Kept hearing and watching videos about melee or facetanking wizards. Didnt belive and thought it was private servers it till I grouped with one today and he out tanked 2 geared barbs so I rerolled my monk to wiz immediately lol. I only have 18 mil gold just wondering if that will be enough to get me started playing that style once I hit 60? I assume use a shield instead of a source, stack resists and maybe Vit and load up on crit but again im not sure. Can someone help me out with how I should prioritize my gear for facetanking mobs in inferno as a wizard? Should I just search AH for resist all, int, and vit then buy the pieces with the highest stats? Also what about our set pieces they seem to have high armor or would that not be as helpful as resists?
Also is this just a gimmick spec only useful for Acts 1 and 2 or can I use this to farm Act 3,4 and Ponies?
But I will say that the all resist, Int, Vit, armor, and crit are big deals.
Crit is there cause of Critical Mass. It will trigger ALOT off of Spectral Blades w/ Deep Cuts, once you get your chances high enough. Enough to chain-use Diamond Skin and Frost Nova (which should be using Deep Freeze for the extra crit on packs).
What you use as a secondary offensive skill is up to you, but I like Meteor myself (Star Pact to manage cost til I get a Helm/Wand with ideal stats and Crit > Arcane Power).
Oh, Life on Hit is a good call too. Meteor returns on it crazy well, and Spectral Blade isn't too shabby either on it.
And my stats of note:
DPS: 14,657.22 (Yeah, it's low, I know... need a weapon upgrade badly, but is a narrow market to aim in)
Intellect: 1814
Vitality: 1070
+Life%: 35%
Armor (w/ Enchantress and Energy Armor): 7745
All Resist (w/ Prismatic Armor): 871 (without is 622)
Life on Hit: 782
Crit Chance: 15.50% (another place I am working to improve when I can)
With this build, I could face-tank any hit Belial threw at me, barring the platform explosion phases, and shrug it off. Sadly, my DPS was not enough to meet the stupid-ass enrage timer (26% was my best). I did kill him with a DPS-focused MH+OH combo instead (barely), but Act 3 for the moment is virtually a death-zerg for me right now.
From personal experience, crit > resists >Int/crit damage (to beat bosses; elite packs should offer no serious resistance) > vit/LoH. Vit and LoH, ironically, scale inversely with crit. If I had ~60% crit, I can't imagine losing diamond skin. As it is, it shouldn't be down for long (unless I'm facing invulnerables or shielding... I'm not sure which I dislike more).
Act 2 can be done really well with around 4-5m gold, although I can't touch A3 at all without a barbarian giving me war cry. Obviously some of my non-allres gear needs to be replaced (I've got maybe 4 pieces with no resistance?) and things should run smoothly again. Alternatively I could pick up another 8% crit for chainspamming ice nova/diamond skin...
Act 1, by comparison, gets silly. The butcher is almost a threat (what?) for lack of single-target based abilities in my build (dropped meteor for exploding wizard to deal with fear), but the briefest elite packs take all of 5-6 seconds.
Oh, even for me, Act 1 is laughable. The Butcher's biggest hit (where he hooks you and then smashes you) is worth all of like 9k damage, the rest is maybe 1.5k-2k damage tops.
Act 2, barring the enrage timers on Kulle and Belial, is equally joke-worthy.
Act 3 turns me inside out however... yay for another gearing wall. Dear god to a need a better weapon than my current 650 DPS wand...
So this type of play style can be used on Acts 3/4 and ponies if geared correctly? I dont want it to be some gimmic spec like zombiebears for WDs that only works in Act 1 and then you suck after that.
So this type of play style can be used on Acts 3/4 and ponies if geared correctly? I dont want it to be some gimmic spec like zombiebears for WDs that only works in Act 1 and then you suck after that.
Who knows? If only there was a way to find out, such as searching forums.
So this type of play style can be used on Acts 3/4 and ponies if geared correctly? I dont want it to be some gimmic spec like zombiebears for WDs that only works in Act 1 and then you suck after that.
Who knows? If only there was a way to find out, such as searching forums.
Tried searching for "melee wizard" and "tank wizard". All I get is general wizard inormation or 48543594375 posts from monks/barbs QQing about how much they suck. Also when I did advanced most posts are hella old and probably not useful.
There are probably four or five theads talking about tanking specs on the first couple pages. Grats for thinking they were all private server shennanigans.
So this type of play style can be used on Acts 3/4 and ponies if geared correctly? I dont want it to be some gimmic spec like zombiebears for WDs that only works in Act 1 and then you suck after that.
Who knows? If only there was a way to find out, such as searching forums.
Tried searching for "melee wizard" and "tank wizard". All I get is general wizard inormation or 48543594375 posts from monks/barbs QQing about how much they suck. Also when I did advanced most posts are hella old and probably not useful.
