I suppose you are talkin about heroic-only lifes, cause no sort of hybrid you want will work well for epics. There some points:

1) Melee wizard can perfom okay without deep splash only with solid support of epic pastlifes and\or bunch of reaper points, good gear, tomes.
2) Monk levels still > rogue levels until you really want to do those traps (yet most splash wizards like to do traps)
3) There not very hard to beat heroic DC breakpoints, even in hybryd. I heavily doubt you have GS gear, so heroic slaver set + cannith crafted int item is the way to go.

For deep splash I'd advice go either 16 wiz\3 monk\1rog or 13 wiz\6monk\1rogue. Obvious way is henshin, depending what t5 you want.
18 wiz\2 rogue will work too, but you'll have to play it very-like you do pure wizard. Every time you'll go in melee you'll just scratch mobs, even with very high INT.

Anyway, you should start as lvl 1 rogue, use your xp stones or run korthos letting hireling carry you up to lvl 2. At 2 take wizard for expeditious, master touch and shield. So you can use greataxe or greatsword till lvl 4 without penality. If 18-2 you'll maybe want your evasion as soon as possible, if you plan to do some epics, take it only at mid-10th or at lvl 20 so you can place all points into UMD without penality. If splashing monks, you'll want your monk levels to progress into henshin faster.

For feats power attack, cleave and greater cleave are essentional, you wont do any direct damage with spells, and on elite\reaper you'll face number of mobs. Having 3 cleaves (+Eldrich strike) help to solve this trouble. Dont go for combat style feat line, you'll probably not meet prereqs anyway and wont have enough feat slots.

Race - gnome or drow. Starting stats

13 STR
20 INT
rest points you have in con.

feats for 18\2
1) power attack
3) cleave
6) wizard pastlife
9) great cleave
12) spell penetration
15) greater spell penetration
18) improved critical:blungeon

edit: if you cant handle to have good reflexes (no dex tome, no resistance\reposite gear), go insightful reflexe at lvl 6 and either choose what you need more - extra spell pen or +1 DC at 12\15. There no point to have evasion and fail saves

wizard feats:
1) quicken
5) extend
10) spell focus: enchantments
15) heighten or another spell focus for your choice

Itemization:
1-7 Random trash loot, crafted gear (Invulnerability armor, stat gear, ghost touch weapon), nicked greatsword or staff, nat gan staff, red slotted vorpal weapon with ghost bane augment, red fens gear.
8-20 slaver set sorcerers might essentional, crafted gear (int item at lvl 13 and 18, spell focus mastery hat at 13, sheltering item, hamp items). May use random loot gear if cant craft.
Very core item is elemental bloom. If you cant get one by some reason, use any best you can have, crafted, named or vorpal.

If 18-2 go heavily into harper for +9 melee power, +4 int, +3 all skills and probably eschew materials if you greedy or lazy :-D
In archmage go illusion only. Not really need to go past 3d core, all you need is cheap displacement.

Eldrich knight tree is very undepowered right now. Not a single enchantment here very powerfull or really worth investment beside 1st core and 1 point into item defence. Yet if you want it, take both buff SLAs, Light armor mastery (if 18-2), both int, arcane barrier, energy resistance and\or critical accuracy\damage. From t5 tenser toggle, doublestrike and eldrich tempest. Dont forget to take 15% attack speed in TA. If you like to play in a party take both 40% melee threat reduction from TA and 30% spell threat reducuction from archamage. Rest points spent in racial and\or archmage to get better spell pen or lower quicken price.

To go or not to go undead is a good question to discuss. There are pros and cons. I only may say for sure: undeads are harder to itemize.

Oh almost forgot. Another very good option for mele wizard is warforged. You will loose one feat for mithral plating, but you'll have +15 melee power, better AC\PRR and ability to reapair self. Thats probably best choice for solo. Yet its -2 DC.

thanks for the fast and detailed responses you guys, quite a bit has changed and I find myself looking at a mountain of grind so the advice is welcome.

As for heroics, just to prove my words about how easy you can meet DC:

https://ibb.co/nxS4Lz

First life recently-made from lvl 7\32 point toon. No tomes, pastlifes, anything at all. Just ship buffs, slaver set and lvl 13 7int\3 insightful int item. As you can see first life lvl 13 wiz may compete with lvl 15 warlock (he was 3-shotting everything with blasts on r1 though), falling rest far behind. Its not about build, just DC terms. Hybrid you want wont have much lower. Especially if you do actually have some tomes and pastlifes

Nova wrote on Aug 18^th, 2018 at 1:32am:


5 Piece slavers is still a must.

necro Wizard/cleric/FVS/Sorc all still strong, pick your fav and roll with it.

Nova wrote on Aug 18^th, 2018 at 2:38am:


Its all about what do you want from game. Do you want make etrs at 30? Want to stay endgame? Wanna do r1\bb on epics or okay to farm eh all day long? Its really different, cause if you want to play for fun and okay to do EH, almost anything you want may work. Evocation melee wizard, e.g. If you wanna r8+ legendary its about perfect DC build with a lot and lot of gear. Plus it reqires playing skill a lot.

Nova wrote on Aug 19^th, 2018 at 3:44am:


Okay, if you planning to sit endgame there you are:

1) dont go any hybrid at all or take those 2 rogue levels just for traps and evasion (will loose 2-3 DC this way). Dont go melee at all, you wont be able to. Literally forget about it :-D

2) Ruin and Gruin are viable spells for very lower skulls or elite\hard. No use for them on higher skulls. How do they work:
both cooldown time 15, 500 and 1000 base damage, scaling from force spellpower and spell critical. For solo build you should go archmage, take arcane bolt, arcane blast, master of knowledge. Maximaze and Empower heavily needed in this case. So once you find your safe spot with around 900 force spellpower and 50% force criit chance your damage on elite will be: 6k ruin and 13k greater ruin (maximazed, empowered) with 50% chance each to go 13k and 28k. +50% helpless damage if you attacking orange named or just deathblocked champs. Thats good numbers, yet you will need to stack master of knowledge and face the fact bosses in legendary content has 300 to 500k hp. So you wont be able to solo them until you know safe spots. On r9 divide those numbers by 7, and forget about carrying bosses with it anyway :-D

3) Glacial wrath affecting all targets may be hit by disco balls. Its not terrible spell for wizard, yet you will loose it damage part. Most wizards also have terrible evocation. I can see this spell as an option for sorcs, clerics or non-fey warlocks.

4) Master of... Are good for sorcs or elite\very low skulls. The only thing they do is increasing base numbers of spells. You wont be able to heal self on mid-to high skulls anyway, if you take or not master of death. Cleric spells from book do like 1\3 of sorc spells damage. And sorcs are in very bad DPS position right now.

The really thing you need as few-lifer are spell penetrations and spell focuses. Enchantment is a very good school for solo-play (most mobs and all reapers have low will) so you can use enemies to fight for you. Yet not every quest is good for this tactics.