Guides > Wizard > Glass Cannon AOE

Written by Diablo

This guide focuses on dealing as much AOE damage as you can while still being able to keep up a good pace and stay alive. This build sacrifices some defense to get more damage, opting for Teleport - Wormhole, Diamond Skin, and Frost Nova to keep you alive. If played correctly, you can take out absolutely massive amounts of monsters at once without ever getting hit. This build is slightly weak against bosses, but extremely strong against large groups of monsters.

Skills

	Magic Missile Available at level 1 Attunement
Cost: 0 Arcane Power Launch a missile of magic energy causing 110% weapon damage as Arcane. This is a Signature spell. Signature spells cost 1 less Arcane Power every time you gain a level. Whenever Magic Missile hits a target you gain 14 Arcane Power.

This is used primarily to regain AP when you are running low. It is also good single target damage. Use this whenever there is only one or two guys to take down and you don't want to spend the AP on something else. The Golden runestone is picked because we don't have any other way of regaining AP. Works with the Prodigy passive.

	Diamond Skin Available at level 9 Crystal Shell
Cooldown: 25 seconds Transform your skin to diamond for 5 seconds, absorbing up to 2661 damage from incoming attacks. Increase the maximum absorption amount to 6919 damage.

This spell is extremely important for keeping you alive. Since we are sacrificing some defense to use the Glass Cannon passive, you can get out of a bunch of tough situations, especially using the Obsidian runestone to up the amount of damage absorbed.

	Teleport Available at level 18 Wormhole
Cost: 15 Arcane Power Cooldown: 16 seconds Teleport through the ether to the selected location up to 35 yards away. After casting Teleport there is a 2.0 second delay before the cooldown begins.

This is another great skill to keep your frail body alive. I like to take Wormhole for the runestone because of how quickly you can move around and because you can escape from almost any bad situation. This combined with Diamond Skin means you should never really get hit at all.

	Frost Nova Available at level 2 Bone Chill
Cooldown: 12 seconds An explosion of ice freezes nearby enemies for 4 seconds and deals 75% weapon damage as Cold. Enemies take 110% more damage while frozen or chilled by Frost Nova.

Although this skill doesn't do very much damage, it is the only thing that freezes the enemies in place. This is used to set up your real damage spell, Meteor. The Crimson rune is taken to increase the damage that your Meteor will do, and is really important for this build.

	Meteor Available at level 24 Molten Impact
Cost: 60 Arcane Power Summon an immense meteor that plummets from the sky causing 450% weapon damage as Fire to all enemies it crashes into. The ground it hits is scorched with molten fire that deals 65% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. Increase the damage of the meteor impact to 990% weapon damage as Fire and the molten fire to 143% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds.

Your big guns, use this whenever you have grouped up a bunch of guys and frozen them in place for the 110% damage bonus. You can take out ridiculous numbers of guys using this combo, and it is even easier when you take the Crimson runestone Molten Impact to increase your damage further.

	Disintegrate Available at level 12 Convergence
Cost: 20 Arcane Power per second Thrust a beam of pure energy forward dealing 150% weapon damage per second as Arcane and disintegrating enemies it kills. Increase the width of the beam allowing it to hit more enemies for 195% weapon damage per second as Arcane.

Although you do not have to use this too much, as Frost Nova plus Meteor should take out most things, you will have to use it to clean up if the Meteor doesn't finish the job and there are more than one or two monsters left. Covnergence is a good runestone pick to make sure you can hit everything that is grouped together.

You want to start out by grouping the monsters together as much as possible. If you are about to get caught simply teleport or use your Diamond Skin to soak up tons of damage. You never want to end up trapped in a group of monsters without your teleport, so make sure you are truly out of harms way before you stop teleporting. Once the monsters are grouped up freeze them in place with Frost Nova then cast Meteor on the group. If there are still a few guys alive then Disintegrate the remaining monsters. If there is just one or 2 guys left or you are running low on Arcane Power then use your Magic Missile to restore it.

Passives

	Glass Cannon Available at level 0
Increases all damage done by 20% but decreases armor and resistances by 10%.

This is the most important passive for the build. It gives you a huge boost in damage and the decrease in defense doesn't matter that much beacuse you should be getting hit anyway.

	Evocation Available at level 0
Reduces all cooldowns by 20%.

This is the second most important passive for the build. Since you rely so heavily on the Frost Nova/Meteor combo it really helps to reduce their cooldowns. It also helps you stay alive, sometimes those few seconds on Teleport or Diamond Armor make all the difference between life and death.

	Prodigy Available at level 0
Every time you cast a Signature spell, you gain 5 Arcane Power. The following skills are Signature spells: Magic Missile Shock Pulse Spectral Blade Electrocute

This should make your Golden Magic Missile restore a huge amount of AP meaning that it should be easy to stay topped off and fighting all the time. Just remember to use your Magic Missile while your Meteor and Frost Nova are on cooldown.

Items

Every item should increase your spell damage. You shouldn't have to worry too much about defense, as you should never be getting hit at all. Just maximize your damage as much as you can.

Closing

Overall I think this is a great build for leveling, farming, and magic finding. It's weak areas are PvP and Boss fights, so if you are planning on doing alot of either I would switch to something else.