Getting tired of Archon? Want a change of pace that isn’t the CM Wizard? Then the Blizzard Wizard might be the build for you!

Blizzard Wizards have been around since the very beginning of the game. Back then the common build for wizards out there was to use Blizzard along with Hydra. After a while when gear started getting better, people transfered over to the Critical Mass wizard builds as well as Archon builds. It’s not that Blizzard was bad, it just couldn’t keep up with the damage and the efficiency the other builds offered at the time.

Things have changed now with patch 1.0.7. Blizzard has buffed Blizzard a ton from 210% weapon damage over 6 second damage to a whopping 510%. That allows people that want to use the skill the ability to do so and not feel like they’re bringing themselves down just because they aren’t Archon or CM. It’s much more viable now because the problem with running CM or archon is you can’t kill and run. You have to stand in place and kill whatever is around yourself. With Blizzard you can drop it down and run away while things are still dying. It’s the sort of mobility that the Wizard has been lacking for really efficient farming.

Skills:

Blizzard - Stark Winter
The skill the whole build is built around. Your main damage dealer and what will be reason you gain so much experience. More area of effect means easier killing of trash mobs.

Teleport - Wormhole
Provides you with a lot of mobility and will be the main reason your runs will be done so fast. It’s very nice to move from mob to mob in a second.

Spectral Blades - Healing Blades
This will be your main damage dealer for elites.Has a very high proc rate and doesn’t cost anything to use, so it’s a very good option to take elites down in a second or two.

Magic Weapon - Blood Magic
More DPS! Also gives you 1.5% more life steal which helps out with survivability a bit more.

Familiar - Sparkflint
Again, more DPS. More dps is always better and 12% is a very good amount more.

Storm Armor - Scramble
Gives you another source of mobility with the 25% movement speed, but more importantly it takes out the straggler enemies that blizzard misses.

Passives:

Power Hungry
This passive makes the build work wonderfully. Normally without it you’ll eventually get starved of arcane power, but as long as you pick up health globes you’ll almost always have enough arcane power for at least one Blizzard.

Critical Mass
Not super important for this build since you aren’t using any skills other than Teleport that have a cooldown, but since Teleport is really important for this build to maximize efficiency, I like to use it.

Illusionist
This passive allows you to teleport a decent amount more in a run and thus can shorten the time you take.



Skill Alternatives:

Spectral Blades: Instead of using Healing Blades you can use Thrown Blade for more range. I personally prefer healing blades because elites already take a second or two to kill so if you shorten that up a little bit with thrown blades it really doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Magic Weapon: Instead of using Blood Magic you can use Force Weapon for even more DPS. I use this rune actually because I find my 2.5% life steal on my weapon and healing blades deals with reflect damage well enough which is really the only problem I ever have.

Energy Armor: If you don’t have good enough defenses you can of course switch out to Prismatic Armor for the armor and resistance boost. Less dying is always better than just being able to move 25% faster for three seconds at a time.

Astral Presence: More and faster regenerating arcane power is never a bad thing. Allows you to cast more Blizzards over a certain period of time. I personally don’t like using it because I don’t really feel like it makes that much of a difference.

Evocation and Glass Cannon: These are worth trying out to your personal preference. If you want more damage, switch Critical Mass with Glass Cannon, but if you want slightly faster run speeds, switching Cold Blooded with Evocation could be for you.

Cold Blooded: Just another source for more damage if you want it. Simple is that.

Ideal Stats
The stats you want for the Blizzard build to work is pretty similar to what you need for Archon. DPS is your main focus so stack as much crit chance, crit damage, attack speed and intelligence as you can. More damage means killing things faster which means you can move on to other mobs quicker.

There’s no real minimum stats where if less than a certain amount the build will all of a sudden just stop working. It’s just a matter of are you doing enough damage to efficiently kill the enemies on whatever monster power level you’re playing on.

As far as actual ideal, sort of end game stats you should aim for, this is what I have in mind:

Crit Chance: 40%+
Crit Damage: 350%+
Attacks per second: 1.80+
Resists: 550+. Can get away with 500 but if you’re using Storm Armor Scramble you’re actually going to want to get hit every once and awhile, so you want to make sure when you do get hit you’ll survive.
Armor: Around 4000.
Life Steal: Any is better than nothing, but 2.5%+ is a good number to aim for.
Pick Up Radius: At least get some. I run with 12 yards (seven from shoulders, five from belt) and that does just fine. Get enough where you no longer have to dance around to pick up globes and they come to you pretty much.

Gear Selection
Helm: I’m partial to a good Tal Rasha’s helm, mainly because that’s what I’ve been using. A good Tals helm is like a mini Mempo. It’s missing attack speed, but unless you’re a billionaire a mempo would be missing crit chance. I personally would prefer having the 5%+ crit chance on the Tals helm. Andariels is another choice, but I don’t like using it because of the fire damage and less total EHP it gives you.

Amulet: Tal Rasha’s Allegience. Not much can beat the DPS you gain from a really good Tals amulet. Stats you absolutely want are crit chance and attack speed, but those are really pricey. If you’re on a budget, get one with high average damage and high intelligence and vitality. Once you get enough money to upgrade, get one with crit chance and high average damage.

