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Did not do the Magran's Faithful bounty with upscaled opponents, but on "normal" POTD, all it took was some buffs while they rushed and surrounded me, two or three Ninagauth's to leave everyone paralysed and then three Kalakoth's Freezing Rakes and just some mopping up thereafter. All-in-all, the fight took less than a minute with my Frozen Lance build. Not sure how he would have done against upscaled opponents, but he handled the normal encounter with ease. Edit: The CC of Shadowflame combined with the excellent damage output of Freezing Rake leaves very little alive if you just nuke. Since all of these spells are fast casting, it is quite easy to clear battlefields this way. Similar tactics with Brynold worked quite well although I did not get all of his gang in one encounter. They were quite spread out and I needed to go looking for the stragglers after the fight was over.

Dr >3, Boeroer, Thank you for pointing out the correct mechanics of crit damage. I chose PER in order to hit and crit more and MIG was the only attribute I was comfortable dropping. Guess choosing one over the leads to a very small difference in total damage.

You're welcome. I like the love melee wizard are getting lately I found I needed both weapon and shield while playing solo. Since you have a party, you have some "shields" that can take damage while you buff. Remember, shield was mostly used just so that I could get my buffs up, then I would cast Spirit Lance (lose the shield here), then DoAM, then Martial Power and engage. Effectively I had two fast cast spells to get through before I was on the offensive and one I engaged, I suffered very little damage. As you suggested, you could cast other spells as well and then still be in the fight - I just found Citzal's so overpowering that nothing else was needed. At level 8, you may need to refer to the buffs I suggested in the Midgame tactics section of my build post. However, you will need to rest more frequently and may decide to omit some spells. Try out different ideas and see what works for you. While my wizard was extremely powerful in melee, my tactics also played a large role - the best buffed wizard can still be taken out if he is arrogant. Just enjoy your wizard, see what works for you and then take it from there. I probably spent over 100k respeccing my wizard, before finally settling on my build. Raven Darkholme is correct regarding PER. Crit damage is +50% (although I believe it just applies to the base roll) and dropping MIG a little did not seem like such a big deal if I could get more crits. I may be mistaken, but I believe the MIG damage bonus is applied as a final multiplier so the two are not directly comparable, but I was quite happy scoring much more damage on spells like Kalakoth's Freezing Rake and paralysing opponents for longer with Ninagauth's Shadowflame. PER also gives you better interrupts which is great when you are attacking as fast as I was. Not sure if my blast from the Spirit Lance interrupted as well, but quite a few enemies never got a chance to attack as they were permanently interrupted. P.S. Would be great if someone can confirm whether my understanding of the crit damage bonus vs MIG damage bonus is correct.

Have a look at my melee wizard (The Frozen Lance) for ideas of how to allocate stats, how to optimise buffs and ideas on how to approach engagements. You'll notice my stats are pretty evenly distributed with INT getting the biggest boost. When buffed, you really want those durations to last as long as possible. The only possible exception would be when you wish to start casting, but Martial Power is still active. If you are not dumping stats, then they are not that important. There are a lot of items to boost them and your buffs help to boost them into the stratosphere. I chose DEX and PER, because I wanted Citzal's Spirit Lance to hit and crit more often and I want my spells to crit more often. However, you could decide to focus on MIG to do more single hit damage. I never ran the math, but I don't think a slight modification to stats would make a significant difference. It does not take that long to get the following buffs up: Ironskin, Llengrath's Displaced Image, Flame Shield, Merciless Gaze, Citzal's Spirit Lance, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and then Citzal's Martial Power. Once these are up, your stats will be pretty damn good and most opponents can be taken on easily. You can read through my build as I give more details there. However, you should note that the order I cast these spells was chosen to maximise their combined durations. DoAM has a shorter duration than Citzal's Martial Power and if you cast that first in your sequence, then you may have 2 or 3 extra seconds where you are not hasted while Martial Power is still in effect. Since I used a shield, once Displaced Image was cast, my deflection was pretty high and I hardly ever got hit and I could go through the entire buffing sequence without issue.

Just note that Eldritch Aim and Citzal's Martial do not stack. If you wish to engage in melee for a specific encounter casts Martial Power - it gives +20 ACC and has a decent duration. Eldritch aim gives +15 ACC, but probably has half the duration of Martial Power. I was almost finished with the game before I checked my buffed stats and discovered that I did not need to cast Eldritch Aim all the time.

