93 replies to this topic

[Daemaro]

I didn't see a existing topic on this, at least not a new one. It's possible I missed it though.


Anyways we know the barbarian and monk got a flat 30% damage reduction to compensate for them being melee. So will melee wizards even be viable end game at all? In late game 30% damage reduction is a pretty huge amount.

How could they fix this? Maybe a passive you could take that would limit your spell casting to only certain melee range spells?

[PantheraOnca]

they have the 20% reduction in melee damage taken passive.

Something like this may be viable:

http://us.battle.net...XOSh!agc!Yaaccc

It's got toughness from Blur, Prismatic Energy Armor, and Crystal Shell Diamond Skin. It's got self-healing from Blood Magic Weapon and Healing Spectral Blade, and solid melee damage from Chain Reaction Explosive Blast and Sleet Storm RoF. Between all the AoE hits/second Critical Mass should effectively remove the CD from EB and DS. Prodigy could be replaced by just about any other passive, but I wanted some AP regen in their since your cap is lower from EA.

[Daemaro]

Isn't the barbarian and monk one magic and melee also though and at 30%? It's also not an actual passive they need to waste space on, it's just built in.

[Drkclone]

I feel that Blizzard implemented many of the armor spells to give the Melee Wizard different builds to survive the later difficulties and especially Inferno.  And I don't see how exactly they would give Melee Wizards a 30% damage reduction without giving it to the Wizard class itself.  But we'll probably never know before May 15th.  And I do plan on trying out a melee build for the Wizard once I reach Level 60 on the class.

[Daemaro]

I just really hope they rethink this some before release and make sure they have it playable.

[Nerax]

That 30% damage reduction difference isn't that big when you consider all other differences between the classes. Try and run into a pack with a naked barb, a 3 dps weapon and use whatever beta skills you want. Then run in with a Wizard with a 3 dps weapon and use say, runed ray of frost, frost nova and diamond skin. I haven't tried this experiment myself, but I'd wager the Wizard will take less damage despite the barb having a free 30% damage reduction. It's just a silly example, but my point is that those 30% of damage reduction is just one small part of the equation.

[Barrier]

my opinion is that melee wizard should be viable but not optimal so why should you have the same advatages as melee chars ?

[rozmata]

Barrier, on 07 April 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

my opinion is that melee wizard should be viable but not optimal so why should you have the same advatages as melee chars ?

In my opinion we should have optimal melee wizards as they can have very satisfying play style. But wizards should not have that many viable and optimal melee builds as melee characters.

[WNxManiacMan]

Wizards are casters. They're meant to be squishy and cast spells from a distance. Ofc. I'll probably try some funny melee builds, as in non-optimal builds, but I would not expect anything else than die in Hell and Inferno while doing so. I would complain if it was any different.

[rozmata]

WNxManiacMan, on 07 April 2012 - 05:25 PM, said:

Wizards are casters. They're meant to be squishy and cast spells from a distance. Ofc. I'll probably try some funny melee builds, as in non-optimal builds, but I would not expect anything else than die in Hell and Inferno while doing so. I would complain if it was any different.

Melee build for wizard of my own:
http://d3db.com/tool...or/wizard/14147
It can be modified in many ways, it's not very attractive but it should have good survivability. I'm not going to play wizard as melee though as it has no sense. It's much more fun to play melee as melee.

[Mysticjbyrd]

They were never ideal to begin with, not even close, but probably doable.  Now that the real melee classes have 30% dmg reduction, it seems ridiculous to even consider the possibility of melee wizard.

IF i was even going to try it I would have to use death blossom.

[aldrek]

Yeah, I'm not sure melee Wizards are supposed to even be a thing. That's about as silly as the ranged Barbarian builds I see running around. I just kinda smile and say "You have fun with that," and walk away.

[Travincall]

Sorry I didn't go through all the posts so I don't know if this has been previously mentioned but I was looking over some of the wizard abilities and it looks like with some decent armor the wizard could have more dmg reduction then even the barb and much more total armor in theory. The skills to maximize this would be BLUR (melee dmg -20%) ENERGY ARMOR (increase armor by 65%) ARCHON (armor and resistances +40%) toss in DIAMOND SKIN (21707 dmg absorbed) MAGIK WEAPON w/ blood magik (attacks recover 1.5% of dmg as health) and already you have a pretty tough wizard. We won't know until the game comes out but in theory you could have more armor then the barbarian with all those % stacking. Heck you could even throw in the FAMILIAR with ancient gaurdian (when below 35% life familiar will absorb 1 attack every 6 seconds) to really make you a survivor. Anyway just my ideas for a melee wizard even though I would never play one because its not my style and not really what the wizzard was made for.

[Ruppgu]

Considering how all of the short range wizard spells do more damage than the longer range ones, if the wizard can stay alive in Inferno with the right build, it will likely be an optimal build. Only time will tell but there's enough defensive abilities to make it possible imo.