Tanking-Wizard here. I've been playing with the build for a while and trying to get it down pat, So i'll share what I've found.
I have a video of me doing Belial, but I haven't posted here 10 Times, so i'm not allowed to Link URL's yet. Search Inferno Belial Wizard Solo tank/Support or Marudas on youtube and you should find it. That was done a little while ago so I've made a couple of changes but the general concept is the same. I don't have any footage of me doing acts 3 and 4 yet, but I'll get some soon. I farm act 3 at least once a day (usually dont bother with act 4, but have done some).
I'd link the build I use, but once again, can't link URLS yet, soo
Left Click: Energy Twister, Wicked Wind
Right Click: Teleport, Safe Passage
1: Diamond Skin, Crystal Shell
2: Frost Nova, Bone Chill
3: Slow Time, Time Warp
4: Energy Armor, Prismatic Armor
Blur
Critical Mass
Evocation
, but it should be noted that i use it for group-play. If you want to modify the build for soloing, swap Teleport for Venom Hydra and Slow Time for Force Weapon for personal DPS. I'll let you know right now, Wicked wind is awful dps but it procs Life on Hit, Arcane power on Crit and Critical Mass ridiculously frequently. You can up your damage some by getting Critical Hit Damage to go with your Crit Chance, but it'll never be dramatic in its damage.
Now, as far as stats go, Arcane Power on Crit is 100% nessacary, on at least one item. I actually find that you dont really need to have more than 6-9 AP on crit for this build to work, so long as you have the crit. Critical hit would be the next thing that you MUST have. I roll around 33% crit, and that number works for me, but you can have more. As far as less, Anything less than 20% will probably result in you dying frequently. So I would say the stats go like this:
Arcane Power on Crit to at least 6
Critical Hit to at least 25%
Intellect & All Resistances & Armor (As much as you can get)
Vitality
Critical HIt Damage (for extra personal dps. If you plan to play more by yourself, prioritize this a bit more)
One thing I didn't mention here is Life on HIt: Now, Life on hit i wouldn't call Mandatory, but it helps *A lot*. With 355 Life on Hit, wicked wind tends to heal me for several thousand every second or two if its hitting 2 or more targets. You don't NEED it, but its HIGHLY RECCOMENDED.
Too often people forget that armor is actually arguably better than resistances. At the very least, you shouldn't Ignore it. Energy Armor gives you a huge boost and armor reduces all damage taken, so its basically a blanket resistance. I advise getting critical hit chance to about 30%, but as long as you're above 25, you should be okay. You can get Deep Freeze to help your crit in the early stages, though I disliked relying on it because it meant you were less useful when it came to bosses and 3-4 mob elite packs.
The Build works very well as a tank and supportive wizard. You are typically able to control massive groups of mobs, and with Bone Chill and Time Warp always up, you can cause the mobs to take 35% more damage from all sources. Critical Mass with Crystal Shell should keep you alive most of the time so long as your careful. Teleport with Safe Passage is not only great for mobility, but if you teleport in place just prior to taking big hits you can mitigate 30% of the damage (Azmodan Meteors is a good example). Since its cooldown cycles just like the others, you can keep the Safe Passage buff up if you need to, but be careful because this might cause your Frost Nova spam to miss a nova or two.
Now, as far as my personal stats go as of today:
Armor: 8510 (Energy Armor)
Reistances: 870-930 of all
Damage: 21,878
Critical Chance: 32.50%
AP on Crit: 9
Attacks Per Second: 1.51
Intellect: 1688
Vitality: 744
Critical Hit damage: +92%
Life on Hit: 355
I'll try to get some footage of running through A3 solo and with a party. I did it duo with a DH earlier and died maybe once the entire time (which was my fault). Certian affixes can give you more trouble than others (also watch out for glitched out melee-mortaring), but with the tools you have you should be able to handle most situations. Feel free to ask me about the build or why I do whatever I do.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WQYhXO!Tge!aaZcac
That is my build. Every piece needs resistance and intellect and the pieces that can have crit should. I have 41% crit chance and the procs feel about right, make sure to get nice crit rolls on your shield and gloves and look for explosive mods on the helm. You don't need much vit, diamond skin/energy armor/safe passage sends your effective hp through the roof with just a little loh, 500-600 is fine. Crit damage seems like the obvious luxury stat, especially if you can afford to get it with lifesteal, but attack speed can be really huge if you can get some. If you have ~700res buffed, 35%crit, and 500loh you could definitely handle a1/2 no problem. I use a fire weap to give the group conflagration, but you can also use cold blooded for solo since its bugged right now, or you can use a lightning weap and go paralysis.