Yeah, I took on normal Raedric at the end of Act II. I could not beat him in Act I and forgot about him while doing Act II. Luckily I remembered that unless you fight him before Act III, he does not return. Doing the fight then made it extremely easy...

I did Raedric right at the end of Act 2 and it was a pretty easy fight. Used the Rotfinger Gloves and some other spells as I had not yet figured out the Citzal's combo.

I used Hardened Veil for the fight in the Throne room in Caed Nua - wearing no armour and casting fan of flames, I managed to clear out the throne room before it expired. However, its usefulness to me was limited at best - in the early game, if you wear no armour, you can do a lot of damage before it expires, but that means resting after every fight. When you wear armour, it really reduces your damage-dealing potential. If I used it as an "in-case-of-emergency" button, I just ended up dying later in the fight. In summary - it is extremely good if you use it offensively to get off as many damage dealing spells as possible, but it is not a good way to rescue yourself in difficult fights since its duration is too short to get off enough spells if you are wearing armour. In Act 1, my solo wizard did every fight that David Ashon's paladin did. I don't recall how much he and I kited, but sometimes you need to run to a better position. Trying to take on a horde of guls in the open is a good way to die. Blocking them at a doorway increases your odds of survival significantly. Here Hardened Veil can be useful at times to enable you to survive longer. In Act 2, fights became more difficult and I resorted to the Rotfinger Gloves and summons often. You could also use combusting flames together with the Rotfinger Gloves and the Wood Beetle summons to do a lot more damage. If I ever needed Hardened Veil here, it was usually not enough to survive the fight and I either needed to try a different approach or come back at a higher level. Respecced in Act 3 and dropped both Veils. Best choice for my wizard at at the time. It usually takes longer to dink potions and even though the animation usually completes, quite often the effect doesn't trigger and you need to click on the potion again for the effect to actually work. It is generally much more effective to use defensive spells since they are fast-cast and the effects always trigger. Lastly, Wizard's Double was useful for me when used together with Llengrath's Displaced Image. They don't stack, but Wizard's Double provides a handy boost to deflection over Displaced Image and once you get hit, you still have the Displaced Image to fall back on. Both are fast-casting, so there is no significant time penalty to cast both.

My first completed solo playthrough was as a wizard. I used the following videos as a guide for the wizard (even though this is a guide for paladins) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgOrDfghilGH9712JmOGIhA Using just the plate from the backer outside the Temple of Eothas, Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Curse of Blackened Sight and the Bronze Horn Figurine, I would say that I had a much easier time finishing fights than David Ashton did for Act 1. In Act 2, the wizard started feeling weaker, but I did not really play my wizard that well in Act 2. Here is also another guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WqlSG6ueqA for a rogue. Both guides have good ideas and different approaches to how they handle the game. You will notice that tactics for solo play are quite different from party play and in the beginning you need to know which fights to fight and which fights to avoid.

Yeah, I considered consoling them in. However, does that not disable the TCS and FCS achievements in Steam? The current run was more about getting the plan of action right for my next TCS run. After having my 3rd Rogue die in Act 3, I just needed a break from solo play. May test this out over the weekend with a new solo char and see whether I can still get the items I need.

The fifth level priest spell, Prayer Against Imprisonment will stop the Adragans from Petrifying you. You also get scrolls that do the same.

Thanks for the input. I have never had issues getting any of the items I wanted, but am having issues now. The Gloves of Manipulation have been replaced by Boots of Stability and the Belt of Bountiful Healing by some bracers. On the previous page there is a post indicating that the name of the char opening items may cause different items to be obtained, but I did not see that happening. Reloaded a couple of times now and tried it with different characters, but the result stays the same. Only real difference is that this is not a solo playthrough. Oh well, these items aren't needed by I still need to do both a TCS and FCS and this can make it quite more difficult.

Does anyone know if the random loot has changed within the last month? I am running version 3.03.1047. I am doing another playthrough and managed to get Rymgard's Mantle from the Black Hound Inn as planned. Went to Raedric's Keep to pick up the Ring of Searing Flames (2 Fonprima) and rather than getting the Ring of Searing Flames, I got Gauntlets of +5 Accuracy. This is in the hidden loose brick inside the cell opposite of Giacco. I have tried moving the hour forward by resting, or not resting, but since it is still the result does not change. I have tried using different characters due to the different name hash info provided earlier, and I keep on getting the Gauntlets of +5 Accuracy. I don't mind too much as this is a party playthrough, but this could seriously impact my next solo playthrough...

