Wizard Stats Preview

Making gold and real money in Diablo 3 is going to require a lot of specialized knowledge, not just about your class but about the other 4 character classes in the game. Knowing what a Daibo is and why it exists will help us know what to salvage, sell and keep for later. The Wizard is the first class we’ll take a detailed pre-release look at. I wish there were concrete answers but unfortunately much of it is speculation or beta observations. Regardless, let’s take a look at the Wizard class and see what it has in store for us in 2+ months when Diablo is released.

Wizard Play Style

There’s no surprise here, the wizard has a ranged play-style using spells using arcane power and other passive abilities to do mitigate and do damage. You will get to pick 6 skills from a total of 29 active skills at any give time along with 3 skills from a total of 16 passive skills. You’ll be able to change them whenever you visit town, giving you maximum flexibility. But that’s all old news, what about equipment?

Wizard Equipment

The Wizard can wear 3 pieces of equipment that are specific to them. On their head they can wear either the typical helm or a wizard hat. The Wizard is also the only class that can use orbs in their off hand and a wand in their main hand. Why wear class specific gear though? The wizard hat, wand and orb come with several affixes that benefit the Wizard like Arcane Power on Crit (Foreboding, Ominous, Terrifying and Abominable) and Max Arcane Power (Focused, Mental, Cerebral and Insane). This basically means they will have a better chance of having those two mods on them compared to the generic helm that all classes can wear. Although it’s not unlikely that you’ll end up wearing a regular helmet because they also have the chance of having modifiers for specific wizard spells.

Wizard Stats

With the major system changes a month ago stats are very straight forward. The only ones that will interest the Wizard are Intellect and maybe Vitality. A wizard hat, orb or wand with Strength or Dexterity basically has a wasted stat on it, since the Wizard doesn’t really benefit from those stats.

With stats so simple much of the complexity comes from item affixes and mods. An affix is a a group of mods that are commonly used like ‘Foreboding’ which is + Arcane Power on Critical Strike. You will only see this affix on wizard hats and there are affixes specific to wizard gear such like Arcane Power on Crit, Max Arcane Power, Elemental Damage, etc.

More importantly there are dozens of modifiers that will benefit wizards like Critical Damage %, Wizard Damage %, Casting Speed %, Max Arcane Power, and there are mods for most of the active abilities for Wizards like Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, Meteor, Magic Missile, etc. It’s hard to tell exactly which stats in what combinations will be good to focus on or be the most valuable in the end game, but I imagine there will be a lot of players trying different things with their Wizard.

Here are some basic things to start looking at. If you have anything to add or think I’ve got something in there that shouldn’t be please let me know in the comments below.

Special Equipment Wizard Hat
Orbs (off-had)
Wands (main hand)
Stats Intellect – + Wizard Damage
Vitality – + Max Health
Item Mods + Critical Damage %
+ Max/Min Damage %
+ Wizard Damage %
Damage Reduction from ranged attacks by %
Arcane Power Max
Arcane Power on Crit
+ Casting Speed %
+ Intelligence
+ Any Wizard Skills

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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