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Valsu - Battle Mage

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Mo:
Bio: My character from the original Diablo, Valsu is a master of arcane magics. 

Concept: As I already have a ranged character in Tristam, the thought of another ranged character seemed redundant to me.  I therefore decided to make Valsu into a battle mage.  This means he will be most dangerous running into battle and engaging enemies at close range.

Profile
Skills

Strategy: Since wizards are typically pretty squishy, fighting primarily in close quarters should be challenging.  Skills and items will need to be primarily focused on defense and high resistance.


Passive Skills:: We have Blur for extra defense, Evocation to speed up cooldowns and Astral Presence to increase AP. 

Action Skills:  My skill bar has pretty much settled into the following skills.  Valsu rushes into battle ideally surrounding himself with foes on all sides.  Frost Nova is used to freeze enemies for a few seconds (they also takes bonus damage thanks to the rune), Exlposive Blast's Chain Reaction begins to damage nearby enemies.  Valsu then starts to rain down meteors.  Diamond Skin is brought up when enemies emerge from the icy prisons.  More Explosives Blasts are unleashed and more Meteors rain down.  It's an AoE damage fest.

Aside from Diamond Skin, Energy Armor is used for defense.

Weapon of Choice: Sword and Shield.

cuchulann:
Looks promising so far. I tried a similar set of skills during NM but focused more on damage buffs. I also used arcane orbit instead of disintegrate so I was pure point blank range damage. I would suggest trying slow time with time warp. As it not only slows enemies and projectiles, it also adds 20% damage so it is both defensive and offensive.

420:
I tried something similar with my second wizard but ended up going back to a caster/nuke build similar to my first wiz. I think a melee wizard build could work but I didn't have the patience to experiment with it too much. Keep us informed on this build's progress.

The changes in 1.0.4 are supposed to make this build more viable so I may play with it again when the patch goes live.

-420

Mo:

--- Quote from: cuchulann on August 15, 2012, 10:27:20 PM ---I would suggest trying slow time with time warp. As it not only slows enemies and projectiles, it also adds 20% damage so it is both defensive and offensive.

--- End quote ---

Hmm.  I really like that idea.  I guess it would replace Wave of Force.  The cooldown is a bit long so we'll need to see.  Wave of Force is offensive and defensive as well as it dmgs and moves enemies away.  Stretch Time could also be used if playing with a Barb or Monk.

420:

--- Quote from: Mo on August 16, 2012, 09:52:23 AM ---Hmm.  I really like that idea.  I guess it would replace Wave of Force.  The cooldown is a bit long so we'll need to see.  Wave of Force is offensive and defensive as well as it dmgs and moves enemies away.  Stretch Time could also be used if playing with a Barb or Monk.

--- End quote ---
I tried WoF with a melee wizard build. It's a good panic button when you are surrounded and want to run but, in most situations, knockback is actually detrimental to a melee build as it often knocks targets out of attack range.

A good combo I found with WoF is this (but you gotta do it all than less than a second):
Teleport (w/ Wormhole) into a mob, drop a Frost Nova and a Wave of Force then Teleport back out.

-420

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