Without pre-buffing the wizard is not such a strong meleee character. After he is buffed, he can take out most melee opponents quite easily. It depends on how you actually play the wizard. If you want to rush head-first into melee, then pre-buffing may be required. If you will attack from the second-row, then it probably isn't. Eldritch Aim (+15 acc) does not stack with the accuracy bonus from Citzal's Martial Power (+20) and Citzal's also has a longer duration, thus it has no benefit use this if you are using Citzal's. I only realised it pretty late in the game... I was thinking that you already had decided on your INT and just needed to decide on DEX / PER. There are not any wizard spells that boost INT, so if playing solo you need all the INT you can get. Again, it depends on your playstyle, but I think INT is the most important attribute for a wizard. Don't really fret too much about it - your build looks like it will be pretty balanced and it is hard to go wrong with a balanced build. It sounds like it could work and having flanking bonuses may negate the need for PER allowing you to put that elsewhere. My wizard used Little Saviour or Aila Braccia once I had them and before that I used an Exceptional Small Shield. Weapons were always fast weapons and endgame weapons were Unlaboured Blade, Drawn in Spring or Steadfast. This changed depending on my needs, i.e. Steadfast for enemies that cause Terrified, Unlaboured Blade / Drawn in Spring easier fights where I did not need Citzal's. You could used Abydon's Hammer as the +4 MIG is nice boost. It did have situational uses for me, but Citzal's was a better weapon for my Wizard. With the blast effect, I often found that by the time I killed one enemy, the other enemies were significantly weakened (Badly Wounded or Near Death). If I targeted the strongest enemy, I sometimes only needed to effectively kill one opponent to win the fight - all the others died from the blast. It means that fights will be over much quicker if you use Citzal's vs any other weapon. Of course, there are times when Abydon's Hammer or any other weapon can be useful - it really depends on the individual encounters, how you equip the rest of the team and how you approach your fights.

Yeah, when I started the game my only plan was to make a melee wizard. I had no idea how to actually build him... I would guess that at least 80% of my kills came from melee. I only got the two Citzal's spells at the beginning of Act 3. Had I known how powerful this combo was, I would have gotten them much earlier and the percentage of melee kills would be closer to 95%. So yes, I cast Citzal's Spirit Lance and Citzal's Martial Power for every fight that looked like it needed it. Easy fights were handled with melee with just the Spell Mastery spells and my weapon and shield and the really tough fights were handled by nuking and keeping the shield for its deflection bonus. If every fight was a normal fight (Citzal's combo) then I could do 4 fights before I needed to rest. Easy fights were in essence free fights since I used only the Spell Mastery Spells and difficult fights meant I needed to rest immediately thereafter. The fights where I needed to use the Kalakoth's method were the following: Dragon fights (except for Cail the Silent) Radiant Spore Final two bounties The mercenaries outside Concelhaut's Keep - technically you can try and pull 1 or 2, but they have patrols that make this approach risky. I did pull several and killed them off individually or by using bottlenecks in the terrain, but whenever I saw any sign of trouble, I would start the nuking process. I avoided killing the monks in the Abbey of the Fallen Moon, but had I decided to kill them, I don't think the Citzal's approach would have worked. There are just too many of them, they just hit too damn hard and they tended to prone me pretty frequently. Your primary damage buffs as a melee wizard will be Merciless Gaze, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and Citzal's Martial Power. When you look at the combined effect of these 3 spells, you will notice that you really have a lot of leeway in choosing your stats since you get very decent boosts to your stats, your accuracy, your recovery speed and your defenses. Early game buffs are a little different though. If you have a priest in your party, you can get +3 MIG from Holy Power, but his next decent buff for MIG only comes from Devotions for the Faithful (level 4) which is mid-game. PER can be buffed indirectly through accuracy buffs and deflection debuffs for opponents and you get decent spells for these early game. Until you get Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, there is no real way to increase attack speed. Even then, it only speeds up the recovery portion and not the actual attack animations, so you do can not completely remove the penalty from low DEX. Since we are discussing MIG, DEX, and PER, I would rate them in the following order of importance for the early-game: 1. DEX; 2. MIG; 3. PER. However, the above ranking does not consider your weapons or your playstyle. Concelhaut's Parastic already does very good damage, so perhaps you may be comfortable decreasing MIG and increasing PER. Eldritch Aim has a short duration, so you may not feel comfortable with low PER. Heavy armour has a slow recovery time, so perhaps you would rather hit hard and accurate and thus keep DEX at 10 and keep both PER and MIG at 16. Alternatively, you could go for light armour and want to hit as fast as possible reasoning that the extra healing from the staff will offset the lower DR. In that case, you may need to keep DEX at 16 and have either PER or MIG at 10. So, as you can see above, it really depends on your playstyle, what your party composition looks like, how you approach battles, your role in the battle, what spells your supporting casters cast, etc. Also, a build that I may consider sub-optimal can be very optimal for someone else. So don't worry too much about your stat distribution now - as you progress through the game, your ideal stat distribution will probably change as well. Regarding Spell Mastery - I guess most people choose Eldritch Aim since Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff is not quite as powerful late-game as some of the other weapon options. I did not use Parasitic Staff because I had a choice of several Superb or Legendary and even a Mythic weapon to choose from and I could then use these weapons together with Eldritch Aim and still have my full complement of spells available.

