**DISCLAIMER**(if you dont like walls of text, better leave now) Yes, I know it is way too early to write guides. This is done purely for fun. I don’t know about others, but right now my favorite video game is “imagine Diablo 3” so what better way to play it than to just pretend it’s out. This guide is done from the perspective of well after release, it makes wild assumptions about some things (like rune effects and traits). The only reason I am posting it is because I figured some people on here might have as much fun reading it as I had making it and I think that even though there is ALOT of speculation in here, it shows just how much variety might end up being in D3. Enjoy it or rip it apart, it’s up to you!
Notable Assumptions
Some things to keep in mind as far as “general” assumptions that I make: You can max a skill at 5/5, 10/10 or 15/15 and are able to increase any skill to the next “cap” but it takes a lot of time/resources to do this. You can only advance a skill to the next “cap” after you complete a difficulty. So to go from 5/5 to 6/10 you need to have completed Normal. Obviously you don’t have enough skill points to max all skills so there is no need to do this for every skill. I also “assume” that because of the nature of raising the “cap” mechanic for each skill the next point after the cap (6 and 11) makes a fairly large difference. In general these next levels can hit a wider range of monsters (bosses, uniques) or just do more damage / have increased effect more than a standard point does. I also assume that as a reward for starting the next difficulty (nightmare and hell) you start the new play through with 1 skill point and 1 trait point to spend. This brings the total Skill points possible to 61 and Traits to 21.
The Controller Wizard Build.
This guide focuses on just one of the MANY ways to make your Wizard a master of Battlefield control. You will be able to keep the minions of hell where you want them and by doing so increase your damage to near crazy levels. This build does not excel at making quick work of some of the harder boss encounters in the game, but even these encounters can be tackled with relative ease with some quick reflexes.
This guide explains which skills and traits to get and how/when to use them.
Skills:
Arcane Missile * Indigo * 6/10
Especially in the early game, this is a Bread and Butter skill for your play through. It takes a bit of a Back Seat later in the game, but combined with the trait Temporal Flux, Missiles will stay effective and useful through the whole game. Put an Indigo Rune for more missiles in it, put a priority on putting your best Indigo rune in Missiles as the more things you hit the better, especially as you inch closer towards end game.
Wave of Force * Obsidian * 6/10
Again, early in the game this skill is great when used in tandem with Missiles. Things get too close; pop this to create some space. You are going to want to put a Level 3 Obsidian Rune in here for the stun effect after knock back, however, if you happen to find a level 4 Obsidian or better (and don’t have High Runes stockpiled) I suggest saving it for your Familiar later on. In the late game this skill becomes more of a tool to keep monsters in your Slow Time Bubble. I suggest putting that 1 extra point in Wave of Force to bring it to level 6 as that is the point that takes you from being able to knock back 60-70% of monsters to being able to knock back almost every non-boss monster in the game. Combined with the trait Dazed and Confused, this skill adds to the insanity of late game damage.
Frost Nova * Indigo * 6/10
This skill may seem a bit redundant early in the game, but it gives you another (and different) way to control the field. Put an Indigo Rune in here to increase the range even more. Even though you are going to stop putting points in FNova at level 6, it will have a great range with a good Alabaster rune. Early in the game this is a great way to take care of hard to hit monsters like Mongrel Runts and late in the game it gives you another way to keep monsters in your Slow Time Bubble. Again, that extra point (level 6) will take Nova to the next level and allow you to freeze almost every monster in late game and with the Trait Black Ice, this skill can really shine.
Ray of Frost * Crimson * 15/15
Here is your main nuke. Pop a Crimson rune in RoF for the increased damage and use it to both destroy monsters in your bubble while keeping them in it at the same time with the slow effect. Maxing this skill increases its damage to huge levels and at level 15 it can freeze targets in place which does trigger Black Ice. The trait Quickening double dips in some REALLY fun ways with this skill. More info on that in the trait section.
Slow Time * Crimson * 11/15
This is the heart of the build. Everything you do is based on keeping things inside of your Slow Time Bubble. You want to take it to level 11 and while maxing slow time isn’t the worst choice you can make, you start hurting your damage output too much if you put too many points here. 11 is best, as it makes every monster (even bosses) be effected by your bubble. While the slow effect may be minimal on some monsters (especially super unique and bosses) what we really care about is the effect of your Crimson Rune which increases the damage taken by monsters while they remain inside your Slow Time Bubble. At level 11, your bubble will last for 20 seconds which is plenty of time to drop, get out, keep in (with all your control oriented abilities) and dispatch them. If you are lucky enough (or dedicated enough) to find yourself with a level 8 Crimson rune, put that bad boy in Slow Time and enjoy the massive damage bonus that ensues (200% with a level 8 Rune, compared to 50% with a level 2 Rune).
