes and War Cry runes. So, monk's def buffs is more or less equal to 30% DR + 60% Armor, which is actually lower then the Wizard ones !
Imo the true problem will be physical ranged damage dealers, since blur doesn't protects you. In that case the monk and the barb are truelly much more resistant. Still the Wiz still have the advantage on Elemental Resistances.
Extra attention to armor vs. missiles mods and teleport might be enough to deal with this problem.
Another factor to take in consideration is stats. Truelly, INT does not protects you against melee attacks like DEX and STR. However, Stats is not the only source of armor. There are %physical reduction mods... Since Wizard will stack INT for damage (which gives all resistances) he can trade +elemental resistance mods for physical resistance mods. Barbarians and Monks will have to "spend" mods on elemental resistance while wizard will problably ignore it and focus on physical RES and armor vs. missiles.
I think the true balancing factor here is not the resistance of the melee wizard but it's damage potential and i think it's damage potential is fine. So far Sleet Storm felt the most powerfull spell in the game for me (215% weapon damage, AoE, fairly cheap, slow enemies, has an +20% damage passive, wtf).
If theres any problem with melee wizard is how Energy Armor is an 100% must have in that build. +65% Armor bonus seens hard to ignore. Storm/Ice Armor is close to useless imo.
Good point about ranged damage being the 1 thing melee wizard's will have trouble with. It may be important to get Slow Time which will allow you to avoid ranged attacks. Ranged attacks always hurt a lot in D2, it's going to be even worse for the D3 wizard... ouch.
I don't think anyone is claiming that the wizard will survive better than the melee classes. They're just saying that it's very comparable and because of that, there's a good chance that the melee wizard will be viable... even in the later difficulties.
Allow me to jump in to this thread and offer up some insight on our collective ignorance.
Patch 13: 30% DR did not exist for Barb/Monk. -AND- "Int" did not improve "Resistances".
Patch 14: Blizzard changes "Int" to give +Resistances and removes how "Int" improved healing from life globes
Patch 15: 30% DR is introduced for Barb/Monk
"Int" absolutely improves the six resistances which does include "Physical". Someone stated this above me, I'm just shocked it took so long before the obvious was stated in this thread as it's central to the discussion of which classes have more DR. If you want to test this in Beta this is easy to verify by gear swapping or WD's Soul Harvest. Just have open the character details sheet while testing. Really the only discussion that should be going on right now is how much "Int" does it take to get so much "Resistance." Because the truth is, if the exchange rate of "Int" to "Resistance" is sweet enough, that will determine who's got the highest DR. The one thing we can safely assume right now is a Wizard/WD will have more "Int" providing more passive "Resistance" to everything than a Barb/Monk will have in the late game. Yes, Barb/Monk's 30% DR is sweet, but the "Int" might be sweeter, we just don't know yet. Especially with Wiz's +40% improvement to "Resistance". Just so much synergy we can't measure yet until May 15.
My belief is immediately after patch 14, Blizzard employees testing Inferno with Wizards and Witch Doctors (having 1000+ Int stats) immediately felt like they got beefed up. So my thought is the 30% DR given to Barb/Monk was a balancing step to bring them up in power compared to the "Int" classes. In truth we do not know how much "Int" will improve our Resistances so at this point we have to assume Blizzard is doing the right thing until we're all 60 and geared appropriately.
Sidenote: Please stop confusing Damage Avoidance (Dodge) with Damage Mitigation (DR). Just leave Dodge out of this thread as it's much more complicated than how it's presented here.
By viable I mean competitive. I fully believe that at this point there's no information that shoots the melee wizard out of water.
You may insist that defensively there is no comparison but I think the majority agrees that the differences are not that great (and have been shown in this thread). Even more so, it's been shown that the despite falling behind a bit in defense, the melee wizard will put out more damage which I feel will offset the slight disadvantage they have on the defense front.
Until the game comes out and we can see for ourselves, I don't really think there's much else to talk about concerning this topic.
By viable I mean competitive. I fully believe that at this point there's no information that shoots the melee wizard out of water.