Good questions. I welcome queries like this and I will try to answer them as best as I can. I did not really pre-plan the build this way. It evolved mostly as I was playing and realised that my playstyle would benefit from certain changes. I did have Hardened Veil early on and used it to clear the phantoms in the Caed Nua throneroom. However, I subsequently discovered that I could do that section through stealth and would not need it. The deflection from Hardened Veil is excellent, but it does not really last long enough. I must have used it only as a "oh crap"-button once or twice in Act 2, but usually if I needed it, then I would ended up dying in any case. It looks good on paper, but I found that its application was a little limited. I considered Savage Attack, but there were always other skills that seemed to be more worthwhile. Also, once I got high enough accuracy to consider this, the enemies were much tougher and I chose to focus on my defenses instead. Secrets of the Rime was chosen purely to maximise Kalakoth's Freezing Rake and Ninagauth's Shadowflame. Opening up with a Shadowflame, paralysing all or most opponents and then finishing them off with Freezing Rake became necessary for the entire Concelhaut area and big parts of White March 2. Since this combo was so devastating, I chose Secrets of the Rime. You could also choose different spells and then a different focus, but to me it seemed like these were the best option - that is, until you walk into the Alpine Dragon cave... Since you are playing in a team, you could adjust the build differently. Try different approaches and see what works for you. If you wish to hit really hard and are not concerned about attack speed, use the lower DEX, higher MIG and heavy armour. If you wish to go for a lightning fast hitter, you need the DEX and light armour and may need to decrease MIG. You could also go for a more balanced build if that works for you. The only thing I would recommend is high INT and decent PER. Wizards have low accuracy and every bit of accuracy helps with Act 2.

I'm not intending to tank Dex mind, it will probably end up 14 or so with those nifty boots. I'm just wondering whether to make it one of my 3 16s to start off with: Might:16 (more or less required) Dex: 10/16 Con: 10 (with false life should be okay) Int: 16 (I've seen some builds saying a 10 for this is okay! It rubs me the wrong way, but they may be right?) Per: 16 (For the crit and Interrupt) Res: 10 (minimum to not get interrupted personally) I'm leaning towards the spell-weapon caster, as I've already played a tank prior, have people had success with the lightly armoured second rank version of this build? Hi, I played a solo melee wizard. If you wish you can read about the build here - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88590-class-build-the-frozen-lance-melee-wizard/ Initially i also started off with high MIG, but as my game evolved with each respec I just kept less MIG. If you have a high DEX, high PER wizard who uses Citzal's Martial Lance and Citzal's Martial Power, you can "interrupt-lock" slower opponents. I had several encounters where none of the enemies managed to land a single blow since they were constantly interrupted. I can't recall if the blast from the Lance also interrupts opponents, but it really does not matter much when you hit that fast and that hard. Early game, I found the extra MIG useful as I used heavy armour, but if I were to play again, I would probably start with a build closer to my final build and use lighter armour. Depending on your armour choices, you may feel you need more MIG or more DEX and as your game evolves, you may want to change this in any case. Once you get access to Citzal's Martial Power, it does not matter as much anymore as you get +8 to MIG, DEX and CON, so any lower stats will get a decent boost. I don't think you can go wrong either way as long as you keep your INT high.