Familiar * Obsidian * 11/15
This is the skill that brings it all together. Once you get your Familiar pumped up respectably, life gets MUCH easier. I would suggest putting a Crimson, Alabaster or Indigo rune in Familiar until you get 6 points in it. Until then, this will just be bonus damage and it really is up to you which rune you go with. (Most love the eye Candy that comes with the Indigo rune, who doesn’t love explosions?). However, once you get to level 6 pop your best Obsidian rune in here. This makes your Familiar Targetable, but makes the little guy put on A LOT of weight. Cannon, meet your tank. Tank, meet your Cannon. This guy will keep stuff in the Bubble once you put it there like no other. At level 15 and with a respectable level of Rune he is able to effectively tank almost anything. He can start to get overwhelmed the End Game, and if you run into especially tough Uniques he can drop dead fast and it can be frustrating to have to wait for 2 minutes to recast him if he dies quickly. But once you master effective use of you Wave of Force / FNova you quickly will settle into your roll of assisting this guy.
Teleport * Obsidian/Golden * 1/5-6/10
Most every Wizard has it, and for good reason. But for this build it is especially important. Thankfully once your Familiar is socketed with Crimson he will come along with you when you Teleport, so this becomes a way to position him, escape tight spots (of course) and beaming in, dropping a FNova and Slow Time. The big strategic choice comes in Rune Selection. If you prefer the style of teleporting in to freeze and bubble and then teleport out, you should use Golden as it keeps the 8 second cool down from triggering for 1-5ish seconds. But, if you like having your Familiar tank for you as a main strategy (which really, this build is made for it.. yes your Familiar will make his way back into the fray quickly, but teleporting out does cost you tank time while he makes his way back in) then I suggest the Obsidian Rune. The stun effect is amazing. For this reason I recommend putting a full 6/15 into Teleport so your stun effect from the Rune hits almost everything and you get some additional use out of the trait dazed and confused, then just run away after your drop Slow Time and FNova. Your Familiar will start picking them all up, and once you get into a good rhythm you’ll be long gone by the time your Teleport Stun effect goes away. A Higher Level Rune really helps as it gives you more time to position things before the stun goes away. If you end up going for the Golden Rune approach there is no need to put more than 1 point into teleport, sure the increased range is nice, but for the standard Golden teleport, and for what you’ll use it for, 1 point is plenty. If you go this route, pump either MMissiles or Max out your Familiar or Slow Time.
That leaves you having spent the MAX of 61 skill points (Reminder** you get 1 Skill Point and 1 Trait point when you start Nightmare and when you start Hell. Moving on to Traits.
Traits: 21 Points
Intimidation * 3/3 * Increases the damage you deal by 10% per point, decreases vendor costs by 10% per point.
You will want to max this. Especially if this is your first / Primary character. The reduced vendor costs applies to Artisan leveling costs and the cost to craft items (gold, not crafting materials). The damage boost is nice too, and no penalty!
Quickening * 3/3 * Increased the casting speed of the Wizard. 15% per point.
There is so much confusion over this trait. YES it decreases cooldowns and YES makes Ray of Frost tick faster. The main reason you are going to want this maxed is that you’re main nuke, RoF is going to own even more face than it already does. The best way to look at it is that, without this trait, RoF will apply its damage a little more than 6 times in 5 seconds. (this assumes you keep the ray of frost locked on). Now, with 3 points into quickening, RoF will apply its damage almost 11 times every 5 seconds. What does this mean? It means that you are doing almost twice the damage with this 3 point trait. Also, your Crimson rune on RoF computes its charge time on ticks of RoF. Crimson RoF will be fully charged after 10 ticks of damage on the same target. Without quickening, this means fully charging your RoF takes almost 9 seconds. But with this trait maxed you will fully charge your RoF in just 5 seconds. Talk about the ultimate double-dip trait! Of course, this also effect the CD of you bread and butter spell Slow Time, allowing you to cast it more often and basically eliminate any down time that might have otherwise existed with this build.