You may insist that defensively there is no comparison but I think the majority agrees that the differences are not that great (and have been shown in this thread). Even more so, it's been shown that the despite falling behind a bit in defense, the melee wizard will put out more damage which I feel will offset the slight disadvantage they have on the defense front.
Until the game comes out and we can see for ourselves, I don't really think there's much else to talk about concerning this topic.
The melee Wizard will not do more damage than the melee Barbarian. Claiming that is a joke. There is a SLIGHT chance that the melee Wizard does more damage when she actually hits, but there is no way to compensate for the lack of charge (basicly no CD with rune) and dashing strike (no cd). A melee character without mobility is really awkward.
The difference between them will be (just as I showed in post #66) that barb has 6 skill slots and slightly better stats than a Wizard with 5 skill slots. Speaking competitively, that's a freaking HUGE difference. I've played a lot of competitive Heroes of Newerth and I know inbalance when I see it. Here is how it should be if it is competitive: http://www.teamliqui...?topic_id=64514
By viable I mean competitive. I fully believe that at this point there's no information that shoots the melee wizard out of water.
You may insist that defensively there is no comparison but I think the majority agrees that the differences are not that great (and have been shown in this thread). Even more so, it's been shown that the despite falling behind a bit in defense, the melee wizard will put out more damage which I feel will offset the slight disadvantage they have on the defense front.
Until the game comes out and we can see for ourselves, I don't really think there's much else to talk about concerning this topic.
The melee Wizard will not do more damage than the melee Barbarian. Claiming that is a joke. There is a SLIGHT chance that the melee Wizard does more damage when she actually hits, but there is no way to compensate for the lack of charge (basicly no CD with rune) and dashing strike (no cd). A melee character without mobility is really awkward.
The difference between them will be (just as I showed in post #66) that barb has 6 skill slots and slightly better stats than a Wizard with 5 skill slots. Speaking competitively, that's a freaking HUGE difference. I've played a lot of competitive Heroes of Newerth and I know inbalance when I see it. Here is how it should be if it is competitive: http://www.teamliqui...?topic_id=64514
How is Teleport not mobility?
15 sec CD and 15 AP cost. That's horribel if we compare to charge with Merciless Assault. Teleport is a really good spell for jumping long distances (leaping away from danger). It's not very good for fast paced melee combat.
Honestly at later difficulties i wouldn't be too surprised to see killing speed decrease... and with it the need for less than 15 seconds between cool downs...
Sumsarr, I'm confused why you reiterated that the Barb/Monk 30% damage reduction affects all 6 damage types. I must have written something not clear in my first post to cause confusion on this well known documented truth. Please clarify so others don't make the same mistake or misread what I wrote. I will correct it.
Also just want to state again. INT also increases DR to all 6 damage types. (Yes I know there's 7 damage types in name, but Blizzard has already said that Holy is a shared damage type so there's really 6).
INT = STR = Defense = Armor = DR => all affect all 6 damage types in game. Only later will gear and Wizard's odd-ball Passive affect specifics damage types.
Anyways, let me state my opinion for the record. Wizard will never be a melee viable class if playing solo in Inferno. How do I know this.....because wizard doesn't have a skill that grants DR reduction to the enemy. Every class except wizard has one or two. And yes DH's passive that gives damage reduction (to the enemy) is crap-tastic. So to me, a melee Wizard will have to be played with Monk/WD/Barb, preferable all three for some serious DR debuffing.
Edit: Forgot to say one last thing. Sumsarr you cited the Dexterity as an example of how the exchange rate works, it takes progressively more and more dexterity to get the same benefits. The break points currently discovered occur at 100 and 500. So we know of three tiers already for dexterity. However, just like how World of Warcraft makes the exchange rate higher and higher as you level, we don't know how much DR% will be getting from 1,000 Int at level 60 vice level 40. Sure it'll still be the same 1,000 stat attributes, but no way will it be the same derived DR%.
i feel melee wizard is like a melee hunter back in wow , not exactly the same but i feel a wizard should and will be ranged , atleast when we talk about a wizard.
Anyways, let me state my opinion for the record. Wizard will never be a melee viable class if playing solo in Inferno. How do I know this.....because wizard doesn't have a skill that grants DR reduction to the enemy. Every class except wizard has one or two. And yes DH's passive that gives damage reduction (to the enemy) is crap-tastic. So to me, a melee Wizard will have to be played with Monk/WD/Barb, preferable all three for some serious DR debuffing.
