I'm taking my thread and turning it into a blog post, seems more appropriate.

Melee-zard (Sword Sorc)

Without knowing how much damage monsters on Nightmare actually deal and how much armor you can realistically get as a Wizard, it's hard to say if this build will be viable.

Spectral Blade - Golden (Indigo)

The only logical choice of signature spells. Golden will make sense if the Arcane Power generation is necessary to keep refreshing Explosive Blast. If not, then Indigo makes the most sense with the additional range and damage.

Explosive Blast - Alabaster (Crimson/Indigo)

PBAoE Arcane Power dump. Provided the charges fire off quickly enough, Alabaster will provide the optimal damage but if not, Crimson or Indigo would make more sense depending on how fast Arcane Power can be generated.

Ice Armor - Golden

Bonus armor plus a LOT MORE bonus armor if you're actively being hit, which a Wizard at melee range is going to be.

Magic Weapon - Alabaster

Unclear if this will synergize and grant increased damage and life drain to Spectral Blade. If not, life-drain is still incredibly useful for any melee character.

Diamond Skin - Indigo (Obsidian)

Combined with Evocation, Diamond Skin will never expire. Of course if enemies are consistently out-damaging the shield in 5 seconds, it may be smarter to boost the absorption amount rather than duration.

Slow Time - Golden

Basically 35% damage reduction for free plus an easy way out of ranged damage. With the reduced cooldown and Evocation, you should never be without it for more than 3 seconds at a time.

Galvanizing Ward

Free life regen plus a bigger buffer to avoid forgetting to refresh your armor.

Blur

20% less melee damage for a melee character.

Evocation

20% reduced cooldowns plus smart rune selection will help make sure that you rarely have to go without key abilities Diamond Skin and Slow Time.

Magic Find Barb

When they first announced D3, the Barbarian seemed like the last class I wanted to play. I've always been averse to melee characters in general and, even though I ran around a fair bit in Diablo II with my WW Barb, it was never nearly as fun as my Bolt/Orb Sorc and Javazon. Now that I've been poking around I've made an interesting discovery that has made me completely flip my opinion of the Barbarian.

Anyone who was super serious about D2 knows that in that game, magic find was king. "Playing" D2 meant getting a Sorc to a high enough level to repeatedly kill Mephisto/Baal/Pindleskin/cows while rocking nothing but magic find gear and magic find charms. Well in D3 it seems that Barbarians are the only class that effectively get a bonus magic find effect from their abilities with proper Runestones. I made this build to take full advantage of this unique ability.

Frenzy - Crimson

The idea behind this build is maximizing the effectiveness of Battle Rage which gives all critical hits a 20% chance to drop additional treasure or health globs. For this purpose Frenzy makes the most sense as a rage generator. Unlike other abilities that increase attack damage, Frenzy increases attack speed and more attacks means more chances to crit. Since none of the rune effects improve the chance to crit, I figured the most sensible one would be Crimson which grants a maximum 120% increase to Frenzy damage.

War Cry - Alabaster (Obsidian)

More appealing for the ability to frontload an encounter with a free 30 Fury, the bonus max health/health regen seemed most in line with the general theme, staying up close and swinging for as long as possible. Depending on how pervasive elemental damage is at higher difficulties, it may be more efficient to slot in an Obsidian rune instead for the extra resists.

Threatening Shout - Obsidian

Only there because it grants a 22% chance to drop extra treasure. With its short duration it may only be useful right before the enemy dies depending on how fast Fury can be generated.

Hammer of the Ancients - Golden

Synergy! An ability that grants a whopping 55% chance for additional treasure or health globes whenever it crits. It also has an innate 15% critical hit bonus, making it the defacto Fury dump.

Battle Rage - Obsidian

The inspiration behind this entire build, grants a bonus to crit and a 20% chance for additional drops whenever any attack crits.

Overpower - Crimson

But you need to be able to deal damage too right? Not only does this greatly improve group combat with a strong AoE skill, but it costs no Fury (you just need to crit with an attack to use it), and it grants you a buff for an additional 22% crit with the right rune.

Bloodthirst

Maybe this is just the D2 player in me but I feel like health drain is a key to success in Diablo.

Ruthless

More crit chance and more crit damage, a no-brainer when it comes to a build like this.

Inspiring Presence (Weapons Master/Superstition)

More passive health regen seems like a good thing and having to cast Battle Rage less often means more Fury for Hammer of the Ancients. However, if Fury is plentiful then it may be worth picking up Weapons Master instead for the extra 5% crit with Maces/Axes. On the other hand, if elemental damage is the endgame killer then Superstition may become a necessity.

ROCKETEER! Demon Hunter

Demon Hunter was another class that seemed boring, mostly because I couldn't find any set of skills that would make it resemble my beloved Javazon. The thought of having to manage of two separate resources just made it seem more unappealing. Then I saw a little passive ability that mentioned an extra 100% damage from rockets. Wait what? Rockets?

It seems like a number of Demon Hunter abilities can also, with the proper rune, fire off homing rockets. HOMING ROCKETS. Of course once I became aware of this I knew that I HAD to make a rocket man/rocketeer build.

Multishot - Obsidian

The go-to ability for attacking large groups of enemies + rockets.

Strafe - Obsidian

The ability to attack while moving + rockets sound amazingly useful when fighting smaller groups/single enemies.

Rapid Fire - Obsidian

For optimal single-target damage + rockets, this ability is the way to go. Also with Marked for Death synergy, it should actually generate Hatred instead of costing Hatred.

Marked for Death - Golden

The bonus damage is just the icing. A 40% chance to generate 35 Hatred every second off of any of your attacks combined with 3-6 attacks per second with either Strafe or Rapid Fire equates to infinite hatred as long as Marked for Death is active.

Companion - Crimson

With all the bases covered as far as active damage is concerned, the remaining slots should be dedicated to passive or fire-and-forget damage. Free damage plus a snare that happens on its own is great. Also spiders are awesome.

Sentry - Obsidian

More passive damage plus passive rockets. Woot.

Fundamentals

Infinite hatred with Marked for Death is only useful when your target is marked for death. Weaker enemies will likely be dying too fast to warrant the Discipline costs of refreshing Marked for Death which means an alternative source of Hatred generation is necessary. Fundamentals seems like an incredibly solid way to achieve this, just 2 normal shots = a free Multishot.

Custom Engineering

Double duration for Marked for Death and Sentry effectively doubles your Discipline regeneration. If Discipline regenerates fast enough this may prove to be unnecessary, but Blizzard seems to be implying that it is verrry slooooow.

Ballistics

When making a rocket themed character, double rocket damage seems like a good idea.