Soul Split * 1/1 * When taken below 50% health a Mirror Image of the Wizard will appear with 50% of the casters health.An auto “oh sh!t” button. Can’t beat that - not just for one point. Unlike the actual skill, this image doesn’t do any damage, monsters react to it like it does and usually buys you enough time to get away or drop a bubble.
Black Ice * 1/1 * Causes Monsters that are Frozen to take increased damage
Often misunderstood, or un-noticed (though there was a Blue post saying they were looking into adding some kind of graphical que) this applies a debuff to monsters that persists even after the freeze goes away. Your FNova will usually only leave monsters frozen for no more than 6 seconds (at level 6) but this debuff lasts much longer, in the area of 9 seconds. Basically, the reason FNova is such a huge part of this build is because of this trait. 9 seconds of 50% more damage? Sweet.
Temporal Flux * 1/1 * Causes your arcane spells to also slow creatures movement speed by 25%
This is why you keep using MMissiles in end game and why you take it to Level 6. To make sure your applying this effect. If something is moving out of your bubble you can quickly hit it with a missile barrage to slow it down (if you’re out of FNova range). Really fits in nice with the strategy of this build as it is yet another (slightly different) way to keeping monsters in your Slow Time Bubbles.
Arcane Channeling * 5/5 * Increases the regeneration of the Wizard Arcane Power
While some cringe at spending 5 of your hard earned, few trait points in any one skill, this one deserves it. Without 5/5 Arcane Channeling you can feel gimped at times spamming RoF, but with it, it takes some trying to hit rock bottom on your Arcane Power. Bite the Bullet, take all 5 here.
Dazed and Confused * 1/1 * Causes monsters that are stunned to take increased damage
Very similar to Black Ice, this trait is in need of some love from the Blizzard art department. The debuff lasts (in most cases) even after the stun effect goes away. Also, like FNova, this trait is why we take 6/15 Wave of Force with an Obsidian rune. It allows us to knock monsters back into our Bubble, into the waiting clutches of our Familiar, and because the Rune effect stuns, this traits effect kicks in. 7 seconds of increased damage makes FNova the slightly preferred way to keep monsters in place, but the effect welcome as there are MANY times WoF just works better.
Anti-Magic Shield * 3/3 * Causes missile attacks to do 15% less damage per point
We begin to stray into optional traits here, but this trait (a favorite in most Wizard builds) helps lessen the lethality of ranged groups. Especially the nasty buffed groups you will come across. When you do get hit, this sometimes makes it a 2-3 shot death instead of a 1 shot death. Just enough time to set your Bubble of Death trap in motion.
Toughness * 3/3 * Increases the effect of each point of Vitality by 20%
Again, pretty much optional, but survivability is important and this trait increases the room for error you have. I say take it.
Oh wow. I loved this!! Do more please. Its like the games out when I read over this. I dig all the speculated rune and skill effects. Very fun. Thanks for the good read!
Wait, did I miss something? how do you know the effects of all the runes for all the skills? I thought they just released a few spells and their rune effects
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I agree with feminism. I don't think that it's right that for every dollar a man makes, a women gets 70 cents. Why do I only get 30 cents and some chick gets the rest?
Thanks for the nice words jaz, always fun to imagine. And to Noxious, it is for fun / made up. A way to speculate from a different point of view.
I'll likely make another one soon. Tons of fun.
This is amazing, I'm assuming you're combining what we already know from the D3-wiki and plenty of imagination/creativity.
Some things might be a little off (like the Black Ice Trait, 50% increased dmg from all sources would be sick! Wouldn't it be more like 8-16-24% on lvls 1-2-3?) but most of it is pretty creative/fun.
The Familiar idea specially cool, I'd love to be able to "set" my Wiz's Familiar to be targetable, and once he's no longer too useful in that role (like you said, dies too easily in Hell or in a specific area due to specific dmg/enemies) you can just swap the Runes out and make him a dps increment.
I'd love to see the Monk in the next chapter =D might even write some of it myself.
ah, I hear, it just sounded like you saying the rune effects like they were facts, especially the way you named each rune color instead of just the attribute. it would be awesome if we actually had that much information.
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I agree with feminism. I don't think that it's right that for every dollar a man makes, a women gets 70 cents. Why do I only get 30 cents and some chick gets the rest?
I eddited the main post with an "assumptions" section at the top to help clarify what assumptions I am making about a few things like caping skills and extra skill / trait points.
Also I added a link at the top to the second "For Fun" guide that I made. Its posted in the Witch Doctor Forums.
