What I do know is that the idea here is a melee Wizard. Ok, yes, it's probably not a great idea. Offensively they have very little to offer in this build other than Archon. This build comes purely from a desire to know if it's do-able though; if the Wizard can have one of the highest survivable builds.
I've always enjoyed the idea of seeing if wizards can be melee/survival focused in games. I know it's not their main shtick. Wizards are always portrayed as the dude with a stick standing back shooting fire and lightning. But if you have unimaginable power at your fingertips, why can't you use it to turn yourself into a walking fortress? That's what this aims to do.
Mouse Button 1 - Spectral Blade with Healing Blades. Melee attack with health restore.
Mouse Button 2 - Diamond Skin with Mirror Skin. Damage absorption that makes enemies take damage, yes please.
Ability 1 - Familiar with Ancient Guardian. The build won't be attacking a whole lot on its own due to only having one offensive ability, so having a familiar is useful. Then making that familiar able to absorb damage for me if things start to go south, bonus.
Ability 2 - Ice Armor with Crystalize. I know that taking something that would cause more damage when I'm hit would probably be the smarter choice, but getting more and more armor each time I'm struck sounded too appealing for the idea of this walking fortress.
Ability 3 - Magic Weapon with Blood Weapon. Of course I'm going to go with what gives me more healing as I damage guys.
Ability 4 - Archon with Pure Power. I could have gone for a constantly usable ranged spell instead of Archon, but I've always been a fan of self-transformation spells and it being a rather heavy "oh snap!" button. Plus being transformed increases armor and resistances. Seems right to me. It's like making it through the initial siege just to pour the boiling tar on top of the attackers. I can't pour the tar on them often, but when I do, it burns.
Passive 1 - Galvanizing Ward. This is all about survival which means longer shield and health regen is an absolute yes.
Passive 3 - Evocation. Having almost no real offensive spells to speak of, reducing the cooldown on Archon further and reducing it on Diamond Skin sounds as good as anything else to me.
I know that this may be a bit of a wasted build. Everyone always seems to focus on the big flashy hits and that this build has a lot of weak points - no real range to speak of, most of the damage comes from me getting my own butt kicked, there's no controller aspects to any of it.. but I couldn't resist the urge seeing how many strong defensive spells and abilities the Wizard has. I have to know if this is going to work and be possible. I want to experiment with D3 and want to know if these outlying weird builds are actually workable or if they're total garbage, but the potential is there, and so I must know. I could have gone with something else, I could have gone with a "plagues of Egypt" Witch Doctor, but after I made this build, I was sold on the Wizard being my first class to play just so I could know if the fortress can move, or if the Wizard is stuck living life as a glass cannon.
0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#dlXfRm!fUg!YbbZcb
What I do know is that the idea here is a melee Wizard. Ok, yes, it's probably not a great idea. Offensively they have very little to offer in this build other than Archon. This build comes purely from a desire to know if it's do-able though; if the Wizard can have one of the highest survivable builds.
I've always enjoyed the idea of seeing if wizards can be melee/survival focused in games. I know it's not their main shtick. Wizards are always portrayed as the dude with a stick standing back shooting fire and lightning. But if you have unimaginable power at your fingertips, why can't you use it to turn yourself into a walking fortress? That's what this aims to do.
Mouse Button 1 - Spectral Blade with Healing Blades. Melee attack with health restore.
Mouse Button 2 - Diamond Skin with Mirror Skin. Damage absorption that makes enemies take damage, yes please.
Ability 1 - Familiar with Ancient Guardian. The build won't be attacking a whole lot on its own due to only having one offensive ability, so having a familiar is useful. Then making that familiar able to absorb damage for me if things start to go south, bonus.
Ability 2 - Ice Armor with Crystalize. I know that taking something that would cause more damage when I'm hit would probably be the smarter choice, but getting more and more armor each time I'm struck sounded too appealing for the idea of this walking fortress.
Ability 3 - Magic Weapon with Blood Weapon. Of course I'm going to go with what gives me more healing as I damage guys.
Ability 4 - Archon with Pure Power. I could have gone for a constantly usable ranged spell instead of Archon, but I've always been a fan of self-transformation spells and it being a rather heavy "oh snap!" button. Plus being transformed increases armor and resistances. Seems right to me. It's like making it through the initial siege just to pour the boiling tar on top of the attackers. I can't pour the tar on them often, but when I do, it burns.
Passive 1 - Galvanizing Ward. This is all about survival which means longer shield and health regen is an absolute yes.
Passive 2 - Blur. 20% reduced melee damage. Survival survival survival.
Passive 3 - Evocation. Having almost no real offensive spells to speak of, reducing the cooldown on Archon further and reducing it on Diamond Skin sounds as good as anything else to me.
I know that this may be a bit of a wasted build. Everyone always seems to focus on the big flashy hits and that this build has a lot of weak points - no real range to speak of, most of the damage comes from me getting my own butt kicked, there's no controller aspects to any of it.. but I couldn't resist the urge seeing how many strong defensive spells and abilities the Wizard has. I have to know if this is going to work and be possible. I want to experiment with D3 and want to know if these outlying weird builds are actually workable or if they're total garbage, but the potential is there, and so I must know. I could have gone with something else, I could have gone with a "plagues of Egypt" Witch Doctor, but after I made this build, I was sold on the Wizard being my first class to play just so I could know if the fortress can move, or if the Wizard is stuck living life as a glass cannon.