Wow, that makes my attempt at the Radiant Spore look like an amateur. I positioned myself close to the entrance, but I still took a lot of heat and needed 3 or 4 Potions of Major Endurance. I only had 5 of those potions, and while I did not run out, I was worried that I would. I always assumed the Survival accuracy bonuses apply to spells as well - my wizard usually engaged in melee and those were the only rolls I investigated. Good to know for any future caster builds though. However, when I was not going to use Citzal's Martial Power (as with this fight), I tended to cast Eldritch Aim. I believe that accuracy bonus works with spells, so it may be a useful buff to have. When you use Kalakoth's Freezing Rake, the extra damage from critical hits is a lot. Unfortunately the duration of Eldritch Aim is rather short, so it helps to just stick to fast casting spells to maximize its effect. Luckily it is fast cast, so you can quickly get it up again. I can't recall if I used it or not for this fight, but Llengrath's Safeguard could also be a useful buff. The damage reduction is useful and I am not sure if there are any defenses that will still be buffed (since you already have quite a few buffs), but the knockdown when you get to 50% endurance does tend to hit the sporelings and buy you some time. Interesting use of Call to Slumber and Freezing Pillars - I never used them, but based on your post it looks like I should have. Now that you mention it, I do believe the sporelings were immune to paralyze and I may have needed to use Gaze of the Adragan. I used it extremely infrequently due to its slow cast time, but casting this while Eldritch Aim is active will increase the chance of crits significantly and having opponents petrified for longer really works in your favour. The sporelings are also pretty vulnerable to Tayn's Chaotic Orb. I can't recall if I used this on the Radiant Spore in the successful battle, but I believe it worked quite effectively on all the battles where I did use it. Is the Crushing Doom able to prone the Radiant Spore or the tendrils - why do cast this for "more protection"? While I did have Concelhaut cast this on the Radiant Spore, I never checked if it actually proned the Radiant Spore. I just wanted Concelhaut to do as much damage as possible before he died. In my game, he managed to cast Crushing Doom, Corrosive Siphon, Parasitic Staff and then miss the Radiant Spore once before he died - I was not that impressed with the feared archmage...

I also have been toying with another run with a priest similar to yours which is also based on MaxQuest's idea. Great videos and love the way you control the battlefield. Some of those encounters did get pretty close though, but you pulled through in style.

I played a solo wizard with several buffs, Citzal's Spirit Lance, DAoM and Citzal's Martial Power and the damage output was quite glorious since he had almost no recovery time. Since he had a blast effect with the Spirit Lance, his damage output beat my solo TCS Rogue by a country mile. With my full party playthrough, a buffed Eder with Abydon's Hammer was an impressive slaughtering machine, but the fact that he had support from the rest of the party made this a lot easier. If I chose not to buff, then the slower attack speed was quite noticeable. However, I never felt the need to let him use any other type of weapons - two-handed weapons may no be optimal in this case, but they can still get the job done. Going back to the wizard, when he was not buffed, attacking with a two-handed weapon was a bad idea. Without party support he was dead in the water unless he used a weapon and shield. For him to survive, the increased deflection was an absolute necessity. In terms of whether I prefer weapon or shield or two-handed weapons with the wizard, it ultimately depended on the fights. It would not have mattered for 90% of the fights, but for some fights I needed to put down the enemies as quickly as possible (adragans come to mind) since their special attacks had the potential to be devastating and in other fights I needed all the deflection I could get (last two bounties and dragons). There was no perfect weapon set, merely a weapon set that was more (but not perfectly) suited for certain fights. TLDR - Really depends on several variables that can't always be captured by math alone. Party vs solo, buffed vs unbuffed and the types of enemies can all change the optimum weapon sets, and your playstyle can be adapted to compensate for the weaknesses of certain weapon types.

Another option is to summon the animat somewhere between you and the phantoms, run into the room with the stairs going down and just close the door and wait for the fight to end. In all of my playthroughs that has worked perfectly since everyone engaged the animat.