This is amazing, I'm assuming you're combining what we already know from the D3-wiki and plenty of imagination/creativity.
Some things might be a little off (like the Black Ice Trait, 50% increased dmg from all sources would be sick! Wouldn't it be more like 8-16-24% on lvls 1-2-3?) but most of it is pretty creative/fun.
The Familiar idea specially cool, I'd love to be able to "set" my Wiz's Familiar to be targetable, and once he's no longer too useful in that role (like you said, dies too easily in Hell or in a specific area due to specific dmg/enemies) you can just swap the Runes out and make him a dps increment.
I'd love to see the Monk in the next chapter =D might even write some of it myself.
Hey Zero. Your right, The Wikipedia lists Black Ice as being a 3 point trait (not that the Wikipedia will end up being right on all things) but, like you guessed I was trying to stick to what is in the wiki if its there. I'll leave it as a 1 point trait as changing it would screw up how many points I used. You may be right though that 50% is too steep of a bonus, but I was going for a big impact for each trait point like Jay Wilson has said.
Anyway, thanks for the words and the Monk guide is up in the Monk forums (link above).
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Notable Assumptions
Some things to keep in mind as far as “general” assumptions that I make: You can max a skill at 5/5, 10/10 or 15/15 and are able to increase any skill to the next “cap” but it takes a lot of time/resources to do this. You can only advance a skill to the next “cap” after you complete a difficulty. So to go from 5/5 to 6/10 you need to have completed Normal. Obviously you don’t have enough skill points to max all skills so there is no need to do this for every skill. I also “assume” that because of the nature of raising the “cap” mechanic for each skill the next point after the cap (6 and 11) makes a fairly large difference. In general these next levels can hit a wider range of monsters (bosses, uniques) or just do more damage / have increased effect more than a standard point does. I also assume that as a reward for starting the next difficulty (nightmare and hell) you start the new play through with 1 skill point and 1 trait point to spend. This brings the total Skill points possible to 61 and Traits to 21.
Links to other (For Fun) guides
Witch Doctor: DoT Deystroyer
Monk Guide: The Sponge
Barbarian Guide: The Bloodletter
The Controller Wizard Build.
This guide focuses on just one of the MANY ways to make your Wizard a master of Battlefield control. You will be able to keep the minions of hell where you want them and by doing so increase your damage to near crazy levels. This build does not excel at making quick work of some of the harder boss encounters in the game, but even these encounters can be tackled with relative ease with some quick reflexes.
This guide explains which skills and traits to get and how/when to use them.
Skills:
Arcane Missile * Indigo * 6/10
Especially in the early game, this is a Bread and Butter skill for your play through. It takes a bit of a Back Seat later in the game, but combined with the trait Temporal Flux, Missiles will stay effective and useful through the whole game. Put an Indigo Rune for more missiles in it, put a priority on putting your best Indigo rune in Missiles as the more things you hit the better, especially as you inch closer towards end game.
Wave of Force * Obsidian * 6/10
Again, early in the game this skill is great when used in tandem with Missiles. Things get too close; pop this to create some space. You are going to want to put a Level 3 Obsidian Rune in here for the stun effect after knock back, however, if you happen to find a level 4 Obsidian or better (and don’t have High Runes stockpiled) I suggest saving it for your Familiar later on. In the late game this skill becomes more of a tool to keep monsters in your Slow Time Bubble. I suggest putting that 1 extra point in Wave of Force to bring it to level 6 as that is the point that takes you from being able to knock back 60-70% of monsters to being able to knock back almost every non-boss monster in the game. Combined with the trait Dazed and Confused, this skill adds to the insanity of late game damage.
Frost Nova * Indigo * 6/10
This skill may seem a bit redundant early in the game, but it gives you another (and different) way to control the field. Put an Indigo Rune in here to increase the range even more. Even though you are going to stop putting points in FNova at level 6, it will have a great range with a good Alabaster rune. Early in the game this is a great way to take care of hard to hit monsters like Mongrel Runts and late in the game it gives you another way to keep monsters in your Slow Time Bubble. Again, that extra point (level 6) will take Nova to the next level and allow you to freeze almost every monster in late game and with the Trait Black Ice, this skill can really shine.
Ray of Frost * Crimson * 15/15
Here is your main nuke. Pop a Crimson rune in RoF for the increased damage and use it to both destroy monsters in your bubble while keeping them in it at the same time with the slow effect. Maxing this skill increases its damage to huge levels and at level 15 it can freeze targets in place which does trigger Black Ice. The trait Quickening double dips in some REALLY fun ways with this skill. More info on that in the trait section.
