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kitsu

[Wizard] CQB Wizard for T1

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So far I would guess that this is a T1 only build, and it's not going to get you the fastest kills. I'm sure everyone who wants to play a max dps Wiz has already hunted down info on how to do that. I want to play my Wiz at all, but my main toon is a monk. I like playing a monk because it has an answer for everything. you never come across something that is your weakness. Wizards aren't typically like that. Most Wizards are fine with kill or be killed style play, and that's cool, but I really want something that has more answers.

 

The main thing I hate is walls. Disintigrate can shoot through them and all that, but they still trap and corner you and it's always dangerous. Teleport is okay, but the cd on it is way too long. Black Hole - Event Horizon is the answer to pretty much all affixes. If anything from ice to walls to lasers to homing projectiles is giving you trouble, Event Horizon will make everything better.

 

Key Abilities

Spectral Blade - Ice Blades

Frost Nova - Bone Chill

Arcane Orb - Frozen Orb

Black Hole - Event Horizon

Magic Weapon - Deflection

Archon

 

Passives

Audacity

Evocation

Prodigy

Blur

 

Beneficial gear

Azurewrath

 

Beneficial stats

Cooldown Reduction

Crit Chance

Crit Hit Damage

Frost Damage

 

This build mainly relies on Cool Down Reduction to let you cast Black Hole and Frost Nova within 4 seconds of each other. Great places to get CDR are Diamond in helm, on shoulders, on a weapon, and the Evocation Passive. Once you're over 40% CDR you might as well look for other helpful stats. You want a neck with Frost Dam, Int, Crit, and Crit Dam, so neck is out for CDR. if you can get it on one of your rings, that's great. Hands is also a decent slot for CDR, but Spectral Blades does benefit quite a bit from Attack Speed, so you'll have to find your own balance there. Before I found my Azurewrath I had a yellow wand that had int and 9% CDR and I was up over 50% CDR even without the 2 set from Captain Crimson's Trimmings.

 

Event Horizon needs to be pretty close to lasers or ice to gobble them up, but it kills walls and devours projectiles from a pretty nice distance. The grouping is, as always with Black Hole, amazing. Couple that with the power of Audacity + Ice Blades and you can start to be somewhat dangerous. Just as enemies are about to spread out from the Black Hole, throw in a Frost Nova and empty your mana into Arcane orbs and everything should be pretty much gone. If anything is still alive, once you have over 40% CD Reduction, Black Hole will be back up a second or two after Frost Nova's freeze ends. You can just repeat this endlessly while waiting for a good chance to pop Archon for some laughs.

 

The Defensive power of Deflection is actually quite significant and will easily keep you alive during the second between BH and FN. I have fought a few pesky rift guardians that had things like vortex and laser, and I just saved BH for when a laser would be in a bad spot and nulled it. One on one can be a bit weak with this setup, so it may be best to kite to a pack so you can Archon.

 

A note for wizards on sources. When buying them in mass from Kadala, the max primaries a source can have is 5. CDR is possible on a source, and so is mana per crit. they can roll up to 10% crit chance and the max damage roll is something around 330-390. 330 being the max amount that can be added to your weapon's minimum damage and 390 being the max amount that can be added to your weapon's maximum damage.

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I'm still really liking this build. Things I look out for include:

 

Yellows

Helm: int, arcane orb damage boost, crit chance, socket

Boots: int, arcane orb damage boost - good slot for int, vit, and all resist so max your run speed with paragon

Neck: Cold Damage, int, crit chance, crit dam

Ring: int, crit chance, crit dam, cd reduction

Source: int, crit chance, crits grant mana, arcane orb damage boost

 

Because int also gives you all resist your weak point will be armor. I'm currently under 7k armor so I use my paragon for Life Per Second rather than the % armor boost. If you do get a chest or pants with a 500 armor roll, that slot is a good place to have armor rather than all resist. 300 armor roll slots are usually better rolled all resist. I find that as I fill a toon out with legendary crafteds and get my armor above 7k, I can then swap my paragon from LPS to % armor boost and then favor gear that has Life Per Kill. When your amor is close to 9k and your resists are over 1000, you wont need as much healing in T1-3, and LPK can actually be quite a nice secondary to have. 

 

Crafted Sets

None of these are worth a large dps loss, you need good rolls. So you farm a few tokens and see what you get and then do some rifts for fun. the point of the crafted legendaries is to allow you to get the higher potential stat rolls across multiple armor slots. So where a full set of yellows would max out around 6-7k main stat, oranges and greens max out around 8-9k.

 

Cain's Destiny - 8% attack speed 2 set - ideally head and hands

Aughild's Authority - damage reductions and elite damage bonus - shoulder, chest, and bracers

Captain Crimson's Trimmings - 10% CDR 2 set - waist and pants

 

Both Cain's and Crimson's have boots for wiggle room. The only tough rolls will be cold damage, crit chance and int on bracers, and int, vit, and CDR on shoulders. Rerolling chests for 3 sockets usually costs more mats than remaking chests until you get 3 sockets. Same with pants.

 

Do not underestimate the power of elite damage bonus. when a non Sun Keeper weapon or ring rolls 7% or less it's negligible, but the bonus from the 3pc Aughild's and even the minimum 25% roll from Stone of Jordan is a significant boost. The stone of jordan can also roll elemental damage, so an ideal SoJ for this build would have Cold Dam, int, crit chance, elite dam. The yellow text on the Stone of Jordan is very true. The Stone of Jordan is far more valuable than it's appearance would suggest. Men have given much to possess it.

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got an arcane wand and neck so i went full arcane. it does make archon pretty legit even at base power 1v1, but i miss the control and awesomeness of frost damage.

 

i can see why ppl like wizards. the ability to swap to whatever element is on your gear is pretty fun. although after playing arcane a ton, i still like frost.

 

not having a stone of jordan is pretty upsetting. that thing is just so powerful, i'll probly swap to whatever element it has on it. i was hoping for frost, but fire has so many options and arcane is fun too. it's nice that it wont matter what it is as long as i get one and get crit dam onto it.

 

it may also be worth noting that with arcane power on crit on my helm and my source, i can almost cast disintegrate indefinitely. any primary skill bonus damage now seems like a waste and should just be rerolled to defensives.

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Personally, I think monks have the only primary skills worth getting +damage on (holy hundred fists does silly amounts of damage for a primary), and on a number of my toons I don't even run primaries anymore.  Arcane power on crit is an enormously powerful affix for wizards because, as you say, it basically removes the need for primaries except sometimes on pure single target.  (Then again, hard single target fights tend to involve lots of running away, and wizard resource regen is stupid fast anyway.)

 

I think the easiest way to ease into wizard is arcane power on crit + crit chance, and any crit damage you can swing while you're at it.  Black Hole - Event Horizon is a godsend and will make you very popular in groups (especially against arcane frozen hordes).  From there?  Whatever you want!  I got a Triumvirate shortly after hitting 70, so I'm rocking the combo passive and having a lot of fun with it, but from what I've seen wizards have truly staggering options for being "viable".

 

Happy hunting!

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i didnt realize you could reroll the element on andarial's visage. I also found a source with spectral blade damage and have been somewhat impressed with the output. as long as its thrown or ice blades

 

i tried my arcane build in t2. i finished a round of bounties and a rift, but i died a few times. i think im gonna go back to my azurewrath and frozen orb. i just love frost nova and the run and gun that arcane orb allows.

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