CM/WW is probably the most reliably "safe" spec I have seen so far but it's possible with others. Technically, it's possible with virtually any build if you throw enough dps and mitigation in but in more realistic terms, there are other ways to do it without having 20 billion in gear on. The trick to the high MPs with the wizard is finding ways to keep the incoming damage down, which usually means locking mobs down with frost nova (although I have seen one wizard using timestop and the slow being enough to let him burn down the mobs before they get close enough) and to do that you do generally need CM to cut the cooldown down enough to keep them reasonably frozen enough to survive the incoming damage. WW is not the only way to do that but it does seem to be the fastest.
I have a build that I use in mp8-10 that doesn't use WW because, like you, I don't really like the WW setup (it annoys me to no end not having a decent "fire at will" spell for moving targets). It uses CM, Disintegrate (yes, it is viable in MP10), Living Lightning, Frost Nova and Comet. I also have Prismatic Armor and Diamond Skin in the mix for suvivability. I would not use it for ubers (it's about the only situation where I do run CM/WW) but for general farming I prefer it. It's much more flexible and gives me options for how I want to deal with any particular mob (2-3 options). It's not going to perma-freeze all the time like CM/WW (although it can), but generally it keeps them frozen enough that it's not a problem. Disintegrate does proc CM, often fast enough with multiple targets that I can keep white mobs pretty much permanently frozen locked (even elites in the right situation). When that's not enough proc'ing for nova (such as elites), then Living Lightning procs reasonably well, especially in combination with meteors tossed in periodically (LL+meteor pool can refresh nova cooldown in a second or two).
For this option to be viable, I'd say you need around 45% critical hit chance and around 2 APS and 20 APoC or so. With any build to be viable in high MP, you need at least a certain amount of dps output as well... I'd say 120k would start to open up MP8 and 150K might make MP10 doable. Obviously, higher is always going to be better. At 200K dps nova (bone chill) + cold blooded + disintegrate does about 700k-750k edps and will burn down white mobs reasonably fast. LL+comet is much harder to guage in edps, but I think it's safe to say that edps output is higher but also a lot more "burst-y". For reference, I'm running 5k armor, about 850 res all (with prismatic armor on) and 40k life. You are also going to want some lifesteal on your weapon (better with disintegrate and meteor than LOH, by far) and possibly some LOH gear to swap in for dealing with reflect damage packs (even if it drops your dps).
On it's own? No, I don't think Disintegrate is viable for high MP without a little support.
I did play around yesterday in MP8 and 10 with a Disintegrate build that I do think is actually viable.
One of the big reasons CM/WW is about the only option for high MP is because of the frequent (constant?) freezing from Frost Nova. Having Diamond Skin available all the time is helpful too. It's the only way to manage the incoming damage you take in MP8+ since I don't think it's really possible to become "tanky" enough do it just with stats... Or at least while maintaining DPS (Unless you have billions and billions of gold for gear I suppose). It's actually CM that is the more mandatory part of the CM/WW that you need for high MP.
I actually found Disintegrate can proc CM reasonably fast, at least in certain circumstances (I was using Chaos Nexus in my build). It wasn't fast enough against single targets of course, but I didn't have any trouble keeping mobs of say 4 or more constantly frozen with Nova. I was also pulling in enough AP from crits that it was easily sustainable against the group of targets.
I think the trick here is that the "slow" weapons often used to keep the AP cost down also make it not possible to crit fast enough to proc CM enough. In my case, I was running 1.83 APS with about 47CC and 19 APoC. You'd also need reasonably high DPS to be effective of course just because of the health pools on monsters. I was running about 195k DPS with the particular gear and skill set I tried.
You will also want to have alternate combat options too. Small groups and elite packs (especially those that spread apart or run) can be real problems for adequate disintegrate uptime and CM proc. Obviously WW would be an alternate but I personally don't like it and it's really no better against the types of situations that give disintegrate issues. After playing around, it seems like only signature spell that can proc CM reasonably quickly is Living Lightning (I had high hopes for Forked Lightning but while it procs APoC fairly quickly, CM is not fast enough). LL has a bit of a duration and returns huge amounts of APoC so it makes Meteor pretty viable to combo with it. Between LL itself and the proc from the meteor pools, you can use the combo against even a single elite target.
Basically, I found I was able to keep things reasonably frozen and off me and do enough DPS to kill fairly effectively even in MP10. You won't be permafreezing like a CM/WW build but it's enough for it to be viable.
