The Wizard
In the Blizzcon build the Wizard really lived up to her theme. She was the glass cannon. She dished out the most damage but could also die the fastest. The wizard was my favorite class, mostly because it was the class that gave you the most skills to play with, thanks in part to Archon. Each skill had its use, I never questioned any of their skill picks, at least I didn't after I read what all the skills with there rune effects did.
There was a theme to the build and even though Arcane Torrent had its problems it was the key skill to melt another player down. Teleport comes in third (behind Smoke Screen) as far as escape skills go. Diamond Skin saved my bacon more the a few times, as did, Frost Nova. And, Magic Missile could do some nice damage after a target was disrupted. Even the Passives felt like good picks, with maybe the exception of prodigy.
Diamond Skin with Obsidian Runestone "Crystal Shell"
At first I didn't think 5 seconds was going to be long enough to make this skill useful, I also thought that the amount it absorbed was a ridiculously high number, boy was I wrong. When a Barb could deal out 6k with a crit the Diamond Skin would only last about 2 seconds. A lot of times 2 seconds is all you need to blasted down someone or get the hell out of there with Teleport. The 5 second duration made you have to think when to and when not to use it. Times when I saw a barb already in WotB form and he was leaping at me I wouldn't hesitate to use it.
25sec cooldown felt like a reasonable amount of time. If they had the passive "Evocation" (reduces all cooldowns by 20%) it would have been nice, but not a game changer. On the aesthetics side, the spell looks cool and at times it could be used as a deterrent. Some players would turn around and attack another target if they saw a Wizard with Diamond Skin on. It was a great skill and gave the Wizard the survivability she needed.
Frost Nova with Crimson Runestone "Bone Chill"
Frost Nova was most effective on Barbs and other Wizards, because they didn't have a way to break the freeze. Most players didn't know about the skills that broke the freeze effect so it never felt like it was a waste to use. Not only was Frost Nova a good crowed control skill but with Bone Chill it more then doubled your damage out put on the frozen targets for the duration of the Freeze/chill effect. So it gave the skill both an offensive and defensive aspect.
With the skills duel function I found myself using it as soon as the cooldown was up, in a ton of different application. I would use Frost Nova on a single target then use Arcane Torrent then just melt them with a few Magic Missiles. Other times If I saw someone running to a health globe I could Teleport, Frost Nova, and steal the health globe before they got out of the Freeze effect. Frost Nova synergized very well with other skills. The damage Frost Nova did when activated ranged from 75 to the high 200s with a crit. That damage was just the icing on the cake really. I can see this being a very common skill when the full game comes out.
Teleport with Alabaster Runestone "Wormhole"
We all know what Teleport does, but a few months ago there was a large debate on what the runestone Wormhole did. Some thought it changed the skill so that as long as kept casting it within a time frame you would never have to worry about the skill going to cooldown. Others felt that it just gave you a small window of time to cast it as many times as you wanted before the cooldown started. Well the latter were right. After casting the spell you have 2 seconds to cast Teleport as many times as you want/can. From my experiences, that was about 4 times. Four times was more then enough to get you to the other side of the arena and then some.
Hands down, Teleport is still king of the movement skills. It was never more evident during the match when you wanted to get away from a group of opponents. You could Teleport in an L shape and be guaranteed that you were safe. Teleport wasn't just for running away. It was also great to catch up to people so you could finish them off.
One thing I did a few times was to Teleport to a fleeing player and freeze them with Frost nova Teleport again (to get some distance in case things went south) and finish them with a few Magic Missiles. Teleport could also help line you up to get more then one player when you went into Archon form. So, although it wasn't as powerful as some hoped, (with the Alabaster runestone) It still made the skill awesome. (besides if it was the other way it would have been OP)
Magic Missile with Crimson Runestone "Charged Blast"
We have seen it a million times in the beta, but we have never seen it with the Crimson Runestone. To tell you the truth I don't think you would even know it had a rune in it. The spell effects look almost exactly the same. Crimson seems a little bigger and a little brighter, but that's it. The rune doesn't change the color to red or anything that would make it really stand out from the unruned skill. The only way you would know is when you get hit and see your health disappear a lot faster then normal. Something that this build is really good at.
