this build works fine

This build is really great, I've been using it for a week now, too.
I used to take evocation as a passive but I tried Galvanizing Ward because of your guide and it's just awesome for the following reason:

I always struggled with reflecting champions, because my healthpool (20k) is pretty low. But with galvanizing ward, they became really easy for me.
Just always spam venom hydra, no blizzard, and run for it. the galvanizing ward will replenish most of the hp you lose to your hydras damage on the champs
and when you feel comfortable, just use diamond skin + piercing orb to deal a little more damage.
But dont spam left mouse without diamond skin or you die pretty fast.

Thanks alot for your work.


btw, solo'ed act 1 inferno and half act2 with it and just got around 20k life and 25k dps.

I've been trying this and I must admit it works like a charm.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Btw I really enjoyed reading your tale-tell guide. You got some talent there
Keep up the good work !

Meh.
As someone who was used to go till Inferno with Disintegrate (Chaos Nexus) and Archon as main skills used, this build feels horribly wrong for me. Up till now I played on a "kill them before they have a chance to kill you" basis, but this just simply doesn't cut it anymore on Inferno. Halfway through Act 1 it started to not work properly anymore, I cannot imagine how much worse it must be in the following acts.
So well, trying this out, I severely dislike it. Don't get me wrong, it might just be the one single viable wiz solo build for Inferno and I propably go on using it, but it just... isn't much fun. It's an ultra-defensive type of play where I was used to the complete opposite. But I guess to be able to use Archon / Disintegrate properly, I need at least 50k dps or rather more. 23k dps with 40k health just didn't cut it. But eh, I recon', these are just my personal problems. Nothing against the build, ofc.

This post was edited by Nehilim on May 29 2012 04:26am

you should think about trying a different character.

personally, the wizard turned out to be something different than i had in mind. meh

I solo'd izual with a diff build the first time

venom hydra / blizzard

basically only skill i used i ran in circles and let tyreal kill adds.

I have no problem with kiting at all, I also did it with Disintegrate (yes, mind you, that works especially well with Diamond Skin). I also played Sorc in D2, but well, we had a viable Teleport there, which we lack now.
I just dislike the time I need to kill stuff now, because of the extremely low damage hydra/blizz does in comparison to Disintegrate (and don't even let me get started with the 300%++ the archon does).

Again, nothing against the guide. It seems to be the only real viable build out there for Inferno.

Also been using something similar for a while, but annoying as shit imo. All you do is run, blizz + hydra. Maybe a few orbs if they frozen/slowed.

But mobs with tele/vortex are usually instadead anyway

Archon worked fine for me (30k health/30k dps) in a1 (replacing diamond skin), although the rest of the build was this defensive stuff. Kite your way through normal stuff and blow the shit out of blue/yellow monsters with archon. A2+ is another story

I have to admit to agreeing with everybody who has stated that this build doesn't do much in the way of actual fun. In D2, you did roughly the same thing, but instead of actually running around, you teleported around the area and just killed everything. In D3, with teleport so enormously nerfed, your only choice is to kite away into oblivion until you can't kite anymore--on foot.

It's not only annoying, but also makes you feel like your character is insignificant and unable to kill tougher mobs without using all the tricks up your sleeve--which is basically the truth here. Of course we also have to realize that this will probably not change for a while. Not until we could all afford the best sort of gear available and do to Inferno what we do to Hell--tank and one-hit everything.

The entire situation is actually so tedious, I prefer to stick to ether A3 Hell or A1 Inferno (both provide great loot and are easily cleared).

-----------------------

Thanks to DeathFalcom, I have a suggestion for A2 and further:

With an HP pool of roughly 30k or 35k and resistances of around 250-300, the Wizard could, in fact, drop Diamond Skin as a skill (Wizards are not native tanks and never will be anymore). Instead, the Wizard could attempt to substitute it with a greater defensive spell: Teleport.

It's nature of time and space manipulation lets the Wizard blink from out of existence for a span of a micro-second and appear further away--upon the targeted area--to escape certain death.

If, hypothetically, the Wizard were to be pulled back across the screen by a mob of hard-hitters, right into their center, Diamond Skin would not last a second--whereas Teleport would actually save the Wizard's life if applied instantly.

Additionally, the passive "Illusionist" will cut down cooldown of Teleport to 0 if the Wizard's life drops to less than 15% from a single hit.

Lastly, while Wormhole was proposed, Fracture seems to be working better. It leaves 2 illusions of the Wizards behind for the mobs to play around with--actually giving the Wizard a few seconds to spam their signature moves.

----

Sugahbear:

I have used Arcane Dynamo for quite a while before A2 Inferno. Once A2 rolled in, however, its use became restricted to bosses, which are nothing in difficulty compared to champion packs.

That 75% actually affects all damaging spells--that includes Hydra. Hydra becomes ridiculously strong. Nevertheless, you would not be allowed to use it very often against champion packs. When fighting them, you need to move around a lot. Away from the Hydra that you have cast--and sometimes you do not even have the time to shoot one orb.

It works wonders in anything before A2, though. Great for mfing.