This weekend I took some time and leveled my Wizard from 50-60 and started on Inferno. I wasn’t sure what kind of build I should use, but stumbled upon the new build type everybody is talking about…the Tank Wizard or as I call it…the Tankizard. (Yeah, yeah, it needs work.)
I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up with less than optimal gear but it did really well and surprised me. This build itself can probably help you progress to Act 3 Inferno pretty easily with minor gear upgrades.
Watch the video above to get a better feel for it by seeing it in action, then read on to get the full scoop of the build and how to do it yourself.
Before getting into the build skills here are a few things to consider with gear. First off, you MUST work to get your Critical Hit chance above 15%. At 15% the build does start to come together but with more crit chance the build becomes a rock. That is due to using Critical Mass which shaves off 1 second from your skills for every Critical Hit you make…more crits = less cooldowns. You can really see this in action in the video posted above. Watch how the cooldown for Diamond Skin varies when I make a Critical Hit.
The other important stat (besides Intelligence) I believe is All Resists. This just is another way to up your resists to help you live longer and take less damage from spells. After those two important stats I would get Intelligence and Vitality.
Here’s the build: Tankizard
There are a few skills that really hold this build together and are the most important.
Energy Armor with Prismatic Armor rune helps a ton to get all your resistances up. Very important to use especially if your gear isn’t top notch and important to survivability.
Diamond Skin with Crystal Shell rune is great since it makes you absorb 21k worth of incoming damage. Probably the most vital skill for this build. The whole goal is to make sure this stays up at all times (or as much as possible).
Frost Nova with Cold Snap rune is good to help possibly stop incoming damage and helps you take less damage which in turn lets Diamond Skin stay up longer. It’s also good for huge packs since you can freeze them in place for Meteor to hit them.
Meteor with Star Pact rune is a good arcane power dump. It also does a ton of damage and can cause a lot of crits to happen very quickly, which helps your Diamond Skin.
Critical Mass passive is really what makes this build possible since it reduces the spell cooldowns by 1 second for each Critical Hit that happens.
I went with Venom Hydra as an extra damage dealer since the Hydras are pretty OP. You can do something else here if you want, feel free to play around and try different things.
Overall, I am really liking this build and it’s great with okay gear. You can save millions of gold with this and still progress in Inferno. 🙂