Sumsarr, I'm confused why you reiterated that the Barb/Monk 30% damage reduction affects all 6 damage types. I must have written something not clear in my first post to cause confusion on this well known documented truth. Please clarify so others don't make the same mistake or misread what I wrote. I will correct it.
Also just want to state again. INT also increases DR to all 6 damage types. (Yes I know there's 7 damage types in name, but Blizzard has already said that Holy is a shared damage type so there's really 6).
INT = STR = Defense = Armor = DR => all affect all 6 damage types in game. Only later will gear and Wizard's odd-ball Passive affect specifics damage types.
Anyways, let me state my opinion for the record. Wizard will never be a melee viable class if playing solo in Inferno. How do I know this.....because wizard doesn't have a skill that grants DR reduction to the enemy. Every class except wizard has one or two. And yes DH's passive that gives damage reduction (to the enemy) is crap-tastic. So to me, a melee Wizard will have to be played with Monk/WD/Barb, preferable all three for some serious DR debuffing.
Edit: Forgot to say one last thing. Sumsarr you cited the Dexterity as an example of how the exchange rate works, it takes progressively more and more dexterity to get the same benefits. The break points currently discovered occur at 100 and 500. So we know of three tiers already for dexterity. However, just like how World of Warcraft makes the exchange rate higher and higher as you level, we don't know how much DR% will be getting from 1,000 Int at level 60 vice level 40. Sure it'll still be the same 1,000 stat attributes, but no way will it be the same derived DR%.
Sorry for the confusion. The part about 30% DR wasn't only to you, but to all people who seem to think the DR is simply on physical damage.
My main point was, however, int is not as good as the DR.
- If that was the case, casters would be the best class in game by only stacking one stat. WD and Wiz would only stack Int and get damage as they got best defensive stats. Would be quite broken?
- Blizzard gave barb/monk 30% dr not because wiz got beefed up with int buff, but because they will be forced to take more dmg as they are melee. The int buff replaced life/orb which Blizzard found worse than dodge/DR from str/dex on barb/monk.
- We got the numbers. You get 0,1 all resistance per int. If you stack int as your one and only stat in beta you get about 10 all resistance.
- By the way, barb will have better synergy with resist than casters (50% bonus resist on shout compared to 40% on wiz armor).
I am guessing int gives a slight boost in all resistances as the casters will take some elemental dmg, some melee dmg and some range phys damage. They therefore need a slight boost to all stats.
Barb and Monk on the other hand received 30% DR because they will be taking a shitload of dmg. Aside from that, they also got strong physical reduction on their primary attributes in order to sustain enough surviveability to go toe to toe with mobs.
My wizard has 126 Int ... would have been able to farm up to 130+ (13 resistance).
Now to add to the topic... Int adds the elemental resistances (NOT PHYSICAL).
Armor decreases ALL damage (sames as elemental resistances + physical).
However, armor probably has a much higher diminishing return than resistances. Both are calculated with Raw Number vs enemy level... but with the resistance numbers being lower... the curve hasn't hit yet.
Also Resistances are additional reductions in addition to armor. If the wizard/wd stacks up 40% damage reduction with armor and 60% with resistances thats 74% less magic damage. If the barb has 60% damage reduction and 20% resistance... thats 68% less magic damage.
Wizard (One skill slot and one passive spent):
20% melee DR
45% armor
-20 Arcane Power
Barbarian (Only one skill slot):
30% DR
10% All Resistance
Hey, if I were to choose one of those two, I would pick barbarian. 45% Armor will (with dimish) not be that much in end game. Let's say it's ~10% DR. Even then, barbarian is better. Worth noting is that the barbarian only spent one skill slot while the Wizard spent a skill slot and a passive. Oh, and don't forget Barbarian is during all this boosting the shit out of his allies.
How can you confirm 10% DR is better then 45% Armor ?
In one way or another, the difference between a Wizard that chooses to buff him/her self and a Barbarian are not as large as people initially stated. The Wizard lacks the passive buff, but her active buffs are substantially stronger (+65% armor and 20% melee DR are just huge buffs.
