Melee Hierophant (cipher/wizard)

I have relatively low experience with the game and I was wondering about the viability of this build relative to popular options like Inquisitor. Looking at the wizard low-level spell selection I get the impression that it would actually be pretty strong for increasing survivability in melee via the various +armor, +deflection, and Concelhaut draining spell options while also giving a decent boost to focus generation via Alacrity. Anyone have any experience with how this plays out in practi

I used a blood mage / soul blade for the ultimate and am a big advocate of the build. It is extremely strong with good defenses and super high DPS once you hit L13 and get citzal's spirit lance plus borrowed instinct. It does so much DPS because the lance both collects focus from multiple enemies and distributes soul annihilation to multiple enemies (I've hit as many as 10, but usually you hit about five). So once you have the lance you can typically refill your focus in one attack. Here is