[b]Shoulders: Used to be Vile Wards; they’re still good, but now that you can craft better shoulders that’s the way to go. 200+ Intelligence, 75+ vitality, 75+ all resists, and other other bonus stats like armor, strength or pick up radius are good too.

Chest Armor: Tal Rasha’s if you want more DPS, Zunimassa’s if you want more survivability. Look for high intelligence and high vitality. All resist is good on a Tals armor, but if you can’t afford that look for physical resistance.

Bracers: A good pair of Lacuni’s if you want more DPS or a rare pair if you want more EHP. If you go for Lacuni’s go for one with intelligence, vitality and crit chance. If you go with a rare bracers, go for those stats, but all resists on top of those too.

Belt: Witching Hour. Go for all resists on them with vitality if you can afford it.

Gloves: A rare pair with intelligence, vitality, attack speed, crit chance and crit damage. Can try crafting one of these, but it might take you awhile.

Rings: Trifecta Zunimassa’s Pox with a high crit damage Unity would be ideal. If you can’t afford a trifecta Pox, then look for a crit chance one. If you can’t afford that, get a good rare ring with crit chance, crit damage, high average damage, and intelligence. Same thing for a Unity, but for that slot I would just recommend getting the best Hellfire Ring you can if you’re not level 100.

Pants: Get whatever you can get the highest intelligence, vitality and all resists on. Doesn’t really matter if it’s Blackthorne’s, Depth Diggers, or a rare pair. Inna’s is an option if you want more DPS, but I don’t really like them because you lose out on too much EHP compared with other pants.

Boots: Zunnimassa’s Trail. One with 8% poison damage, high intelligence, decent vitality and all resists.

Off hand: Oculus. The 4 seconds reduction of Teleport is amazing and the 3 seconds more of Blizzard is good too. The damage against elites on it is the icing on the cake. A Triumvirate is pretty good too if you want to do even more damage.

Weapon: Either a black damage wand or sword with life steal, crit damage and a socket or an Echoing Fury with those stats. If you can’t afford one of those with high DPS look for one with intelligence instead of crit damage.

Tips and Tricks

- Don’t be Blizzard happy. Get in the habit of dropping one blizzard and killing mobs with that Blizzard. Learn and get in the habit of placing blizzard in the right spot. Place it slightly in front of the mob in the direction you’re going because the mob is going to follow you and move deeper into the blizzard.
- Don’t go after one or two stygian crawlers. Let Storm Armor take care of them if you’re using that armor.
- As far as efficient run routes I run Skycrown for full Nephalem Valor (hopefully), then Arreat Crater 2, Keep Depths 2, and finally Rakkis Crossing.
- When in Keeps Depths 2, teleport around but only do it once or twice, not the four times in the second you can teleport around because doing it four times is really hard to do without running into a wall. One or two well placed teleports can still help your run times a lot.
- When doing speed experience runs and when you’re in Keeps Depths 2, don’t clear the whole level. Go until you hit a dead end or if you’d have to backtrack a decent amount to keep making progress.


Also, here's a link to the Google Doc I wrote this out on. Has pictures and everything!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZdTGgKlL_3I_6kPaFd-AEf0Sqkd2EggexGVJ9X_NHpU/edit?usp=sharing

And here's a video I posted of a run I did with the build:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0ljFmaswX8

This, my good man, is a VERY sexy build guide. Upvoting and poking an admin (I'm looking at you @anuiran) to add this to the guide section.

Well done...now I want to try it.

Thanks @Baldy!

A couple more things I'd like to add:

When speed running, get your fives stacks and then just go for trash mobs. Trash mobs will be the majority of your experience and elites usually take too much time to make runs efficient. Unless you get kill them in one second, then by all means do so. This pretty much goes for all characters and builds though.

After thinking about it, a trifecta Zuni Pox with average damage and trifecta Wailing Host might be the absolute best in slot rings. It'd be worth a look to see if a good crit damage Unity could be out the Zuni Pox though. I don't know if the 130+ int and the attack speed would beat out the 3-4% more damage against elites a Unity has. The reason I'm curious is with my 230K dps, I can kill trash mobs pretty quickly on MP3, but what really slows me down are the elites. If the 3-4% damage against elites can kill elites faster than 8% IAS and 130+ intelligence then that's the clear choice.

very nice guide... i'll have to try it out myself :)
thx again!

Posted by DHAdmin at 02/21/2013 10:44 PM

I posted the guide, just tell me where you want the edits/additions @NightCrawler9

Looks good! You can just add those two additions in my comment up there as bullet points in the Tips and Tricks section.

I got curious after thinking about what ring would be better so I did some comparison testing.


Old is a 22 max damage, 8% IAS, 5.5% CC, 33% CD Zuni Pox and the new is when switching to a Wailing host with 159 intelligence, 6% IAS, 43% CD, and 4.5% CC. I also tested the same Wailing Host with a trifecta Zuni pox with a socket instead of average damage and a few percentages less CD and CC. I'm confident in saying that a really high end Zuni Pox is better than a really high end Wailing Host. The first Zuni Pox I looked at (the one with a socket) had like 3.5K more dps than the Wailing host but the Wailing host gave 1.5K more dps against elites. When looking at the trifecta average damage Zuni Pox like in this picture, the choice is clear; it beats out the Wailing Host easily. Less DPS overall and less DPS against elites.