Slow Time * Crimson * 11/15
This is the heart of the build. Everything you do is based on keeping things inside of your Slow Time Bubble. You want to take it to level 11 and while maxing slow time isn’t the worst choice you can make, you start hurting your damage output too much if you put too many points here. 11 is best, as it makes every monster (even bosses) be effected by your bubble. While the slow effect may be minimal on some monsters (especially super unique and bosses) what we really care about is the effect of your Crimson Rune which increases the damage taken by monsters while they remain inside your Slow Time Bubble. At level 11, your bubble will last for 20 seconds which is plenty of time to drop, get out, keep in (with all your control oriented abilities) and dispatch them. If you are lucky enough (or dedicated enough) to find yourself with a level 8 Crimson rune, put that bad boy in Slow Time and enjoy the massive damage bonus that ensues (200% with a level 8 Rune, compared to 50% with a level 2 Rune).
Familiar * Obsidian * 11/15
This is the skill that brings it all together. Once you get your Familiar pumped up respectably, life gets MUCH easier. I would suggest putting a Crimson, Alabaster or Indigo rune in Familiar until you get 6 points in it. Until then, this will just be bonus damage and it really is up to you which rune you go with. (Most love the eye Candy that comes with the Indigo rune, who doesn’t love explosions?). However, once you get to level 6 pop your best Obsidian rune in here. This makes your Familiar Targetable, but makes the little guy put on A LOT of weight. Cannon, meet your tank. Tank, meet your Cannon. This guy will keep stuff in the Bubble once you put it there like no other. At level 15 and with a respectable level of Rune he is able to effectively tank almost anything. He can start to get overwhelmed the End Game, and if you run into especially tough Uniques he can drop dead fast and it can be frustrating to have to wait for 2 minutes to recast him if he dies quickly. But once you master effective use of you Wave of Force / FNova you quickly will settle into your roll of assisting this guy.
Teleport * Obsidian/Golden * 1/5-6/10
Most every Wizard has it, and for good reason. But for this build it is especially important. Thankfully once your Familiar is socketed with Crimson he will come along with you when you Teleport, so this becomes a way to position him, escape tight spots (of course) and beaming in, dropping a FNova and Slow Time. The big strategic choice comes in Rune Selection. If you prefer the style of teleporting in to freeze and bubble and then teleport out, you should use Golden as it keeps the 8 second cool down from triggering for 1-5ish seconds. But, if you like having your Familiar tank for you as a main strategy (which really, this build is made for it.. yes your Familiar will make his way back into the fray quickly, but teleporting out does cost you tank time while he makes his way back in) then I suggest the Obsidian Rune. The stun effect is amazing. For this reason I recommend putting a full 6/15 into Teleport so your stun effect from the Rune hits almost everything and you get some additional use out of the trait dazed and confused, then just run away after your drop Slow Time and FNova. Your Familiar will start picking them all up, and once you get into a good rhythm you’ll be long gone by the time your Teleport Stun effect goes away. A Higher Level Rune really helps as it gives you more time to position things before the stun goes away. If you end up going for the Golden Rune approach there is no need to put more than 1 point into teleport, sure the increased range is nice, but for the standard Golden teleport, and for what you’ll use it for, 1 point is plenty. If you go this route, pump either MMissiles or Max out your Familiar or Slow Time.
That leaves you having spent the MAX of 61 skill points (Reminder** you get 1 Skill Point and 1 Trait point when you start Nightmare and when you start Hell. Moving on to Traits.
Traits: 21 Points
Intimidation * 3/3 * Increases the damage you deal by 10% per point, decreases vendor costs by 10% per point.
You will want to max this. Especially if this is your first / Primary character. The reduced vendor costs applies to Artisan leveling costs and the cost to craft items (gold, not crafting materials). The damage boost is nice too, and no penalty!
Quickening * 3/3 * Increased the casting speed of the Wizard. 15% per point.