[FluffehWuffeh]

Personally, I can see a melee wizard being pretty strong played right. I mean yes, ranged would probably much easier,but melee wizard just seems kinda like fun.
This is something I might play with eventually:
http://d3db.com/tool...or/wizard/14152

[Travincall]

FluffehWuffeh, on 08 April 2012 - 12:16 AM, said:

Personally, I can see a melee wizard being pretty strong played right. I mean yes, ranged would probably much easier,but melee wizard just seems kinda like fun.
This is something I might play with eventually:
http://d3db.com/tool...or/wizard/14152

WOW! I seriously like that build for a melee wizard dude. Actually I like it so much I saved it and really plan on trying it but the only difference I would make is instead of UNSTABLE ANOMOLY I would switch out for COLD BLOODED since it seems like you already have enough survivability (in theory) but you could use the extra dmg for RAY OF FROST and FROST NOVA. Just my opinion though but I must say I really like that melee build the best so far because I can just picture the repetitive frost nova keeping all mobs locked down and frozen regardless of size while they try to crowd around you and you just SPECTRAL BLADE and SLEET STORM them to death. In fact maybe you could replace DIAMOND SKIN with MIRROR SKIN and get just a little extra dps since you are melee after all and will probably be getting hit a lot and a 50% dmg return for a melee character is pretty powerful. Anyway thanks for the build bro!!

[Travincall]

Mysticjbyrd, on 07 April 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

They were never ideal to begin with, not even close, but probably doable.  Now that the real melee classes have 30% dmg reduction, it seems ridiculous to even consider the possibility of melee wizard.

IF i was even going to try it I would have to use death blossom.

The 30% dmg reduction is big but not really a huge setback to the melee wizard seeing that wizards have quite a bit of dmg reduction themselves if they want and will still have life leech AND instead of taking less dmg they will get bigger heals from health globes then barbs and monks as well. Anyway the point I'm trying to make is that a sorc could have just as much armor or dmg reduction as a barb and possibly more depending on the build.

[FluffehWuffeh]

Travincall, on 08 April 2012 - 03:40 AM, said:

FluffehWuffeh, on 08 April 2012 - 12:16 AM, said:

Personally, I can see a melee wizard being pretty strong played right. I mean yes, ranged would probably much easier,but melee wizard just seems kinda like fun.
This is something I might play with eventually:
http://d3db.com/tool...or/wizard/14152

WOW! I seriously like that build for a melee wizard dude. Actually I like it so much I saved it and really plan on trying it but the only difference I would make is instead of UNSTABLE ANOMOLY I would switch out for COLD BLOODED since it seems like you already have enough survivability (in theory) but you could use the extra dmg for RAY OF FROST and FROST NOVA. Just my opinion though but I must say I really like that melee build the best so far because I can just picture the repetitive frost nova keeping all mobs locked down and frozen regardless of size while they try to crowd around you and you just SPECTRAL BLADE and SLEET STORM them to death. In fact maybe you could replace DIAMOND SKIN with MIRROR SKIN and get just a little extra dps since you are melee after all and will probably be getting hit a lot and a 50% dmg return for a melee character is pretty powerful. Anyway thanks for the build bro!!

Yeah that will work too for a slightly more offensive build. I suppose it depends on how hard everything hits if you'd need the extra survivability. I like the build since pretty much everything can work as either a way to slog and tear through mobs,but at the same time you can use them defensively to get the hell out of Dodge and regroup if you need to.

[Sumsarr]

Travincall, on 08 April 2012 - 03:48 AM, said:

Mysticjbyrd, on 07 April 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

They were never ideal to begin with, not even close, but probably doable.  Now that the real melee classes have 30% dmg reduction, it seems ridiculous to even consider the possibility of melee wizard.

IF i was even going to try it I would have to use death blossom.

The 30% dmg reduction is big but not really a huge setback to the melee wizard seeing that wizards have quite a bit of dmg reduction themselves if they want and will still have life leech AND instead of taking less dmg they will get bigger heals from health globes then barbs and monks as well. Anyway the point I'm trying to make is that a sorc could have just as much armor or dmg reduction as a barb and possibly more depending on the build.

Here are the facts:

Wizard has 0% dmg reduction.
Barbarian has 30% dmg reduction.

That's a HUGE difference. Of course you could claim that Wizard has a lot of armor spells, but then it will look something like this when barbarian spends all his points not needed on armor on dps:

Wizard 30% dmg reduction, 100 dps
Barbarian 35% dmg reduction, 800 dps

This whole system regarding 30% dmg reduction is the most silly thing implemented into the world of Diablo. Blizzard speaks a lot of crap about how they want to promote "million of viable builds, each one customized just for you!!!". The changes they make speak for themselves:

- Nerfing weapon throw passive = no more good range barbs

- Removing fundamentals = no more melee dmg for dh

- Removing virtuoso = no more wand wizard

- Nerfing chakram melee rune effect from 105% dmg/sec to 30% dmg/sec = bye bye melee pros for DH

- 30% dmg reduction for "melee" classes: monk and barb = a big !@#$ you to everyone who wanted to form their own playstyle.

(These are just some of the changes I can recall, but I'm sure there have been more of them)

Blizzards speaks of how they want to promote viable builds - well, they either dont want that or they're just stupid.

Wielding a melee weapon on a "range" class brings nothing but disadvantages.

[Covina303]

sumsarr, you speak of all the shortcomings but provide no solutions.  How would you design the classes to still feel unique from each other to those who play them?

Edited by Covina303, 08 April 2012 - 07:06 AM.