Melee Tank Wizard > Advice needed

[Moggles]

Hi guys, 

 

I apologize in advance as I'm sure you get a million of these posts.

 

I picked up PoE from the Humble sale on Monday. When I start games I tend to do quite a bit of research before making a character and I ended up starting a Cipher however I deleted him shortly after because I read they were nerfed quite a big plus I decided I wanted to make a melee wizard that can tank or off-tank for my party. 

 

Over the past couple of days I've been trying find info and I'm pretty sure the build will be viable but I need some advice. Will I be able to make a viable tank/off-tank wizard that can still dish out good damage and help with CC, buffing and debuffing or is this asking to much? 

 

I'm going to do my first playthough on hard and think I want to go with a Moon Godlike. I also think I want to use summoned weapons cause they sound fun with other spells to complement. 

 

If the build is viable can you give me some info on recommended attributes, skills and talents? I had a look at the builds thread but none of them seem to be what im looking for. 

 

Thanks! 

 

Moggles

Edited May 31, 2017 by Moggles

[JerekKruger]

No need to apologise, most the folks around here are more than happy to help. I've never played a Wizard, so my answers won't be that specific, but hopefully I can help a bit.

 

The first thing to say is you definitely can achieve what you're looking for. It's hard to build a Wizard that isn't flexible, and whilst you'll definitely want to have some of the defensive buffs in your grimoire if you're planning to be in melee (particularly if you aim to tank) you should definitely have room for plenty of other spells.

 

Summoned weapons are excellent. More precisely Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff and Citzal's Spirit Lance are excellent, I'm not such a fan of Llengrath's Warding Staff myself, and the other summoned weapons are all ranged so probably don't fit your build so well. However don't let that deter you, the Spirit Lance is a truly brilliant weapon and will continue to serve you well throughout the game.

 

You'll want to carry a normal weapon too, since limited casting slots will probably mean you won't want to summon one in every fight. One thing that's not at all obvious is that summoned weapons get the benefit of any Weapon Focus talent, so for example if you have Weapon Focus Adventurer (Pollaxe, Estoc, Flail, Wand and War Bow) you'd get +6 Accuracy when using Citzal's Spirit Lance, even though it's a Pike. This only applies once though, so don't take multiple Weapon Focus talents hoping for more Accuracy. The reason I mention this is that you shouldn't feel constrained by the fact that the two main summoned weapons are a Staff and a Pike when picking a Weapon Focus talent and non-summoned weapon for your Wizard.

 

For attributes I might go with something like

 

Mig 18

Con 8

Dex 10

Per 16

Int 16

Res 8

 

But other, more knowledgeable, people might disagree. In the early game a low Resolve might hurt a bit, but later game it won't matter much since you can buff both Deflection and Concentration with spells. You want a high Might to increase the high base damage of your summoned weapons, as well as any spells you might case. High Perception helps the accuracy of both your spells and physical attacks which is always nice (high accuracy is particularly nice for crowd control spells, since if they crit their duration is increased by 50%). High intellect increases the duration of your buffs, crowd control spells, any AoE you use and of course makes your summoned weapons last longer. Low Constitution doesn't matter all that much on a Wizard, since you're base health is low (so a percentage penalty is minor) and you're getting plenty of Fortitude defence from your high Might.

 

I won't give you a full list of talents you should take, but will mention that Arcane Veil and Hardened Veil are great for defence (but the other Wizard specific talents probably aren't that great for your build), you'll probably want a Weapon Focus if you're going melee, and the various defensive talents (Snake's Fortitute et al) are good if you want to make yourself tankier and/or shore up a weakness in your defences.

 

Hope that's somewhat helpful and no doubt someone more knowledgeable than me will be along soon.

[Moggles]

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply!

 

Mig 18

Con 8

Dex 10

Per 16

Int 16

Res 8

 

Is there any particular reason you chose 16/16 int/per instead of 15/15 and 10 res? Is there a break point at 16?  I'm going to be making my character soon and I was thinking about going:

 

Mig 18

Con 8

Dex 10

Per 15

Int 15

Res 10

[MasterCipher]

Cipher starting focus was nerfed a long time ago and some of their exploitable synergies (ie retaliation giving focus), but they are still in the top tier of the power curve. Fighters and Rogues are generally considered at the bottom, but even those classes have viable and interesting build choices (ie massive single target damage in the rogue's case), they both just fall short overall when compared to optimized casters. Point being, the game accommodates you playing the classes that suite your play style and this forum is the place to come for plenty of excellent build ideas and combat mechanics information that isn't always clear in game.

[JerekKruger]

Is there any particular reason you chose 16/16 int/per instead of 15/15 and 10 res? Is there a break point at 16?  

 

Short answer: no.