Even when comparing the socketed Zuni Pox to the Wailing Host where the Wailing Host does more dps to elites I would still pick the Zuni Pox because the loss of EHP when switching to a Wailing Host is huge. I don't think I'd feel comfortable losing that much all resists.

You don't have to post this in the guide, just thought I'd post here to let other people here know.

Great work!!

Thanks for this guide, I will definitely try it when I play my wizard (latest toon to 60 which I have zero knowledge at 60).

@NightCrawler9
Thanks for this detailed guide. Will test when I touch my wiz again.
And here is an upvote too :)

Wow, this is super awesome. I loved Blizz in previous Diablo games but haven't played a wizz yet in d3 as archon doesn't sound like my kinda thing.

Now I'm tempted, very tempted....

One tip on the presentation of the guide @NightCrawler9 you could use the [ url ] tags (which is a feature of this forum) to link through to the battle.net skills and then they look cool when people hover them too!

Example: Grave Injustice

This is my Wizard Blizzard build at the moment, and it's working fine http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Raul-2932/hero/10964137 I kinda lack the APoC though

Posted by Raulz0r at 02/22/2013 03:46 AM

This is my Wizard Blizzard build at the moment, and it's working fine http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Raul-2932/hero/10964137 I kinda lack the APoC though

You don't need APoC! I was about to say I don't have any, but I realized that it comes on Oculus's haha. So I have 10 right now. I don't feel any need to go out and get more, honestly.

Posted by NightCrawler9 at 02/21/2013 11:33 PM

I'm confident in saying that a really high end Zuni Pox is better than a really high end Wailing Host. The first Zuni Pox I looked at (the one with a socket) had like 3.5K more dps than the Wailing host but the Wailing host gave 1.5K more dps against elites. When looking at the trifecta average damage Zuni Pox like in this picture, the choice is clear; it beats out the Wailing Host easily. Less DPS overall and less DPS against elites.

Or perhaps just keep the Wailing Host in your inventory & switch it out real fast when encountering Elite packs or going against Ubers? :-)

I've done something similar w/ my weapon during uber runs--went in w/ a Calamity and the inventory screen open, & as soon as I saw that the Uber had been Marked for Death, quickly switched back to my dual-socketed Manticore for higher DPS...

Nice guide btw. Kind of makes me want to try out a wizard hero. :)

Fantastic guide! Electrocute with the Forked Lightning rune is a good alternative to Spectral Blades if you want more distance.

Posted by eastdragon42 at 02/22/2013 10:19 PM

I've done something similar w/ my weapon during uber runs--went in w/ a Calamity and the inventory screen open, & as soon as I saw that the Uber had been Marked for Death, quickly switched back to my dual-socketed Manticore for higher DPS...

Nice guide btw. Kind of makes me want to try out a wizard hero. :)

Well if you're comparing a good average damage trifecta Zuni Pox with a trifecta Wailing host you lose out on both overall DPS and DPS against elites, so there isn't much of a reason to gear swap those. But if you're comparing a trifecta Zuni Pox with a socket instead of average damage a Wailing Host is slightly better against elites.

It'd probably be more cost efficient to go the socket Zuni Pox route and swap to the Wailing Host because the average damage Zuni Pox is worth more than 2 billion probably. There a good socket Zuni Pox up for 1.1 billion and the Wailing Host I was doing testing with is up for 250 million so you'd save 600 million. I wouldn't bother with the Wailing Host though. I never got into the whole gear swapping thing, and I'd be willing to give up that extra 1.5K dps against elites for 30K more EHP or whatever haha.

this is a nice build...more of a fire and forget style...i tried it and i like it...a good pickup radius and life regen also helps. Kudos to you sir!

Oh yeah, I guess I should add in that Pick up radius is kind of necessary for the build to be the best so you can take advantage of Power Hungry. Will do that now!

Note to self: Rubies are more effective than emeralds.

Here's my build: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Ohad-2997/hero/19697205

A few notes:

1) Blizzard doesn't use AS. so I suppose that goes only for the spectral blades. I personally use ROF with the black ice rune which is great for places like KD2.
2) What about frostburns? I know the paper DPS doesn't go up with them but they add a TON of damage to both blizzard and ROF. I farm mp2-3 easily with them. only problem I have is RD.

Apart from that I would love to hear some input on my gear and build as I'm looking to go up in MP.
Great guide!build

Frostburns are definitely viable. They're equal to a pretty good pair of trifecta gloves, but as you gear up you'll want to switch from them because on a rare pair you can get both offensive and defensive stats but Frostburns is only offensive. I find the difference is pretty small when switching between them and my pair of crafted gloves.

As for suggestions I would say eventually move away from your Blackthorne's and get either a Zuni Chest or Tal Rasha's and a Witching Hour.