Valsu - Battle Mage

[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]

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.

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]

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.

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

[420]

I was checking out this post and it seems like your "Battle Mage" build may benefit from the Critical Mass passive skill:

CRITICAL MASS VIABLE AFTER PATCH (PROOF)

Worth checking out since your build already uses many of the skills mentioned (Spectral Blade, Explosive Blast, and Diamond Skin) and you have some crit chance gear equipped. I may have some extra crit chance caster gear you can use.

-420

[Mo]

Will take a look at it.  Thanks!

[Mo]

OP modified with current skills.

Valsu finally reached level 60.  With Prismatic Armor up, his armor is over 7000 and all resistances are between 700-800.  He's pretty much immune to damage on Hell.  Only the Mallet Lord bosses were able to bring his life down (damn they are strong).

[420]

OP modified with current skills.

Valsu finally reached level 60.  With Prismatic Armor up, his armor is over 7000 and all resistances are between 700-800.  He's pretty much immune to damage on Hell.  Only the Mallet Lord bosses were able to bring his life down (damn they are strong).

Nice sword/shield. What's the damage reduction on 7K armor and 700+ resist all?

-420

[Mo]

Around 73% for the resist and I think around the same for the armor.  Based on level 60 monsters, which don't exist in Inferno...So Im not exactly sure what it turns out to be in reality.

[420]

Around 73% for the resist and I think around the same for the armor.  Based on level 60 monsters, which don't exist in Inferno...So Im not exactly sure what it turns out to be in reality.

Cool, checking out my PvP Wizard build with Energy Armor (Prismatic Armor rune) active he's got the following:

Armor: 7045 (70.13% DR)

Resists: 748 (71.37% DR)

Shield: 24% Block Chance/1446-4704 Block Amount

I don't have any official confirmation but I found the following information while searching the web.

DR from Armor = Armor / (Armor+(50*mLvl))

And some official information from Bashiok:

Previously, Inferno difficulty was mlvl 61 across all of Inferno, and now it starts at mlvl 61 and ramps up quickly in Act I and ends somewhere around 65 (?) in Act IV. We've only increased the difficulty.

-420

EDIT: Example calculations based on the above information using my character's stats.

Character Level: 60
Armor: 7045

Monster Level 60: 7045/(7045+(50*60)) = 0.70134 (70.13% DR)
Monster Level 61: 7045/(7045+(50*61)) = 0.69787 (69.79% DR)
Monster Level 62: 7045/(7045+(50*62)) = 0.69443 (69.44% DR)
Monster Level 63: 7045/(7045+(50*63)) = 0.69103 (69.10% DR)
Monster Level 64: 7045/(7045+(50*64)) = 0.68765 (68.77% DR)
Monster Level 65: 7045/(7045+(50*65)) = 0.68431 (68.43% DR)