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CM/WW is probably the most reliably "safe" spec I have seen so far but it's possible with others. Technically, it's possible with virtually any build if you throw enough dps and mitigation in but in more realistic terms, there are other ways to do it without having 20 billion in gear on. The trick to the high MPs with the wizard is finding ways to keep the incoming damage down, which usually means locking mobs down with frost nova (although I have seen one wizard using timestop and the slow being enough to let him burn down the mobs before they get close enough) and to do that you do generally need CM to cut the cooldown down enough to keep them reasonably frozen enough to survive the incoming damage. WW is not the only way to do that but it does seem to be the fastest.
I have a build that I use in mp8-10 that doesn't use WW because, like you, I don't really like the WW setup (it annoys me to no end not having a decent "fire at will" spell for moving targets). It uses CM, Disintegrate (yes, it is viable in MP10), Living Lightning, Frost Nova and Comet. I also have Prismatic Armor and Diamond Skin in the mix for suvivability. I would not use it for ubers (it's about the only situation where I do run CM/WW) but for general farming I prefer it. It's much more flexible and gives me options for how I want to deal with any particular mob (2-3 options). It's not going to perma-freeze all the time like CM/WW (although it can), but generally it keeps them frozen enough that it's not a problem. Disintegrate does proc CM, often fast enough with multiple targets that I can keep white mobs pretty much permanently frozen locked (even elites in the right situation). When that's not enough proc'ing for nova (such as elites), then Living Lightning procs reasonably well, especially in combination with meteors tossed in periodically (LL+meteor pool can refresh nova cooldown in a second or two).
For this option to be viable, I'd say you need around 45% critical hit chance and around 2 APS and 20 APoC or so. With any build to be viable in high MP, you need at least a certain amount of dps output as well... I'd say 120k would start to open up MP8 and 150K might make MP10 doable. Obviously, higher is always going to be better. At 200K dps nova (bone chill) + cold blooded + disintegrate does about 700k-750k edps and will burn down white mobs reasonably fast. LL+comet is much harder to guage in edps, but I think it's safe to say that edps output is higher but also a lot more "burst-y". For reference, I'm running 5k armor, about 850 res all (with prismatic armor on) and 40k life. You are also going to want some lifesteal on your weapon (better with disintegrate and meteor than LOH, by far) and possibly some LOH gear to swap in for dealing with reflect damage packs (even if it drops your dps).
-dolynick
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I did play around yesterday in MP8 and 10 with a Disintegrate build that I do think is actually viable.
One of the big reasons CM/WW is about the only option for high MP is because of the frequent (constant?) freezing from Frost Nova. Having Diamond Skin available all the time is helpful too. It's the only way to manage the incoming damage you take in MP8+ since I don't think it's really possible to become "tanky" enough do it just with stats... Or at least while maintaining DPS (Unless you have billions and billions of gold for gear I suppose). It's actually CM that is the more mandatory part of the CM/WW that you need for high MP.
I actually found Disintegrate can proc CM reasonably fast, at least in certain circumstances (I was using Chaos Nexus in my build). It wasn't fast enough against single targets of course, but I didn't have any trouble keeping mobs of say 4 or more constantly frozen with Nova. I was also pulling in enough AP from crits that it was easily sustainable against the group of targets.
I think the trick here is that the "slow" weapons often used to keep the AP cost down also make it not possible to crit fast enough to proc CM enough. In my case, I was running 1.83 APS with about 47CC and 19 APoC. You'd also need reasonably high DPS to be effective of course just because of the health pools on monsters. I was running about 195k DPS with the particular gear and skill set I tried.
You will also want to have alternate combat options too. Small groups and elite packs (especially those that spread apart or run) can be real problems for adequate disintegrate uptime and CM proc. Obviously WW would be an alternate but I personally don't like it and it's really no better against the types of situations that give disintegrate issues. After playing around, it seems like only signature spell that can proc CM reasonably quickly is Living Lightning (I had high hopes for Forked Lightning but while it procs APoC fairly quickly, CM is not fast enough). LL has a bit of a duration and returns huge amounts of APoC so it makes Meteor pretty viable to combo with it. Between LL itself and the proc from the meteor pools, you can use the combo against even a single elite target.
Basically, I found I was able to keep things reasonably frozen and off me and do enough DPS to kill fairly effectively even in MP10. You won't be permafreezing like a CM/WW build but it's enough for it to be viable.
-dolynick