I've been playing around recently with a very similar wizard tank build on my budget wiz. Very very few differences, and this is a relatively solid guide. To be honest, I found that I had some survival issues until 28-30% Crit, just a little higher than what you recommend, though now I'm a lot higher than that.
The only thing I felt that I could add to all of this, is Physical Resistance. The build is such that there's a lot of choices in gear diversity (i.e. You have a 225 Vit neck, you can skip Vit on a couple of other pieces, etc). But generally, I search for Int / Res. All / Phys. Resist, and then sort by Armor. Most of my pieces have +Armor, All Resist, Phys. Resist, and Int / Vit or both. Obviously, prioritizing Crit in those slots that it's available.
I've just hit the point that I can do 99% of Act 3 with relative facerolling ease, but I say Phys. Resist is underrated, and has been working exceedingly well for me so far, and it comes relatively cheap. Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
You don't actually need very much vit, since your going to be absobing almost everything with crystal skin, so its better to get resist/armor to help it stay up longer
How do you kill phase beasts with this build, whatever abilities they spawn with I always get killed way too quickly. I have 10500armor, 1250physical res, 30k hp, 20% crit and they hit for 5k per swing.
You need more crit to enable Frost Nova on phase beasts. If you have enough should be able to interrupt their attacks with Nova spam. They really shouldn't be causing you problems without Fire Chains or Shielding (plus random mods to make either one a problem).
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Also is this just a gimmick spec only useful for Acts 1 and 2 or can I use this to farm Act 3,4 and Ponies?
But I will say that the all resist, Int, Vit, armor, and crit are big deals.
Crit is there cause of Critical Mass. It will trigger ALOT off of Spectral Blades w/ Deep Cuts, once you get your chances high enough. Enough to chain-use Diamond Skin and Frost Nova (which should be using Deep Freeze for the extra crit on packs).
What you use as a secondary offensive skill is up to you, but I like Meteor myself (Star Pact to manage cost til I get a Helm/Wand with ideal stats and Crit > Arcane Power).
Oh, Life on Hit is a good call too. Meteor returns on it crazy well, and Spectral Blade isn't too shabby either on it.
Here is my build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WkYdXO!agf!aZYaac
And my stats of note:
DPS: 14,657.22 (Yeah, it's low, I know... need a weapon upgrade badly, but is a narrow market to aim in)
Intellect: 1814
Vitality: 1070
+Life%: 35%
Armor (w/ Enchantress and Energy Armor): 7745
All Resist (w/ Prismatic Armor): 871 (without is 622)
Life on Hit: 782
Crit Chance: 15.50% (another place I am working to improve when I can)
With this build, I could face-tank any hit Belial threw at me, barring the platform explosion phases, and shrug it off. Sadly, my DPS was not enough to meet the stupid-ass enrage timer (26% was my best). I did kill him with a DPS-focused MH+OH combo instead (barely), but Act 3 for the moment is virtually a death-zerg for me right now.
Act 2 can be done really well with around 4-5m gold, although I can't touch A3 at all without a barbarian giving me war cry. Obviously some of my non-allres gear needs to be replaced (I've got maybe 4 pieces with no resistance?) and things should run smoothly again. Alternatively I could pick up another 8% crit for chainspamming ice nova/diamond skin...
buffed:
7.2k armor
21k DPS
32% crit
1.7 APS
~20k HP
620 allres
Act 1, by comparison, gets silly. The butcher is almost a threat (what?) for lack of single-target based abilities in my build (dropped meteor for exploding wizard to deal with fear), but the briefest elite packs take all of 5-6 seconds.
Act 2, barring the enrage timers on Kulle and Belial, is equally joke-worthy.
Act 3 turns me inside out however... yay for another gearing wall. Dear god to a need a better weapon than my current 650 DPS wand...
I thought wizzies got a resist bonus added to something?
We do, from the Prismatic Armor rune on Energy Armor... what he was saying was that it wasn't enough.
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/59775-guide-gearing-an-entry-level-melee-wizard/
Who knows? If only there was a way to find out, such as searching forums.
Tried searching for "melee wizard" and "tank wizard". All I get is general wizard inormation or 48543594375 posts from monks/barbs QQing about how much they suck. Also when I did advanced most posts are hella old and probably not useful.
Are you serious? hehehe
I have a video of me doing Belial, but I haven't posted here 10 Times, so i'm not allowed to Link URL's yet. Search Inferno Belial Wizard Solo tank/Support or Marudas on youtube and you should find it. That was done a little while ago so I've made a couple of changes but the general concept is the same. I don't have any footage of me doing acts 3 and 4 yet, but I'll get some soon. I farm act 3 at least once a day (usually dont bother with act 4, but have done some).
