I love the mage even though I’m currently using the warrior as my primary but I have one issue (it’s also why I switched from wizard to warrior). I’m not sure if it’s a bug or not; but certain types of damage are not being absorbed by mana shield. The ones I know of are physically touching the boss while the boss is performing an attack (most notable when fighting Malum and he flies through the air), any trapped prop whether it be a normally occurring one or explosions from the explosive prop affix on maps and the skyfall affix on maps. There might be others but it really hurt my ability to use the wizard when my primary (and let’s face it, only) defense is ignored on a significant portion of the maps.
Had a whole build set up and spent fifty floors trying to make it work but gave up after I had to buy ten maps to find one without explosive props or skyfall on it. It’s just not fun dying because the bonus chest lands on your character and despite full mana and mana shield being active you die because you had to sacrifice hit points for magic points.
Other than that I like the Wizards play style and while I don’t like the sword abilities; I do like all the other ones and I’m sure others really enjoy the sword so I wouldn’t want to make any changes to it.