Haven't logged in for a while and it is great to see some activity on this thread. One of the things I like about PoE is that there are several ways it can be played and weaknesses addressed. My wizard evolved mostly through feedback I got from the game itself. I started off with a slower (although not 3 DEX), but harder hitting (not 21 MIG though) wizard. For Act 1 he was great, since Concelhaut's Parasitic staff hits hard and restores endurance. During Act 2 I started struggling and the build needed to evolve. I chose to become less tanky and more aggressive, but I also could have opted for a different approach. Deleterious Alacrity of Motion can greatly improve speed (although based on the post above, it only affects the recovery phase) and all of the defensive spells I used are fast casting. With my final build I could string quite a few of them before opponents managed to reach me. The trick was to open combat by disabling stealth, thereby allowing me to a) be correctly positioned before combat and b) be able to cast spells immediately. Slower casting times would have negatively impacted me, but there will still be enough time to get some buffs off before the opponents can engage the caster. Using Llengrath's Displaced Image and then Spirit Shield will make the caster both harder to hit and more difficult to interrupt and provide a nice platform for the rest of the buffs to be cast. To enable me to handle more fights between rests, I used Displaced Image, but another option would be to replace Displaced Image with Llengrath's Safeguard, then cast other buffs from there. The combination of a Llengrath spell and then Spirit Shield will compensate for the lower saves, lower concentration and lower deflection due to the low DEX and RES. Sure, I did not need Spirit Shield, due to my higher RES and these spells were used to boost defences and not make up for deficiencies, but my Fortitude save was lower and I would have dealt even more damage when nuking with such high might. Something else to consider is that once opponents are paralysed with Ninagauth Shadowflame (another fast-casting spell), you do have a bit of time to get other spells off if needed. However, a buffed wizard may not always need to resort to spells as he can handle himself in melee quite well. Controlling where you are in the battlefield makes a much bigger difference than having a lightning fast attack speed. I was in the centre of fights quite often, but except for the Alpine Dragon fight, I could ill afford to be completely surrounded. If I used doorways to block enemies, I did not need to finish fights quickly and therefore less speed would not have affected me as much. If 3 or 4 enemies engaged me though, then I needed Citzal's Spirit Lance to hit much more frequently so that enemies would be interrupted more frequently (not sure if the interrupt works on the blast as well, but I believe it did). Where things will get dicey are with the dragon fights, but scrolls of Maelstrom (for damage but mostly for Weakness) and paralysing spells / scrolls can help control the dragons quite nicely. Most bounties can be handled the same way, although it is not always necessary since dragons deal the most damage in single attacks. Would I play with @knownastherat's build above? Probably not since I don't like dumping stats, but I can see his wizard surviving most of the base game with the expansions being perhaps a bit more challenging.

Hi @knownastherat, Thank you for reading the write-up. I can try to explain the reasons for omitting certain talents, but I tended to choose my talents based on where I thought the build was weak. If I was getting destroyed by certain enemies, I would try and select talents that would help against those enemies. Regarding the specific talents you mention, I can note the following: Veteran's Recovery Apprentice's Sneak Attack Second Skin Melee Wizard vs other Wizard types Edit: Forgot to add, good luck with your playthrough. Act 2 can get a bit tedious, but once you get to the proper level, this build is immense fun to play. Who thought that a wizard could take on a couple of fighters in melee and win?

Final Fight Haven't touched the game for at least a month after that, but am now planning a pacifist / no rest for the pro TCS playthrough. Might take a couple of months to do...

Survival Guide Part 3 Dragons & Concelhaut Bounties From the descriptions of the battles above, it should be clear that the Frozen Lance can deal insane amounts of damage when it is required. Very few enemies are standing after being hit by 3 Kalakoth's Rakes while they are paralysed. Average damage per rake on opponents that are paralysed seems to be close to 200. Average damage when buffed and attacking with Citzal's Spirit Lance is about 40, with the blast damage being slightly less, but it hits a lot of opponents. If you are backed up against a wall and surrounded, the blast can hit 6 opponents or more. Combined with the insanely fast attack speed, decent interrupts and AoE effect, I walked out of several fights hardly losing any health. Being fully surrounded was never good though and the Frozen Lance can die if too many opponents are attacking at the same time. I found 3 opponents to be a nice manageable number.