I'd link the build I use, but once again, can't link URLS yet, soo
Left Click: Energy Twister, Wicked Wind
Right Click: Teleport, Safe Passage
1: Diamond Skin, Crystal Shell
2: Frost Nova, Bone Chill
3: Slow Time, Time Warp
4: Energy Armor, Prismatic Armor
Blur
Critical Mass
Evocation
, but it should be noted that i use it for group-play. If you want to modify the build for soloing, swap Teleport for Venom Hydra and Slow Time for Force Weapon for personal DPS. I'll let you know right now, Wicked wind is awful dps but it procs Life on Hit, Arcane power on Crit and Critical Mass ridiculously frequently. You can up your damage some by getting Critical Hit Damage to go with your Crit Chance, but it'll never be dramatic in its damage.
Now, as far as stats go, Arcane Power on Crit is 100% nessacary, on at least one item. I actually find that you dont really need to have more than 6-9 AP on crit for this build to work, so long as you have the crit. Critical hit would be the next thing that you MUST have. I roll around 33% crit, and that number works for me, but you can have more. As far as less, Anything less than 20% will probably result in you dying frequently. So I would say the stats go like this:
Arcane Power on Crit to at least 6
Critical Hit to at least 25%
Intellect & All Resistances & Armor (As much as you can get)
Vitality
Critical HIt Damage (for extra personal dps. If you plan to play more by yourself, prioritize this a bit more)
One thing I didn't mention here is Life on HIt: Now, Life on hit i wouldn't call Mandatory, but it helps *A lot*. With 355 Life on Hit, wicked wind tends to heal me for several thousand every second or two if its hitting 2 or more targets. You don't NEED it, but its HIGHLY RECCOMENDED.
Too often people forget that armor is actually arguably better than resistances. At the very least, you shouldn't Ignore it. Energy Armor gives you a huge boost and armor reduces all damage taken, so its basically a blanket resistance. I advise getting critical hit chance to about 30%, but as long as you're above 25, you should be okay. You can get Deep Freeze to help your crit in the early stages, though I disliked relying on it because it meant you were less useful when it came to bosses and 3-4 mob elite packs.
The Build works very well as a tank and supportive wizard. You are typically able to control massive groups of mobs, and with Bone Chill and Time Warp always up, you can cause the mobs to take 35% more damage from all sources. Critical Mass with Crystal Shell should keep you alive most of the time so long as your careful. Teleport with Safe Passage is not only great for mobility, but if you teleport in place just prior to taking big hits you can mitigate 30% of the damage (Azmodan Meteors is a good example). Since its cooldown cycles just like the others, you can keep the Safe Passage buff up if you need to, but be careful because this might cause your Frost Nova spam to miss a nova or two.
Now, as far as my personal stats go as of today:
Armor: 8510 (Energy Armor)
Reistances: 870-930 of all
Damage: 21,878
Critical Chance: 32.50%
AP on Crit: 9
Attacks Per Second: 1.51
Intellect: 1688
Vitality: 744
Critical Hit damage: +92%
Life on Hit: 355
I'll try to get some footage of running through A3 solo and with a party. I did it duo with a DH earlier and died maybe once the entire time (which was my fault). Certian affixes can give you more trouble than others (also watch out for glitched out melee-mortaring), but with the tools you have you should be able to handle most situations. Feel free to ask me about the build or why I do whatever I do.
That is my build. Every piece needs resistance and intellect and the pieces that can have crit should. I have 41% crit chance and the procs feel about right, make sure to get nice crit rolls on your shield and gloves and look for explosive mods on the helm. You don't need much vit, diamond skin/energy armor/safe passage sends your effective hp through the roof with just a little loh, 500-600 is fine. Crit damage seems like the obvious luxury stat, especially if you can afford to get it with lifesteal, but attack speed can be really huge if you can get some. If you have ~700res buffed, 35%crit, and 500loh you could definitely handle a1/2 no problem. I use a fire weap to give the group conflagration, but you can also use cold blooded for solo since its bugged right now, or you can use a lightning weap and go paralysis.
Crit % > Resist All = Armor > LoH(up to~500) > Intellect > Attack Speed > Crit Damage
The only thing I felt that I could add to all of this, is Physical Resistance. The build is such that there's a lot of choices in gear diversity (i.e. You have a 225 Vit neck, you can skip Vit on a couple of other pieces, etc). But generally, I search for Int / Res. All / Phys. Resist, and then sort by Armor. Most of my pieces have +Armor, All Resist, Phys. Resist, and Int / Vit or both. Obviously, prioritizing Crit in those slots that it's available.
I've just hit the point that I can do 99% of Act 3 with relative facerolling ease, but I say Phys. Resist is underrated, and has been working exceedingly well for me so far, and it comes relatively cheap. Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
dont go below 25k