Unlike more deliberate and cautious magic-users, wizards are lightning rods for Arcane Power. An intense energy courses through them, and they direct it as though it were an extension of their own bodies.
Wizards continually crackle with Arcane Power – it regenerates itself quickly, and so they can call upon their lesser abilities seemingly without end. They are only in danger of depleting their stores of energy when attempting a number of invocations at once.
However, Arcane Power can ravage wizards’ bodies if its use is not carefully paced, so Wizards must endure a cooldown period before repeatedly casting certain potent spells. These spells – conjured meteors falling from the sky, torrents of force that shove multiple foes off their feet, or energy bubbles that halt the flow of time itself – are so powerful that they are worth the wait.
Wizards are renegade spellcasters who use their bodies as vessels for arcane energy, forsaking the more careful path favored by other magic users. They manipulate all manner of forces to disintegrate, burn, and freeze their foes, and they can control time and light to teleport, create powerful illusions, and deflect oncoming attacks.
Wizards grip wands and staves to focus their less potent magics, blasting at their enemies while gathering the energy or time necessary to destroy them in a dazzling hail of arcane might.
With few exceptions, wizard attacks are conducted at a distance, away from danger. As living artillery, wizards are well suited to relying on long-range destructive power.
Magic-users hail from academies throughout Sanctuary – from Xiansai to Caldeum – bearing monikers like "sorcerer" and "mage," but those who would refer to themselves with the derogatory epithet "wizard" are as similar to their fellow spellcasters as a lion is to a kitten. Wizards and sorcerers both wield the hidden mysteries of the arcane; there, the commonalities end.
Wizards are known for a number of qualities: not only rebelliousness and flair, but also disdain for the endless lessons and prattling about caution and safety that echo from academic schools of magic. Wizards’ superior attitudes seem to stem from their natural talent – their ability to wrestle the ambient force of magic into submission and direct it to their ends by will and instinct. Any accidents that might occur due to their lack of finesse are unfortunate…but that rarely stops wizards from indulging in their unstable power.
If they can only master their double-edged gift and avoid destroying themselves, these upstart arcane prodigies may be able to finally reach the destiny that they see on the horizon.
Though all material items serve as channels for the wizard’s immense power, some have particularly special uses. Wizards wield orbs, which aren’t quite weapons – instead, they’re off-handed supplements that provide them with visions and knowledge to aid their spellcasting, or serve as reservoirs of power. Wizards also equip themselves with traditional (and often enchanted) wands, thin sticks that they use to direct monumental arcane forces at their targets.