Dark and Darker Best Wizard Builds (2024): Guide to Spells, Skills and Perks

Prior to taking on the brutal dungeons of Dark and Darker, you have to create a character that can take on its challenges. Part of this is choosing from the game's 8 available classes. You might have your eye on a particular class but there's still plenty to figure out. This guide will take you through everything you need to know about the best Wizard builds. This includes the class' playstyle, weapons, spells, and abilities. 

Wizard Class Overview

Wizards are powerful sorcerers with an excellent range of offensive spells capable of dealing arcane, fire, lightning, and ice damage types. They're primarily damage-focused magic-users, as they lack the healing spells of Clerics. The downsides of playing a Wizard are their fragility, low movement speed, and high risk of accidental friendly fire.

All Wizard Perks

Perks will passively buff your character when in the dungeon. Before setting off, you can fill your perk slots in the class tab. At your starting level, you have access to one slot. As 

	Arcane Feedback	Each time you do damage with an arcane spell your spell casting speed and base magic damage increases by 1% per stack. Arcane Feedback can stack up to 5 times at once. The bonus duration lasts for 7 seconds and resets with each successful stack.
	Arcane Mastery	Increases the magic damage of arcane spells by 5% and reduces the casting time of arcane spells by 1 second.
	Fire Mastery	Increases the magic damage of the fire spells damage by 5% and increases the duration of burn status by 2 seconds.
	Ice Shield	Increases armor rating by 20, and inflicts Frostbite on melee attacks for 0.5 seconds.
	Mana Surge	Increases your magic damage bonus by 10%.
	Melt	If you deal magical fire damage to a target, the target's physical damage reduction bonus is reduced by 10% for 5 seconds.
	Quick Chant	Increases your spell casting speed by 10%.
	Reactive Shield	Activates an arcane reactive shield that lasts for 3 seconds when you take damage. The arcane shield can absorb 10 total damage. The shield will only reactivate after a cooldown period.
	Sage	Increases knowledge by 10%.

All Wizard Skills

Skills are timed abilities have to be activated before they take effect. This can be done by pressing 'Q' or 'E'. 

	Arcane Shield	Place a shield around you that absorbs 20 damage from all types for 12 seconds. Upon absorbing all the damage this shield can absorb, it unleashes an Arcane Explosion dealing 5 damage to hostile targets in an area around it.
	Intense Focus	Reduce the casting time of the next spell you cast to 0.1 seconds.
	Meditation	Enter a meditative state and recover spells at a rate of 34 spell costs over 24 seconds.
	Spell memory	Allows you to memorize spells to use in the dungeon.
	Spell memory 2	Allows you to memorize spells to use in the dungeon.

All Wizard Spells

The number of spells you can bring to a dungeon is dependent on your cost limit. At Level 1, you have a cost limit of 19. Spells in your spell memory that exceed this are added to your Spell Memory Priority and become available once your knowledge stat increases. 

	Zap	1 cost	Deals magic damage and burns the target for 1 second.
	Light Orb	1 cost	Blows up spheres of floating light to brightly illuminate the surroundings.
	Slow	2 cost	Slows the target's movement speed by 40% for 2.5 seconds.
	Ignite	2 cost	Set the target's weapon on fire, dealing 5 additional magic damage and burning enemies when they hit.
	Ice Bolt	2 cost	Deals magic damage and reduces the target's movement speed by 20% for 1 second.
	Magic Missile	3 cost	Fires up to 10 homing missiles that each deal 12 damage. Stops firing when you move.
	Haste	3 cost	Grants the target a 12% action and movement speed bonus for 12 seconds. Casts on self if no target is found.
	Lightning Strike	4 cost	After 4 seconds, a bolt of lightning falls in the targeted area, dealing spell damage.
	Invisibility	4 cost	Grants the target invisibility and increases movement speed by 5% for 5 seconds.  Casts on self if no target is found.
	Fireball	4 cost	Shoots a fireball that causes 30 direct damage to a target, 15 splash damage, and a knockback effect to nearby targets.
	Chain Lightning	6 cost	Electrocutes the target, inflicts spell damage, and fires lightning that is transferred to a being within 8m and shocks up to 3 times. It does not transfer to the target it was transferred to once, and it transfers to yourself if you are nearby.

Beginner Wizard Build

Recommended loadout: Your first port of call should be swapping out your starter weapon, the Wizard Staff for a Spellbook. The Spellbook has a 10 movement speed penalty, while the Wizard Staff has one of 20. It also has a faster casting speed.

Recommended perks: To compensate for your lower spell limit at early levels, take up the Sage perk.

Recommended skills: Spell Memory is a prerequisite for casting anything, so that's an obvious choice for one of your skills. The real question then is whether to add Spell Memory 2 for more spells or add Meditation so you can renew your spells. At the lower levels, you won't have the Spell Cost Limit to justify a second spell tree, so Meditation is definitely the best choice. 

Advanced Wizard Build

Recommended loadout: Mystic Vestments and the Oracle Robe are great armor pieces for WIzards as they grant a bonus of 1 to the Will stat, increasing the strength of your spells. A Crystal Sword is a great magic/melee combo weapon to use alongside your Spellbook.

Recommended perks: Increase your magical damage output with Mana Charge and Arcane Mastery. Quick Chant speeds up your spell-casting to tighten up the time between your attacks. Reactive Shield provides your Wizard with a line of defense; useful for a class with low HP. 

Recommended skills: Take Meditation and Spell Memory with the following spells: Insivibility, Magic Missile, Fireball, Haste, and Ignite.