 

Long answer: You could probably dump Resolve all the way of 3 and have both Perception and Intellect at 18, plus Might at 19+: Human, Dwarf or Aumaua for their racial bonus and whichever background gives bonus to Might (I think Living Lands). I have a self imposed restriction of not dumping any stat below 8 (I dislike the idea of characters with extremely dumped stats) so I stopped at 8.

 

However, min-maxed Attributes are much less important in PoE than they were in, say, Baldur's Gate, so you won't be hurting your build too much by going for something more balanced.

 

I'm going to be making my character soon and I was thinking about going:

 

Mig 18

Con 8

Dex 10

Per 15

Int 15

Res 10

 

 

That'd work fine. Depending on how you feel about using the in game respec feature you could start with more Resolve for early game safety, then respec for less later on. I prefer to use the same spread throughout but if you don't mind changing that's an option.

 

EDIT: just noticed my maths is off. You've actually got 78 points to spend on attributes, so if you wanted you could go with

 

Mig 18

Con 8

Dex 10

Per 16

Int 16

Res 10

 

If you want. Personally I'd probably go with more points in Might and/or Intellect but, as I said before, attributes aren't anywhere near as important to min-max as in other RPGs so go with whatever you like.

 

I'll also say that I might swap Constitution and Dexterity around. The reason: Wizards spells tend to be fairly fast casting and they get access to a spell that gives them a huge speed boost so Dexterity isn't so important, whereas Constitution gives Fortitude defence which is probably the most important of the three defences.

Edited May 31, 2017 by JerekKruger

[Moggles]

I just finished making my character. I think it will be good enough, hopefully!

 

I went with:

 

Mig: 18

Con: 10

Dex: 8 (7+1 Godlike)

Per: 16 (15+1 The White that Wends)

Int: 16 (15+1 godlike)

Res: 10

 

For spells I took: Chill Fog, Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Slicken, Spirit Shield

 

I took the White that Wends because I wanted to get perception to 16 as well. Do you get more stat points as you play? I don't have as many as you mentioned in your post for character creation. 

 

What is the Wizard spell that boosts speed?

Also what weapon skill would be recommended? I know I only need one... I was thinking about weapon + shield since I think I will be tanking? Or would something else be better?

 

Thanks!

[MasterCipher]

Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (DAoM) greatly boosts recovery between actions by 50% (level 3 spell).

 

Potato/potato

Shield tanking gives you more deflection.

Tanking with 2 weapons that trigger different disabling afflictions on crit (ie prone mainhand stun offhand) means less opportunity for creatures to damage you.

You could even wield a 1 hander with empty offhand for a 15% extra change to convert hit to crit in order to reliably apply 1 disabling affliction.

 

You will probably deal more damage from greater AoE size, longer damage over time, longer buffs, and longer debuff afflictions with 18 INT and 16 MIG than vice versa.

[Blades of Vanatar]

There are early game boosters to Dex and Reflex defenses so 8 Dex is a fine starting value. Once you gain DAoM you are all set. They rest is easy.

[Boeroer]

If you want to use summoned weapons you shouldn't spec for weapon & shield. Take Arcane Veil + Hardened Veil and use Wizard's Double.

 

I would also recommend Veteran's Recovery as it works very well with high MIG and INT as well as Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon to help with survivability because both can heal your endurance nicely. Infuse with Vital Essence doesn't look like much, but its values are influenced by MIG, and healing bonuses as well. It will give you back quite some health which can be very useful for a melee wizard since a wizard's health is low.

 

Things like Savage Attack and Two Weapon Style work well with all summoned melee weapons. They are all two handed and have higher base damage than "normal" weapons.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Boeroer

[Phyriel]

Hi, this will be a bit offtopic but if you're into wizard class I can share that I'm in the middle of 6 wizard party (inspired by circle of the nine from greyhawk universe). I have 1 wizard tank whose purpose is to block chokepoints so my 2 other melee wizards (that use citzal's spirit lances) cut everything to ribbons. Tank wizard is stated similar to what other guys are saying. I personally use IE mod to make spells per encounter because honestly running back and forth for camping supplies doesn't really add to immersion. Anyway its only alright to me if I dont exploit that and don't use every most powerful spell in my book every encounter, if fight is relatively easy I just use my frontline, ideally create a chokepoint and use my 3 ranged wizards with wands to clear out the enemies using envenomed strike with arcane blast. 

 

But yea now my party is at lvl 9 and with the amount of spell i got I could handle "hard" encounters 10 times over without breaking a sweat... but its due to wizard spells being rather op if you got 6 wizards to spam them, endless confusion, paralyze, stuns, horrify, terrify, hobbled, chilled etc etc. Not to mention lightsabers and most powerful selfbuffs in a game for free.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Phyriel