There is so much confusion over this trait. YES it decreases cooldowns and YES makes Ray of Frost tick faster. The main reason you are going to want this maxed is that you’re main nuke, RoF is going to own even more face than it already does. The best way to look at it is that, without this trait, RoF will apply its damage a little more than 6 times in 5 seconds. (this assumes you keep the ray of frost locked on). Now, with 3 points into quickening, RoF will apply its damage almost 11 times every 5 seconds. What does this mean? It means that you are doing almost twice the damage with this 3 point trait. Also, your Crimson rune on RoF computes its charge time on ticks of RoF. Crimson RoF will be fully charged after 10 ticks of damage on the same target. Without quickening, this means fully charging your RoF takes almost 9 seconds. But with this trait maxed you will fully charge your RoF in just 5 seconds. Talk about the ultimate double-dip trait! Of course, this also effect the CD of you bread and butter spell Slow Time, allowing you to cast it more often and basically eliminate any down time that might have otherwise existed with this build.
Soul Split * 1/1 * When taken below 50% health a Mirror Image of the Wizard will appear with 50% of the casters health.An auto “oh sh!t” button. Can’t beat that - not just for one point. Unlike the actual skill, this image doesn’t do any damage, monsters react to it like it does and usually buys you enough time to get away or drop a bubble.
Black Ice * 1/1 * Causes Monsters that are Frozen to take increased damage
Often misunderstood, or un-noticed (though there was a Blue post saying they were looking into adding some kind of graphical que) this applies a debuff to monsters that persists even after the freeze goes away. Your FNova will usually only leave monsters frozen for no more than 6 seconds (at level 6) but this debuff lasts much longer, in the area of 9 seconds. Basically, the reason FNova is such a huge part of this build is because of this trait. 9 seconds of 50% more damage? Sweet.
Temporal Flux * 1/1 * Causes your arcane spells to also slow creatures movement speed by 25%
This is why you keep using MMissiles in end game and why you take it to Level 6. To make sure your applying this effect. If something is moving out of your bubble you can quickly hit it with a missile barrage to slow it down (if you’re out of FNova range). Really fits in nice with the strategy of this build as it is yet another (slightly different) way to keeping monsters in your Slow Time Bubbles.
Arcane Channeling * 5/5 * Increases the regeneration of the Wizard Arcane Power
While some cringe at spending 5 of your hard earned, few trait points in any one skill, this one deserves it. Without 5/5 Arcane Channeling you can feel gimped at times spamming RoF, but with it, it takes some trying to hit rock bottom on your Arcane Power. Bite the Bullet, take all 5 here.
Dazed and Confused * 1/1 * Causes monsters that are stunned to take increased damage
Very similar to Black Ice, this trait is in need of some love from the Blizzard art department. The debuff lasts (in most cases) even after the stun effect goes away. Also, like FNova, this trait is why we take 6/15 Wave of Force with an Obsidian rune. It allows us to knock monsters back into our Bubble, into the waiting clutches of our Familiar, and because the Rune effect stuns, this traits effect kicks in. 7 seconds of increased damage makes FNova the slightly preferred way to keep monsters in place, but the effect welcome as there are MANY times WoF just works better.
Anti-Magic Shield * 3/3 * Causes missile attacks to do 15% less damage per point
We begin to stray into optional traits here, but this trait (a favorite in most Wizard builds) helps lessen the lethality of ranged groups. Especially the nasty buffed groups you will come across. When you do get hit, this sometimes makes it a 2-3 shot death instead of a 1 shot death. Just enough time to set your Bubble of Death trap in motion.
Toughness * 3/3 * Increases the effect of each point of Vitality by 20%
Again, pretty much optional, but survivability is important and this trait increases the room for error you have. I say take it.
Witch Doctor next please.
I'll likely make another one soon. Tons of fun.
Some things might be a little off (like the Black Ice Trait, 50% increased dmg from all sources would be sick! Wouldn't it be more like 8-16-24% on lvls 1-2-3?) but most of it is pretty creative/fun.
The Familiar idea specially cool, I'd love to be able to "set" my Wiz's Familiar to be targetable, and once he's no longer too useful in that role (like you said, dies too easily in Hell or in a specific area due to specific dmg/enemies) you can just swap the Runes out and make him a dps increment.
I'd love to see the Monk in the next chapter =D might even write some of it myself.
Also I added a link at the top to the second "For Fun" guide that I made. Its posted in the Witch Doctor Forums.
Hey Zero. Your right, The Wikipedia lists Black Ice as being a 3 point trait (not that the Wikipedia will end up being right on all things) but, like you guessed I was trying to stick to what is in the wiki if its there. I'll leave it as a 1 point trait as changing it would screw up how many points I used. You may be right though that 50% is too steep of a bonus, but I was going for a big impact for each trait point like Jay Wilson has said.
Anyway, thanks for the words and the Monk guide is up in the Monk forums (link above).