Yeh wizard problably have lower damage mitigation then barbarians but this discrepance is not that high. All this theory about melee wizard being uderpowered because he lacks 30% DR buff is based on the assumption all skills of all classes are individually balanced, which is not the case. Wizard's energy armor alone gives more mitigation then any barbarian or monk buff that gives damage mitigation.
My wizard has 126 Int ... would have been able to farm up to 130+ (13 resistance).
Now to add to the topic... Int adds the elemental resistances (NOT PHYSICAL).
Armor decreases ALL damage (sames as elemental resistances + physical).
However, armor probably has a much higher diminishing return than resistances. Both are calculated with Raw Number vs enemy level... but with the resistance numbers being lower... the curve hasn't hit yet.
Also Resistances are additional reductions in addition to armor. If the wizard/wd stacks up 40% damage reduction with armor and 60% with resistances thats 74% less magic damage. If the barb has 60% damage reduction and 20% resistance... thats 68% less magic damage.
You're right, you might be able to get 13 all resistance in beta, my bad.
Your calculations at the end are nothing but wild speculations. We've got no idea how end-game will look. HOWEVER, it would not make any sense if a Wizard had better survival stats than a barbarian, would it? Barb got 30% DR for free so that he could be melee and take more dmg. Mele wizard got no such buff. When creating a character, a wiz is a wiz and a wiz is weaker than a barb from a defensive perspective - that's the cost of being ranged.
Either all Wizards will be stronger than barbs (as they have about the same dmg, but according to you better stats and on top of that range) or barbs will be stronger than melee Wizards. I find option two more likely.
I'm highly confident that with the right gear, and the right skills, and the right player.... A melee Wiz will be a strong build.
However, I'm also fairly confident that with the wrong build, the wrong player, and the wrong gear... a melee wiz will blow.
My wizard has 126 Int ... would have been able to farm up to 130+ (13 resistance).
Now to add to the topic... Int adds the elemental resistances (NOT PHYSICAL).
Armor decreases ALL damage (sames as elemental resistances + physical).
I need you to clarify for me. Why do you think INT does not affect Physical Resistance? Every time I add INT or take away INT, my Physical Resistance keeps adjusting right along with the 5 other Resistances on my Detailed character sheet. How is Physical different from Physical Resistance? You keep implying they are different.
Thanks for the response.
Edit: added the word "other"
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You have that completely backwards.
The wizard is an open book, and you can go many many different routes. A melee wizard discards those many routes and place themselves into a small box with very limited options.
That is the way flavour builds work. You give up a multitude of viable options to fulfill your desire to fight only a certain way.
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
Actually if you look at your stat sheet there is a physical resistance... and it's increased by + resistances.
That has to be the worst over generalization I have seen in a long time and I edit and mark papers for a university. You neglected to even account for skill differences. Your math of "lol they have 30% that means melee wiz not possible, lol" is sad. If you actually spent the time to consider the possibilities available to the wizard, you would see that it is not as one-sided as you posted it to be.
Let's go through your invalid points chronologically.
Nerfing Weapon Throw. This was made because the amount of damage possible (if you even attempted to try napkin math here, you'd see) was extremely high. They reduced the %weapon damage on almost all of the Barbarian's abilities, including weapon throw. I hardly see your case for there being no more throw barbarians.
Removing fundamentals. Again, not a very good argument. There are plenty of ways to play a melee DH. What is even more, we do not even know the itemization of D3 yet. A lot of builds that were viable in D2 only became viable because of the items. Quite a short sighted and thought lacking point.
Removing virtuoso = You want a wizard to only use their wands? I do not understand your point. This point made me think that you just want to play random and weird builds for no good apparent reason. While that is your prerogative you cannot expect every single off-shot build you come up with to be optimal or even efficient in killing the minions of D3.
Chakram nerf. So, your point about build diversity and viability loses me here. You think ONE skill should determine the viability of an entire subsection of a type of DH? Sounds like you're contradicting yourself here. A nerf to chakram, if we're following your logic, does not mean a nerf to all melee DHs, just one of the melee DHs YOU want to play.
