Wizard AoE Build

This Wizard AoE build is built for high damage and high AoE ability. It’s somewhat of a derivation of my previous Wizard Farming Build where I focused on travel speed, arcane regeneration and AoE. This time, I focused mostly on AoE and passed on the teleportation. This makes this build more suitable for farming or playing in groups where you won’t necessary want to race ahead of them anyways. It’s definitely not a gimmick build so it doesn’t have as many down sides as the farming build.

The playstyle of this build revolves around using Diamond Skin, Blizzard and then Arcane Orbs. While also using Improved Archon whenever it’s available and there is a big obstacle ahead.

Without further ado here is my Wizard AoE Build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#acXlOm!bYX!YYZYbc

Magic Missile (Primary) - The only reason you’ll be using Magic Missile is when you’re out of Arcane Power so it’s runed to regenerate 4 AP per cast. This should help you get the 20 AP needed for your next Arcane Orb.

Arcane Orb (Secondary) - Arcane Orb with Tap the Source allows you to cast many more orbs beforing running out of AP. You’ll see below that Diamond Skin is runed to give you 6 seconds at the beginning of new combat to cast Blizzard for only 20 AP and then orbs for only 5 AP.

Diamond Skin (Defensive) - I hijacked Diamond Skin, which is usually a defensive skill (it can still be used as one), but I runed it with Prism which gives you 6 seconds where all your spells cost 15 AP less than normal. This drops Blizzard’s cost to 20 AP and Arcane Orbs to 5 AP. Ridiculous.

Blizzard (Force) - Blizzard is the opening offensive spell of this build (after putting up Diamond Skin). For that reason, I enchnaced it with the Stark Winter rune which increases it’s diameter to 22 yards. This is ridiculous considering it will only cost 20 AP when used after Diamond Skin. It will also slow enemies, setting them up to be pummeled with Arcane Orbs.

Energy Armor (Conjuration) - I runed Energy Armor with Energy Tap which gives you 20 extra Arcane Power. This is going to give you more kill power in short big battles; which this build is optimized for.

Archon (Mastery) - Improved Archon is going to be the ‘oh-shit’ ability of this build. It’s also going to be nice to have during long boss fights. There’s a bit of flexibility here as well.

Evocation (Passive) - The first passive is Evocation, this reduces cooldowns by 15%. This brings Diamond Skin down to a 13 second CD. This allows you to use it more often in longer boss or elite style encounters.

Glass Cannon (Passive) - This passives job is to increase damage. It does that with a direct 15% damage buff. This costs 10% resistance, but whatever.

Astral Presence (Passive) - The last passive, Astral Presence, gives you another 20 AP. This is going to create a huge pool of Arcane Power for you to use when entering new fights. This is going to be bad ass.

Why this build is awesome - Play style. It’s all about play style. I rather enjoy running into a room, dropping a MASSIVE blizzard and then nuking the shit out of everyone with Arcane Orbs. This build seems like it’s optimized pretty well to do maximum damage over a moderate amount of time. This is opposed to a lot of damage over a short period of time or long sustained damage which could be two other ways to go.

Why this build sucks - There is a lot of focus on AoE which means that if you’re fighting a single target you might not do optimal damage. There is no strong single target ability here. If this becomes a real problem you could forego Energy Armor (using elective mode) and pickup a direct damage ability

What do you think? Do you have a better build? Let me know if you do I’d be happy to share it here!

Important: Many of the strategies and tips I share here were originally inspired by the people at the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forum. If you're serious about making the big bucks in Diablo 3, or just being the best players, you need to signup ASAP.

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1 Comments.

  1. This build just destroys a room of enemies. Thank you, you brought my love of spell casters back :smile: . It RAPES :cool: . Boss encounters are a bit of a bitch :roll: but spamming some health pots and running around waiting for cds is the way to go.

    If you do encounter a boss that is too hard for the mass of aoe’s this build has, swap out Arcane Orb (really this boss has to kick your nuts in to do this) and pick up Ray of Frost or Disintegrate. rof does more single and dis lasts longer but does less but can pierce through enemies – helpful mini arc effect for hell/inferno.

    Well done on this guide.

    Regards
    Brian

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