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?
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.
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.
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.
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I don't always burn. But when I do, I use hellfire.
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.
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/calculator/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.
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.
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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."
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.
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.
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.
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/calculator/wizard/14152
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!!
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.
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, 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?
a melee wizard won't play like a barbarian. you're going to be using a lot of spells to control monsters anyways.
if you have the idea that a melee wizard is just a barbarian with a different model then no, blizzard never intends that and won't make it possible
Come on, think before you post. Of course they shouldn't do the exact same things, they should however do the same thing equally as good in different ways. Currently, the barbarian has more CC, more damage and more buffs than melee wiz. He is simply better in every single way.
EDIT: How will you with melee wiz control the mobs to a degree which compensates for 30% dmg reduction? Frost nova? A snare for a few seconds? Compare that to Ground Stomp, 4 second stun. THAT's control.
Oh no wizard is not as good melee as barb? If I want the top melee i choose monk or barb, if I want the top ranged I choose Wizard,, DH and WD i'm not so sure they are good ranged too I suppose.
If melee wizard wasnt' suppose to exist he shouldn't have all the melee supports skills in the first place. Misleading skills are terrible, if something exist it must be useful. Replace spectral blades, storm/ice armor, explosive blast and magic weapon with other skills or else people have an legit reason to complain about melee wizard not being good enough.
I loved my melee sorc in D2, and I'm definitely going to give it a try in D3. Also, I always thought the sin looked awesome weilding a two-hander, yet melee builds were pretty crappy with her. Time to bust some ideas for one of each!
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?
Something like this may be viable:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WZXOSh!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.
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.
Melee build for wizard of my own:
http://d3db.com/tool/calculator/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.
IF i was even going to try it I would have to use death blossom.
"Just google "diablo 3 gold guide" and magical rainbow covered demons will assault your eyes."
This is something I might play with eventually:
http://d3db.com/tool/calculator/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!!
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.
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.
if you have the idea that a melee wizard is just a barbarian with a different model then no, blizzard never intends that and won't make it possible
Frost nova with shatter = multiple novas.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
Something like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WdgSOX!afh!ccZcYc