I've already touched on the 30% thing, but to reiterate, what? The skill sets and rune choices of the other classes allow for similar mitigation. At a dps cost? Perhaps, but if you were to check any of the 'melee' abilities of those non-stereotypically melee classes, you would notice that the spells have a higher base damage anyways. I don't think you've even tried to think about this issue. Makes me sad.
RAWR I HATE LOGIC RAWRRRRRRRRR
Plus 1 sir =D
Great post +1
I will just post a small comparison on the defensive stats of each of the 3 classes we're talking about.
Taking 1 defensive passive skill and one runed active buff that improces defense:
BARBARIAN:
+30% DR
+40% Armor (War Cry; Hardened Wrath rune)
+50% Armor (Though as Nails)
MONK*:
+30% DR
+15% Dodge (Mantra of Evasion)
+15% Dodge (The Guardian's Path)
+20% Armor (Hard Target Rune)
WIZARD:
+20% DR from melee (Blur)
+65% Armor (Energy Armor)
+40% All Resistances (Primatic Armor Rune)
Compared to barbarians the Wizard got only 10% less DR against melee attackers, 25% less Armor but got +40% Elemental Damage Resistances. Given the fact that melee wizards have medium range (even spectral blades hits enemies before they hit you) i think it's fairly balanced. Maybe the barbarian wins out but it's not by a gargantuan margin.
Compare to monk is an bit more difficult because of Dodge. I think we can consider 15% Dogde = 20% Armor in terms of final damage reduction, as those are the proportions in the Armor vs. Dodge trade-off found in Mantra of evasion runes and War Cry runes. So, monk's def buffs is more or less equal to 30% DR + 60% Armor, which is actually lower then the Wizard ones !
Imo the true problem will be physical ranged damage dealers, since blur doesn't protects you. In that case the monk and the barb are truelly much more resistant. Still the Wiz still have the advantage on Elemental Resistances.
Extra attention to armor vs. missiles mods and teleport might be enough to deal with this problem.
Another factor to take in consideration is stats. Truelly, INT does not protects you against melee attacks like DEX and STR. However, Stats is not the only source of armor. There are %physical reduction mods... Since Wizard will stack INT for damage (which gives all resistances) he can trade +elemental resistance mods for physical resistance mods. Barbarians and Monks will have to "spend" mods on elemental resistance while wizard will problably ignore it and focus on physical RES and armor vs. missiles.
I think the true balancing factor here is not the resistance of the melee wizard but it's damage potential and i think it's damage potential is fine. So far Sleet Storm felt the most powerfull spell in the game for me (215% weapon damage, AoE, fairly cheap, slow enemies, has an +20% damage passive, wtf).
If theres any problem with melee wizard is how Energy Armor is an 100% must have in that build. +65% Armor bonus seens hard to ignore. Storm/Ice Armor is close to useless imo.
Patch 13: 30% DR did not exist for Barb/Monk. -AND- "Int" did not improve "Resistances".
Patch 14: Blizzard changes "Int" to give +Resistances and removes how "Int" improved healing from life globes
Patch 15: 30% DR is introduced for Barb/Monk
"Int" absolutely improves the six resistances which does include "Physical". Someone stated this above me, I'm just shocked it took so long before the obvious was stated in this thread as it's central to the discussion of which classes have more DR. If you want to test this in Beta this is easy to verify by gear swapping or WD's Soul Harvest. Just have open the character details sheet while testing. Really the only discussion that should be going on right now is how much "Int" does it take to get so much "Resistance." Because the truth is, if the exchange rate of "Int" to "Resistance" is sweet enough, that will determine who's got the highest DR. The one thing we can safely assume right now is a Wizard/WD will have more "Int" providing more passive "Resistance" to everything than a Barb/Monk will have in the late game. Yes, Barb/Monk's 30% DR is sweet, but the "Int" might be sweeter, we just don't know yet. Especially with Wiz's +40% improvement to "Resistance". Just so much synergy we can't measure yet until May 15.