Now, although Magic Missile does good damage when it became the face melter was when you paired it up with Arcane Torrent. Arcane Torrent had the rune that put a debuff on a hit enemy that caused that player to suffer a 100%+ more damage from any Arcane source. On top of Arcane Torrent there was the damage bonus from Frost Nova. So, If you attacked someone that had been hit with both Frost Nova and Arcane Torrent your Magic Missile would land for over 450% more damage then a normal unruned Magic Missile.
A normal hit was around 500, a normal crit was about 1300. Big crits with everything going you could see 4-5k crits. It didn't take long for something to die at that rate. Smart players would just run, and most did but unfortunately for them the Wizard had Teleport. This build also had the passive skill "Prodigy" so every Magic Missile you cast gave you back 5 arcane power. This skill was prof that a level one skill could be useful even to a 60th lvl character.
Arcane Torrent with Crimson Runestone "Disruption"
The skill description doesn't really tell you how effective this skill is. It just tells you how much damage it does, and it reads nice, but its not all rainbows and unicorns. The Torrent throws Arcane bolts up in the air and then they fly towards the targeted enemy. In short, its not fast, but if your target isn't running you will hit them.
When you hit an enemy they where Disrupted. Being disrupted put debuff that lasted (with a 7th lvl rune) about 10 secs. When the debuff is active the target take more then 100% more damage from any Arcane source. As I talked about with Magic Missile, this defuff was a big proponent to its success. Where it helped MM it also helped Arcane Torrent's own damage.
Damage wise, it did about 350-750+ (the high number are crits) per hit and if the enemy doesn't move much you will get about 3 hits a sec. The skill can be intoxicating to use, and most of the time in a bad way. A lot of players would find themselves over using the skill trying to bring down opponents. When it would have been faster to just hit them a few times with it then to switch to MM. Arcane Torrent is a great looking skill and with the runestone it is a good damage buff, but it wasn't a very efficient skill. (The team might want to let this spell attack locations without line of site or give it a small amount of splash when it hits the ground to even out how slow it is.)
Archon with Crimson Runestone "Improved Archon"
I saved the best (also the longest) for last. When you use the Archon skill your character explodes with energy and begins to float above the ground. Its a very cool looking skill. When you activate the skill you lose the effects of Diamond Skin, (you may lose other buffs as well but I never noticed if they were gone) to my surprise during one game. I tried to use Diamond Skin when I was about half health. I thought it would be a good time to go Archon, so I could take some extra damage as I wretched some fools. Well, the only fool that was wretched was me.
When you do go Archon your armor and resistances are increased it didn't seem to help that much. There were two common reactions to a Wizard going Archon. Most groups that played as a team would gang up on the Wizard and smash her down fast. The other group that weren't working as a team would run. When they didn't nuke the Wizard or run, that's when they started dropping like flies.
The most popular skill was the Beam, it worked just like Disintegrate only it had a shorter range. I don't know if the skill does crits, because I can't remember ever seeing any when I used it. The beam did do a low of 900 to a high 1300 a second. That was without things being hit by Arcane Torrent or being Frozen by Frost Nova. If they had either debuff on them they died fast.
There were two other skills to use but to be honest they really didn't do nearly as much as the Beam. One skill looked like Wave of Force but it didn't seem to have any knock back nor did it have any slowing effects on enemies. It did do about around 900 damage. The Last skill was a melee ranged skill it seemed, I only used it once and don't remember what it did. (it obviously wasn't that good if I didn't remember it) Most of the times players didn't want to get anywhere near the Archon so those close range skills hardly ever got used.
It only took one encounter with an Archon to know you don't want to mess with a healthy one solo. One that was at about half health would go down rather fast from a WoTB Barb and a few Hammers. A Archon Wizard really felt like a game changer but they weren't unbeatable.
Passive Skills
Blur: This one was helpful against Monks and Barbs
Prodigy: I never was low on Arcane Power so I am not sure if this passive was ever needed, With all the cooldown skills I think I would have taken Evocation instead.
Temporal Flux: With everything (save for Frost Nova) doing Arcane damage this was a good passive to have. The slow wasn't great but it was better then some of the other classes movement impairing.
Sum it up
The Wizard was a lot of fun to play as. The build made sense, and worked better then most of the other classes. She did damage but wasn't totally out of control. She could be killed rather quickly if her skills were on cooldown. But, if she had Frost Nova or Teleport useable she could escape. There will be a lot of Wizards running around when the game comes out so beware.
Log in to comment