My belief is immediately after patch 14, Blizzard employees testing Inferno with Wizards and Witch Doctors (having 1000+ Int stats) immediately felt like they got beefed up. So my thought is the 30% DR given to Barb/Monk was a balancing step to bring them up in power compared to the "Int" classes. In truth we do not know how much "Int" will improve our Resistances so at this point we have to assume Blizzard is doing the right thing until we're all 60 and geared appropriately.
Sidenote: Please stop confusing Damage Avoidance (Dodge) with Damage Mitigation (DR). Just leave Dodge out of this thread as it's much more complicated than how it's presented here.
You may insist that defensively there is no comparison but I think the majority agrees that the differences are not that great (and have been shown in this thread). Even more so, it's been shown that the despite falling behind a bit in defense, the melee wizard will put out more damage which I feel will offset the slight disadvantage they have on the defense front.
Until the game comes out and we can see for ourselves, I don't really think there's much else to talk about concerning this topic.
How is Teleport not mobility?
Honestly at later difficulties i wouldn't be too surprised to see killing speed decrease... and with it the need for less than 15 seconds between cool downs...
Also just want to state again. INT also increases DR to all 6 damage types. (Yes I know there's 7 damage types in name, but Blizzard has already said that Holy is a shared damage type so there's really 6).
INT = STR = Defense = Armor = DR => all affect all 6 damage types in game. Only later will gear and Wizard's odd-ball Passive affect specifics damage types.
Anyways, let me state my opinion for the record. Wizard will never be a melee viable class if playing solo in Inferno. How do I know this.....because wizard doesn't have a skill that grants DR reduction to the enemy. Every class except wizard has one or two. And yes DH's passive that gives damage reduction (to the enemy) is crap-tastic. So to me, a melee Wizard will have to be played with Monk/WD/Barb, preferable all three for some serious DR debuffing.
Edit: Forgot to say one last thing. Sumsarr you cited the Dexterity as an example of how the exchange rate works, it takes progressively more and more dexterity to get the same benefits. The break points currently discovered occur at 100 and 500. So we know of three tiers already for dexterity. However, just like how World of Warcraft makes the exchange rate higher and higher as you level, we don't know how much DR% will be getting from 1,000 Int at level 60 vice level 40. Sure it'll still be the same 1,000 stat attributes, but no way will it be the same derived DR%.
This is untrue.
Arcane Torrent - Arcane Mines - 30% attack speed debuff.
My wizard has 126 Int ... would have been able to farm up to 130+ (13 resistance).
Now to add to the topic... Int adds the elemental resistances (NOT PHYSICAL).
Armor decreases ALL damage (sames as elemental resistances + physical).
However, armor probably has a much higher diminishing return than resistances. Both are calculated with Raw Number vs enemy level... but with the resistance numbers being lower... the curve hasn't hit yet.
Also Resistances are additional reductions in addition to armor. If the wizard/wd stacks up 40% damage reduction with armor and 60% with resistances thats 74% less magic damage. If the barb has 60% damage reduction and 20% resistance... thats 68% less magic damage.
How can you confirm 10% DR is better then 45% Armor ?
In one way or another, the difference between a Wizard that chooses to buff him/her self and a Barbarian are not as large as people initially stated. The Wizard lacks the passive buff, but her active buffs are substantially stronger (+65% armor and 20% melee DR are just huge buffs.
Yeh wizard problably have lower damage mitigation then barbarians but this discrepance is not that high. All this theory about melee wizard being uderpowered because he lacks 30% DR buff is based on the assumption all skills of all classes are individually balanced, which is not the case. Wizard's energy armor alone gives more mitigation then any barbarian or monk buff that gives damage mitigation.
I'm highly confident that with the right gear, and the right skills, and the right player.... A melee Wiz will be a strong build.
However, I'm also fairly confident that with the wrong build, the wrong player, and the wrong gear... a melee wiz will blow.
for example consider that runed ice thingy you get on level 2
my wizz build is melee/aoe build, but then again, i never "hit" them whit my staff or so, i use spells in melee
I need you to clarify for me. Why do you think INT does not affect Physical Resistance? Every time I add INT or take away INT, my Physical Resistance keeps adjusting right along with the 5 other Resistances on my Detailed character sheet. How is Physical different from Physical Resistance? You keep implying they are different.
Thanks for the response.
Edit: added the word "other"